Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Early the next morning, Darcy set out for a walk, hoping that he would meet Elizabeth, despite the heavy clouds that threatened rain imminently.
Fitzwilliam and Bramwell had lent their assistance by distracting their parents and Lady Catherine to ensure the trio remained unaware that he had slipped out of the house.
He felt increasingly desperate to talk to her, even just to see her, knowing she alone could soothe his ever-simmering fury at his relations.
He found her pacing in a small clearing on the stream-side path between Netherfield and Longbourn.
At once, he stepped towards her, intending to embrace her; it was not a conscious decision, but given their shared love—which he did not doubt—it seemed both right and necessary.
To his surprise, she retreated, keeping the distance between them steady.
A stab of disappointment and fear shot through him, and he almost raised a hand to his heart.
The expression on her face was apprehensive, sorrowful even, though she was not as distressed as she had been in Lambton when she had learnt the news of her sister’s elopement.
Darcy shook his head, not knowing what to make of it.
Surely she was as glad to see him as he was her, especially that they could speak privately!
But, on reflection, she must be confused and concerned.
With this in mind, he quickly greeted her and explained what was happening with his family.
She periodically nodded as though she understood, and she asked many questions.
When he had finished his recitation, she said, “I appreciate how open you have been. Was Lady Catherine correct when she said that no one would accept our marriage? Accept me? Would Lord and Lady Romsley and your remaining family? Do you think your friends and acquaintances in town and in Derbyshire would? Please, do not hide the truth from me.”
He longed to give her the reassurances that she evidently required, but he would not be dishonest with her, not even slightly; it would damage their relationship, and she was too wise not to see through any clever wording he used to avoid giving a response.
Nevertheless, knowing it was not enough, he found himself saying, “I could hardly say how everyone will act.”
“Your family, your nearest relations—those here presently and the others I have not met—how would they behave? Lord Bramwell would support our union for his own reasons, from what he told me yesterday, and Colonel Fitzwilliam claims he does too. What of Miss Darcy?”
“Georgiana was very glad to meet you.”
“That does not mean she would like to have me as a sister,” Elizabeth said before he could go on. She turned her chin away from him and kept her gaze on a group of bushes. “Perhaps it was too much to hope for, that, after everything—”
Panic tightened around his heart like an iron band, and his voice came out as a harsh gasp. “Elizabeth, no!”
“I do not want to feel this way,” she said insistently.
“To doubt that it would be in our best interests—yours and mine as individuals. I hate the notion of inserting myself into your family, of causing such strife, possibly ending with you estranged from people who are so important to you. I wish the situation were different, that there was no question of whether you were at liberty.”
“I am.” He spoke too loudly, but he felt as though he were being strangled and had to force the words out.
She could not be telling him there was no hope; that was utterly, entirely unacceptable!
There was no surer way to create a breach between him and his relations than to have their interference end with his Elizabeth sending him away forever.
Her eyes met his again. “Are you? Legally, I suppose you are, from what I understand of the law. And, in another sense, I believe you are, that you would not pursue me if you felt at all honour-bound to Miss de Bourgh. But there is more to this. Would you be happy if, in marrying me, your family disavowed you, even if the consequence was being always at odds with them? You cannot tell me it would not happen when, at this very moment—less than three miles away—are people who matter to you and who are telling you directly they hate the notion of you choosing me. You told me yourself last April that they would dislike it. I thought little of it, I suppose, not then and not of late, not even after Lady Catherine’s call last month.
I see now that I ought to have considered it.
If the situation were reversed, if I knew accepting you would make my family so unhappy, that they would separate themselves from me… ”
“You would not accept me,” he said. Tears burned at the back of his eyes, but he refused to show his distress.
Certain there was more she was not telling him, something that drove her to speak thus, she did not deserve to see how wretched he was at the thought of where this conversation was leading.
Had one of his relations sought her out without him knowing it?
Had Bramwell or Fitzwilliam said more to her than they had told him?
After a brief silence, she said, “There would be no easy path. I would be torn in two, hating the alternatives. To lose the very people who have been my world, who have loved me and accepted me, been the people I have laughed and cried with, who I know would always be there to support me when I needed it, to console or celebrate with me, or to lose the man I love, the only one I can imagine sharing my life with, being happy with.”
Squeezing his hands into fist to hide how they trembled, he slowly shook his head. “What has happened? Has my uncle or one of my aunts done yet more to disgust you, to put these doubts into your heart? My cousins—”
“No. I am simply aware that I can spare you having to make a decision between me and your family.” She paused and pressed her lips together; by the way she blinked rapidly, he knew she was as close to crying as he was.
“I know how much you respect and value them, and I do not believe you would ever be truly happy if you lost your connexion to them, especially to your sister.”
“Do you think I shall continue to respect and value them knowing they have cost me the only woman I have ever loved or wanted to marry?”
Tears had begun to fall down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with a gloved hand. “Perhaps part of me is afraid that those feelings would fade when you were forced to confront what marrying me cost you.”
Again, he shook his head, this time more vigorously. “I do not believe you are saying this of your own volition. Please, Elizabeth, I beg you, let us not misunderstand or keep the truth from each other, not again.”
She regarded him for a long moment, doing nothing to hide her distress, before nodding and telling him of a recent conversation with Mr Bennet. “I had no alternative but to explain our entire history. He would settle for nothing less.”
With mounting horror, Darcy took in the situation.
Mr Bennet had informed her that he would not grant his consent to their marriage, even should Darcy find a way out of his present dispute.
While the older gentleman thought it was nonsensical that there could be a legal requirement for him to marry his cousin, there were considerations beyond the law.
“He said that we could not know whether honour required it of you,” she said, hastily adding, “but you say there is not, and I believe you. What matters most to him, what made him tell me I must have this conversation with you—” She paused for a long moment to regain her composure; he stood silently, not wanting to do or say that which would make this more difficult for her.
“My father has decided that he would not give his consent to our marriage, because he has no interest in angering people of Lord Romsley’s position.
We might live in this small out of the way place, but who knows what it might mean for our family, including the Gardiners and Jane.
My father asked me to consider whether our situation might cause problems for her engagement and marriage and acceptance amongst Mr Bingley’s circle.
He is part of your social sphere in town, which means she will be too. ”
She took a deep breath before continuing.
Her eyes, which had always so enraptured him, were on his, shining with tears, but also love and the strength he so admired in her.
“Although I shall be one-and-twenty soon, the thought of marrying knowing he disapproves, knowing I would marry without his blessing…”
“You would hate it, as would I, because I understand how much you esteem him and would worry it would affect your connexion to your mother and sisters. I shall speak to him.”
“You may try, but despite whatever impression you have of him being less involved in our lives than he should be, my father can be an incredibly stubborn man. That is especially true since this summer. I tried to change his mind, please believe that I did.” He nodded, and she went on.
“I hate to say it, but I do not think you will sway him, not at present. The only thing that might is if he were convinced that your family would welcome me and embrace our marriage.”