Chapter 34
NETHERFIELD WAS QUIETER since Caroline’s departure, though the number of guests had not changed.
The servants no longer paused before acting to consider whether Bingley might contradict an order, and breakfast proceeded without anyone correcting the placement of a dish or the order in which letters were opened.
Bingley noticed how smooth Netherfield ran without Caroline’s direction and took no pleasure in discovering how much of his own house he had surrendered.
Georgiana sat near the window with a book in her lap, while Anne worked at a piece of embroidery that had advanced little since her arrival.
Darcy had taken a letter to the other end of the room, though Bingley suspected he read the same line several times.
The morning lacked the strain Caroline once created by watching every exchange for advantage, but relief did not free Bingley from shame.
“I ought to have stopped her long before the summerhouse,” he said.
Darcy folded the letter. “You stopped her when you understood what she had done.”
“I should have understood sooner. She governed my house because I found it easier to let her.”
“You trusted your sister in matters she claimed to understand better than you did. The responsibility is hers for what she did with it.”
Bingley looked toward Georgiana, who had opened her book without turning a page. “You said that yesterday.”
“And I was right.”
Bingley stood and moved to the window. He had delayed because of uncertainty, Caroline’s objections, and the fear that Jane’s affection reflected kindness, not preference.
Beneath them all lay his habit of seeking approval before trusting his own judgment.
Jane had never demanded that he act or kept him from deciding that he must.
“I believe I shall ride to Longbourn,” he said.
Darcy placed the letter on the table. “This morning?”
“This morning.”
Georgiana looked up. “Then you should not keep Miss Bennet waiting.”
Bingley smiled despite himself. “Darcy said the same thing.”
“I did not,” Darcy said.
“You would have.”
Darcy rose. “I shall accompany you as far as Longbourn.”
“Only as far?”
“That depends upon how welcome I find myself.”
They left within the hour. The air held the cool promise of autumn, and the hedges had begun to lose the uniform green of summer. Bingley spoke little during the ride, but his silence held no indecision, and Darcy let it remain unfilled.
Mrs. Bennet saw them before a servant reached the door.
By the time they entered, she had arranged Jane near the best light, moved Kitty away from the chair beside her, and informed Lydia in a fierce whisper that any mention of officers would bring consequences.
Elizabeth sat near Jane with a book open in her lap, though her attention moved to Darcy as soon as he entered.
Bennet appeared from his library before Mrs. Bennet’s preparations could extend to the furniture.
“Mr. Bingley. Mr. Darcy.” His gaze moved from one man to the other. “You have the air of gentlemen who have remembered important business.”
Bingley colored but held his ground. “I hope to speak with Miss Bennet.”
“So does her mother, from dawn until sleep rescues the household.” Bennet turned toward Mrs. Bennet before she could protest. “My dear, perhaps you might discover whether Hill has ordered enough sugar to survive the morning.”
“I know how much sugar Hill has ordered.”
“Then you possess knowledge too valuable to remain unshared.”
Mrs. Bennet looked from Bingley to Jane, understood the purpose of the visit, and gathered Lydia and Kitty with promises of news soon enough, while Mary followed because Bennet asked her to find a volume he was not about to read.
Elizabeth rose from the sofa. Sarah, who had slept beneath the table, lifted her head.
“Sarah needs exercise,” Elizabeth said.
Darcy looked at the dog. “I would be glad to assist.”
Bennet opened the library door. “You may assist me first, Mr. Darcy. A father who leaves one daughter unattended should at least pretend to guard another.”
Elizabeth concealed a smile and went outside with Sarah, leaving Jane and Bingley alone.
For several moments, neither spoke. Bingley had imagined this conversation often enough to believe the words would come when he needed them.
Instead, he saw Jane’s hands folded in her lap and remembered every occasion on which she had offered him patience when certainty would have served her better.
“I have allowed too many people to influence me,” he said. “I will not do so now.”
Jane raised her eyes to his.
“I love you. I should have trusted what I knew instead of listening to other people.” He moved closer but did not take her hand. “Will you marry me?”
Jane’s eyes filled. “Yes.”
Bingley released a breath that became a laugh. “I had prepared more.”
“You said what matters.”
“And I may say the rest when you cannot escape.”
“You spent weeks providing me with several.”
The rebuke carried affection, but Bingley accepted it. “I did, and regret each one.”
Jane offered him her hand. “Regret them once, then forget them. Caroline’s conduct cannot govern our future, and neither can your guilt.”
He took her hand. “You expect a great deal from me.”
“You are capable of it.”
“That is fortunate, since I mean to spend my life proving you are right.”
Jane studied him with the same quiet expression he once mistook for indifference. He understood now that her restraint concealed more than he allowed himself to hope.
“There is one thing I must ask,” she said.
“Anything.”
“When your sisters object, as Caroline has and may again, will you listen to them?”
“No. Louisa accepts that the choice is mine, and Caroline forfeited any right to say anything.”
Jane pressed his hand. “That is what I hoped you would say.”
Bingley looked down. “I could have spoken sooner and prevented much of this, but I will not make the same mistake again.”
She nodded. “I believe you.”
“You will not have to fight Caroline for your place.”
“I do not want it.”
Bingley understood. “No. You have your own.”
The door opened before either expected it. Mrs. Bennet saw their joined hands and cried out with joy. Lydia arrived first, Kitty close behind her, while Mary remained near the doorway with the book Bennet had sent her to find.
Bennet came last. He surveyed the room, then offered Bingley his hand.
“You have chosen a wife with more sense than either of us,” he said. “Preserve the advantage by listening to her.”
“I intend to.”
“A common promise, but intention often gives way under pressure.” Bennet glanced toward Mrs. Bennet, who was discussing lace, settlements, breakfast menus, and the number of carriages required for a wedding not yet scheduled.
“You will find this family prepares you for noise, but whether any man can prepare for the expense is another question.”
Bingley laughed while Mrs. Bennet announced that she had always known the match would occur.
Bennet returned to the library to resume their interrupted conversation.
He told Darcy of Wickham’s removal from Meryton, which the colonel had arranged without public spectacle, and of the tradesmen who would receive payment from the sale of the lieutenant’s commission and what little money Darcy could recover.
Neither man mistook settlement for reform.
“He will blame you,” Bennet said.
“He has blamed me for consequences of his own making since we were boys. I am more worried about Miss Catherine.”
“Her mother reports that recovery began when another officer asked whether she would attend the next assembly.”
Darcy looked toward the closed door as laughter rose from the drawing room. “That was swift.”
“She is seventeen. Permanence has not yet become a habit.” Bennet closed the account book before him. “You did not come only to discuss Wickham.”
“No.”
“I assumed as much. Bingley has the face of a man riding toward happiness. You have the face of one approaching judgment.”
“I deserve some.”
“That has never kept a man from hoping for mercy.” Bennet stood and opened the door. “Elizabeth is outside. Sarah took her to the lower meadow, unless the sheep are at Netherfield again.”
Darcy paused. “Do I have your permission to speak with her?”
“You have permission to speak. Anything beyond that depends upon Elizabeth, which I assume you know.”
“I do.”
“Then you have learned the most useful lesson in this house.”
Darcy found Elizabeth near the stile beyond the kitchen garden.
Sarah stood on the far side of the field, watching three sheep that had pressed against the hedge as though considering escape.
Elizabeth rested one hand on the top rail and looked toward Longbourn, where Mrs. Bennet’s voice reached them through an open window.
“All of Meryton should know before dinner,” she said as Darcy approached.
“Bingley will not object.”
“No. He has spent too long concealing his happiness to begin now.” She looked at him. “Jane hoped he came to propose.”
“And he did.”
“That answer sounds almost grudging.”
“His happiness gives me no excuse for delay.”
Elizabeth’s amusement faded, though she did not turn away. Sarah left the sheep and trotted toward them, then stopped several yards off to investigate a patch of grass.
Darcy rested one hand on the stile. “May I walk with you?”
“Yes.”
They crossed into the field. Sarah moved ahead, ranging between the hedge and the narrow path that led toward the stream. For a time, Darcy heard only the grass beneath their steps and Sarah moving ahead of them.
“I owe you an apology that I should have made a long time ago,” he said.
Elizabeth looked forward. “You apologized for the assembly.”
“I apologized for the words. I did not admit the full extent of my fault.”
She waited.
“The morning before the assembly, I saw you with Sarah and the sheep near Netherfield. You directed them with such ease that I assumed you belonged to a tenant family or worked upon the estate. I assumed without asking who you were, then carried it into the assembly after Bingley introduced your family.”
Elizabeth stopped. “You knew who I was by then.”
“Yes.”
“And still spoke as you did.”
“Yes.” Darcy faced her. “I misjudged you, then defended my pride instead of correcting the mistake. I am sorry.”
Sarah returned, nose dark with earth, and circled them before moving on. Elizabeth watched her for a moment.
“You gave me reason to dislike you, but I held to that dislike after I should have questioned it. I am sorry too.”
Elizabeth smiled, then grew serious. “There is another matter. When you defended me against Lady Catherine, I understood that you had chosen your own judgment over the approval you learned to value. I could not dismiss that as temper or obligation.”
“I should have made the choice before she forced me to.”
“You made it when it mattered.”
“I made it because losing your respect had become more painful than losing hers.”
Color rose in Elizabeth’s face, and she turned toward the stream. “When did that happen?”
Darcy was silent for several steps. “I am not sure that I can name a moment.”
“I am relieved. A precise date would sound suspicious.”
He smiled. “Then I shall avoid one. At first, I watched you because I needed to understand why my first judgment was so wrong. That was pride as much as curiosity.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I found that the more I observed, the less I could preserve the opinion I had formed. Nothing about you matched what I expected. You managed your family without pretending they had no faults, contradicted me when you thought me wrong, and refused to be impressed when I thought I deserved it.”
“That last must have been difficult.”
“It was.”
Elizabeth looked at him, and his expression made her smile.
Darcy continued. “Then I began to notice things that had nothing to do with proving myself mistaken. Your care for Jane. Your patience with Kitty. The way you allow Sarah to work without attempting to command every movement. You trust those you love without trying to possess them.”
Elizabeth’s smile faded into thought. “And you thought you did otherwise.”
“Too often.”
They reached the stream, where the path narrowed between a willow and the bank. Sarah drank, then shook herself without regard for either of them. Darcy moved aside too late and received a scatter of droplets across his coat.
Elizabeth looked at the marks and waited for his displeasure.
He examined one sleeve. “I am beginning to understand that acquaintance with Sarah requires practical clothing.”
“What it requires is surrender.”
“I have resisted that lesson longer than most.”
“She does not regard resistance as a serious obstacle.”
They walked on beneath the willow branches.
After a moment, Elizabeth said, “You have told me why your opinion changed.”
“Yes.”
“You have not told me when admiration became something else.”
Darcy looked ahead. “Perhaps because I resisted that conclusion longer than the others.”
“That sounds more like you.”
“I thought distance would correct it. Then I discovered that absence merely gave me more opportunity to think of you. I found myself measuring conversations by whether you were part of them, and visits by whether I might see you. When you thought ill of me, I wanted to explain myself, but I wanted even more to become a man whose explanation you might believe.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“I do not admire you because you corrected my judgment,” he continued.
“I love your intelligence, your loyalty, your humor, and the independence that once offended me because I mistook it for disregard. I love that you expect better from people and that you are willing, eventually, to expect better from yourself.”
“Eventually?”
“I have learned caution.”
She laughed. “Perhaps you have.”
He stopped beneath the willow. Sarah had climbed the bank ahead and now stood with a length of muddy root between her teeth.
Darcy faced Elizabeth. “I have no wish to hurry you, and I know I have given you reasons to doubt me. But my feelings have not been uncertain for some time.”
Elizabeth held his gaze.
“I love you. If you believe you can be happy with me, will you marry me?”
Elizabeth studied him for a moment, then smiled.
“I will.”
Darcy’s expression changed with such open relief that she laughed, though tears had gathered in her eyes.
“You doubted me?”
“I hoped. I did not presume.”
“That is an improvement.”
“One I intend to preserve.”
He took her hand, and for one suspended moment neither spoke. Sarah ended it by pushing between them and dropping the muddy root across Darcy’s boots.
Elizabeth looked down. “She approves.”
Darcy bent, picked up the root, and threw it toward the field. Sarah raced after it before it struck the ground.
“I begin to suspect,” he said, “that her approval carries obligations.”
Elizabeth slipped her hand through his arm. “You have no idea how many.”