Chapter 7
Seven
They appeared at Gracechurch Street the following day, much to the apparent astonishment and pleasure of the Gardiner household. Miss Bennet, to Darcy’s own surprise, appeared to be the most affected by his friend’s arrival—she verily glowed with the strength of her smile.
And here I believed her indifferent, he mused as he observed the pair from across the room where he stood before a window facing the street. How else have I misjudged?
His gaze moved to where Elizabeth sat with her sister, supposedly taking part in their conversation but really remaining silent as she, too, watched what unfolded between Bingley and Miss Bennet with great interest. He thought she might have bounced a little in place, which brought a fond smile to his lips.
Although he ought to be taking further note of her elder sister’s manner, Darcy could not tear his attention away from Elizabeth.
She was lovelier than ever with a sparkle of joy lighting up her fine eyes.
Nay, not a sparkle, an entire constellation of twinkling stars.
Her cheeks were flushed with scarcely repressed pleasure, and her curls bounced with every eager tilt of her head.
She was dressed plainly for a day at home, but she had no need of rich fabrics to enhance her beauty; she outshone every other lady in London with her vivacious esprit.
Still carefully watching, Darcy noted the moment that Elizabeth stood and mumbled some excuse before leaving the reunited couple to themselves.
She began moving in his direction, and he heard the teacup he was holding begin to rattle in its saucer.
He quickly set it aside lest he make a fool of himself by spilling it either on her or himself.
“Mr Darcy,” she greeted, her lips lifted in a grin that suffused felicity throughout the rest of her features. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done.”
Addled by his admiration of her, Darcy cleared his throat. Even so, his response was rather hoarse. “I do not take your meaning.”
“I think you do,” was her coy rejoinder.
She then looked over her shoulder to where Bingley had taken her place on the sofa next to Miss Bennet.
The pair of them had their heads bent together in close confederation.
Turning to face him again, Elizabeth said, “You have brought Mr Bingley back to Jane when we believed all hope was lost. We can never repay such kindness, but know that you have my undying gratitude.”
“It was entirely my pleasure,” he replied with utter honesty, basking in the glow of her praise. “However, I did not do much.”
“On the contrary!” she countered, reaching out to place her hand upon his forearm.
Darcy felt the heat of her fingers even through his coat, and the tingle of goose-skin erupted at the point of contact.
“I have always suspected that Mr Bingley’s sisters did not approve of Jane and that they kept her presence in London from him, but I had no notion of how to correct the situation.
We ladies are not permitted much freedom when it comes to arranging our futures.
If we are to be married, we are entirely at the gentleman’s convenience. ”
Darcy’s heart began to pound when the word ‘married’ slipped from between Elizabeth’s lips.
How he longed to speak and affix her own future to himself, but he was not yet certain that he could overcome the consequential disadvantages of taking her to wife.
Could he be as bold as Bingley and seize his chance at happiness without reference to society’s narrow-minded standards?
Elizabeth shook her head. “But that is neither here nor there. I wish to thank you, again and again, for informing Mr Bingley of my sister’s residence here.
Had it been left up to others…” Her words faded with a meaningful arch of her eyebrows, leaving Darcy in no question as to whom she referred.
“Well, it might have ended very differently for Jane. I am sorry for ever misjudging you and your goodness.”
Darcy’s heart, which had been racing, tripped over itself. “I beg your pardon?”
“I know we started off on the wrong foot,” she replied airily with a wave of her hand, “but that is all forgotten now. We may begin again as friends, if you like. Even if not, my good opinion of you is assured forever.”
“I…” Darcy grasped for words to respond, but none were immediately forthcoming. “Forgive me, but I do not understand.”
She tipped her head at him and gave him a queer smile, as if she could not quite understand him in return.
“I do not think it is any great secret that we disliked one another back in the autumn. Why, the entire neighbourhood was aware of our animosity. You declared me ‘barely tolerable’. I called you ‘haughty and prideful’…”
Darcy’s stomach clenched at Elizabeth’s reference to that stupid thing he had said at that blasted assembly where they had met.
He had known then that she had heard the insult—that had been the point in making it, after all—but it somehow had not occurred to him that she would have nurtured a grudge over it.
Which was na?ve of him, he realised, because what young lady would think well of a gentleman who had publicly wounded her vanity in such a fashion?
Yet, somehow, he had remained entirely blind to her reasonable aversion to him thereafter.
From the way she spoke, he must assume that she had only set it aside that very day when he and Bingley had walked through the door of her uncle’s house.
Were all their other dealings between the assembly and the present false?
Or had he misinterpreted her antagonism as flirting?
“Well,” Elizabeth said, holding out her hand for him to shake when he had remained stonily silent too long. “Regardless of our previous feelings for one another, I call a truce. I do hope that we shall be able to keep it.” She followed this with a saucy wink.
Darcy took her hand, marvelling at how small it was and how well it fitted within his own, and shook it. She immediately withdrew with no apparent intent to linger, offered him another cheerful smile, and went back to gleefully observing Bingley and Miss Bennet making sheep’s eyes at one another.
He felt numb. Had he truly been on the verge of declaring himself to a woman who held him in disdain? Who believed that he disdained her in return? And now all he was left with was her gratitude when he wanted her love.
Sudden fear struck him like a thunderbolt.
What if she ever discovered his part in dividing Bingley from Miss Bennet?
She seemed to blame the entire affair on Bingley’s sisters, but he, too, had played an integral role in wrenching the lovers apart.
That he had reconsidered and confessed to his friend was in his favour, but could Elizabeth ever learn to love a man who had been the architect of her sister’s misery?
He had been counting upon her retaining fond feelings for him to earn her forgiveness, but if there had never been any… if she had hated him before…
Darcy thought he might be sick.
Elizabeth hopped onto Jane’s bed with a squeal that even Lydia and Kitty would be proud of. She embraced her sister while Jane chuckled at her antics. “I just knew he would come back to you! Did I not tell you?”
“You did. Do loosen your grip so I might breathe.”
With a laugh, Elizabeth sat back, releasing Jane from her enthusiastic grasp. “Forgive me, I am just so happy for you! Mr Bingley is back and as in love with you as ever.”
“It is too soon to say that, I think,” replied Jane, though the tinge of pink in her cheeks belied her caution.
“I think not,” Elizabeth countered giddily. “For a moment, I thought he would drop to his knees and propose right there in our aunt’s parlour in front of me and Mr Darcy. If he had, I would have likely given him a hearty ‘yes’ on your behalf before you had the chance.”
“You would not!”
“No, of course I would not, but I would have been impatient.”
The sisters dissolved into mirth at this bit of truth, falling to the mattress in a heap of giggles.
At length, they sat up again, and Elizabeth said, “I only hope that his sisters will not make more trouble for you in the future. They already tried to hide you from Mr Bingley once—I do not like to think what else they might attempt.”
“I am sure they had their reasons.” When Elizabeth opened her mouth to tell Jane exactly what she thought of their imagined ‘reasons’, her sister cupped her hand over it. “None of that, Lizzy! You are my staunchest defender, and I love you for it, but hear me.”
Behind Jane’s hand, Elizabeth nodded, and it was removed.
“Charles…Mr Bingley”—Jane corrected herself with a blush which made Elizabeth smirk—“informed me that he had not meant to stay away, but when his sisters followed him to town, he felt obligated to hear their objections.”
Elizabeth snorted. “I can only imagine what their objections were.”
“He admitted that they were some of what we thought, but they also told him that they believed me indifferent to him. This, more than anything, was what made Mr Bingley stay away.”
“That is ridiculous! Anyone could see that you were in love.”
“Anyone who knew me well might have seen the signs, but I have been considering my general manners towards him, and I do think they had a point. I am not very demonstrative, especially in public, and this could have led a new acquaintance to believe that my affections were lukewarm—or even absent.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open in an outraged gasp. “Could Mr Bingley not tell?”
Jane shrugged, eyes downcast to where her fingers fiddled with the coverlet.
“He believed I cared for him, but he is so inherently modest that he began to doubt himself when presented with supposed evidence of my indifference. Evidence that, again, I provided myself by keeping my true feelings hidden.”
“What were you supposed to do?” Elizabeth objected with a scoff. “Behave like our younger sisters and throw yourself into Mr Bingley’s lap?”
“No, of course not, but I might have been a little more open. Showed my affection more freely when we conversed privately.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms. “I do not like that you are taking the blame for the actions of those…those two-faced harpies.”
“I am doing no such thing,” Jane countered, casting Elizabeth an exasperated look elder sisters were commonly known for.
“I am only acknowledging my part in the misunderstanding. As loving sisters, they must wish for their brother to be happy in his marriage, and they did not believe he could have that with me. Their concern and objections are quite understandable.”
“You give them far too much credit.” Elizabeth sighed and flopped back onto the bed. “But then, your forgiving heart is one of the things I love most about you. Very well, I shall be kind to them, but only so long as they are kind to you.”
Jane lay down beside Elizabeth and drew her in for a hug. “And I love your loyal heart, Lizzy. You are ever my champion.”
Returning the embrace, Elizabeth murmured, “Always.”
They parted and turned to lie facing one another. When they were settled, Jane ventured, “I do hope that you have made peace with Mr Darcy now. I have always thought him a good sort of man and that you—forgive me—do him a disservice by disliking him so.”
Elizabeth searched her soul for any of the animosity she had once harboured for the Derbyshire gentleman but felt only a twinge or two.
She no longer cared that he found her merely ‘tolerable’, or that he could not look upon her without a critical eye, for those things felt incidental compared with what he had done to promote Jane’s happiness.
Even as regarding his dealings with Mr Wickham, she now believed that there must be more to the story, for how could he behave so honourably in one instance and dishonourably in another?
She supposed that it could be so because he was a complex man, but surely one who would reunite two forlorn lovers at the slightest hint that they were being unfairly kept asunder would be better than that?
After encountering her at the theatre, Mr Darcy must have gone almost immediately to his friend to apprise him of Jane’s being in town, thwarting the Bingley sisters’ scheme.
Would someone who committed such a kindness, with no benefit to himself other than his friend’s well-being, treat another friend so infamously? She thought not.
At length, Elizabeth conceded, “You are right, of course, as you usually are. I have allowed my prejudice against Mr Darcy to cloud my judgment of him unduly. On that note, you will be proud of me, for I told him earlier that I would be happy to meet him again as friends. If my dislike was fixed before, it is nothing to how permanent my good opinion will be.”
Jane bit her lip, and her eyes dipped before coming back up. “I am glad to hear you say that. I hope you will keep your resolution in mind the next time he does or says something to incite your ire.”
“I assure you, Mr Darcy cannot vex me the way he did before. Even his stiff haughtiness improves, you know, once you get used to it. He would make a delightful marble statue, would he not?”
They giggled and shifted the subject to all Mr Bingley’s perfections, which Jane assured her were many.