Chapter Twelve
Willowbrook Somerset
Darcy
Breakfast had been over some time before Darcy settled into an armchair in the drawing room, though the book beside him remained unopened.
His thoughts were occupied instead by the seventeen letters he had read over and over again in the last five days, and by the woman who, through them, had become considerably less of a stranger.
He knew her name now. Elizabeth Bennet.
The discovery of her surname had come somewhere amongst the letters, quite without ceremony.
Elizabeth, recounting one of her mother's displeasures, had repeated the lady's rebuke almost word for word: “…Miss Elizabeth Bennet, you will not stand there and argue with your mother as though you know better than everyone else!”
Darcy had smiled when he read it, partly at Mrs. Bennet's indignation and partly because a question he had not realised he particularly wished answered had suddenly been settled.
But her surname was only one of many things the other fifteen letters had supplied.
By the fourth, he was certain that Elizabeth was the second of five daughters and that Jane, the eldest, was her closest confidante.
By the sixth, he had formed some notion of the rest of the household.
Mrs. Bennet appeared frequently and seldom to advantage, though Elizabeth's amusement at her mother's absurdities never quite descended into unkindness.
Kitty and Lydia supplied an apparently inexhaustible quantity of foolishness, while Mary seemed capable of converting almost any domestic occurrence into an opportunity for instruction.
Mr. Bennet interested him more. Elizabeth loved her father, that much was evident, and shared with him a humour Darcy suspected could become merciless when encouraged.
Yet there were moments when something in her descriptions altered.
The affection remained, but admiration was less certain.
Elizabeth never censured her father directly, though Darcy sometimes detected the wish that Mr. Bennet might do rather more to correct the disorder of his household than laugh at it.
Other particulars emerged without ever seeming intended for Julia's information.
Elizabeth was fond of walking, and Oakham Mount appeared so frequently that Darcy had begun to picture the place without having seen it.
She read widely, though without any inclination to make a display of doing so.
Her opinions were strong and not invariably just. She could be impatient, too certain that she had understood another person's motives, and occasionally so decided in a judgement that Darcy caught himself forming arguments against her as he read.
He discovered that she could acknowledge herself mistaken, though not always immediately.
She disliked pretension, had little patience for those who mistook rank for merit, protected Jane with a fierceness which sometimes overcame her reason, indulged Kitty, despaired of Lydia, and treated Mary's solemnities with more kindness than her teasing first suggested.
There was Charlotte Lucas too, the daughter of Sir William Lucas, an older and evidently valued friend whose good sense Elizabeth respected even when their opinions differed.
And through everything there was Julia.
At first Elizabeth had written expecting an answer as soon as her friend's health permitted it.
Then expectation had become uncertainty, and uncertainty had gradually acquired fears she seldom allowed herself to name.
As the weeks passed into months, her hope altered, but did not disappear.
She ceased urging Julia to answer. She simply continued telling her things.
Somewhere amongst those letters, Darcy had ceased reading principally to discover what had happened to Julia Harding.
He had begun reading to discover what Elizabeth would say next.
It was late that afternoon when a servant interrupted his reflections with another letter. Darcy had instructed that any correspondence directed to Miss Harding be brought to him immediately, and the familiar hand upon the paper was enough to tell him its author before he read the direction.
He dismissed the servant and broke the seal, conscious, and not altogether pleased, of how eagerly he had begun to anticipate the words of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Longbourn,
Hertfordshire
23rd August 1811
Dearest Julia,
I begin, as I seem always to begin now, by hoping you are better. I have persuaded myself that your aunt's silence must arise from having quite enough to occupy her in attending you, and I shall continue to believe it until somebody is obliging enough to tell me otherwise.
In the meantime, I must perform my usual office of informing you of everything in Hertfordshire which is of no consequence whatsoever, lest your recovery should be rendered incomplete by ignorance of our absurdities.
Charlotte was here this afternoon. We had scarcely settled ourselves before Mama joined us, bringing with her, as she very often does, the subject of matrimony.
There is at present a Mr. Sotherton staying with his uncle at Claverton Park.
I have met him twice and spoken with him on both occasions, though not, I assure you, so extensively as to justify what followed.
At the Longs' dinner yesterday he asked Mama whether I meant to attend the next assembly and whether I was fond of dancing.
From these enquiries, and the intelligence that he possesses two thousand a year, Mama has concluded that I am in imminent danger of becoming Mrs. Sotherton.
I suggested that if the gentleman were so very anxious to know whether I liked dancing, he might have saved himself considerable trouble by asking me. Mama thought this objection of no importance.
I confess I found him rather dry when we spoke.
He has the unfortunate habit of offering an opinion as though nothing remains to be said once he has bestowed it upon the company.
Worse still, he informed me, with every appearance of intending a compliment, that he was pleased to discover I did not trouble my head with the sort of books upon which young ladies commonly waste their time.
You may imagine how deeply I was flattered.
I could not determine whether he thought well of my understanding or merely congratulated himself upon having discovered a woman from whom very little understanding would be required.
Mama, however, considers two thousand a year sufficient compensation for any defect in conversation and assures me that objections of this sort will end with my being an old maid.
Perhaps she is right, and you will someday find me at eight-and-forty, sitting beside the fire and bitterly regretting Mr. Sotherton's two thousand pounds. If that unhappy day arrives, you must have the goodness not to remind me of this letter.
I missed you particularly during the whole ridiculous business.
Charlotte is a dear friend, and one whose sense I value more than I tell her, but you would have said something unforgivable about Mr. Sotherton's opinion of ladies and books before Mama had finished praising his income.
I caught myself wondering what it would have been and very nearly laughed at something you had not actually said.
This, I fear, is what five months of writing without an answer has reduced me to. I must now provide both sides of our conversation.
Charlotte and I spoke afterwards of marriage, and you will not be surprised to learn that we remain as little agreed upon the subject as ever.
She thinks security and a respectable establishment ought to weigh very heavily with a woman who considers marrying.
I cannot say she is wrong. Indeed, it would be exceedingly foolish in my circumstances to pretend fortune of no consequence merely because Mama values it too much.
Five daughters and an entailed estate are very effective enemies of romantic nonsense.
But surely there must be some distance between believing fortune of consequence and believing it sufficient.
I should not like to marry a man I could not respect.
Nor can I imagine passing the greater part of my life with someone to whom I could not speak freely, or with whom every difference of opinion must become either submission or quarrel.
I should like to laugh with my husband, Julia, and occasionally at him, provided he possesses sufficient good humour to return the favour.
There. I have become serious, which is entirely Mr. Sotherton's fault and another offence to be laid against him.
You know I have never required a great romance of the sort Lydia imagines whenever she sees a handsome officer. But I should like affection. I should like esteem. And I should very much like to enjoy a man's company before agreeing to spend the remainder of my life in it.
Charlotte thinks I ask a great deal.
Perhaps I do.
I cannot blame her for thinking differently.
She has reasons of her own, and the world is considerably less patient with an unmarried woman approaching thirty than it is with one of twenty.
I only wish the choice allowed to women were not so often described as prudence when what is really meant is fear of having no other choice at all.
I do not know why I have written so much upon the subject. You and I have discussed it often enough, and I know perfectly well what you would say to half of this. Perhaps that is precisely why I have written it.
Longbourn and Meryton otherwise continue much as they always have, which is to say that nothing happens and everybody discusses it.
I have determined to direct a separate letter to your aunt when next I write. Perhaps if Mrs. Tunley sees her own name upon the outside, she may be persuaded to answer me, if only to silence me. I have begun to suspect that persistence is the only talent I possess in any abundance.