Chapter 46
I n the intervening days, my inclination to defer to Mrs Bennet had been so obvious that my housekeeper had understood this to be a signal to lavish the lady with every mark of attention.
Rather than checking Mrs Spencer by a word of caution, I had looked on with approval.
This meant that Elizabeth’s mother had the exclusive use of not one, but two upstairs maids, and by the regular traffic up and down the stairs with trays of delicacies, restoratives, possets, and I know not what else, she had only to hint at something to have it brought to her with a curtsey.
In consequence, Mrs Bennet’s removal to her brother’s house was just as loud and exhausting as any reasonable man would expect. Even the serene Miss Bennet looked slightly overwhelmed as she came down to farewell her mother and sisters.
Behind her on the landing, Kitty and Lydia began to bicker as to which of them was Mrs Gardiner’s favourite, and Mary, standing by the baluster with a scowl of impatience, felt it necessary to preach the gospel of humility in the most arrogantly religious manner.
Then Mrs Bennet also came downstairs in an attitude of barely contained vexation while holding to her nose a handkerchief that smelled strongly of vinegar.
Beside her, Elizabeth, upon whom the task of ushering their mother to the door had apparently fallen, wore the distinctly saturnine expression of someone pushed past the point of all toleration.
Unfortunately, the spectacle captured so perfectly in that vignette struck me as so silly that I was stupid enough to grin at her.
Mrs Bennet said her farewells effusively, intermingled with regrets and sighs, complaints of various pains and spasms, and demands to her younger daughters to spare her nerves and sit quietly or she would die of the headache.
To me, she expressed startling politeness, and after embarrassing Georgiana with a deluge of compliments and a sprinkling of tears, she was at last seen safely into the coach and rolling away.
Miss Bennet and Georgiana quickly went inside because the wind was sharp, and upon seeing Elizabeth’s expression had lost none of its sharpness, I said, “Let us hear it, then.”
“Hear what? I am so exasperated! In a little more than a week, you have raised my mother’s expectations to the sky and turned her into the most capricious, demanding tyrant. And to cap it all, there you stood at the foot of the stair very close to laughing at me.”
“In my defence, when you are in a fit of temper, you are adorable.”
“Of course you would have an inarguable reply,” she fumed.
“Forgive me. I know how irritating it is to be confronted by a cheerful person when you are in a fit of aggravation. Do you recall how you tried to tease me out of my indignation when Keller informed me I was to drive you to London in a mule cart? Tell me you did not enjoy annoying me.”
She folded her arms, narrowed her eyes, and pretended to look indifferently up the street as her mother’s carriage turned the corner. “I know you are trying to make me smile, and I refuse to give you the satisfaction.”
With one finger I lightly caressed her faintly dimpled cheek and said, “Would it be unwise of me to mention that I am not afraid of you?”
The buoyancy of her natural disposition could not withstand such an attack, and after laughingly calling me an insufferable and aggravating knave, she relented with very good grace.
“I have treated you to a tantrum, sir, and I am very sorry,” she said with a wistful smile.
“I hope it is the first of many. There is no clearer sign you trust me. But since I am apparently to blame for your recent ordeal, I feel I should make amends. Perhaps you are in need of a long walk?”
She agreed to go, but in the spirit of friendly retribution, she went upstairs in search of her sister and Georgiana to discover if they would go with us.
Denied a private walk with her, I was forced to humbly wait until the ladies eventually came down to meet me dressed in richly coloured pelisses and matching velvet bonnets.
The air remained brisk, but we braved the cold, and with the intent to walk away the fidgets of such a disruptive morning, we were soon on one of the many paths in Green Park.
My senses were greatly heightened and strangely so, for as much as I enjoyed the pursuit of such forbidden pleasures as stolen words and the prospect of another midnight meeting in the library, I could not forestall a resolution for very much longer.
My preoccupation must have been apparent, however, and Georgiana delicately extricated herself from her friends in order to fall back to walk alongside me.
“You are quiet this morning,” she said.
It struck me then that were she to be left in the dark as to the love affair so close to boiling over right under her nose, she might be hurt, or worse, feel as though she had been betrayed.
Guided by impulse alone, I leant close to her. “I have fallen in love with your friend, and I am on the verge of offering for her.”
Her eyes flew open, as did her lips as she stared at me, and lest she say something loud enough to be overheard by the others, I put my finger to my lips.
“How long?” she whispered.
“Since the first moment I saw her,” I whispered back. “Now do me a service, Georgie, and cleverly arrange to take Miss Bennet’s arm while I step in to take her place. But first, you had better lower your eyebrows and assume the easy smile you have so lately learnt to use.”
After blinking several times and looking between Elizabeth and me, she managed to pretend I had not just shocked her, and very soon she contrived to make it quite natural for me to step forwards to accompany her friend.
Elizabeth looked at me as she would a co-conspirator, and we soon found ourselves taking slightly ambitious strides ahead of our party.
“I am still a little cross,” she warned.
“Still? I own I thought of the two of us, I am more likely to hold a grudge than you. When might I anticipate being forgiven for indulging your mother?”
She waved that offence away. “You misunderstand me. I am now annoyed because once again, you were right. I did need a walk, Mr Darcy.”
“If it is any consolation, I did not suggest it for your sake but for mine.”
“Oh? In that case, should I emulate you when you are provoking and remark in the most caressing tone that I hope your ruffled spirits are soothed?”
“I have been many things in your presence, but soothed is not one of them,” I said pointedly.
She obliged me with a seductive chuckle, and before I knew it, we were fairly sailing down the path.
The breeze lightly tormented the bare branches of the trees beside us, the clouds that dotted the brilliant sky raced above our heads, and as we kicked the leaves on the path ahead of us, I could sense her thrill to be moving so briskly in concert with nature—as though she were nature herself.
“Lizzy, you walk too fast,” Miss Bennet called sweetly from somewhere behind us.
I came abruptly back down out of the clouds and turned to ascertain my companion’s pleasure. “Should we wait here or turn back to join them?”
“You forget how poor I am at fashionable strolling, Mr Darcy,” she said.
She then took an even stronger possession of my arm, and we went swiftly down the lane until we had left our party well and truly behind us.
As we rounded a bend that led to a rarely travelled footpath, I glanced behind us and saw that my clever sister was leading Miss Bennet to a bench by the pond.
“Are you happy?” I asked looking up to the sky, still captivated by its brilliance.
“Me? Of course I am happy. I am in London with my dearest friend, enjoying every possible entertainment.”
I knew she was teasing me, and I indulged her. “You make it sound as if your sole cause for happiness is diversion.”
“I disagree. Did I not first mention my dearest friend? Not only is she a delight to me, but she has a brother who is very good at walking.”
“That might be all he is good for.”
“Are you perhaps begging for a tepid, half-hearted compliment? I am not so good at it as you.”
“Then you must practise. I await your praise—faint or otherwise. Though when all is said and done, I am only a farmer from Derbyshire.”
“Take heart, Mr Darcy. Even a farmer from Derbyshire can have something to recommend him.”
“Such as his farm.”
“Such as his character, ” she said firmly.
“He sounds a regular church-going chap. Does he take his wife to chapel in a mule cart?”
“No. He has at least one hundred pounds a year, and he has a gig ,” she said with false reverence. “ He takes his lady to the fair.”
“That he can squire a woman from one place to another is no great recommendation. He sounds a tin-pot sort of man to me. What actual good do you know of him?”
“Well, he once broke with his family in defence of a lady.”
“She must have been shocked.”
“She was shocked indeed. And, do you know? She could not forget the moment he roared at his relation that the lady she had insulted was his own sister’s equal.”
“Was she also a farmer’s daughter?”
“Yes! How did you know?”
“I am quite good at guessing. What else?”
“He went to great lengths to provide for his sister’s happiness by arranging for her to have a friend.”
“Only after he made many dreadful mistakes with regard to her.”
“She told me.”
“What? Everything?”
“Hmm. Her loneliness at that fashionable boarding school and Mrs Younge’s insinuation into her life, and well…you know the rest. She even wept a little for having disappointed you and made such a fool of herself over a fortune hunter.”
“My word, she must trust you a great deal to have shared that secret. I am glad of it.” We continued in silence for some way, and seeking to steer us towards another, more pleasant subject, I said, “But wait. Were we not speaking of some stupid farmer in Derbyshire?”
She stopped so abruptly that I wheeled to face her out of concern. In a voice that quivered with a sudden passion she said, “Enough! I can endure this no longer, Mr Darcy!”
“What have I done?”
“You have made me love you so-so painfully !” Her chest rose and fell in agitation. “My knees shake when I hear your voice, and when you look at me as though I am the only person in the room, my heart begins to beat so loudly I fear everyone can hear it.”
“Do you not hear mine just now? If I have been cruel to your feelings, you have been equally cruel to mine. You have known them for a very long time. I know you have. It is only very lately that I have ceased to wonder if my declaration would be unwelcome.”
“Not welcome?” she demanded. “How can you be so dense? Do you not know why I begged you not to let the world know you had compromised my reputation?”
This question had thrown me into such a state of confusion, my reply was sadly tentative. “Be-because you did not want to marry me?”
She glared at me. “I did not want your obligation!”
“What did you want?” I asked stupidly.
“Your adoration! Must I say it any?—”
I did not let her say it more plainly. I ripped her hand away from my arm and pulled her roughly into my arms to kiss her more forcefully than I should have. But then again, she was kissing me with a determination to match my own and—Lord, we were in a public park!
Instead of contritely ending our embrace, which I should have done given we were in danger of being seen by half the polite world, I whirled the woman in my arms into the glade on the side of the path, pressed her against a tree, and continued to kiss her.
“Are they gone?” she eventually whispered.
“Our sisters? I should hope so. I have not yet finished confessing my feelings. Your face…” I murmured, kissing her brow, her eyelids, her cheek. “I worship the sight of you.”
“Do you? Why have you waited so long to tell me?”
“I did not want to take a step wrong with you.”
“You have not taken a step wrong since-since I do not know when. If you had paid your addresses to me the day after our arrival in London, I would have accepted them willingly.”
“So soon? What an idiot I am! But you see,” I said, taking her hand to my lips, “I first had to make sure I was worthy of your respect. For until then, what had I ever done to earn it? I have had everything handed to me on a silver salver, yet your dislike of me, which I felt so clearly, taught me I could not have what cannot be bought. Some things must be earned.”
“Is that why you walked across all of the northern counties?”
“I had to discover for myself my worth and value. I cannot explain it, really, but something in me had to break, and it did. Did you suffer for my hesitation?”
“I cried a great deal,” she said resentfully. And then, as I explored the contours of her collarbone with my fingertips, she murmured, “but I too came to know myself better. I misjudged you terribly.”
I smiled at her with great tenderness. “You did not misjudge me. But go on.”
“Oh, I cannot describe the changes wrought in me. Only I wished to be a lady you could admire, and I have tried to be less of an irritant.”
“Hush, my little nettle,” I said, stilling the impulse of my wandering hand. “We have found our way through, have we not? Might I speak to your father about settlements?”
“Not until you finish speaking to me.”
And so I spoke to her in the shadows of a humble patch of scrub willow, standing to our shins in sodden, fallen leaves, shivering lightly when the clouds rolled over us. And if my eyes filled with mist as I did so, she did not despise me, for she, too, was weeping out her heart to me.