Chapter 19
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Darcy had never enjoyed a stay at Rosings so much in his life. Admittedly, that was not saying a great deal, given the competition, but it was certainly true.
He had been coming every April since he was nineteen.
He knew every room, every opinion Lady Catherine had about every room, and every path through the grounds.
He had long since concluded that the visit was a duty, endured for the sake of family connection and Anne’s situation, and that enjoyment was not a reasonable expectation.
This year had been entirely different, and the reason was not difficult to identify.
Elizabeth’s presence had changed everything.
Darcy had walked with her many times, sometimes with Georgiana and sometimes alone.
The conversations had been unlike any he could remember having with anyone.
She argued with him. She laughed at him, occasionally.
She said things that made him think for hours afterward.
He had looked forward to each meeting with an eagerness he had not felt about anything in some time.
It did not hurt that Georgiana adored her.
The transformation in his sister over the visit had been remarkable.
The Georgiana who was Elizabeth’s friend was easier, freer, less careful with herself.
She laughed more. She had spent hours with Elizabeth talking about books and music and everything else, and whatever had passed between them had done Georgiana a great deal of good.
He did not know the precise details and had not asked.
He only knew the result, which was that Georgiana was happier than she had been for some time, and that Elizabeth was the cause of it.
It all led to the same answer, and to a conclusion that Darcy felt almost shatteringly happy to reach.
Whatever imagined objections might exist to marrying Elizabeth, they were meaningless compared to the wonder and delight of having such a woman by his side all his life.
What could be worth more than a love resulting from the union of passionate love and deep respect?
It was decided, then. If he met with her today, he would confess his feelings and ask for her hand in marriage.
Elizabeth was leaving Kent in two days. Once she went back to Longbourn, he would have no natural reason to see her.
He had turned it all over for weeks, and there was no other conclusion.
Darcy could no longer arrange his feelings for her into anything resembling indifference, and he had run out of time to keep pretending otherwise.
He left Rosings after breakfast, without Georgiana, and though Darcy would have preferred to go about his business without exciting comment, it was not to be.
“Oh, you are going walking?” Georgiana had asked when they happened to meet in the hall. “Shall I go with you?”
“Perhaps not this time, Georgiana, forgive me,” Darcy said.
Georgiana looked at him in surprise — understandably so, as Darcy never wished to decline her company or make her feel unwelcome. “Oh?” Georgiana said, thankfully sounding curious rather than hurt.
“Ah, yes,” Darcy said. “Perhaps you might walk in the gardens with Cousin Richard instead. I thought I might — that is to say, I intend to walk far today. I shall see you later.”
Georgiana looked at him for a moment with an expression of dawning comprehension and delight. Darcy half-dreaded what she might say, particularly as a rather mischievous smile lit her face.
“I see,” Georgiana said with suspicious innocence. “I shall see you at tea, then, I expect. And do give my best wishes to — well. To anyone you might meet along your way.” Without waiting for a reply, she walked lightly away, humming a little as she went.
Darcy collected his hat and went.
The morning was clear and cool. The hawthorn was at its peak, and the fields beyond the garden wall were bright with new growth.
He walked the south path and reminded himself not to be too certain.
He did not know that Elizabeth would be there, though his heart told him that she would be.
Neither did he know if Elizabeth shared his feelings.
She, of all women, would not accept him for anything less than true mutual esteem, Pemberley and his ten thousand a year notwithstanding.
Darcy’s heart had been entirely correct, for when he arrived at the bend in the path, Elizabeth was walking toward him with her bonnet slightly tilted and her expression inward, as though she had been thinking about something intently and had not yet surfaced from it her musings.
She looked up when she heard him. She smiled at him with such open joy that his heart skipped a beat, yet only a moment later, something he could not name moved over her face.
“Good morning, Mr Darcy.”
“Good morning, Miss Elizabeth.”
They fell into step together naturally, without a word said to decide it.
Walking beside her in the cool morning air with the blossoms overhead and the lane winding south between the hedgerows was such a simple, innocent pleasure that Darcy felt he would have been glad to live in that moment forever.
They spoke about the neighbourhood, about a book she had finished the previous evening, about whether the weather would hold, and all the while, he felt the words of an unspoken proposal on his tongue, a secret almost ready to be shared.
It was a great pleasure to enjoy the expressiveness of her lovely face as they talked.
There was something in her manner that morning, a quietness beneath the ease, and he found himself thinking that perhaps she was feeling what he was feeling.
Perhaps she already knew what he wanted to say.
Perhaps she was waiting for him to say it.
Darcy gathered his courage for a moment that might define all his hopes of happiness. “Miss Elizabeth,” he began.
“I am dreading going home,” she confessed abruptly, as though she could not keep the words from coming out for another moment.
He stopped to look at her, really look. Elizabeth had not noticed that she had spoken over him. She was looking at the lane ahead, and her expression had the surprise and slight remorse of someone who has said a thing without planning to.
“Forgive me,” she said. “That was not very cheerful.”
“Not at all.” He hesitated. “Is it your mother?”
Elizabeth laughed, a short, rueful sound.
“It is always partly my mother. She will have spent the past three weeks working herself into a state about something, and the moment I return I shall hear about all of it.” She paused.
“And without my father there, there is no one to…” She stopped, and made a small gesture that finished the sentence for her.
Darcy said nothing. He understood.
He also understood, clearly and painfully, that he could not speak now.
For one reckless moment, he was tempted to do it anyway.
To tell her everything and trust her to separate the proposal from the circumstances surrounding it.
But even as the thought arose, he knew he could not.
Elizabeth deserved better than that. She deserved a proposal offered when she was entirely free to refuse it.
Not when it was her only escape from present difficulties, when she was standing in a lane telling him she dreaded going home.
Not while her father was missing and her family was unsettled and she had every reason to grasp at any available solution.
He wanted her to say yes to him because she wanted to, not because everything else felt impossible.
They did not stop walking. Darcy turned the problem over in silence, looking for any other solution.
There was one. It had a significant flaw, for it would require of him a degree of repression that amounted almost to dissembling. He could not propose to Elizabeth while she lived under his roof — not when a refusal would leave her with nowhere to go.
But it was considerably better than nothing.
“I have been meaning to ask you something,” Darcy said.
Elizabeth looked at him curiously.
“Georgiana and I will be at Pemberley through the summer,” he said.
He kept his voice easy, conversational, the voice of a man extending a friendly invitation and nothing more than that.
“My sister has spoken a great deal about how much she has enjoyed your company here. I know she would be thrilled if you were able to visit us in Derbyshire. Naturally, there is your reputation to be considered, but if you wished to bring a sister, or perhaps your aunt, you would be very welcome. Mrs Annesley will also have returned from visiting her sister by the time we arrive.”
Elizabeth stared at him.
He waited, his expression composed, giving away nothing beyond the simple offer.
“You are very kind,” she said slowly.
“Georgiana would be the one made happy by it. And I, too, would welcome your company.”
“I should like that very much,” Elizabeth said. “If it would truly be convenient.”
“It would be entirely convenient.”
She was still looking at him with an expression he could not quite read. Then she said, “Thank you, Mr Darcy,” and it was said with a warmth that made the composure he was maintaining somewhat more effortful.
They walked on to the end of the lane and turned back. The conversation found its way to easier ground, and he listened to her and answered her, and was present in every ordinary sense while his heart was doing something considerably more complicated.
He was glad that he had not spoken when it would have been unfair to her. He was glad she would come to Pemberley. He was not glad about the gap between what he felt and what he must do, the weeks of saying nothing and behaving well and keeping everything he felt inside.
But it would be worth it, because to save Elizabeth from an intolerable situation was worth everything.
At the fork in the lane, they parted. She turned toward the parsonage with a smile that she had not planned, he could tell, and which she did not try to hide.
He stood on the path and watched her go, and thought about showing Elizabeth Pemberley at its most beautiful and about the very great difficulty of being patient about something that mattered this much.
Behind him, somewhere in the Rosings grounds, a wood pigeon made its repetitive case about something. He turned and walked back toward the house and thought that he had never in his life found a wood pigeon quite so irritating.
Georgiana was waiting in the entrance hall when he returned, with a book open in her hands that she was very clearly not reading. She looked up when he came in with barely restrained curiosity and excitement.
“Did you have a pleasant walk?” she asked.
“Very, I thank you.”
“And did you meet anyone on the way?”
“Yes,” Darcy told her. “I met with Miss Elizabeth.”
“Did you speak to her?”
Darcy removed his hat. “Of course. I could hardly do otherwise. In fact, I have some news for you that I believe you will find very pleasing.”
Georgiana clapped the book shut and almost dropped it on the table next to her. “Fitzwilliam! Then you are —”
“Miss Elizabeth will spend the summer at Pemberley with us,” Darcy interrupted his sister.
He did not think he could bear to answer the question she had almost asked.
“I hope you approve of the plan. She confided in me that she was not at ease in returning to her home, and I felt strongly moved to offer our hospitality. You will enjoy having your friend with you, I am sure.”
For a long moment, Georgiana looked at him without speaking, her head tilted. “I shall like that very much, of course,” she said at last.
“As I am a single man, I thought it better for the sake of propriety that Miss Elizabeth should not come alone. I therefore invited her to bring her aunt, or perhaps one of her sisters. I hope you do not object.”
“Not in the slightest,” Georgiana said at once. “I am sure any relation of Elizabeth’s would be delightful.”
“Good. It is settled, then.” Now, it remained only to make his self-discipline — and his composure — equally settled.
“Oh, Fitzwilliam?” Georgiana said suddenly. “I think you did the right thing. And I am sorry. It must be difficult.”
Darcy thought about denying everything, and then thought the better of it. “Thank you, Georgie,” he said instead. “It is.”