12. Gracechurch Street—Thursday, 14 December 1809
Elizabeth sat with Mr Darcy in the parlour, feeling all the nerves of being officially called upon by a gentleman. She wore gloves, as was proper, but when tea and biscuits were brought in, she gladly shed them and poured tea for herself, her aunt, and Mr Darcy.
Their guest had been answering Elizabeth’s question about the meeting of the Columbarian Society, which would be held that night.
He interrupted himself to accept the cup of tea she was holding out to him.
His bare fingers fumbled a bit—he seemed to be as nervous as she—and they glancingly touched hers.
She felt the barely-there contact as if she had been marked somehow, and she scolded herself for being ridiculous.
In the meantime, Mr Darcy managed to safely take hold of his cup and saucer.
“Thank you,” he murmured. He took a sip and flicked a glance at Elizabeth’s right hand.
She was almost certain that it was the second glance at her hand since she had removed her gloves, and she worried that Mr Darcy might think the rings were a gift from a suitor.
Such an untrue and improper thought would not occur to him, would it?
In case it had, she held out her hand and asked, “Do you like my stacked rings? My aunt gave them to me, claiming that they are a new rage among fashionable ladies. Since I am not such a one, I have no idea if she is correct. Perhaps you can report from your vast knowledge of jewellery fashions.”
He startled but then chuckled and shook his head. At the same time, Aunt Maddie said, “Lizzy.” Only that—just her name—but it was enough to make Elizabeth wonder whether or not teasing was considered proper.
“I do not believe I have ever seen such fashion,” Mr Darcy said. “But it does look very pretty.”
“Thank you, Mr Darcy.” A long silence was only interrupted by clinking porcelain and murmurs of appreciation for the lemon biscuits.
Finally, Elizabeth said, “I certainly hope the transfer of ownership of your turtledove goes smoothly this evening.”
“I am confident it will,” he said.
Elizabeth had hinted to her aunt that she wished to discuss something semi-privately with Mr Darcy. When her aunt finished her own tea and lemon biscuit, she rose and curtseyed to Mr Darcy. “I have an important letter to write. Please excuse me.”
Aunt Maddie moved to one side of the room, and Elizabeth gathered her courage and plunged into her prepared speech, not wishing to give herself time to abandon the idea. “Mr Darcy, I have something odd I wish to say, and I wish to assure you ahead of time that I mean no insult….”
Seeing a slight realignment of his eyebrows, and deciding that he was getting worried, Elizabeth abandoned the attempt to repair the hurt before it had even occurred.
She said in a low voice, “When you asked to call on me yesterday, and you mentioned that it was a step towards courtship, I felt astounded…doubtful…afraid to be happy about the possibility of being together in case we would not, in fact, be together.”
She shot a quick look at his face and saw a pleased smile. She continued, “I would have thought a man of your status would have several hundred women waiting for him to merely snap his fingers—and they would have the proper education and dowries and connexions.”
Mr Darcy had begun to frown.
Elizabeth hurried on: “I admire your willingness to…consider courting someone unexpected. But I worry that I am not only someone unexpected, but someone ill suited for…not educated well enough to be…” Closing her eyes for a moment, Elizabeth realised that she had run out of prepared words.
Opening her eyes, she faced her suitor’s frown with squared shoulders and a slightly upturned chin.
She said, more firmly than her last floundering sentence, “I would not wish to go far down a path that will inevitably end with my disappointment and heartbreak. So I decided that, on your very first call, I should ask if you have carefully thought through the disparity between our stations in life.”
Darcy blushed a bit. “I am often told that I can be too honest, that my words sometimes hurt others, and that is one reason I find it difficult to speak of feelings. However, I wish to be able to talk about everything with you, and I beg you to give me a chance to explain further if I accidentally fumble into wounding more than explaining.”
He waited a moment, but when Elizabeth nodded, he continued.
“I have to admit that I was brought up to expect to marry a lady from the first circles. ‘Dowries and connexions’ was not an oft-repeated refrain, but a sort of unspoken assumption. Somehow, the fact that these expectations just seemed woven into everything more than being explicitly stated made it harder to imagine doing something other than courting and marrying a wealthy lady of the ton. To that point, I confess that the first two times I saw you, even though I felt an unprecedented attraction to you and had long admired your intellect and character, I very firmly put aside any possibility of courting you.”
Mr Darcy’s eyes locked onto her own seemed like an anchor, something she could count on, and she smiled.
“But then you came to the aviary at Netherfield Park, unaware that I would be there, and I began to think that Fate was taking a hand. We two horticulturalists and bird breeders faced two bird-related misadventures together, and I was increasingly positive that we were destined to be with one another. When it turned out that you were planning to go to London the same day I planned to go, I felt I had a definitive answer: we were always fated to be.”
“Fate…. Destiny.” Elizabeth finally relinquished their shared gaze, and she laughed a little. “I would scoff at such ridiculous and romantic notions, but I own that the very same thought occurred to me.”
“The thing I wished to say about my theory that we were meant for each other was that, from the beginning of my having this thought, I became so very happy. In other words, I wished so much to be able to court you, I was ecstatic to have an excuse. I soon realised that I needed no excuse other than the facts that you are extremely worthy to be Mrs Darcy, Mistress of Pemberley, and that, not only do you make me happy, but also I long to make you happy.”
“You do already, Mr Darcy.”
Later that night, as Elizabeth wrote one of her frequent letters to Jane, she did not mention Mr Darcy’s calls at all.
It seemed…too dangerous to admit in writing to something that was that desirable, but not yet certain.
Jane was not very good at keeping letters out of their mother’s hands.
If Elizabeth could actually speak with Jane, her elder sister would keep her confidence forever, but she had yet to see her sister resist handing over a letter when asked—and their mother not only asked, she demanded.
Not only did she not tell Jane about the courtship, Elizabeth continued to warn herself not to believe too strongly in what was only being contemplated.
Nothing was certain—unless one truly believed that everyone had a fixed destiny, a fate that inexorably found them, no matter their choices or actions.
Elizabeth just could not truly believe that, and she doubted that Mr Darcy did, either.
The following day, Elizabeth helped her aunt and the nursery servants reorganise the house for the fourth Gardiner child.
The nursery maid did much of the heaviest lifting and carrying, and the nursemaid helped with the project as much as she could while attending to her other duties.
Aunt Maddie, comfortably seated in a chair and her feet up on a hassock, gave orders with the sweet tones and respectful manner she used in all domestic situations.
“I wish for the cradle to be in the master bed chamber,” she confirmed.
As an aside to Elizabeth, she mentioned that she adored feeding her own child but would of course hire a wet nurse if she ran into a problem with milk supply or illness.
“I am most grateful that we can afford Nurse, Annie, and Sally—with their help with the three older children, I will be able to feed and bond with the baby, just as I did with the others when they were babies.”
“It sounds perfect to me,” Elizabeth said. “Now, what else needs to be moved into your bedroom?” She opened one of the drawers and said, “Oh! I remember this blanket from when Stephen was a baby!”
“You have found my baby bedding drawer, Lizzy. All of those linens, pillows, and blankets should be aired out and then taken to the master bedroom, along with the cradle.”
“Ma’am,” Sally said, “I found the boxes of linen clouts, bedgowns, and swaddling.”
Elizabeth checked the first box and wrinkled her nose. “Aunt, I believe a bit of damp infiltrated this box, at least, and all of these things must be washed.”
Her aunt declined to sniff the things herself, saying, “Since those things were in the attic, let us wash all of it. Thank you, Sally, Lizzy.”
While the four ladies readied the rooms and baby items, the head nurse was busily teaching the older children.
Elizabeth admired Nurse’s patience and positivity as Ellen worked on reading and Margaret learnt her letters and numbers.
Stephen was busy building towers of blocks and then sending them tumbling down, but Annie, the children’s nursemaid, intervened every time building blocks became missiles.
At one point, two-year-old Stephen insisted, “Me throw rocks! Boom, Boney dead!” This explanation was accompanied by a fierce throw of a cubical block, which did not hit the precarious block tower, but instead passed within a foot of where the two girls sat with Nurse.
Annie blushed, dismayed that Stephen was not minding her. Aunt Maddie just said, “Stephen…..” Her calm voice, with an upward lift of pitch at the end of his name, seemed to communicate her expectations of having the rules followed, and the little boy relented at once.