Chapter 46
Darcy had spent ten years living in apartments, counting houses, and merchant offices across half a continent, and he had never once found silence oppressive. After a week of it at Pemberley, he could bear it no longer.
Richard’s repeated disruptions were not helping. “The globe,” he said, for what Darcy estimated was the eleventh time, as he blithely slathered butter on a roll in the breakfast room.
“No.”
“It is just sitting there.”
“Where it will still be when I decide to set foot in Father’s study.”
“Darcy.” Richard set his bread on his plate.
“You have been home for a week. You have been in every room of this house except that one.” Darcy looked at his breakfast and pushed his plate away.
He did not have much of an appetite after all.
“I could get the globe for you,” Richard offered.
“Bring it out. You would not have to go inside.”
He knew Richard meant well. He ought to have looked at the globe before it was returned to its place in his father’s study. But the more Richard pressed him on the matter, the more Darcy resisted. “If you are so profoundly interested in that globe, you are welcome to go and look at it yourself.”
Richard opened his mouth, considered something, and closed it again.
He drank his coffee. After a moment he said, “You are waiting until you know about Elizabeth.” Darcy said nothing.
He could not have defined his reason so clearly until he heard Richard say it aloud.
He was right, though blast it all if he knew why.
“You think that if you open that room before she is decided, you will have to face whatever is in there alone.”
Darcy put down his fork. That was exactly right. “Has anyone ever told you how unsettling your perceptiveness is?”
“Frequently.” Richard set down his cup. “Go to Longbourn, Darcy.”
“She asked for time.”
“It has been a week.”
“She may need longer than a week.”
“She may.” Richard leaned forward. “You are sitting in a house that is too large for one person, not eating your breakfast, refusing to go into your father's study, and counting the hours. That is not giving her time. That is suffering in place.”
Darcy looked at the window. The park was pale and frost-touched in the early morning light, the stream just visible through the bare trees.
He had ridden every path on the property twice in the past seven days.
He had reviewed the estate accounts with the steward, answered correspondence that had accumulated during his absence, met with the gamekeeper and the head gardener and three tenant farmers.
He had been, by any external measure, entirely occupied.
He had not slept well in a week.
“I told her I would wait, and I must honor my word for her sake,” he said.
“You told her you would wait as long as she needed. A horrible, vague space of time you failed to define. You did yourself—and her—no favor there.” Richard took a bite of his roll, chewing with the efficiency of a man who has not yet finished his part of the conversation.
“Pack a bag. Take the carriage. If she does not want to see you, she will say so, and you will come back, and we will get the globe out of the study together and drink brandy, and you will feel sorry for yourself in an appropriate and contained fashion. But I do not think she will send you away.”
Darcy looked at him for a long moment. Richard had just proven himself surprisingly accurate about him. Could he be as perceptive about Elizabeth? The possibility gave him courage.
He pushed back his chair, the orders he gave carried out with the greatest efficiency by a household who had only been waiting for his command to act. Three days later, he rolled into Meryton, where he took a room at the inn and rented a horse to take him to Longbourn.
He saw Elizabeth before he reached the lane.
She walked along the field path she favored in her heaviest coat, her hands behind her back and her face tipped up slightly—the way she walked when she was contemplating.
He pulled his horse to a stop, not wishing to startle her and hoping that his nerves might settle. His stomach tied in knots.
She turned at the sound of his horse and saw him, and the immediate smile blossoming over her face undid every practiced sentiment he had planned to say.
He dismounted. They stood on either side of the fence for a moment with the frigid wind stirring his coat and her curls.
“You came,” she said. He held her gaze. She bit her lips, her smile softening.
“I had hoped you would not wait too long.”
Relief flooded him; he opened the gate. They walked together along the field path, the horse trailing behind.
And Darcy said what he had come to say. “I love you. I wish to marry none but you, but I will not press my suit if you do not wish it. One word from you, and I will never speak of it again.” Elizabeth listened with her eyes on the path, her hands still clasped behind her back.
Every passing second increased his suspense.
“Will you—” He took a deep breath and tried again. “Will you allow me to court you?”
Finally, she spoke. “I would very much like to see if I am able to love Fitzwilliam Darcy as much as I love Daniel Robinson.” Darcy’s heart swelled in his chest so much he feared it might burst with joy.
They fell into step together. Before they had reached the next turn in the path, they had fallen into conversation.
She told him of her parents’ scuffle leading to the revelation of the falsified contract, of her mother’s newfound determination to oversee her father in all things involving their estate.
He told her about the tenants he had met, how Pemberley had changed, and how it remained exactly the same.
Before they had caught up, they had arrived at Longbourn.
Johnny Tibbs took Darcy’s horse with a gap-toothed grin, and Mrs. Bennet received him in the drawing room with all the warmth of a hostess welcoming a long-lost friend. “You will stay for dinner?” she inquired.
“I thank you, Mrs. Bennet. I am staying at the inn—”
“You will stay for dinner.” She nodded firmly, decisively, ringing for Mrs. Hill and issuing instructions for the addition of an extra plate at the table for that evening’s meal. In the same breath, she apologized that she must soon depart for a meeting with Mr. Philips in Meryton.
Mr. Bennet appeared then, dressed to accompany his wife to the village. He looked at Darcy, who met his gaze. It was not a comfortable moment, but it was, Darcy thought, an honest one.
“Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Bennet said, “I regret my behavior toward you.”
“You sought to protect your daughter.” As he spoke, Darcy could not help but remember kissing Elizabeth in the hall.
Mr. Bennet held up his hand. “I was protecting my own interests and calling it paternal concern. The difference is significant.” There was no self-pity in his demeanor, which Darcy respected.
With his apology delivered, Mr. Bennet relaxed into his usual humor.
“You will find the household rather more organized than when you last saw it. Mrs. Bennet has… opinions.” He looked at his wife, who blushed and swatted his hand with her fan.
“We are glad you came back, Mr. Darcy,” she said.
Miss Mary joined them, followed by Miss Kitty and Miss Lydia, all with bonnets and gloves on.
Tapping her sisters gently on their shoulders and nodding in Elizabeth’s direction, Miss Mary observed, “A lady allows the gentleman to express his interest, not the other way around.” Miss Bennet made no appearance.
Not even when Darcy saw a carriage roll into the drive.
From the window, he observed none other than Richard descend from the conveyance with considerable difficulty, attempting to manage a large object wrapped in traveling blankets that required both arms and all his attention.
Darcy blinked. Surely, that was not what he thought it was!
He was on his feet and at the door before Hill could announce the colonel.
“Oh dear, the drawing room is crowded,” proclaimed Mrs. Bennet with a sharp look at her husband.
“That is my cue to bid our adieu. Mr. Philips is expecting us. Pray forgive us, but we hope both you gentlemen will agree to join us for dinner. I trust that Mrs. Bennet has already made arrangements?”
The Bennets departed—except, of course, for Elizabeth—and before the globe was unwrapped in the center of the drawing room and Richard had adequately complained about the state of the roads between Derbyshire and Hertfordshire, Hill announced the arrival of Miss Lucas.
Elizabeth sent for more tea, and the four of them settled around the globe.
“Miss Lucas,” Richard said, “I had not expected to find you here.”
“I call frequently,” Miss Lucas replied. “Longbourn is only twelve minutes on foot from Lucas Lodge.”
“Twelve minutes. Is it?”
“In good weather. Fourteen in poor.”
“Fascinating,” Richard said, in a tone that suggested he found it genuinely so. Darcy would have rolled his eyes at his cousin had he not been keenly aware of his similar behavior when he was near Elizabeth.
Elizabeth watched the globe. “Daniel Robinson. Robinson Crusoe? By Daniel Defoe?” How quickly she caught on!
“It was my favorite book as a child. I had read it four times before my father noticed and ordered me to diversify my reading.” Darcy ran one finger along the meridian. “Richard gave me the nickname Robbie.”
Richard nodded proudly. “It suits you. You made a life out of nothing, much like Robinson Crusoe.”
“Show me where you were,” Elizabeth asked.
He traced the route from England to Lisbon to Lyon, south to the Mediterranean coast, east to Smyrna, north again to Vienna. He showed her the ports he had known and the cities he had loved and the coastline where he had learned to swim.
“It opens,” Richard said, from the other side of the globe, without looking up from his tea.
Darcy closed his eyes briefly. “Thank you, Richard.”
“You were going to forget.”
He was not going to forget. “I was building to it.”
“You were taking too long. Someone has to move things along.”
Elizabeth stifled a laugh. Darcy looked at her, his lips twitching.
“It does open,” he confirmed. “There is a seam along the equator.
Richard and I used it as boys to sequester our treasures and exchange precious artifacts.
Marbles. Bits of colored glass. Once a toad, which I maintain, was Richard's idea.”
“It was absolutely his idea,” Richard countered to Elizabeth.
“I have not opened it since I came home. I did not…” Darcy stopped, his hand rubbing over his face. “I have not been ready to see what is inside. If there is anything.”
“It was the only thing your father left for you. There is unquestionably something inside.”
Elizabeth’s gaze, so tender and understanding, comforted him. He found the seam along the equator, pressed the two small catches, and lifted the northern hemisphere away. Inside, nestled in the hollow where two boys had kept their best secrets, was a letter. He looked at it for a moment.
“I had a letter too,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Mr. Wrayburn gave it to me as I left. It was from your father.” She paused. “He was proud of you.”
Darcy looked at the letter in the globe and said nothing for long enough that the fire settled in the grate. Richard, for once, did not speak. Then he took the letter out and unfolded the page. It was short, and the handwriting was effortful.
Fitzwilliam,
I am proud of the young man you were and the gentleman you have become. Your mother saw it and tried her best to help me see it too, but I was too proud. She always said my pride would cost me what I loved most. She was right, as she was about everything.
You became the man I intended you to be without any of my help, which is the most damning testimony to my failures I can imagine.
Reynolds and Reinhardt have kept me informed.
The man they describe to me—careful, honest, respected, capable of earning trust without the advantage of an influential name—is a better Darcy than I ever managed to be.
I regret the years we have lost. I regret many things, but that is not the purpose of this letter.
My goal is to spare you from any guilt you might impose upon yourself and the bitter regret that accompanies it.
If you were here now, I am certain we would have made peace.
I feel this in my bones, and it is my dearest wish that you allow yourself to know the same.
I will die at peace with a heart full of respect and love for you.
My son, Daniel Robinson Fitzwilliam Darcy.
As I am on my deathbed, I will presume to demand one final thing from you.
It is this: Live happily. Fill Pemberley’s halls with laughter and love.
Yes, this implies that I expect you to marry Elizabeth Bennet, but son, you truly would be a fool not to fall madly in love with her.
Give her a proper chance, although if I understand your character and hers, you will fall harder and faster.
She is the one who will require more convincing.
I trust you will use the powers of persuasion you learned with Reinhardt to earn her respect and win her heart.
With more pride than I ever managed to show you and more love than I knew how to say,
Your father
Darcy closed his eyes. He stood in the drawing room of Longbourn with the faded globe beside him and the fire at his back and ten years of exile and grief and stubborn hard-won identity settling in his chest. And, like a bounteous gift, he felt peace.
His father had known. Had watched. Had been proud. It was late. It was imperfect. It was, nonetheless, exactly what he had come home for.
He opened his eyes and looked at Elizabeth. Her eyes were bright, her hand warm on his arm, and she did not say anything because she understood, as she seemed to understand most things about him, that this was not a moment that needed words.
Darcy held his father's letter and Elizabeth's hand, and was, for the first time in ten years, entirely at home.