Chapter Eleven #2
“There is no malice in it,” he said. “If anything, it speaks to the regard in which you are held.”
She inclined her head, accepting the sentiment without fully embracing it. There was little to be gained in dwelling upon the opinions of others, however kindly meant.
“Miss Bennet.”
The voice, though polite, carried a persistence she could not ignore.
Sir Arthur approached with evident determination, his manner tinged with something more insistent than mere civility. Elizabeth felt, at once, the familiar tension settle within her.
“Sir Arthur,” she returned, her tone courteous though reserved.
“I wonder if I might claim a moment of your time.”
She hesitated only briefly before acquiescing. “Of course.”
They moved a short distance away, though not so far as to invite speculation. His expression, once they were out of immediate earshot, shifted—less formal, more earnest.
“I had hoped,” he began, “that you might reconsider.”
Elizabeth’s gaze remained unbroken. “I believe I have already given you my answer, sir.”
“And I believe,” he countered, “that it was given under circumstances that may no longer apply.”
He referred to the rumors of her broken heart, surely. Her composure did not falter, though a firmness entered her tone. “My circumstances have not altered.”
“Time has passed,” he pressed. “Surely—”
“Sir Arthur,” she interrupted, more sharply than she had intended, “I must beg you to desist. I cannot give you the answer you seek.”
The tension between them sharpened, his expression tightening as he struggled between persistence and propriety.
“Is it truly so impossible?” he asked.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, her voice steady now, leaving no room for doubt.
Before he could respond, Bramley appeared at her side, his manner courteous and unmistakably decisive.
“Sir Arthur, I believe you are wanted elsewhere,” he said smoothly. “Lady Henshaw was inquiring after you not a moment ago.” The interruption, though politely framed, was unmistakable.
Sir Arthur inclined his head, his disappointment evident and contained. “Of course. Miss Bennet.” With a final bow, he withdrew.
Elizabeth shook her head, wishing she was anywhere but in public. “My thanks,” she said to Bramley.
“You owe me none,” he replied gently. “Come—you look fatigued. Shall I have the carriage called?”
She did not hesitate. “Yes, if you please.”
The journey back to Matlock House passed in silence. Bramley and Jane had remained. The carriage would return for them later in the evening.
Elizabeth leaned back against the carriage seat, her eyes unfocused as the events of the evening receded into something indistinct and unimportant. The flicker of passing lamps cast brief shadows across the interior, each one gone as quickly as it came.
By the time she arrived, the house was quiet. The children were surely in their beds—it was nearing eleven o’clock.
She made her way to her room without delay, dismissing her maid with a word of thanks before crossing to the small desk near the window.
There, she paused, her hand resting lightly upon the surface as she considered whether she had the strength to revisit what she knew awaited her. At length, she opened the drawer.
Georgiana’s last letter lay where she had placed it, carefully folded, its contents already known to her by heart.
She read it again nonetheless, her eyes moving over the familiar lines, searching, as always, for something more.
There was nothing new to be found. The exchange consisted solely of predictable statements, repeated assurances, and a continuous disregard for what was truly important.
She set it aside. From a smaller compartment, she withdrew the miniature.
Darcy. The likeness, though small, held a clarity that never failed to stir something deep within her. She traced the edge of the frame lightly, her gaze fixed upon the features she knew so well, the memory of them as vivid now as it had been five years before.
“I wish you were here,” she whispered. The words fell into the silence, unanswered.
It had been five years. Five years since she had last seen him, last heard his voice and believed that her future lay before her, bright and certain. Even so, the pain remained, unchanged and undiminished—as sharp as it had been the day she learned he was gone.
She closed her eyes briefly, soothing herself against the familiar ache, then placed the miniature carefully back in its place. The shell necklace at her throat felt suddenly heavier, its presence both a comfort and a burden she could neither relinquish nor ignore.
She did not weep. Not tonight. Instead, she moved slowly to the bed, her movements measured, her composure restored by habit if not by peace. As she lay down, the darkness closing gently around her, her thoughts turned once more—inevitably—to him. To what had been. To what might have been.
And to the unalterable truth that, though years had passed, though life had moved inexorably forward, she remained—exactly as she had been: waiting, though she knew, with certainty, that he would never come.
News from Hertfordshire and beyond arrived with pleasing regularity, for neither Jane nor Elizabeth had ever permitted distance to loosen the ties of family.
Their mother wrote often when she was not traveling, her letters crowded with complaints, exclamations, local gossip, and maternal pronouncements that began in distress and ended, more often than not, in self-congratulation.
Mr. Bennet, by contrast, wrote less frequently, but with greater substance, and Elizabeth had long since learned to value his observations above all others.
Mary had surprised them all first. For years Elizabeth had imagined that, if any of her sisters remained at Longbourn beside their parents, it would be Mary, with her sober opinions and preference for improving books over dancing.
Mary, once removed from the immediate noise of her younger sisters and given the opportunity to appear in company under Jane’s roof, had revealed a steadiness and intelligence that attracted precisely the sort of man to appreciate them.
She had married a wealthy and well-connected widowed clergyman of thoughtful disposition, a gentleman with two well-behaved daughters and an excellent library, who listened to Mary’s reflections with every appearance of respect and even solicited them on occasion.
Their life, from all reports, was orderly and useful, with very little to excite ridicule and much to recommend it.
Elizabeth, reading Mary’s letters, had smiled more than once at the calm satisfaction that now suffused every page.
There was still a touch of solemnity in her sister’s language, but it had changed into something almost serene.
Kitty had been next, and in her case the transformation had been even more remarkable.
Removed at last from Lydia’s immediate influence and allowed to form tastes not wholly borrowed from another, she had grown gentler, and, to Elizabeth’s great relief, more sensible.
She had first gone to stay with Jane for several months, then with Mary, and back to town where she met a gentleman connected to the navy.
He was a younger son with modest means but good spirits, excellent principles, and a tendency to look upon Kitty as though she were far wiser and lovelier than she had ever imagined herself to be.
That alone, perhaps, did as much for her improvement as any lecture on prudence ever could have done.
Their marriage had not brought an overabundance of riches, but it had brought comfort, and Kitty’s letters, though still inclined to exclamation in moments of excitement, revealed a contentment that was as genuine as it was hard-won.
Lydia’s fate had been longest in doubt, and even after it was settled, no one quite trusted it to remain so.
She had flirted, preened, wept, boasted, and nearly undone herself more than once before finally accepting the addresses of a gentleman whose vanity was only somewhat less pronounced than her own.
He was not a man Elizabeth would ever have chosen for her sister, but he possessed enough good humor, enough indulgence, and enough willingness to be guided by wiser relations when money was involved, that the marriage, though noisy, had proved more stable than anyone had expected.
Lydia continued to write as though all life was one long procession of gowns, officers, dinners, and petty triumphs, but beneath the chatter there were signs that matrimony and a succession of practical inconveniences had, at last, introduced her to the existence of consequence.
Not enough to alter her nature, certainly, but enough to prevent catastrophe.
Thus, one by one, the Bennet sisters had found homes of their own.
All but Elizabeth. Mrs. Bennet did not cease to bewail the fact.
If anything, the marriages of her younger daughters only sharpened her distress on Elizabeth’s behalf, for it seemed to her a positive outrage that the daughter who had once been so much admired should now remain stubbornly, inexplicably unmarried while her younger sisters secured establishments.
Whenever she visited Jane, which she did without fail once each year and sometimes with alarming determination twice, she alternated between delight in her grandchildren, proud recitations of her daughters’ various settlements, and long lamentations on Elizabeth’s present situation.
“My poor Lizzy!” she would cry, sinking back upon a sofa in a display of physical exhaustion.
“Such a handsome woman—determined to throw herself away entirely. I cannot conceive what you are about, child. You are not old—not yet—but you will be if you go on refusing every respectable gentleman who looks your way. And then what is to become of you?”
Elizabeth had long ceased to answer except with patience, and even that was often more than the topic deserved.