Chapter 8
FORCED CONFIDENCES
E lizabeth had hoped the discomposure that beset her upon seeing Mr Darcy’s curricle approaching the inn would subside once the introduction with his sister had taken place.
Alas, almost half an hour later she was no less agitated than when he initially entered the room, looking disquietingly well turned out and much taller than she could ever remember him being.
An innocent glance to compare his and his sister’s appearance had flustered her almost beyond recovery from the outset, for her appraisal had concluded very much in the brother’s favour.
His collected behaviour ought to have aided the restoration of her own, for throughout the meeting, he betrayed no awkwardness, nor any indelicate display of regard to make her uncomfortable.
Regrettably, it had the opposite effect of emphasising the alteration in his character from proud and disagreeable to civil and attentive.
The prospect that her reproofs should have induced such a change only heightened her bewilderment.
Miss Darcy was evidently vastly uneasy, and her discomfiture might ordinarily have moved Elizabeth to focus her energies on putting the young lady at ease.
Instead, it begged the question what Mr Darcy could possibly have said about her to provoke his sister to be so embarrassed.
Thus, all curiosity as to his affections was further fuelled, increasing the weight of his gaze each time it came to rest upon her.
Mr Bingley’s arrival, sudden and exuberant, brought with it yet more uncertainty.
His vivacious cordiality made it easy to overlook any vestige of anger she felt towards him for abandoning her sister.
It also made it impossible to discern whether his interest in her family was a veiled search for news about Jane or merely good breeding.
To all of this was added the undercurrent of Mrs Gardiner’s scrutiny.
Though Elizabeth was sure her aunt thought herself subtle, her every exchange with Mr Darcy drew Mrs Gardiner’s hawkish observation.
It was enough to make even the most disinterested person nervous and was abrading what little equanimity she had remaining.
“Are you alone in travelling with your aunt and uncle? Are all your other sisters at Longbourn?” asked Mr Bingley.
Elizabeth tried her best to attend to him, but as he asked this, Mr Darcy said something to Mr Gardiner that put such a look of surprise on her uncle’s face as made her desperate to know the particulars.
“I should be delighted, sir,” Mr Gardiner replied. “Though I shall have to take you up on your offer of borrowing a rod and tackle.”
The offer to fish at Pemberley had been repeated!
Elizabeth was gratified to have been right about Mr Darcy’s sincerity—if so wrong about everything else.
How different he now seemed. Never had she seen him at such pains to please—and never had she thought to see that effort expended on any relation of hers!
She turned from Mr Bingley to join in the other conversation. “Aunt, will we ever drag my uncle home again, do you suppose? A spot at that beautiful lake and a fishing rod in hand, and he might very well decide to stay here forever.”
Mrs Gardiner merrily concurred with the very real prospect of having to go home without her husband, then took up Mr Bingley’s mention of Longbourn and began speaking to him of her children, who were staying there.
“You are kind to say the lake is beautiful, Miss Bennet,” Mr Darcy said quietly while the others were talking together. “I meant to ask whether you enjoyed the park.”
“I did, very much.”
She would have elaborated on how well she liked the informality of the landscape but for the fear of saying anything that sounded covetous.
It seemed enough to gratify Mr Darcy. He sat back in his chair with a smile that she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her in Hertfordshire—a small, unassuming curl to his mouth that changed an otherwise severe expression into one of contemplative contentment.
It was an understated, almost private display—particularly when juxtaposed to his friend’s effusiveness—but now that she knew what to look for, she could scarcely any longer see the disapproving, superior man who had slighted her at the Meryton Assembly.
He looked simply happy. Happy to be there. Happy to be with her.
Her heart gave a silly flutter, and she hastened to speak to distract herself from it. “Miss Darcy, I imagine you must enjoy Pemberley’s grounds very well. I know your cousin Miss de Bourgh likes to tour the park at Rosings in a phaeton. Do you share her fondness for driving?”
“N-no. I-I never took to it well.”
Mr Darcy leant forward with an encouraging smile for his sister. “Georgiana likes to draw the various views from around the park. She has produced some exceedingly fine sketches.”
“Then I am not surprised at your aversion to driving around it, Miss Darcy. A moving carriage is absolutely the worse place from which to compose a sketch.”
“Oh, I did not—”
“Miss Bennet is teasing.”
It was gratifying that Mr Darcy understood as much, but Elizabeth was nevertheless sorry to have unsettled his sister if she was not used to sportive conversation—which she could well believe was the case. She was on the verge of apologising when Miss Darcy let out a soft laugh.
“Some of my early attempts did look as though I drew them on the move.”
Elizabeth grinned. “I might take up telling people that is how all my sketches were made. It would go some way to excusing the results.”
Mr Darcy announced their departure not long after this, calling on his sister to join him in expressing his wish to see their party at Pemberley before they left the country.
Miss Darcy blushed deeply and made her appeal to the floor. “Um, y-yes. We should like, very much, if you would join us. For dinner. If you please.”
Miss Darcy’s embarrassment was obvious, but Elizabeth was quite sure her own was greater as she considered the implications of such a request. Mr Darcy wished to prolong the acquaintance even further; he did not seem troubled by the prospect of Mr Bingley hearing more news of Jane; he wished to introduce her aunt and uncle—the very relations with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a disgrace—to his ‘large party of friends,’ all of whom she supposed hailed from the same elevated sphere as he.
She could explain it by no other means than that he must still love her.
It was a conclusion by which not even the bravest person could remain unaffected, and she turned away to compose herself before she must meet anyone’s eye.
She did not summon the courage to look up again until the whole company had said their goodbyes.
She managed only a fleeting smile and a brief curtsey before the door closed behind them, at which point, Mrs Gardiner turned directly to stare at her.
“What did you think of Mr Bingley?” Elizabeth enquired before her aunt could voice the question sitting openly on her face.
“I thought him a thoroughly pleasant fellow,” her uncle replied. “Very easy manners indeed.”
Mrs Gardiner agreed. “I approve of him quite as much as the next handsome, rich young man. He has shown himself to be no more careless and inconstant than the rest of them.”
“You are severe upon my sex!” her husband complained.
“Probably, but of Mr Bingley I say only what is true. It was easy for him to be in love with Jane when she was there in front of him, but away from her, his head was quickly turned. It always goes off the same.” She gave Elizabeth a peculiar look and added, “Usually.”
It was too much; Elizabeth announced her intention to dress for dinner and hurried from the room.
* * *
Mrs Gardiner was sufficiently distracted by her friends’ company throughout Mrs Whitaker’s soiree that Elizabeth dared to hope all curiosity had been forgotten. Her heart sank when, after retiring for the night, her bedroom door opened, and the light of a candle emerged around it.
“May I come in?” Mrs Gardiner enquired.
With her own candle still burning, Elizabeth could hardly pretend to be asleep. She pulled her knees up to make room at the foot of the bed for her aunt, who began far more seriously than she had anticipated.
“Lizzy, is there anything amiss between you and Mr Darcy? Anything about which I ought to know?”
“No, I assure you. There is nothing for you to worry about.”
“I am relieved to hear it. Still, it is evident that you are better acquainted with him than you previously let on. Just as it is evident that you esteem him.”
“What makes you say that?” Elizabeth said—too quickly. It made her aunt smile pityingly.
“You did well at saying as little as possible at dinner, I grant you. But you rather gave yourself away when you spoke up to defend him—vehemently, I might add—against Mr Wickham.”
“And rightly so! Mr Heyworth was implying that Mr Darcy treated Mr Wickham poorly when it was entirely the other way around.”
“Yes, yes, so you informed me yesterday. But you never said whence this new intelligence originated. You certainly could not have inferred so much from that one trifling remark of Mr Darcy’s housekeeper, surely?”
“No, of course not! I have it on much better authority.”
“Whose authority could possibly be better than Mr Wickham’s?”
“Mr Darcy’s.” Elizabeth clamped her mouth closed in exasperation when she saw the triumph flashing in her aunt’s countenance.
“And pray, what business had Mr Darcy in telling you about Mr Wickham?”
Elizabeth had neither the courage nor the inclination to explain that Mr Darcy had divulged his history with Mr Wickham in a bid to defend his character after she hurled a litany of unfounded charges at him, accusing him of defying his father’s will, and of casting off his childhood friend.
She was ashamed enough already; she had no desire to witness her aunt’s disappointment also.
In the end, however, she was not required to confess anything. Her aunt guessed.
“It is because he did not wish you to think ill of him, is it not? Because he is in love with you. Now do not attempt to deny it—any fool could see he was overflowing with admiration this morning.”
Elizabeth did as she was bid and refrained from denying it. Her heart was racing to hear it said aloud by another person.
“You do not seem pleased by it though. I got the impression today that you had come to like him more. Was I wrong?”
“No, I do not dislike him. I do not know what I feel for him, but it is not dislike. Would that I did know, for the last thing I wish to do is hurt him again.”
There was a pause, then Mrs Gardiner said, cautiously, “Again?”
Elizabeth held her breath for a moment while she contemplated her options, then blew it out in surrender.
With her forehead resting on her knees, as though that would shield her from judgment, she whispered, “Mr Darcy proposed to me in Kent.” She looked up when she heard her aunt gasp.
“I refused him. I refused him in the most hurtful, petulant way imaginable. Pray do not ask me for the particulars. It is enough to know that he and I parted on exceedingly bad terms.”
Mrs Gardiner was fixed in disbelief. “Why did you not tell us? We would never have gone to Pemberley if we had known this. What must he have thought to discover us there?”
“I did not know how to tell you. Then, when everybody we asked told us he would not be there, I thought I would not have to.”
Her aunt looked supremely displeased with this answer. “That was selfish, Lizzy. Your uncle and I have worked incredibly hard to establish a good reputation for ourselves. You might have undone all that in one morning if Mr Darcy had been less forgiving.”
The accusation cut all the deeper for the truth of it.
Elizabeth had never once considered the consequences to her aunt and uncle of being discovered at Pemberley—only her own discomfort in going there.
Then, though it was her aunt’s wounded gaze that held hers, it was her own voice she could hear as she recalled viciously deriding Mr Darcy for his ‘selfish disdain for the feelings of others’.
And whereas he had subsequently been proved innocent of any such defect, she had betrayed an even greater want of consideration.
“You are right,” she whispered. “I am sorry.”
Mrs Gardiner sighed deeply, observably dispelling some of her anger. “There has been no harm done, and I do see that it has been difficult for you. Besides, it seems we have all been exceedingly fortunate, for he has obviously forgiven you.”
“I know, and I could not have been more astonished to discover it. Though I know not what to make of it. I should hate to give him false hope. Until I know my own feelings, it would be cruel to encourage his affections.”
“Perhaps you might be careful where you direct your high spirits until you better know your own heart, then, but he seems a sensible man. I am sure we may dine with him as friends without issue. I doubt we will even see him when we go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We must return Miss Darcy’s call, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth found she was not averse to such a visit.
Despite her shyness, Miss Darcy had seemed a most agreeable young lady—certainly as nice as any of her aunt’s acquaintance on whom they would no doubt call if they did not go to Pemberley.
It would be as pleasant a way to pass the morning as any.
And her aunt might be wrong; they might see Mr Darcy while they were there.
The prospect did not displease her, and she gave her agreement to the scheme.
“Aunt, I beg you would not tell anyone about this. The situation is delicate enough, without raising anyone’s expectations.”
Mrs Gardiner assured Elizabeth of her secrecy and departed, leaving her niece even wider awake than she had been before she came in.
Having prided herself all her life for being an excellent studier of character, retrospect had shown Elizabeth she was far from a good judge—woefully unqualified to yield the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on the renewal of Mr Darcy’s addresses.