Chapter Twenty-Two
Netherfield
Darcy
The first correspondence forwarded to Darcy from Somerset arrived one quiet morning shortly after breakfast.
As he had instructed, the letter itself had not been opened.
More importantly, the housekeeper at Willowbrook had taken the sensible precaution of enclosing it within fresh paper addressed directly to him, allowing it to reach Netherfield without drawing attention to the name upon the original direction.
Darcy recognised Elizabeth’s hand the moment he removed the outer covering.
For several seconds he merely looked at it.
He had expected another letter. Indeed, he had specifically arranged for any correspondence addressed to Miss Julia Harding to be forwarded to him. Yet expectation did little to lessen the sudden anticipation he felt now that one actually rested in his hands.
This letter was different from those he had found at Willowbrook. Those had been waiting for him when he arrived, already separated from Elizabeth by weeks or months. This one had been written only days ago, after she had met him.
Darcy swallowed and broke the seal before he had properly taken his seat.
Longbourn,
Hertfordshire
16th October 1811
Dearest Julia,
You will forgive me if this letter arrives livelier than most I have sent you lately, but Meryton has finally produced something worth reporting, and I find I cannot keep it to myself. Hence this hurried letter.
We have new neighbours. As with the assembly you attended when you were here, most of those newly arrived are not remarkable enough for me to write much about, though that is perhaps unfairly judging them at a glance, since I have spent very little time in their company.
There is, however, a Mr. Bingley who has taken Netherfield Park, and he brought with him a friend, Mr. Darcy, who arrived at our assembly last night and produced rather more conversation in Meryton than I believe he intended.
Mr. Bingley is precisely the sort of man Mama approves of on sight, open, cheerful, eager to be pleased with everyone and everything.
He danced twice with Jane, which has already thrown my mother into transports from which I do not expect her fully to recover before Christmas.
Darcy smiled.
He could imagine Mrs. Bennet’s enthusiasm perfectly well after his visit to Longbourn, and Elizabeth’s account of it required very little embellishment.
He continued.
Mr. Darcy is a stranger case entirely, and I hardly know how to give you a proper account of him.
Sir William presented us in the usual way, and the moment he spoke my name, Mr. Darcy simply stared at me.
Stared, Julia, as though I had said something extraordinary rather than merely stood still and allowed myself to be introduced.
Darcy’s smile disappeared.
He did not bow. He did not speak. He looked at me as though he had expected someone else to appear when my name was called and could not immediately account for finding me there instead.
I confess I was rather at a loss what to make of it and half suspected Sir William had somehow announced the wrong name entirely.
Darcy lowered the page for a moment.
He had known his reaction upon hearing her name had been poorly concealed. He had not realised quite how poorly.
At the time, seeing Elizabeth Bennet standing before him after months of knowing her only through ink and paper had driven nearly every consideration of manners from his mind. Apparently, Elizabeth had noticed every second of his astonishment.
He returned to the letter.
And then, not an hour later, he rescued me from Mr. Sotherton.
You know how determined that gentleman has become.
He approached me for the first dance in that particular manner of his which leaves very little room for a graceful refusal, and I was still searching for some means of escape when Mr. Darcy simply appeared beside me and claimed me for a dance he had never asked for.
Apparently, he had observed Mr. Sotherton’s approach and read my expression well enough to know I wanted no part of the invitation.
It was exceedingly presumptuous of him, Julia, and I do not know that I have ever been so grateful for a gentleman’s presumption.
We danced three sets in total, Julia. Three.
Mr. Darcy knew I wished to avoid another invitation from Mr. Sotherton and offered to remain my partner for the following sets.
I accepted, perhaps rather selfishly, because I had no desire to spend the remainder of the evening inventing increasingly uncivil methods of avoiding the other gentleman.
Darcy remembered her hand in his and the relief upon her face when Sotherton withdrew.
He had told himself the second and third dances were merely a continuation of the first kindness.
Reading Elizabeth's account now, he was forced to acknowledge that somewhere between offering his assistance and the end of the third set, avoiding Sotherton had ceased to be his principal reason for remaining with her.
I confess Mr. Darcy is a strange sort of man. He is grave where Mr. Bingley is easy, careful where Mr. Bingley is open, and yet I found myself more than once over the course of the evening forgetting to be as wary of him as that first extraordinary stare had made me.
He listens rather more than he speaks, for we did not speak a great deal at the assembly.
I have not yet decided whether to find that admirable or unsettling.
You know I have never much cared for being unable to tell what another person is thinking, and Mr. Darcy gives away very little unless he chooses to.
Darcy's mouth curved despite himself.
That opinion had already begun to change. At Longbourn she had drawn him into conversation more than once, and upon Oakham Mount the previous day he had spoken to her with an ease he rarely experienced with a new acquaintance.
The letter, however, belonged to an Elizabeth who had not yet known any of that.
I do not know what to make of him yet, in truth.
I only know that Meryton has not had this much to talk of in months, and that I find myself, rather against my better judgement, curious to discover whether that first strange look of his meant anything at all, or whether I have simply invented a mystery where none exists, which I am told happens rather more often than people like to admit.
Darcy read that sentence twice.
I wish you were here to tell me which it is. You always did see through people rather faster than I managed to, however loudly I insisted otherwise at the time.
I hope, wherever you are, that you are well, and that something in your own life has given you half so much to be curious about as Meryton has lately given me.
Yours, always,
Elizabeth
Darcy remained still for some time after reaching the end. Then, despite himself, he smiled. Elizabeth had been curious about him.
It was hardly a declaration of admiration.
She had called him strange, grave and unsettling within the space of a single page, and had devoted an uncomfortable amount of attention to his failure to behave properly when they were introduced.
Yet beneath all of it remained one fact Darcy found himself taking far too much satisfaction in.
She had thought about him. Enough to write of him to Julia the very next day.
Darcy folded the letter along its original creases and placed it with the others he had brought from Somerset.
The stack had grown sufficiently large that the sight of it ought to have troubled him more than it did.
Each contained thoughts Elizabeth had never intended him to know, and this latest one was worse in one important respect.
He had wanted it.
There had been no question of discovering Julia's whereabouts when he broke the seal. No necessity compelled him to read beyond the direction, nor could he pretend he had mistaken the intended recipient. He had opened it because he wanted to know what Elizabeth Bennet had written after meeting him.
And now that he knew, he was pleased.
The admission sat uneasily beside his conscience, but Darcy could not deny it. Nor could he deny another truth which had become increasingly difficult to dismiss since Oakham Mount. His concern with Julia Harding was no longer merely the consequence of what he had discovered at Willowbrook.
He wanted to find her for Elizabeth.
Perhaps it was the memory of her face the previous morning, or the longing threaded through the final lines of every letter she sent to a friend who never answered.
Whatever the cause, Darcy wanted to be the one who brought an end to that uncertainty, who could finally replace it with the relief Elizabeth had been denied for so many months.
His thoughts went briefly to Richard. Perhaps his cousin would succeed where Mr. Humphrey had failed.
Darcy hoped he would. The strength of that hope no longer surprised him as much as perhaps it ought.
Elizabeth Bennet had mattered to him long before she knew his name.