Chapter Ten
So, I did not quit Netherfield.
I stayed for dinner, and I sat up that evening composing letters to members of my family explaining why I must marry Elizabeth Bennet.
But I could not make any of them work. I kept crumpling them up and throwing them into the fire, and then beginning again, and eventually, I was yawning too much to make any sense of what I was trying to say, and I gave up on the entire business and went to sleep.
I woke in the morning and dithered about.
At first, I told myself it was far too early to go and disturb the family in that way, and then I told myself I must finish my letters first. I sat down at my desk and gazed down at the blank page, but I was even less capable of composing anything now than I had been last night.
Eventually, around ten o’clock, I rode my horse to Longbourn, the Bennet house, where I had never been.
The house was small but stately, rising up out of a neatly tended garden, with a cobblestone drive running in a half-circle round the front of the house. Longbourn itself stood silent and still against me as I tied off my horse and made my way to the front door.
A servant greeted me and visibly started when she heard my name. “Oh, yes,” she said in a different voice. “Mr. Darcy, then. Well, wait here, sir.”
I stood in the entryway, looking down a narrow hallway into the house. It was stately and tidy in here as well, no elaborate decorations, but everything seemed quite in order, quite proper.
The servant came back to show me into the sitting room, where the entire family was gathered, and I did not know if they had all come there upon hearing of my arrival or if it was customary for the family to spend the morning together.
They were all standing, all five of the girls in their morning dresses, gazing expectantly at me, well, except for Elizabeth who was not standing but sitting straight up on a chaise. She was looking at me, however.
There was Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet, on opposite sides of the room, both on their feet as well.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Bennet.
None of the women spoke. They all simply stared at me.
“I do not mean to be a bother to you all, but I was sort of hoping to speak to Miss Elizabeth alone.”
This got a reaction, all of the girls turning to each other, whispering shocked words to each other.
“Of course you may, sir,” said Mrs. Bennet, in a very loud voice. “Everyone, let us go elsewhere and leave Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to themselves.”
Mr. Bennet tilted his head at me, looking me up and then down, and then he gave me what I could only determine to be a smirk before he left the room. It wasn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting from her father, I had to say.
But everyone else was scurrying out of the sitting room, and Mr. Bennet followed them out and shut the door on us.
And then it was quiet.
I turned to face Elizabeth, who was still looking at me, her expression unreadable. I started over towards her, and then seated myself on a chair opposite hers. “There,” I said. “This way, I shan’t be looking down upon you the entire time.”
“So, it’s very bad, then?” she said to me.
“What?” I said, confused.
“Everyone in my family says that whatever it is that they are saying about me, the gossip, that it’s all nonsense, and that it will blow over very soon and that there has been no consequence to the family, but Mr. Collins did cut his visit short.
He left last night, despite his threat to marry one of us. ”
“Threat,” I said.
“You have not met him, I take it, or you should understand why I say this,” she said.
I smiled, in spite of myself.
She stifled a smile. “Is it odd to say I have missed you, Mr. Darcy?”
“Not odd,” I said. “It bodes well, I think.”
“You are here, then, to make good on that threat of your own, I suppose,” she said.
“Threat,” I said again, with a sigh.
“You said you could make me marry you,” she said.
“I had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I certainly did not start these rumors. We have Louisa Hurst to thank for that, I suppose, and perhaps your own mother, who likely latched onto the idea of it with something like glee. What they are saying… it looks bad for me as well, you know. This is a solution for us both.”
“I don’t suppose it matters one way or the other to you,” she said. “Unless you really do think I’m breathtaking.”
“Wait, you think I would lie about that?”
“I do not know.”
“Whyever would I do that?”
“I do not know. We were trapped in a house together with one bed, and perhaps you thought if you made out that you would marry me—”
“Did I touch you when we were under that blanket together? Did I attempt it once?”
“Well, no,” she said, her gaze flicking away from mine. “And besides, that bed was far too old and ravaged to be slept upon. So, this is why you’re here, then. Because you find me fetching.”
“I am here because I wish to do the right thing,” I said.
She lifted her gaze to mine again. “Oh?”
“Yes,” I said. “And because it doesn’t seem a hardship to be married to you, I suppose.
I know you are not pleased with the prospect, however.
I know you do not like me. But if I do not offer for you, you will suffer.
Mr. Collins has already declined to marry any of you, and if I allow the world to think of you as ruined, some girl who went off with a man not her husband overnight, then maybe no one marries any of you, and maybe then—”
“I did not go off with you, you know.”
“I do know that,” I said.
“But people are saying this?”
“Miss Bennet, you did walk three miles in the mud before breakfast all alone—”
“For Jane,” she said.
“Well, people do not seem to think it’s entirely out of character for whatever reason,” I said.
She grimaced.
“Anyway, it sort of becomes the choice between two evils. I know you don’t wish to be married to me, but you must see that being married to me provides a better outcome for everyone, including yourself.
You would be my wife. You would have an allowance.
You would live with me. My house in the country is… ” I looked around. “Larger than this.”
“Oh, truly? That is how you seek to convince me?”
“We do not have to…” I looked up, into the corner of the room. “We can wait for a while, about the business of children, if you wish to grow accustomed to me—”
“What?” she broke in.
“And it would be a boon to you, to your family, to your reputation, and you must know, you’re not the sort of person I should marry, and most women in your situation would be quite pleased with the offer, and—”
“You are unbelievable,” she said.
“I am only saying, you are in want of the kind of connections that being associated with me could bring you. You must know this.”
She laughed softly, under her breath, an incredulous sort of laugh.
“I know it was hideous to you, the idea of marrying me. I know you said you would never do it,” I said. “And I do not entirely know what about the prospect of it is so distasteful to you. But I think you must consider the larger picture, that is all.”
“And what is the larger picture for you? Why are you doing this?”
“I do what is expected of me,” I said.
Her lips parted as she regarded me. “I’m an obligation now.”
“Well,” I said, “I suppose, but you’re also an obligation with fine, bright eyes. I do… I…” I said it, feeling helpless, “I want you, Miss Bennet.”
She bit down on her bottom lip, her teeth digging into it. Her voice came out slightly breathy. “All right.”
I raised my eyebrows and waited. But when she said nothing more, simply gazed at me, worrying her teeth into the plump skin of her bottom lip, I finally said, “Was that an acceptance?”
“Yes,” she said. “I shall marry you, Mr. Darcy.”
I had to go and call the rest of the family back, because she could not get up from where she was seated with her hurt ankle.
Mrs. Bennet burst in first and she was practically beaming at me.
“Well, congratulations,” she said, and then the other girls, the younger ones whose names I did not even remember, were all around asking me all sorts of questions.
When would we get married, would I marry Lizzy—that was what they called her—if she could not walk down the aisle or would I wait until her ankle was healed, where did I wish the wedding breakfast, and would I be inviting my family, and—
“You have not even waited to determine if I said yes!” cried Elizabeth from across the room.
Her mother gave her a withering look. “If you have refused him, I shall never speak to you again.”
Elizabeth huffed. “I have not refused him.”
“Well, good, then,” said her mother. “Very good.”
Mr. Bennet stood outside the doorway, and he beckoned to me.
I made my way out of the gaggle of skirts and chatter to him.
“With me, Mr. Darcy?” he said.
“Of course, sir,” I said, “but there will be time, if we wish to draw up legal documents, I think, and we needn’t—”
“I wish to speak to you,” he said. “Just the two of us. Man to man.”
Oh, wonderful. This was exactly what I wished to do, have a conversation with her father, after everything. Had she told him the things I said to her in that dilapidated house? My stomach turned over.
If I’d had the presence of mind to think of an excuse, I likely would have, and I would have fled the house, telling him that I should speak to him at another time, but I could think of nothing, so I ended up in his study with the man.
His desk was cluttered with all manner of papers and books, most of them open to various pages and turned over, spine up, as if he thought he would be picking them back up to continue reading.
Perhaps he would, but there were at least ten of them like that.
How many books could he be in the midst of reading at once?
He didn’t sit behind it. Instead, he leaned into the desk and folded his arms over his chest and looked me over. “I’m going to come right to it, sir, and I do not mean any offense by this, but I have to say, I do not think my daughter likes you.”