Chapter 28
Retired to the terrace, Darcy watched Elizabeth through the wide open glass doors.
The room was full of activity. People laughed and talked, and above it all, the orchestra played in sourdine, announcing that the dancing would soon commence.
He had seen her enter the ballroom, and his heart had tightened painfully.
There was no point in deceiving himself.
Elizabeth Bennet was the love of his life.
He followed her amongst the guests. She appeared and disappeared, at times illuminated by the thousands of lights, at others hidden amongst the moving crowd.
Yet she was always speaking with someone, most likely gentlemen seeking a place in her dance card, for there could be no doubt that she was the most charming young lady in his ballroom.
He resolved to ask her to dance, but as he made his way towards her, he was repeatedly stopped by people who wished to speak to him, delighted by the first ball held at Pemberley in ten years.
And he lost sight of her.
He searched everywhere. She was not in the library, nor on the first floor. For a moment, he wondered whether she had retired to her room, yet he had seen a smile on her countenance, and she had not appeared distressed or unhappy.
The only person who could discreetly find her was his valet, and before long, the man informed him that Miss Bennet was in the greenhouse.
He found her seated upon a bench outside, hidden from view on the side which, during the summer months, opened onto the garden.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he called from a distance, unwilling to startle her.
“Mr Darcy,” she replied, looking at him with surprise, though without rising. Instead, she gestured for him to sit beside her. “Are you seeking a little peace as well?”
“Not at all. I am looking for you,” he replied with a smile. “Why are you hiding here?”
He thought she would not answer, as the silence between them lengthened. Yet, at last she spoke. “I feel so guilty.”
The sadness in her voice pierced him. “Good heavens, no. Why should you feel guilty?”
“Because I am here, in this paradise, surrounded by pleasant people who—”
“Wish to dance with you,” he supplied in as light a tone as he could manage, hoping to dispel her melancholy.
“Yes, that too. How can I dance when—”
She broke off and looked around her. In truth, his mother’s greenhouse was a paradise, which he had endeavoured to preserve as luxuriant and beautiful as it had been in her day.
“It is not even about my father,” she murmured. “Being here, so far from Meryton, I can almost imagine that he is still alive.”
“I used to do the same. When I was in London, I imagined my mother was here at Pemberley, and when I was here, I imagined her in London. But if this is not about your father, why do you feel guilty?”
“Because my sisters and my mother, their new lives so different from what we had, living with my relations. I am not ungrateful; whether in Meryton or London, they are kindly received, but they are living in other people’s homes.
Not as guests, but as… I do not even know what to call us. Perhaps tenants who pay no rent.”
“Miss Elizabeth,” he exclaimed, “you must not think in that way. I am certain your relations do not see matters so. Besides, it is only temporary. You were rejoicing yesterday over Miss Kitty’s engagement. You may be quite certain that others will follow.”
He looked at her, hoping to find some sign in her eyes, but though she met his gaze, he found only sadness.
“You must have a dance card full of requests.”
Elizabeth shook her head gently.
“No. It is entirely empty.”
She held it out for him to see.
“You have not accepted a single dance?”
“No. It seems so unfair that I should feel so happy while my mother and sisters are in such circumstances.”
“You are mistaken. If Mr Bennet were here, he would tell you to dance, to enjoy yourself, and to leave sadness behind. I know him only through your stories, but I have a strong suspicion that is exactly what he would say. Am I right?”
He compelled her to look at him, and at last Elizabeth smiled.
“You are.”
“Then let us dance, and allow me to try to improve your spirits.”
“How can I dance with you when I have refused everyone else? I have said only, perhaps later.”
“And now it is later. You shall dance with me, and I promise that as long as you are with me, no one will trouble you.”
He rose from the bench and, with his customary elegance and courtesy, offered her his arm.
“You do not even like dancing,” she said.
“What makes you think so?” Darcy looked at her in genuine surprise. Suddenly, it seemed to him that the woman beside him did not know him at all, and the thought struck him as unexpectedly sad.
“I do not know. I remember the Netherfield ball, when neither of us seemed to enjoy dancing very much.”
“Perhaps I was not in the best spirits that evening, nor particularly inclined towards amusement. The truth is that Wickham’s presence had put me in a dreadful humour—”
“And there was also the matter of Mr Bingley,” she added rather sharply.
“We agreed to leave the past behind us.”
“Yes, forgive me. I must learn to do the same. Indeed, I find you very different from the gentleman I knew in Hertfordshire or met in Kent.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said as they entered the ballroom.
Both would have preferred to continue their conversation, yet that proved impossible when almost every eye in the room turned towards them.
A new tune began, as though the musicians had been waiting for their arrival, and Darcy naturally bowed and invited her to dance.
Though the couples formed immediately, many eyes remained fixed upon them.
“Good heavens,” murmured Elizabeth when they met, and their hands found one another’s, “I have never been so much the centre of attention.”
“Nor have I,” replied Darcy.
“That slightly mischievous smile tells me you do not believe me.”
From some distance away, she nodded. When they approached one another again, however, he continued, “You imagine me living amidst a perpetual round of entertainments.”
“Is that not true?” she asked, with the same smile he liked and feared at the same time.
Yet she remembered that this was the first ball held at Pemberley in ten years.
When he moved away once more, she watched him attentively.
She had left the past behind in words alone, for she still saw the proud man she had first encountered in the assembly rooms at Meryton the previous October. And it was not just.
“Tomorrow, after breakfast, I shall take you to the western boundary of the estate. It is the furthest point, seven miles from here.”
Elizabeth nearly missed her step in surprise.
“Seven miles?”
“I tell you this not to impress you, but that you may understand that an estate such as Pemberley is managed through days and months of labour, and requires my presence everywhere. No, Miss Elizabeth, since my father’s death, I have spent only a few months each year in London. The rest of my time is here. Working.”
Elizabeth nodded, for she believed him. There was something remarkable in his company.
When he told her something, she had no doubts.
A man who had spoken with such ruthless honesty about her family when he asked her to marry him would hardly invent falsehoods merely to please her.
The certainty that he was exactly the man she saw before her eyes, whether proud or disdainful, yet always showing his true face, was in itself an invaluable quality.
She preferred his arrogance to the honeyed smiles and admiration of men such as Mr Wickham or Mr Collins, which had proved nothing more than deception and disguise.
“Do you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you,” she replied sincerely.
When they met again in the middle of the ballroom, he gave her hand a gentle pressure.
And perhaps there, beneath the magical light of the chandeliers, something became clearer between them.
As they parted, Elizabeth made her way towards Mrs Cooper, but not before looking at him in silence, and Darcy knew that, at last, she trusted him.
∞∞∞
“My goodness, Elizabeth,” murmured Mrs Cooper as they made their way towards the room where refreshments awaited them, “everyone is talking about the two of you.”
“The two of us?” asked Elizabeth, still rather occupied by the ending of her dance with Darcy, which had been unsettling for her as well.
“Oh!” she exclaimed finally understanding and she blushed so deeply that Mrs Cooper drew her away from the crowd and out onto the terrace.
“There is nothing wrong with it,” said Mrs Cooper gently, attempting to calm her.
“How can there be nothing wrong? There is. What are they imagining?”
She pressed her unexpectedly cold hands to her cheeks, trying to master her agitation, or perhaps her annoyance, for she was no longer certain which she felt.
Mrs Cooper looked at her with a kind of amused pity.
The young woman who spent her mornings instructing her children in the most varied subjects, displaying an uncommon breadth of knowledge, was at the same time plainly inexperienced in the manner in which a ballroom of more than a hundred guests regarded an unmarried gentleman of fortune.
Yet again it did not take Elizabeth long to understand. “I refused everyone a dance and then appeared on his arm.”
“Exactly. With your beauty and the looks he casts in your direction, you have destroyed the hopes of many mothers and daughters in that magnificent ballroom.”
“But the two of us…nothing is happening between us.”
“I believe you must speak only for yourself,” Mrs Cooper reproved with the same gentleness.
“What am I to do now?” asked Elizabeth with evident alarm.
“That is what I am wondering myself, for people are already saying that this ball is intended to announce an event.”
“No!” exclaimed Elizabeth.
She wished to hear more, but Colonel Fitzwilliam and Miss Darcy were approaching, and with very few words Mrs Cooper departed on the colonel’s arm, leaving Elizabeth alone and decidedly embarrassed in Mr Darcy’s sister’s company.
She fervently hoped that, at sixteen, Georgiana had understood nothing and was merely there to accompany the colonel, who had plainly come to invite Mrs Cooper to dance. Yet that hope proved short-lived.
“You cannot imagine how glad I am that you are here,” said Miss Darcy. “I have not seen my brother so content in a very long time.”
Elizabeth wished to stop her at once and explain that there was nothing between them, but she recovered herself quickly. Georgiana’s moderate words could mean anything. They might simply express pleasure that her brother had found such a friend.
“And I am very glad to be here and to make your acquaintance.”
“Mrs Cooper has told me how much you love children, and how you manage to make hers interested in subjects that ordinarily belong to grown people. How very much I should like to talk with you.”
She paused before continuing, without looking at Elizabeth, as though she required considerable courage to speak.
“Would you consent to visit us sometimes, or allow me to come to Mrs Cooper’s? There are so many things that interest me, and I have had no one with whom to discuss them since…my brother removed me from the academy I attended in London.”
Elizabeth studied her carefully, but she read nothing in the young lady’s face except a warm and sincere request, certainly not a proposal that she should occupy some paid position at Pemberley.
Mrs Cooper had praised her, that much was evident, but only in those terms, and Elizabeth found she did not dislike it. She preferred that people should know her for her mind rather than for her appearance.
“Certainly. We may meet whenever you wish.”
Elizabeth’s warm answer made Georgiana exclaim happily to her brother, who was approaching them,
“Miss Bennet has agreed that we shall see one another.”
She started away, intending to leave them alone, but turned back from the doorway and called to her brother,
“Alone!”
They were both laughing when she disappeared.
“She is still a child in many respects, but I am glad she is beginning to find the courage to make friends.”
Yet Elizabeth was already wondering whether she had done wisely in accepting. She could not withdraw her word, but she found herself questioning how such meetings with Mr Darcy’s sister would unfold.