Chapter Twenty
London
“Oh, Lizzy, it cannot really be your last day in London,” Georgiana sighed. “I thought we would surely persuade you all to stay longer.”
Elizabeth gave her friend’s hand an affectionate squeeze.
“I should like to very much, but Mrs. Jennings wishes to return to Devonshire; her daughter Lady Middleton has made a match for their cousin, Miss Anne Steele, and I know Mrs. Jennings is eager to be useful in planning the wedding. Besides, Aunt Madeline misses her daughter.”
“Planning a wedding does sound like jolly good fun,” Georgiana said, giving her brother and cousin a sly look. “William, Phillip, what if we went to visit Netherfield? I had a letter from Rebecca this morning, and she has practically invited all of us.”
“By which you mean that she has informed you they are hosting a large party,” the viscount drawled. He waggled his brows as he reached for his cup of tea.
“Quite the same thing,” Mrs. Gardiner cried, giving Georgiana an indulgent look.
Mr. Darcy’s gaze seemed to search Elizabeth’s for a moment, and she silently willed him to understand how dearly she wished not to part with him.
Not yet, when she had only just begun to suspect he felt more for her than friendship – and when she had only just been surprised to discover her own sentiments were quite the same.
He broke into a slow smile that lit his eyes with mirth as it spread across his face. “Would it be too mischievous, Miss Elizabeth, for our arrival at Netherfield to be a surprise for our friend?”
“I should rather think it a delightful gift,” Elizabeth replied merrily. “Who does not like surprises? And I recall Mr. Bingley once saying that if he were to decide to travel, he should go at once, in all haste – so he will be pleased to find you of the same philosophy.”
“It shall be a vexation for Rebecca, to make so many extra rooms ready,” the viscount mused. “I say yes. Besides, I shall take no pleasure in London with you ladies gone away.”
Mr. Willoughby crossed the vast room filled with stacks of old books and teased them for their idleness.
The ladies from Berkeley Street and their friends from Matlock House had gathered at Hatchard’s, where Mrs. Hatchard had invited them for tea and the parting gift of choosing from amongst a large collection of rare books they had recently acquired.
Mr. Willoughby was an object of no little hilarity, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair in disarray, and a small pair of spectacles on his nose, a gold chain connecting them around the back of his neck.
He had borne their teasing in good cheer as he went about with his ledger and pencil, making an inventory of his new acquisitions.
“You have been wondrously helpful, and I daresay you have earned your refreshments, but Miss Elizabeth, you have not yet selected a book to take home to Longbourn! Jane – Miss Bennet – has already claimed the first edition of Gulliver’s Travels, and it appears even now she is raiding the crate of poetry. ”
Nearby, Jane looked up from doing just that, and she smiled brightly at them before whispering something to Sophie Hatchard that elicited a laugh.
Then Jane reached into the crate and displayed a large red volume embossed with silver filigree before adding it to the two other books she held in the crook of her elbow.
“Mamma will be quite scandalized to find Jane returned from London a bluestocking,” Elizabeth chortled.
“She cannot be surprised to find you such a one,” Mr. Darcy said with a wry smile. “But there are a few volumes I had thought might amuse you, if you require any assistance in making your selections.”
He offered her his hand as she rose from the small sofa at the back of the spacious storeroom at the back of the shop, where they held their unconventional gathering.
“Oh yes, do advise me, sir,” Elizabeth said, and she smirked as she privately imagined beseeching Mr. Darcy for advice on reading material as she had seen Caroline Bingley do at Netherfield.
She took his arm as they ambled over to a crate of books in the far corner, and then they began to examine the titles. She knew the collection had come from Edward Ferrars, but Elizabeth was determined not to allow that to lessen her enjoyment of the Hatchards’ generosity.
“Take three or four – something for your sisters, perhaps,” Mrs. Hatchard told her with an affectionate pat on the cheek before she hastened to show Mrs. Gardiner a book of fairy stories Julia might like.
Elizabeth grinned at Mr. Darcy. “Something for my sisters! I wonder, did the late Ferrars possess many volumes of fashion plates? The history of haberdashery, perhaps.”
Mr. Darcy leaned a little closer and whispered, “Since I am under your command to be impudent, I shall advise you to think only of yourself.”
“Then I shall do likewise, and follow your sage counsel,” Elizabeth quipped.
They began examining the crate of books, and Mr. Darcy showed her a few volumes that caught her fancy. After she made her selections, he asked, “Will it please you if I return to Netherfield?”
“If you do not spend the visit brooding out of windows and refusing to dance,” she chided. “But I think it would be wonderful if you all came to Hertfordshire.”
Again he gave her a penetrating look, and Elizabeth blushed at her own hesitation to tell him just how dearly she would like to continue spending time with him above everybody. How her Mamma would faint and her father would laugh at her! But something else worried her thoughts.
“I understand you and your cousin have been much occupied in a matter of important business with Colonel Fitzwilliam. Will you be able to leave London without settling it?”
“Richard intends to return to Netherfield; he can hardly object if I do the same. One of the matters was settled this morning to his satisfaction; the other, he has men attending to, though I would rather not speak of it. I have no wish to shade our last day together in London.”
This, Elizabeth suspected, must have to do with what she had overheard – with Mr. Wickham. A question formed on her lips, but she had not the chance to ask it, for Mrs. Jennings declared it was time that they returned to Berkeley Street to begin their preparations for the morrow’s travels.
“We shall journey with you, for safety,” Mr. Darcy told her. “At what hour should we arrive in our carriage?”
“Ten o’clock shall give us ample time to reach Meryton before supper and rest ourselves for the fete at Netherfield the day after,” Elizabeth replied. “I hope you mean to bring your ice skates, sir.”
“And my dancing slippers,” he said with a smile, before taking her hand and giving a deep bow. “Until tomorrow, Miss Elizabeth.”
***
Jane was not ready to depart, for her conscience compelled her to tell Mr. Willoughby that Marianne never read his letters, though her courage had faltered at every chance to do so. She sought out her aunt and discreetly told her what she intended.
“I suppose greater privacy would suit you best,” Aunt Madeline said with a nod of agreement. “Shall we wait for you in the carriage?”
“Oh, no, it is a short walk home,” Jane assured her aunt; she knew she would require solitude to reflect after saying what she must to Mr. Willoughby.
Mrs. Gardiner surveyed her skeptically, but finally assented. “Oh, Jane, my poor girl. But at least let me bring all your new books home for you.”
She handed over her new treasures, averting her eyes from her aunt’s sympathy.
As the party broke up, Jane sought out her dearest friend at once.
Mrs. Hatchard and Sophie suddenly found themselves terribly busy at the far side of the room as Mr. Willoughby sat down beside Jane on a large crate of books.
“There is something I must tell you,” she said.
He studied her, his gaze as serious as she had ever seen him; his jaw clenched and he nodded somberly. “Tell me.”
Jane wrung her hands, forcing the words out. “Marianne… she burned your letters. Unopened.”
Mr. Willoughby’s reaction was far less than what she feared. He only gave a slow nod and a sad half-smile. “When I received no reply to the first letter, I began to suspect the second would get no response. I am hardly surprised, given what she believes of me.”
That he should expect such ill-usage as this tore at Jane’s heart.
“But how could she ever believe it of you? You were a stranger to me when I accepted Miss Williams’s account of you, but now that I have known you for as long as you were acquainted with Marianne, it seems to me she ought to have known it to be a falsehood. I am so angry with her!”
He smiled in earnest now, but there was something bittersweet in his gaze.
“I hope you will forgive her. In truth, I am relieved. I have satisfied my conscience, as I might never have done without your gentle influence, Miss Bennet. But in rejecting me, your cousin has spared me the pain of offering her less than any woman deserves.”
“How can you say such a thing?”
Mr. Willoughby laid his hand atop Jane’s in the space between them.
“Because it is the truth. Had she read my letters and loved me still, I could never have known the whole and unfettered joy of a marriage of true minds. From the very start it would be diminished by my guilt at offering penury that grows to resentment, under the guise of romance.”
Jane furrowed her brow. “Has it never occurred to you that not every young lady prizes material considerations over the charms of an affectionate heart? Can you not see that you are just the sort of man to inspire such an attachment?”
“You are too generous, Miss Bennet. I am, now and likely for the next several years, little more than a shopkeeper who cannot afford to live in his own manor, and must rent it to pay the debts of his father. I am dependent on the man who brought me up, and too soon I fear I shall be mourning him.”