Chapter 26
Darcy was sitting completely still in his favourite armchair with his eyes closed.
It was the best moment he had known since he had met Mr Kendall and observed what seemed to be Elizabeth’s interest in that gentleman.
He blamed himself for not proposing at Netherfield.
Still, regrets concerning the past were as useless as his anxieties regarding the future.
Thomas Bennet’s words from their time at Netherfield floated into his mind, more potent than anything else.
At the hunting party organised before the wedding, Thomas and he had become separated from the other hunters.
They had stopped in a pretty clearing to wait for the others, drunk brandy from Thomas’s flat silver bottle, and discussed little matters connected with the wedding and the guests.
Suddenly, Thomas had turned to him and said, “It takes just a moment—a single glance—to lose the woman you love.” It was so unexpected that Darcy could not say a word, yet he felt closer to that stranger than he had felt to any other person in a long time.
He had not seemed a friend so much as a father, and the encounter made Darcy realise how greatly he missed his parents and the care that had once made his life feel whole.
At first, he did not realise that the elderly gentleman was offering him advice, but it became clearer over time.
It was not the sort of counsel he would have ventured to give Bingley, but something drawn from the man's heart and experience.
It was a father's suggestion, one that any man would do well to heed.
A few days later, he had found himself in the midst of a conflict he had never imagined.
A light knock upon the door roused him from his reverie. Supposing it to be a servant, he scarcely opened his eyes, and then Elizabeth was standing before him.
Alone at last in his home, so beautiful that his heart seemed to stop, while a tremendous pain seized his chest. He marvelled that love could be enchantment and suffering at the same time.
She seemed changed, though in a strange manner, and he feared that this new Elizabeth might say no just as the former one had done.
He sprang to his feet and bowed, hoping no one would come to disturb them. He even wished to lock the door, yet did not dare move away from her and her beautiful eyes.
“My uncle said that you wanted to show me the library,” she said at last, and her voice was as merry as her countenance.
It was a ruse; an intelligent lady such as Elizabeth could not fail to know what had happened, yet she came, nevertheless.
Darcy, however, did not wish to indulge too much hope.
Kent returned vividly to his mind; he had been so certain she would answer with a simple yes, and instead he had received a terrifying refusal.
He had prepared many speeches, yet now that she stood before him, he had forgotten them all.
“Yes, Elizabeth, I want to—”
He fell silent, his eyes fixed upon hers with such intensity that she could not understand why he had stopped or what he intended to say.
“Will you marry me?” he heard himself ask, contrary to everything he had previously resolved to say and do. He longed to shut his eyes as he had done in childhood whenever he had been too frightened to look.
“Yes!”
Almost inconceivably, the answer came, and wishing to hear her voice once more, wishing to be certain, he ordered in a rough voice, “Say it again!”
“Yes,” she cried, “yes, yes, yes! How many times must I repeat it?”
“Until I say so!”
And she continued to say yes until his mouth stole the marvellous little word from her lips. They kissed like two mad people, astonished by the force of the turmoil that possessed them, trembling and sighing, and his lips made her shiver first with cold and then with fever, again and again.
“Are you mine?” he whispered in her ear, feeling her shiver in his arms as she answered, almost a cry:
“Yes!”
But then his betrothed became once more the Elizabeth Bennet he knew, and drawing back as far as his arms would permit, she looked into his eyes and asked, “Are you mine?” Her voice was every bit as severe as her expression.
“Yes!” he cried in his turn. “I am yours!”
And his lips against hers claimed a kiss that almost made her faint.
She had never imagined that intimacy, his mouth opening hers, but she was eager to explore the depth of love.
She imagined love as a feeling connecting two souls, but in his arms, it became the force that melded two bodies into a single triumphant one.
“My hair!” she whispered, fearing that the others would immediately guess what had happened.
Yet he did not care about her hair or her beautiful silk dress; his attention was wholly occupied by her and by the incredibly soft skin that smelled of roses.
“I love you,” he said, and again he was obliged to hold her firmly in his arms as she almost fainted beneath the overwhelming response those words awakened within her.
“Do you love me?” he asked, longing to hear those adored lips speak the words he most wished to hear.
“Yes,” she murmured feebly.
“Yes, what, Elizabeth Bennet?”
“Yes, I love you!”
The knock came as though it had awakened them from a dream, followed by Darcy’s butler’s voice from behind the door.
“Mr Thomas Bennet asks you, sir, to prepare for dinner.”
They both smiled at the strange announcement. Darcy’s butler was now following orders from Mr Thomas Bennet.
“The truth will be evident as soon as we enter the dining room,” she said with embarrassment, imagining her flushed cheeks and her hair, which she was vainly attempting to restore to the elegant arrangement it had possessed upon their arrival. Yet they could remain in the library no longer.
“I need to speak to your father,” he said.
“Now!” he added, fearful that once amongst the crowd she might somehow forget her promise.
Elizabeth readily agreed, perceiving his anxiety, and he kissed her one last time, smoothing her dress and hair.
Then she slipped into the parlour where Miss Darcy and the duchess were struggling to restrain the hungry guests.
Thomas felt reassured. Her happy countenance revealed that it had finally happened; she had allowed her love to fly, setting aside her worries and fears.
He touched the duchess's shoulder to contemplate Elizabeth's happiness together.
“Mr Darcy is waiting for you in the library, Papa,” she said, and Mr Bennet’s heart filled with happiness. He already knew the story from his uncle. Although her words were expected, he had not anticipated the pain, the fatherly sorrow at losing his Lizzy, that followed the first moment of joy.
Led by the butler, he entered the library to find his future son-in-law.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth found her mother with Mrs Gardiner and took them both by the arms, leading them out of the parlour.
“What is it, Lizzy?” Mrs Bennet asked with her customary impatience.
“We are going to the dining room,” Elizabeth said. She wanted to dance and shout her happiness to the whole house, her state of mind apparent to Mrs Gardiner, who grasped the situation in no time. She embraced her niece as they entered the dining room, prepared for a sumptuous dinner.
“What is going on?” Mrs Bennet asked again. She felt Elizabeth’s excitement, yet did not suspect its cause. “How come you know where the dining room is?”
“Because, Mama, this will be my house in less than a month!”
Mrs Bennet looked around in complete astonishment.
“This house?” she murmured.
“Yes!” Elizabeth and Mrs Gardiner cried almost at the same moment.
“Yes, Mama, this house is mine, and so is its master.”
“Mr Darcy?” she asked, still distrustful. At the same time, her eyes wandered about the room, attempting to understand what her daughter had just told her.
“Yes, Mama, yes. Mr Darcy has asked me to be his wife.”
Mrs Bennet looked at the table laid for fifty people, glittering beneath hundreds of lights. Through the glass doors, standing open on the terrace, a mild, pleasant breeze entered the room, stirring the lace curtains like a beautiful dream.
“What are you saying, my dear?” Mrs Bennet asked again, though she was already seeing the room with different eyes, the walls covered in red silk and adorned with impressive paintings that completed the elegance of the vast room.
She remembered the house as she had first seen it an hour earlier, and only then did she take Elizabeth into her arms with a tremendous sigh of happiness.
“I never imagined that one could die of happiness,” she whispered, looking towards her sister-in-law, “yet I cannot be far from it.”
“Do not die, Mama,” Elizabeth joked, gazing affectionately at the tears in Mrs Bennet’s eyes. “And please do not cry!”
They parted only when the first guests arrived, led by Georgiana and Colonel Fitzwilliam, who was smiling.
He knew what had taken place in the library.
Upon his arrival, he had searched in vain for his cousin, and then, with much hope, he had sought Miss Bennet.
At least Darcy would now have an answer and bring an end to the weeks of turmoil he had witnessed in his cousin.
Miss Bennet shone with happiness; at last, the event they had all desired had taken place, and he could finally share in their joy.
Although the guests were already seated at table, many of them impatient for the meal to begin, Elizabeth had one more thing to do.
She took the astonished Georgiana by the hand and looked for Darcy.
He was just emerging from the library, accompanied by her father, his eyes eagerly searching for her.
When he discovered the two ladies he cherished standing together, he stopped at once, understanding what Elizabeth intended.
She was the love of his life, but she was also the wife he needed, since even in that moment of perfect happiness, Elizabeth had remembered what was most precious in his life—his little sister.