Chapter 19
Darcy had slept very little, and had spent the small hours before dawn in the particular restless company of his own thoughts, turning over Fitzwilliam's parting advice from the evening before, and Georgiana's quiet, knowing observations, and the whole accumulated weight of the fortnight that had altered, by slow and entirely unplanned degrees, nearly everything he had once believed settled about his own heart.
He had thought, more than once during those wakeful hours, of the particular phrase Fitzwilliam had used some days before, that he and Elizabeth were both waiting for the other to declare first, out of an excess of caution that did either of them very little credit, and could construct no satisfactory defense against the accusation, however many times he attempted it.
He had risen early, as had become his habit this fortnight, and had stood for some while at his window watching the grounds emerge from the last of the night's shadow, and had thought, with a clarity that arrived all at once rather than by degrees, that he did not intend to let this particular morning pass without saying what needed saying, whatever the cost of saying it badly.
The house began to empty itself by degrees from the moment breakfast concluded, in the particular slow, reluctant manner of a party that has enjoyed itself rather more than it anticipated and finds the prospect of dispersal correspondingly difficult to hurry toward.
The Gardiners were first to show signs of readiness, though Darcy noticed, watching them through the long morning, that Mrs. Gardiner in particular seemed to be taking rather more time over the packing of her trunks than the task itself could possibly require, glancing toward the window at intervals with an expression he could not entirely read, though he suspected, given certain looks she had directed his way over the course of the visit, that her slowness was not entirely accidental.
Mr. Gardiner sought him out shortly before their carriage was to be brought round, and shook his hand with a warmth that struck Darcy as considerably more genuine than the ordinary courtesy such partings generally required.
"I must thank you, sir, for a hospitality I confess we none of us anticipated when we first drove through your gates, expecting nothing beyond an hour's tour of a fine house. You have shown my niece, and the whole of my family, a kindness I do not think we shall easily forget."
"You owe me no thanks, Mr. Gardiner. I have been very glad of your company, and of your niece's, this past fortnight, rather more glad than I think I have adequately expressed."
"I think you have expressed it tolerably well, sir, in your own particular fashion," Mr. Gardiner said, with a small, knowing smile that told Darcy his own conduct had not gone entirely unobserved by the keener members of the party, "though I shall leave it to wiser heads than mine to judge whether tolerably well proves sufficient to the present occasion.
I have found, in my own experience, that it generally does, provided the sentiment behind it is sincerely meant, and I do not think anyone in this house has doubted your sincerity this fortnight, whatever doubts you may yet harbour about it yourself.
" He shook Darcy's hand once more, and went to see to the last of the trunks, leaving Darcy with the distinct impression that he had just received, in the most oblique manner imaginable, something very near a blessing.
Mrs. Gardiner, for her part, said nothing so direct, but pressed his hand warmly at parting, and looked at him for a moment with an expression of such open, affectionate approval that Darcy was obliged to look away first, feeling, not for the first time this visit, that he had been thoroughly understood by a woman he had known only a fortnight, in a manner that several years' acquaintance with most of his other connections had never quite managed to achieve.
Bingley and Jane left earliest of all, in an atmosphere of such gentle, uncomplicated happiness that Darcy watched their departure with a satisfaction that had very little to do with ordinary hospitality and a great deal to do with the particular pleasure of having, in some small part, helped engineer an outcome he had once very nearly prevented through his own poor judgment and a misplaced certainty that he understood Miss Bennet's heart better than she did herself.
He shook Bingley's hand at the carriage door with real warmth.
"You will write to me, Bingley, the moment matters are properly settled at Longbourn."
"You shall hear of it before the ink is dry, Darcy, I promise you.
I do not think I have ever been so impatient to write a letter in my entire life.
" Bingley's face, saying this, carried an expression of such unguarded joy that Darcy smiled in response without any deliberate decision to do so, and clapped his friend once on the shoulder before handing Miss Bennet up into the carriage with the particular careful courtesy he had learned, this visit, to extend rather more naturally than he once had.
Fitzwilliam's departure, by contrast, was conducted with a great deal of unnecessary ceremony entirely of his own invention — a lengthy and largely fabricated speech of farewell to Georgiana that left her laughing and protesting in equal measure, an elaborate bow to Mrs. Gardiner that Darcy suspected was intended chiefly to make her laugh as well, and a final word to Darcy himself, delivered quietly, away from the general bustle of the departing carriages.
"I shall expect to hear from you, Darcy, within the month, with news I have been waiting the better part of a year to receive."
"You presume a great deal, Fitzwilliam."
"I presume nothing whatsoever. I observe, with my customary keen perception, which you have spent the whole of this visit alternately disparaging and relying upon, and I tell you plainly: if you do not act on what this fortnight has shown you, you will deserve every regret that follows, and I shall not be gentle in reminding you of the fact when next we meet.
" He softened this with a quick, genuine smile, and added, more gently, "Go and speak to her, Darcy, before she leaves this house.
Whatever you decide to say, say it before the carriage door closes, because afterward there will be a hundred miles and a great many careful letters between you, and letters, however well composed, have never once accomplished what a single honest conversation could have managed in their place. "
"I had already decided as much, before you saw fit to advise me of it."
"Then I shall take no credit for the decision, and content myself with having been entirely correct about it some days before you arrived at the same conclusion yourself, which I think is rather the most a man in my position can reasonably hope for.
" Fitzwilliam clasped his hand once, firmly, and held it a moment longer than the ordinary courtesy required.
"I am glad for you, Darcy, whatever happens this morning.
I have not seen you look as you have looked this fortnight in a very long time, and I should like very much to see it continue. "
He mounted his horse and rode off down the avenue with the same unhurried confidence with which he did everything, and Darcy stood watching him go for a long moment, turning the advice over with the particular seriousness he reserved for counsel he had no honest grounds to dismiss.
Georgiana found him there, watching the empty avenue, and slipped her arm through his with the easy affection she had only recently learned to offer so unguardedly.
"You look as though you are working up your courage for something, Brother."
"I am attempting to decide the proper moment for a conversation I have been putting off considerably longer than I should have."
"Then do not put it off any longer. I have watched you put off a great many things, this past fortnight, in the name of properness or caution or some other principle I have never fully understood the value of, and I find I am rather tired of watching it.
" She squeezed his arm. "Miss Bennet embraced me this morning, and whispered that she hoped I would visit her at Longbourn one day, and I confess I should like that very much indeed, and I should like it considerably more if the visit had some particular reason behind it beyond mere friendship, whatever that reason might prove to be. "
"You are not being subtle, Georgiana."
"I have decided subtlety is overrated, this past fortnight, having watched its limitations rather thoroughly demonstrated by present company.
" She released his arm, and gave him a small, knowing push toward the door, with an expression that combined affection and exasperation in proportions he found entirely familiar, having received precisely such an expression from his cousin only minutes before.
"You have grown very bold this past fortnight," he said, looking at her properly, and finding, in her face, none of the careful watchfulness she had carried for so long that he had nearly forgotten what its absence looked like, replaced now by something steadier and considerably more her own.
"I have had a great deal of encouragement, Brother, from a particular quarter, to believe that boldness, honestly applied, generally serves a person rather better than caution does.
I find I have taken the lesson to heart rather more thoroughly than the person who taught it to me has yet managed to apply it himself, which I confess I find a little ironic, though I shall not press the point further than I have already pressed it this morning. "
He found the Gardiners' carriage still some while from departure, the final trunks being secured, and understood that he had perhaps a quarter hour remaining in which to do whatever he intended to do, and discovered, walking through the house toward the gardens with that particular knowledge pressing on him, that his heart was conducting itself with a great deal less composure than he generally permitted it to display in any circumstance he could name.
He thought, crossing the hall toward the garden door, of every previous occasion on which he had attempted to govern this particular feeling through sheer force of will — at the Meryton assembly, where he had mistaken indifference for self-control; at Netherfield, where he had mistaken silence for prudence; at Hunsford, where he had mistaken his own certainty for an adequate substitute for her consent.
He did not intend to make a fourth such mistake this morning.
Whatever else he managed or failed to manage in the next quarter hour, he intended, at the very least, to say something true, and to say it as himself, without the protective architecture of rank or fortune or wounded pride standing between the saying and the woman he meant to say it to.
He found her, at last, not in the house at all but at the edge of the grounds, near the low stone wall that marked the formal boundary between the cultivated gardens and the wilder park beyond — the same general direction, he noted with some private amusement, as the rise from which she had first discovered, alone and unaccompanied, the finest prospect of the house in the whole of the county.
She was standing with her back half-turned to the house, looking out over the same view, her bonnet in her hand rather than on her head, the morning breeze moving gently through hair that had come slightly loose from its pins, and did not hear him approach until he was nearly upon her, and he found, watching her there in the morning light with the whole of Pemberley spread out behind them both, that he had no further wish to delay whatever this conversation was about to become.