Chapter Fifteen — The Garden at Silvermere #2
He asked in the presence of Mrs Gardiner and Lady Ashbourne, with all necessary propriety and no unnecessary flourish. Elizabeth accepted with equal composure and an inward steadiness that deceived neither of them very much.
They took the path downward from the terrace.
The ground was still damp in shaded places, and now and then Darcy offered his arm where the gravel had loosened.
Elizabeth accepted it once, refused it once, and on the third occasion took it before he could offer.
This, she thought, was an excellent compromise between independence and common sense, and the glance Darcy gave her suggested he understood the negotiation perfectly.
Silvermere looked different from the lake path.
The house was not less beautiful, but its beauty no longer seemed to make claims upon truth.
The windows shone; the roofline stood clean against the clearing sky; the pale stone held the morning light.
Yet Elizabeth saw now the locked room, the archive dust, the torn ledger, the music binding, the sitting room arranged for grief, the drawing room where a woman had been publicly restored and not wholly healed.
“It looks different,” she said.
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“Has it changed,” Darcy asked, “or do we know it better?”
Elizabeth looked toward the lake, where the reflection of the house trembled under the breeze. “Knowledge is a kind of alteration.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think it is.”
They walked on. Birds moved in the reeds. Somewhere behind them, Bingley’s laugh sounded faintly from the terrace, then faded. The ordinary world, with its carriages, departures, letters and breakfast trays, was returning; but the path beside the lake seemed held apart from it for a little while.
Darcy spoke first.
“I hope,” he said, “that you do not think I wished to limit you.”
Elizabeth did not answer immediately. It was not a subject for lightness, though lightness tempted her because feeling did.
“I know you wished to protect me,” she said. “I am beginning to understand that protection and limitation are not always the same, though they are dangerously near neighbours.”
His mouth softened. “That is just.”
“It is also generous, under the circumstances. I might have said they were twins.”
“You would not have been entirely wrong.”
She looked at him. “You accept correction very well when you choose.”
“I have had powerful instruction.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
The warmth beneath that single word unsettled her more than any compliment could have done.
They had reached a small opening where the lake widened, and the house could be seen across the water. Darcy stopped there, not too near her, but near enough that the quiet between them had shape.
“The world is not gentle,” he said, “with women who insist upon truth.”
Elizabeth turned to him. “Nor is it always gentle with men who honour them.”
The words affected him deeply. She saw it before he looked away. His reserve did not vanish, but it opened enough for her to glimpse the feeling it contained: gratitude, admiration, perhaps pain, perhaps hope.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not always.”
“And yet,” she added, “one hopes they persist.”
“One does.”
The breeze moved across the lake, breaking Silvermere into fragments of light and shadow. Elizabeth remembered the perfect reflection of their arrival and how little she had trusted it. This broken image seemed truer.
Darcy looked at her then, and when he spoke his voice had lowered.
“Should you ever require someone near enough to be useful, I hope you will think of me.”
It was not a proposal. It was not even, by the rules of ordinary society, a declaration. Yet Elizabeth felt it as something equally solemn. In the language they had made through danger, wit, disagreement and trust, it meant more than many speeches adorned with feeling.
She met his eyes.
“I already have.”
His expression changed.
Nothing more was said. Nothing more could safely be said in that place and moment, with the house behind them and grief not yet fully cooled. But the silence that followed was no longer uncertain. It did not ask whether they understood one another. It rested upon the knowledge that they did.
The chief happiness of the day belonged to Jane.
Mr Bingley asked her to walk before the carriages were ordered, and because the household was now occupied with departures, letters and arrangements, and because Mrs Gardiner smiled very knowingly while pretending to consult a list of trunks, Jane accepted.
They went into the garden by the south path, where the roses had begun to open in earnest. The grass still held dampness from the rain, and the scent of earth rose beneath the sweetness of bloom.
The lake shone beyond the trees, bright but broken by wind.
Silvermere’s reflection wavered there, no longer smooth, no longer false.
Bingley was nervous.
Jane saw it at once and loved him more for not attempting to disguise it badly.
He was not foolish in his nervousness now, not fluttering between speeches and apologies, not rushing because his own feeling demanded relief.
He walked beside her for several minutes, speaking of the garden, of the weather, of Mrs Harrow’s departure, of Miss Trent’s future, all with the careful gentleness of a man who knows the greatest matter must not be forced to arrive before its time.
Jane let him speak. She found the waiting beautiful because it was chosen for her sake.
At last, beneath a rose arch still wet from rain, he stopped.
“Miss Bennet,” he said.
Jane turned.
He took off his hat, held it in both hands for a moment as though it might instruct him, then appeared to decide that no object in the world could assist him now.
“I have wished to speak for some time,” he said. “Longer than these days at Silvermere. Longer, perhaps, than I have deserved the right to say.”
Jane’s heart moved, but she did not interrupt.
“I wanted to ask you before,” he continued. “Many times. I wanted certainty. I wanted happiness made safe by being named. I wanted, selfishly perhaps, the relief of knowing that what I felt was returned.”
His eyes held hers, honest and bright.
“But I have come to understand that eagerness may become pressure if one is not careful. And I would not have my happiness become another expectation laid upon you. You have been watched, praised, hoped over and spoken of by others too often. I do not wish to add my own desire to that weight unless you choose to receive it.”
Jane’s eyes filled.
“I love you,” Bingley said simply. “Not because others expect it, though I believe many kind people have hoped it. Not because our story pleases those who observe us. I love you because your goodness has depth, and courage, and judgement. Because you see suffering and do not step away. Because your gentleness is stronger than many people’s certainty.
Because my life is truest when it is ordered toward your happiness. ”
Jane’s breath trembled.
“I can promise affection,” he said, “and admiration, and gratitude beyond anything I can express. But I wish to promise more than that. I promise attention. I promise steadiness. I promise to learn you, not once, but continually. I promise never to think your peace a small thing because my own joy is impatient.”
He looked at her with such feeling that words seemed almost to fail him.
“Jane Bennet, if you can trust me with your happiness, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”
Jane had loved him long enough that surprise was unnecessary.
That was the beauty of it. Happiness did not strike her like lightning.
It came like homecoming after a difficult road, like the first clear note of music after a room of silence, like sunlight touching water that had not ceased to exist because clouds had covered it.
She had known uncertainty, disappointment, renewed hope, restraint and the quiet labour of trusting again.
Now, when joy came, it did not need to dazzle her in order to be complete.
She smiled through tears.
“Yes,” she said.
Bingley closed his eyes for one brief instant, as though the word had moved through him with too much force to bear standing fully inside it. Then he took her hand and bowed over it, not hurriedly, not carelessly, but with a tenderness that made ceremony intimate.
“My dearest Jane,” he whispered.
She laughed softly then, the laugh breaking through tears. “You have become very solemn, Mr Bingley.”
“I shall recover enough cheerfulness to be tolerable, I hope.”
“I think you are tolerable now.”
“That is a promising beginning.”
“More than tolerable,” she said, and the colour in her face deepened beautifully.
He kissed her hand again. Not her lips. Not there, in the open garden, with propriety still dear to them both.
Yet the kiss upon her hand held all the reverence and joy of a man who had learned that love was not diminished by restraint.
Jane felt peace settle over her so completely that for a moment she could not speak.
They returned to the house changed.
Elizabeth saw them from the terrace and knew before Jane said a word.
There are certain expressions, she thought, which cannot be counterfeited and cannot be concealed from those who love us.
Jane’s face was luminous, not with excitement only, but with serenity.
Bingley, beside her, was radiant beyond all management and trying valiantly not to beam at servants, trees and architectural features alike.
Mrs Gardiner saw them at the same moment and pressed a hand to her heart.
Darcy, standing near the steps with a letter in hand, looked from Bingley to Jane, then to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth went to her sister.
Jane came forward quickly, and they entered the small morning room together before the announcement became general. The moment the door closed, Jane took both Elizabeth’s hands.
“I am very happy, Lizzy.”