Chapter 2 Hunsford Happenings #2
Her face drained of warmth into astonishment. “Mr Darcy—you must not.”
“I must.” He reached for her hand before pride could pull him back.
“I once spoke to you with a degree of arrogance which I now sincerely regret. I allowed myself to believe that my judgement alone was sufficient—particularly in separating Mr Bingley from your sister. In that interference, I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.” Mr Darcy lowered his head.
He wanted to demonstrate his heartfelt sincerity—to demonstrate his repentance.
“I cannot feign that the distinctions between our families are of no consequence to me. They are. Yet my regard for you has proved stronger than objections that once appeared decisive.
“I offer you my name and protection, not as indulgence—and not only from the domineering whims of my aunt—but as a pledge of steadfast devotion. If you can accept a man conscious of his own superiority, yet willing to place his happiness in your hands, I would entreat you to become my wife.”
Elizabeth pulled away as if his touch burned. “I can in no circumstances marry you.”
The sentence struck him with the same violence as the gander’s beak.
“And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting?” Darcy heard his own voice—cold, wounded, ridiculous.
“I am obliged for your apology, but doing so whilst in the very next breath insulting my family—who, by your own admission—are below your distinction, is unconscionable. You are a gentleman, and I am a gentleman’s daughter, and I am of the view that we are of equal standing despite the difference in our family’s fortunes.
Furthermore, not only was my family below your notice, but your actions towards Mr Wickham, whom all of Meryton knows you disdain, have also persuaded me against you.
You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. ”
The night seemed to close around him. The hedges stood like walls. The path, like a corridor to a life he had been denied. Once more, Wickham had entered his life like a thief and stolen his future.
Darcy bowed because it was the only dignity he had left.
He did not remember walking back to Rosings.
He only remembered the library—his hands taking a book without seeing it—then the look of his visage in the mirror as he entered his room.
His eyes seemed haunted, dark violet circles prominent beneath them.
Bile coated his throat as it did any time he thought of the man who had been closer than a brother.
That blackguard’s slimy tendrils had touched Elizabeth’s heart!
Darcy’s heart shrank with hatred, and he prayed this day would end.
He fell into bed with the taste of humiliation in his mouth, again, and the certainty that the world had become untrustworthy. “It is a truth” was all he remembered before his consciousness failed him.
His eyes opened on birdsong.
Again.
Darcy stared at the canopy.
Outside, somewhere in the distance, a goose honked like a judge delivering a sentence.
“No,” Darcy whispered. “Not again.”
He did not need Hines to tell him. He did not need the invitation. He knew. His insufferable aunt would invite her guests in order to please her ridiculous need for company. She was able to lord over someone other than Anne, so why would she ever consider not inviting people once more?
He sat up, heart pounding, and said the only thing that felt remotely sensible.
“I will not propose today.”
As with every day, soft-boiled eggs and toast appeared at Darcy’s place; his tea served by the footman with clockwork precision.
The infernal birds would not hush their springtime calls, but if he spent another second in the breakfast room, he would scream, and Lady Catherine would know of his turmoil.
He would rather face the megrim-inducing din of nature than his aunt.
“Would you care to inspect the park with me, Cousin?”
Richard grunted whilst hunched over his own toast.
“Can you not eat in a more gentlemanly manner? You know how Lady Catherine hates it when you consume breakfast so.”
His cousin swallowed and placed another piece of toast in his mouth. “Lady Catherine has never had the privilege of starving in His Majesty’s Army between supply trains.”
“Well, do not let her catch you over dinner. I reminded you yesterday, and you have not changed a wink despite promising me you would use your manners.”
Richard raised an eyebrow as he touched his napkin to the corner of both lips in an exaggerated manner. “You did no such thing.”
Darcy closed his eyes before he was reduced to childish behaviour and stood. His cousin could deny the truth if he wished, but he was raised the son of an earl and knew better than to behave as if in the middle of camp.
Darcy spoke without thinking, almost to no one in particular. “Have our coats brought down.” A footman bowed his head and was off before Richard could moan once more about being rushed through another meal.
“Whatever is going on in that proud head of yours, Darcy, you must admit that Rosings is perfect this time of year,” Richard said, stabbing at a hedge with his walking stick.
“Do you suppose Miss Bennet will be walking this early in the morning?” Darcy blurted, letting his musings control his mouth.
“I do not know the habits of the parson’s relatives.” Richard stabbed at another hedge before turning abruptly. “And neither do you.” He pointed at Darcy’s chest with the stick.
“Should I be en garde?” Darcy said drolly.
“You like her.”
Darcy attempted to deny it, shaking his head, but his face betrayed him. He smiled at the thought of her and the accompanying flush of humiliation at being discovered.
Richard gasped. “You do! I knew it. Anne tried to convince me otherwise, saying you were simply polite, but I happen to know that you are never polite to anyone of the female persuasion lest their matchmaking mothers get their claws into you.”
“I do not—”
Richard shook his walking stick as he shook his head. “You speak with a frankness that borders on incivility, and your remarks about the attendees at any function are unnecessarily pointed.”
Darcy cleared his throat, thinking of a comment from a certain Meryton assembly that he had regretted from the moment it passed his lips and the subsequent loss of Elizabeth’s approval. “Our aunt has suggested practice.”
Richard laughed. “You will have to learn to woo a woman, you realise?” He went back to fencing with hedges as they walked down the lane. “With so taciturn a disposition, you may have to change your ways.”
He lunged at a particularly full hedge when they heard a piercing scream.
The cousins’ eyes met briefly before they took off at a run around the bend.
Darcy thought it must be Elizabeth, cornered by a thief or highwayman.
His aunt was not known for her charity, and a disgruntled tenant could have come for revenge.
Or perhaps Elizabeth had fallen and twisted her ankle.
She could have happened upon a vixen protecting her kits.
The men found a terrified Mr Collins cornered by a hissing gander. Darcy noticed Elizabeth behind the animal, her hand over her mouth and her eyes full of mirth.
Darcy exclaimed. “What has the demon bird done now?”
Mr Collins shivered and wiped—were those tears?—from his cheeks. “I am a man of the cloth, her Ladyship’s own clergy, and you must know in no uncertain terms that I am not to be treated in such a manner.”
Richard raised an impertinent eyebrow. “Are you speaking to the goose, sir?”
“I do not see how that signifies whilst I am being attacked in the garden!”
Darcy took Richard’s walking stick out of his hand and held it in front of him, shooing the gander back towards the garden.
He heard Richard directing Mr Collins to return to the parsonage whilst Mr Collins argued that he must speak to the gamekeeper immediately about the dangers of waterfowl left to wander across the park.
Once the gander seemed to be on its own away from the chaos of Mr Collins, Darcy gestured to Elizabeth to join him in escaping the same. She took his arm, much to his delight.
“I am surprised, Mr Darcy, in your abilities as a gooseherd,” Elizabeth said with a smile in her eyes.
She always had a smile hidden in her face, Darcy had long ago noticed.
Sometimes in the corner of her lips. Sometimes in her eyes.
Sometimes in an arched eyebrow. Often in a dimple on her left cheek.
Sometimes, when she laughed at Caroline Bingley, she had tucked a curl behind her ear.
They made their way back to the trail surrounded by hedges in quick order and could no longer hear Richard or Mr Collins begging the colonel to escort him to safety.
“Miss Bennet, have you ever had the feeling or dreamt that you have lived a day before? Everything appears the same, but I am certain it is not.”
“That sounds unsettling, sir.”
“I am seized by a most uncomfortable familiarity. It is almost as if you did not reject my proposal yesterday and we are mere acquaintances once more.” He laughed.
He did not intend it to be laced with a touch of bitterness, but he did not think she would mind his honesty.
Not after rejecting him so unkindly the day before.
She stopped to stare at him. “Whatever do you mean, sir? I rejected no such proposal, Mr Darcy.”
Mr Darcy said nothing. There was nothing to say. Did she think him daft that he would forget so momentous an occasion as his own rejection? Or was this some dreadful dream that he fell into with every toss in his sheets? Did his own dreams betray his sense of dignity?
“I cannot—that is to say—I am honoured, Mr Darcy, by your kindly consideration, but I have to—I admit I would politely decline should you propose.”
She had the decency to look abashed, Darcy thought whilst she fidgeted with her shawl.