Chapter Twenty-Four
Courtship
Darcy courted Elizabeth for four months.
They had never possessed four months the first time.
Not really. Their original courtship had been made of misunderstandings, a disastrous proposal, a letter, one accidental meeting at Pemberley, Lydia's crisis, and a second proposal after Lady Catherine had accomplished what neither of them managed on their own.
This time they walked.
Read.
Argued.
Visited.
Pretended surprise when discovering similarities they had shared for fifty years.
Darcy brought Elizabeth a book one afternoon. She opened it, read the title, and stared at him. "You hate this author."
Darcy looked offended. "I have matured."
"You said his prose was 'an assault upon punctuation.'"
Darcy stared.
Elizabeth grinned. "Rule five."
"You broke it."
"So did you when you ordered apricot preserves at Netherfield."
"That was before the rules."
"Convenient."
They attended a concert in London with the Gardiners. Darcy sat beside Elizabeth while an ambitious soprano attempted an aria beyond her comfortable range.
During the third movement, Elizabeth felt two taps against the side of her glove.
Behave.
She looked at Darcy.
His face was perfectly solemn.
Elizabeth bit her lip.
Three minutes later she whispered, "She is murdering that note."
Darcy's shoulders moved.
Mrs. Gardiner glanced over.
Elizabeth looked innocent.
Afterward, as they entered the carriage, Mrs. Gardiner said, "You two have the strangest courtship I have ever observed."
Elizabeth nearly choked.
Darcy asked too carefully, "Why?"
Mrs. Gardiner smiled. "You behave as though you have been married for years."
Silence.
Elizabeth and Darcy looked at one another.
Mrs. Gardiner laughed. "I meant that as a compliment."
Later, when they were finally alone in the drawing room at Gracechurch Street, Elizabeth pressed a hand to her mouth and began laughing.
Darcy tried to maintain dignity for perhaps four seconds before joining her.
They visited Pemberley in spring with the Gardiners.
Elizabeth had not been meant to see it yet.
Darcy wanted her there.
Standing before the house young again was almost unbearable.
Mrs. Gardiner exclaimed over the view. Mr. Gardiner immediately began asking about fishing. Elizabeth simply stood.
Her home.
Not yet.
Darcy came beside her, close enough that their sleeves nearly touched.
Mrs. Gardiner said, "Lizzy?"
Elizabeth realized she was crying. "The view."
Darcy's fingers brushed her glove where no one could see.
Three strokes.
I am here.
Mrs. Reynolds greeted them at the door.
She did not know Elizabeth.
That hurt in a way Elizabeth had not expected.
She smiled anyway.
She walked through rooms she had managed for half a century as a guest. She knew which corridor was cold in winter, which stair creaked, which window in the west sitting room stuck after rain. She could not say any of it.
At the blue room she stopped.
Darcy, behind the Gardiners, whispered, "Chimney."
Elizabeth laughed.
Mrs. Gardiner looked between them. "What?"
"Nothing," they said together.
Mrs. Gardiner's brows rose.
That evening Elizabeth stood on the terrace with Darcy while the Gardiners rested.
"I thought this would feel like coming home," she admitted.
"Does it not?"
"Yes. And no. Mrs. Reynolds looked through me as though I were anyone."
Darcy's face softened. "To her, you are."
"I know."
"Does that make you regret coming?"
Elizabeth looked across the darkening grounds. "No. It reminds me this life cannot simply be laid over the other like tracing paper."
Darcy took her hand. "Good."
She glanced at him. "Good?"
"Because I want this Pemberley to learn you too."
Elizabeth's eyes filled.
"That was very well said," she whispered.
Darcy smiled. "Marriage improved me."
She laughed and leaned against his shoulder.
Their London courtship brought them into contact with more minor acquaintances than either had remembered clearly.
Elizabeth discovered that in her first life she had reduced many people to amusing impressions because Darcy had been the center of her attention.
Now, older in mind if not body, she noticed more.
Mrs. Gardiner's neighbor, Mrs. Wilton, had an invalid husband and still managed to send soup to three poorer families every week.
Mr. Gardiner's clerk, young Mr. Evans, spoke too quickly when nervous because he was supporting two sisters after his father's death.
A dowager at one assembly whom Elizabeth remembered only for an enormous feather had lost a son the previous month.
Elizabeth began understanding how often youth had mistaken incomplete knowledge for accurate judgment.
Darcy noticed her speaking with the dowager and asked afterward, "You disliked her once."
"I disliked her feather."
"You described the woman and the feather as morally connected."
Elizabeth looked offended. "I was twenty."
"You are twenty."
"That argument has become tiresome."
Darcy smiled.
He too was learning to see people beyond categories.
At a dinner hosted by the Matlocks, a young baronet spoke at length about agriculture.
The old young-Darcy would have dismissed him as tedious.
The older-minded Darcy listened and discovered the man had spent three years restoring land ruined by his father's mismanagement.
On the carriage ride home Elizabeth said, "You liked him."
"I respected him."
"You invited him to Pemberley."
"His drainage methods are interesting."
Elizabeth leaned back against the squabs. "Romance has transformed you."
Darcy took her hand. "Marriage improved me."
"You are not married yet."
He brought her fingers to his lips. "Anticipation has effects."
Elizabeth's pulse skipped despite fifty years of familiarity.
That was another discovery.
Knowing someone completely did not make courtship dull. It made every new variation more intimate.