The Sorting Room
The man seemed nearly manic, so bad that his hair was almost in disarray, and his cravat was short of perfection. It was Friday at ten o’clock, so who knew what mayhem he had endured?
“Elizabeth, I must speak with you urgently.”
“Mr Darcy! What has happened?” she gasped. She barely noticed his use of her Christian name but had long-since determined he could call her anything he liked.
“My apologies… Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his breathing heavy.
“Elizabeth is fine. You have earned it. Even Lizzy would please me.”
He gave a slight grin, but his expression quickly sobered. “Things are progressing much faster than I hoped. I hate to rush, but needs must, and decisions need to be made.”
“Whatever the rush, you may slow down and explain it succinctly, I am certain.”
She took his shoulder and guided him to a chair to remove any sting, then sat down across from him. The room was tiny, so their knees practically touched, but she was in no mood to go to the parlour, order tea, or any other such nonsense.
“I have several items to discuss,” Darcy began. “I shall begin with good news. Bingley and Jane are engaged, the marriage contracts are signed, and he has procured a common license.”
Elizabeth jumped up, danced around his chair, and very boldly kissed him on the cheek.
“Oh, I am so happy! How did they get the contract signed amongst all the chaos of… this?”
“She is of age, so she did not need your father’s signature at all. She could have signed it herself, but given—”
“Given the chaos of the past month, she wanted to preserve appearances.”
He chuckled. “I believe so. He did not even read it, let alone negotiate. He just signed every place Bingley pointed to.”
One more disappointment in her father washed over her, but by then she had lost all respect anyway, so it hardly mattered.
“Jane is lucky,” she said, trying to hide her bitterness, especially since there was a better than even chance she would not be able to attend her sister’s wedding.
“So is Bingley,” Darcy said gently, which earned him a rueful smile.
“Were you present for all this?”
“Yes, I went with Bingley to get the papers signed. Obviously, there were other parts of an engagement where the less you know the better.”
Elizabeth burst out laughing. She was so happy!
She fancied that Mr Darcy would set her up somewhere in a shop, and she would be perfectly content—especially if Jane came along to visit her occasionally.
She suspected that, once she was out of her father’s authority when she turned one and twenty, Jane would no doubt offer to house her, but she did not like the idea of being a dependent hanger-on.
Such happy thoughts disappeared when Mr Darcy’s countenance turned grim.
“Give me the bad news, if you would.”
“Your father decided to force the issue. To my surprise, he hired some runners to look for you. They eventually concluded you never left Meryton, so he thinks you are hiding on one of the estates.”
“It was only a matter of time until he searched here, I suppose. I will just leave sooner rather than later. To be honest, the only reason I am still here is to see what is happening.”
“No other reason?”
A blush rose to her cheeks. “I enjoy your visits. I never had an intelligent male friend before; it is… nice… so very nice.”
She expected that to make him happy enough to reward her with one of his subtle grins, but it just made him look thoughtful.
“Mr Bennet has forced our hands. Mr Collins will arrive tomorrow, and he plans to call the banns without your presence on Sunday. Your father was more diligent than I gave him credit for. He has men on every route out of the area and is convinced you cannot escape the net.”
Elizabeth gasped but decided to put away her childish things and think.
“That must cost a fortune!”
“Not really. Old soldiers are two a penny, especially those that are invalided out but still have eyes and ears. With some menacing men, it is easy enough to look in every conveyance of any kind, and anyone who refuses the inspection will be very suspicious.”
She sighed. “Too late now, but I wish he had discovered industry earlier.”
Darcy grimaced but let it stand.
Elizabeth was still not overly worried. They could have ten men on each road, but they had no idea they were dealing with Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, who did not like to be thwarted.
She strongly suspected she would travel out of town in his coach, dressed as a maid or hidden in a large trunk within the week.
She might even accompany the Herberts with none the wiser.
They were back sitting knee-to-knee, so Darcy reached across and took both hands. He was just offering comfort as any good friend should, and she had to ruefully admit it felt good—exceptionally good.
He took a breath, and she wondered what he was working his way up to.
He eventually gathered his courage and began.
“In vain I have struggled; it will not do. I must tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement; and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, immediately followed.
“This past month, I have tried and tried to devise a means to get you out of this trap without undue distress, and without losing your family. I have tried to give you time to get to know me and done my best to avoid pressing you—all without success.
“I am aware that we have not had the type of courtship you deserve, and that I have not always shown you the love and respect that is your due, but as you say, needs must. This is sooner than planned, but I hope very much that you will honour me with your hand in marriage, and that one day, you will love me just as deeply and be happy that you made the choice.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment reached hitherto unimaginable heights, and she babbled worse than Lydia.
"In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, but I cannot—”
His terrified expression forced her to hurry ahead.
“I mean that I feel all the gratitude in the world for all you have done for me, but I will not answer your question based on gratitude.”
He calmed slightly, though he remained on a knife edge. Desperate, she took both his hands and spoke emphatically from the heart.
“I cannot imagine that you believe me capable of denying you, and you are correct. You know my situation very well and are aware that to deny a man like you would be madness.”
He looked at her intently and nervously, and she nearly panicked, for she was making a mockery of what she wished to say.
She squeezed his hand. “I am making a mess of this, so let me be clear. I will not marry you because you rescued me… though you did, and I am eternally grateful. I will not marry you because you will move my situation from pitiful to perfect… though you will. I will not marry you out of gratitude, or loyalty, or kindness, or desperation.”
She took one more deep breath.
“I will marry you because I admire and love you! Not at some far future date. Not after the wedding. Not after you take me away from this place. Now! I love you right now, and I will love you with my dying breath.”
Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.
They talked on, without knowing in what direction.
There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.
She finally got a good look at him, sitting on the uncomfortable work chair in that tiny sorting room, and wondered how wilfully blind she had been to not realise weeks earlier that she was in love with the man.
Being unaware of his feelings was one thing, but being unaware of her own was silly.
Eventually, as it must, they had to discuss practical matters.
“Elizabeth, you have had a lot of choices taken from you, so I would like to offer you two.”
“I am happy with anything that—” she started but never got to the rest before he covered her lips with his finger.
“Option one,” he counted off on his finger.
“I can sneak you out of here in my coach, and we can marry in town or Pemberley at our leisure. I took the liberty of purchasing a common licence, so we can marry whenever we like, as long as we like to be married in the Church of England between eight and noon.”
Elizabeth was lost in wonder, and pondered how he managed to get consent, but asked the pragmatic question, “Will that not hurt my sisters when my father calls the banns, and I never show up?”
“It will, but I would call that being bitten by their own snake.”
She shuddered at the analogy but had to own that it was correct. “I hope option two is better?”
“It is for me!” he replied enigmatically.
“Do tell.”
“Option two,” he counted with his second finger and pulled out his pocket watch.
“Within the next sixty-seven minutes, you would don your ballgown, which I have yet to see and Mrs Herbert happens to have ready, do your hair quickly, if at all, then we walk down to the church, and join Bingley and Jane for a double wedding today! Now!”
Elizabeth laughed uproariously and said, “Why did you not lead with that, silly man?”
Then she jumped up, pulled him up, kissed him within an inch of his life (briefly), then ran out the door shouting for Mrs Herbert.
Darcy was already dressed, and of course, Fletcher was ready to organise matters and hurry Bingley and Jane along, leaving him nothing to do but await the fastest change of dress in the county's history.