2. Longbourn—Tuesday, 5 December 1809
Elizabeth Bennet worked happily with her plants.
She adjusted the glass pane above the cucumber plants so as to allow toxic fumes to escape and to prevent overheating.
She pruned the two peach trees and checked her kidney beans before deciding to insert a hazel twig into one pot to help the climbing plant find the trellis.
For all the plants, she checked the dampness of the soil and looked for and removed mealybugs and scale from leaves.
She had gone outside to check on her pear trees when Mrs Hill announced Mr Darcy and stood back to allow him to exit Longbourn’s parlour.
Straightening, Elizabeth curtseyed and greeted the man but then cocked her head as she smiled at him. “What can I do for you today?”
The corners of his lips quirked up. “You asked two very good questions in your last letter, and I realised last night I had never answered them, since my letter to you was both damaged and delayed. So, last night, I answered them again.”
He inconspicuously held out his hand, and Elizabeth saw that he held a piece of paper folded into a small packet. She supposed he was very aware of propriety, even though her questions and his answers were not in the least provocative.
She took the packet and was about to thank him when Mr Darcy spoke again: “Oh, my, see what is roosting in one of your pear trees!”
“Oh, my, indeed!” Elizabeth laughed at the sight of a foot-long partridge somehow clinging to one of the lower branches of the five-foot tall tree. She murmured, “I hope no hunters are lurking nearby, or birdshot would be taking out my beloved pear trees.”
She heard a sound that might have been a laugh swallowed by sheer determination, and she glanced up at Mr Darcy’s face to see if her guess was correct. He did not even smile, but she saw his dark eyes were even darker and twinkling.
I see your smile in your eyes, sir. Elizabeth wondered at Mr Darcy’s desire to be so controlled, and she grinned up at him to see if he would relent….
He smiled back. She felt a jolt of satisfaction to see it. But…it was a small smile, an enigmatic smile of amusement in a careful man—and she would love to cause so much merriment that he might throw his head back and laugh full out.
Lizzy, you barely know him, and you are likely never to see him again, she chided herself.
“Sir, I have two very important things to say to you,” she began.
“First and foremost is to thank you for taking the time to rewrite the response to my last letter. I have thanked you frequently for sharing your knowledge, and believe me, I am deeply sensible of the time and effort you have spent in doing so. To put in this extra time—I am very grateful.”
She nodded firmly to emphasise her sincerity, and he looked as if he would answer—probably a stilted commonplace such as “think nothing of it”—but she held up two fingers to forestall his speech and said, “Second, you are a gentleman, and likely one who participates in shooting for sport, and therefore you must know very well that partridges do not roost in trees, not even comely pear trees; they roost on the ground with an entire covey for warmth. Since you must know that, I assume you used the word as a kind of trick—you hoped to flush me out, so that I would betray my lack of knowledge.”
He laughed this time—a deep, pleasing laugh that somehow caused her to shiver.
He did not throw his head back, and if future meetings were at all likely, Elizabeth would hold onto the goal of making him lose his self-control in such a way—but since they were not, she would take this as a measure of great success.
“I am a gentleman,” he confirmed, “and I do indeed know that partridges roost on the ground and not in pear trees barely large enough to provide a perch. I apologise for using the word roost in a feeble attempt at humour.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to reply with pert words of some sort, but he held up two fingers in an echo of her recent action. Surprised, she waited for him to speak.
“Now I have two things to say.” He looked very solemn, but his eyes were dancing.
“First, I wish to point out that this is not a grey partridge, which rarely if ever perches in trees and instead always flies up into the air when flushed out of grasses by hounds. It is a red-legged partridge, which is much more likely to fly up to a low wall or branch when not threatened, but tends to run away when disturbed by shooters and their hounds.”
Elizabeth grinned. Mr Darcy obviously relished the role of teacher. She actually knew about the two species of partridges, and she had seen that the bird in her pear tree was a French partridge, also known as a red-leg; however, she had not known of their contrasting habits.
“Second,” he said, and suddenly his entire mien shifted into being completely serious.
“I do not, as it happens, participate in sport such as shooting and hunting. I eat meat, including venison and goose and even partridge—” Here, he paused to give a formal bow to the partridge.
“But I do not have the inclination to personally end any creature’s life.
I am much more invested in fostering life. ”
Elizabeth’s desire to encourage the man before her to laugh dissolved away, and she stared at him in surprise.
For some reason, Mr Darcy, who had seemed so much older than she, as well as in such a lofty first-circles level of status and wealth that he could never truly be her friend—suddenly he seemed like someone she dearly wished to know better.
That wish was unlikely to be granted, despite his great condescension towards her in kindly answering her queries and even deigning to visit in person.
Intending to say something serious and accepting about Mr Darcy’s stance regarding sport, Elizabeth instead blurted out, “When my mother offered you a room here at Longbourn, I had thought that you were staying somewhere far away.”
“No, I am staying with a friend. Do you know Mr Bingley?”
“No. I hope you did not have to come far today.”
“It is not very far. My friend has only recently taken a lease on a house nearby; I am certain you will meet him.”
Elizabeth nodded. She did not understand what she was feeling, why she was floundering to speak to Mr Darcy.
Other than her first fright at being caught for writing to a strange man, she had felt much more at ease yesterday, speaking of cucumber and kidney bean plants, and even a few minutes ago, teasing about Mr Darcy’s misuse of a word.
But somehow, that simple sentence—“I am much more invested in fostering life”—had flung the man into being…
a human, a person. Not a great gentleman lauded for his knowledge in horticulture, but a man… .
With a thrum resonating in her body, Elizabeth realised that what she was feeling was attraction.
She had noted the moment she had clapped eyes on Mr Darcy that he was tall and well formed, that his face was handsome—but her notice had remained quite dispassionate, as if he were a beautiful actor on stage, wholly unattainable.
Why would his statement that he did not shoot cause such a change in her view of him?
She could not think of what to say, and moments later, Mr Darcy bowed to her, said, “I wish you a good day,” and left.
The partridge made a call—“Ka-chu-chu”—and burst into flight. The whirring of its wings were echoed by the sudden rush of feelings Elizabeth experienced, the vibration of her heart beating far too quickly.
Mr Darcy was gone, the partridge was gone, and Elizabeth breathed deeply in an attempt to recover her equanimity.