1. Longbourn—Monday, 4 December 1809
People said that Fitzwilliam Darcy had an air of certainty and satisfaction about him at all times.
He was not talkative, not particularly friendly, but he was a confident man.
Why would he not be? He had been born into wealth and privilege, and although he had been raised with the conviction that he must fulfil his responsibilities to his estate, his other properties and investments, and most importantly to the people who depended on him—family, servants, and tenants—he had been given the tools to enable him to do his duty.
Not only did the estate he inherited have a well trained and loyal housekeeper, butler, and steward, he had been educated thoroughly about estate management, crop rotation, drainage works, and animal husbandry.
Darcy had always been treated with respect, even deference, and although he despised the attention he garnered from young ladies and their mercenary mothers, he also took for granted such attention.
In a very obvious and, honestly, gratifying way, it made sense that women would wish to wed him and that parents would want him to marry into their families.
When he presented himself to Longbourn and Mr Bennet, wishing to see the greenhouse he had been hearing about, wishing to meet the budding horticulturalist he had been advising, he had his usual confident posture.
He was certain that he would be welcomed with gratitude, perhaps even admiration.
He had, after all, gone above and beyond on behalf of the Bennet family in bestowing his knowledge and, now, this visit.
As the housekeeper announced him, Mr Bennet stood with eyebrows raised in enquiry—almost as if Darcy had not written ahead of time about his planned call. “What can I do for you, sir?” the man asked—almost as if the name Fitzwilliam Darcy meant nothing to him, despite their many letters.
“Hello, sir,” Darcy said. “I trust you received my letter dated the twentieth of November?”
“No, I have not.”
Darcy’s surprise was not very evident on his face. He cocked his head, but almost imperceptibly. His eyes widened and his brows rose, but both movements were ever so slight. “Excuse me, but I do have the honour of addressing Mr E. R. Bennet, do I not?”
Mr Bennet’s surprise was obvious—his head flinched backwards visibly, and his eyebrows lowered and then arched even higher than before. His lips twitched, and he said. “No, my name is Thomas Bennet.”
Both men bowed, and Mr Bennet said, “Please be seated, sir, and I will find E. R. Bennet forthwith.”
Darcy took a seat and looked around the small study.
In addition to the desk and chairs, there were two very comfortable looking armchairs arranged around the cheery fire, a chessboard set up at one side, and every bit of wall space not dedicated to windows and fireplace and mantel was claimed by bookshelves which had surrendered to more volumes than could reasonably fit.
The study door made a slight creaking sound as it was opened again, and Darcy turned his head. To his shock, Mr Bennet escorted in, not a young man, but a young lady. He leapt to his feet reflexively.
Smirking at Darcy’s abrupt motion, the older gentleman said, “Elizabeth, let me introduce Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy to you. Mr Darcy, this is my daughter, Miss Elizabeth Rose Bennet.”
He bowed, and she curtseyed. But his heart skipped a beat in alarm.
The young lady before Darcy looked to be younger than one and twenty and was clearly unmarried.
Which meant that he had been regularly corresponding with a maiden—for two years!
Of course it was not a scheme—the lady looked almost nauseated by the fact that he was here; clearly she was not attempting some sort of entrapment—rather, she had certainly hoped to be understood as a man, and she was thus dismayed to be found out.
Still, even though it was clearly not a deception meant to entangle him, Darcy had survived too many plots and ploys by marriage-minded misses and their mothers; he marked it in his mind as a theory that went contrary to evidence, but he also pegged it as something to ponder one more time, when alone with his thoughts.
“Miss Bennet,” he said. Despite his cherished reputation for self-control, he could not keep the astonishment out of his voice. Inside, he felt not just surprised, but reproachful.
The young lady raised her chin, squared her shoulders, and launched into an explanation so firmly stated, Darcy felt almost ashamed of his silent condemnation: “Pardon the confusion, sir, I have only just this minute received your letter stating your intention to call, or else I would have let my father know. Your letter was, sadly, delayed.”
She laid the letter—almost unrecognisable under a liberal amount of mud—on her father’s desk.
“I gather you have been writing to Mr Darcy,” Mr Bennet said. “Is this something to do with the greenhouse?”
“Yes, Father,” Miss Bennet replied. Darcy was still shocked but could not help feeling respect for her evident strength.
From the young lady’s age, he would have expected a shaky voice and lowered eyes—if not tears—but Miss Bennet looked them each in the eye without shame and stated, “My parents and the gardeners would not or could not answer my questions, so I consulted a far-away horticulturist. I have been extremely grateful, Mr Darcy, for your forbearance with my questions.”
“And how long has this…correspondence been going on, Lizzy?” Mr Bennet asked.
His reaction was as surprising as his daughter’s, for he frowned in apparent disapproval, which Darcy would have expected, but his eyes twinkled, and his voice seemed to hide a laugh.
Darcy believed that Mr Bennet might have been a little proud of his daughter’s boldness in seeking information, but, if so, he did not wish to directly express that pride.
“We have been corresponding for two years,” she answered. Her dignified attitude seemed to dare them to accuse her of wrong-doing. “Mr Darcy has been the reason we have eaten strawberries in April and lettuce and cucumbers in March. He is the reason I finally have fruiting pear trees.”
“Well, Mr Darcy, I suppose I should thank you for the out-of-season produce,” Mr Bennet said. “I suggest that we all pretend that Elizabeth’s questions for these two years were relayed to you through me, and your answers as well.”
Darcy hated being party to deception, but it was a harmless lie that would protect an innocent lady’s reputation. He nodded his head in agreement.
“Should you like to come see the glasshouse, sir?” Mr Bennet asked.
Darcy had, of course, come for that very purpose, and he immediately stood and murmured his assent. Miss Elizabeth accompanied them, and the moment they entered the warm lean-to glasshouse, she began a tour that acknowledged every one of his contributions to her horticultural success.
For the first time, Darcy focused on Miss Bennet’s person.
She was of medium height, with a light but pleasing figure; her hair was dark but had coppery highlights, and the curls about her face were a bit too riotous to be entirely fashionable.
Thus, he felt sure that her hair was naturally wavy.
He had seen his sister work hard to achieve careful curls in her fine blonde hair, and Darcy wished he could see Miss Bennet’s hair down—
Why on earth would I think that? Darcy asked himself, deeply shocked to have had such an improper thought.
At that moment, Miss Bennet turned towards him—she was showing him kidney beans she was growing in rather small pots arranged in front of a trellis—and as he met her eyes, all thoughts of her hair fled his mind.
Her eyes were very unusual: dark, but with amber and green lines that made them look like starbursts.
Darcy realised that Miss Bennet had asked him a question, and both she and her father were waiting for an answer. In a day already full of surprises, he was stunned to be so caught up by a lady that he had lost focus several times.
He forced himself to consider what he had just heard—without properly listening—and he said, “Excuse me. I have been quite taken in by all of the loveliness before me—” he waved his hand around to indicate the glasshouse and plants “—and have been remiss in giving you prompt replies. Yes, I do think you have chosen wisely for your space. The scarlet-runner variety is likely too robust, considering your space limitations.”
For the rest of the glasshouse tour, Darcy avoided looking at Miss Bennet.
As she spoke, he studied the hotbeds, the wooden battens, the winter spinach sprouting in the coolest corner, away from the house—he looked at the things she described, never at her, and thus he was able to answer questions and formulate sensible comments.
Miss Bennet led her father and Darcy out of the glasshouse and into the garden, where she proudly showed off a pair of healthy-looking pear trees in large earthenware pots.
“I am, again, grateful for the advice you gave me about the pear trees,” she said.
“I asked all three of our gardeners and my father why I was getting no fruit, but nobody knew. And last spring, thanks to your counsel, we harvested many delicious pears.”
“I am happy to hear I could help,” he replied.
Making their way back to the house, Mr Bennet said, “Well, Mr Darcy, I suppose that you and I shall have to shrug off the impropriety of Elizabeth writing to you. It is not unheard of for a young lady to be interested in flowers and fruits and all manner of plants, do you not agree? And she has no natural philosopher here, for her to ask….”
Miss Bennet’s level of interest in “flowers and fruits and all manner of plants” was unheard of in a young lady by him, but Darcy supposed that there must be some gently bred lady, somewhere, who shared her interest. Maybe.
He did not wish to be rude, but he hated dissembling, even when merely mouthing polite untruths.