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On any other evening, Elizabeth would have been delighted to be afforded the opportunity to peruse the library at Rosings unhindered, for whatever her faults, Lady Catherine was not unaware of the wisdom of a well-stocked library, and Lizzy ought to have been contented to run her fingers along the spines of such elegant editions of the books she knew and loved, and run her eyes over the un-marked pages of those she did not.
On this particular evening, though, her mind would not rest. At every sound from the unfamiliar house she darted toward the door, straining every nerve that she might discern what was happening without, and wondering all the while whether she ought to remain where she was, or whether, in the absence of her hosts, she ought to take matters into her own hands and begin the journey home. She did not rate the wisdom of attempting the walk with only Charlotte’s maid for company, nor in the dark, for the evening drew late and she was not yet quite familiar with Kent, although she did not think it far to Hunsford from Rosings.
I must be content to wait, in that case, she thought, selecting for herself an upright chair and folding herself into it, for just at that moment she felt overcome with a wave of tiredness after her day’s exertion. She felt as if she had travelled quite some miles that day, in spirit if not in truth, and she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, giving her free arm a pinch in hopes it might spark her into wakefulness.
The sound of a door slamming did that with greater success, and she struggled to sit up, craning her neck as if she might see through the heavy oak door and thus deduce what had occurred. She need not have tried to peer through, though, for the door flew open and Lady Catherine burst in, reeling back almost as suddenly at spotting the room inhabited, as Elizabeth did at having her sanctuary breached.
“Oh! Miss Bennet!” she cried, crossly. “How long have you been lurking here?” Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you knew about all this.” Lady Catherine was all accusation, and Elizabeth was left speechless.
“All what? I assure you, Lady Catherine, I knew nothing of the duel -”
“The duel?” Lady Catherine exclaimed. “You think I care for any duel? No, better that Richard had gone through with it and received just punishment for his deception and flirtation than this.” She clutched a hand to her heart. “Oh, dear. Whatever will become of me?”
“Oh, Lady Catherine!” Lizzy surrendered her seat, reaching for the older lady in hopes of encouraging her to sit, but Lady Catherine rallied almost immediately from whatever swoon had been poised to overtake her and wrenched herself out of Elizabeth’s grasp.
“You need not attempt to comfort me in my own home, Miss! I am not quite decrepit yet, despite what my nephews think!”
And with this final, bewildering statement, Lady Catherine picked up her skirts and swept imperiously from the room, her heels striking furiously on the steps as she made her retreat.
Lizzy frowned, more confused than ever, and reached for the door, wondering if she ought to find her way to where Colonel Fitzwilliam, Mr Darcy and Anne de Bourgh were, to discern just what had taken place within their small family that had so unsettled Lady Catherine. Her courage failed her at the last minute, however, and carefully, quietly, she slid the door closed, retreating to the shelves and returning to her first task, selecting a book of Shakespeare at last and flicking through the pages until she reached the particular play she was searching for. Losing herself once more in Beatrice and Benedick’s heated exchanges, she began to feel her nerves recede a little, at last, and it seemed like scarcely a moment later that a light knock preceded the library door opening once more, this time to admit the cautious step of Mr Darcy.
“Oh!” Elizabeth started, sliding the book aside, and leaping to her feet.
“Forgive the intrusion,” Mr Darcy said, his face a picture of concern and lacking the frown that she had so frequently noticed upon it. “Please, continue with your reading, if you wish.”
“Oh, it is nothing of consequence,” Elizabeth said, closing the book on Beatrice and Benedick's declarations, and turning her attention to her friend. “Tell me, what has happened? Lady Catherine seems very upset.”
Darcy grimaced.
“Upset. Yes. She has had quite a shock this evening.”
“But nobody was hurt!”
Darcy frowned as if he was not quite sure of Elizabeth’s reference.
“In the duel,” she prompted. “Nobody was hurt, and all has been settled now. There is nothing to worry about anymore, surely.”
“Oh, indeed. No, she is not so concerned over that. It is rather...” he paused, folding, and then unfolding his hands as if he was suddenly unsure what to do with them. “It appears my cousin has been concealing a tendresse.”
“Oh, how wonderful! Do you know the young lady?”
Darcy frowned, and Elizabeth laughed, realising her error.
“Forgive me! I thought you referred to Colonel Fitzwilliam, but it must be Miss de Bourgh, for the shock to have been delivered upon her mother.” Her features fell. “Oh dear, I do hope she is not opposed to the young gentleman...” She trailed off, surprised to see a strange expression come over Darcy’s face. At last, she recognised a smile, and then he, too, laughed. It was so unexpected, and so unlike any expression that she had heretofore seen him wear that she could not look away from him. Gone was the glower, the grimace, the scowl that she so regularly associated with Mr Darcy in Hertfordshire. He was quite transformed.
At length, he seemed to notice her silent scrutiny and struggled to swallow his amusement.
“Miss Elizabeth, it appears I must speak plainly, for we are talking each other in circles.” He glanced over to the window, spying two seats that bordered a table, and gestured they sit. “You are right to suggest my cousin, Anne, has formed an attachment to a young gentleman, and it is this which has come as a surprise to my aunt.” His lips quirked. “I cannot own it was a surprise to me, also, although I ought to have guessed it, had I not been somewhat preoccupied with my own concerns.” He paused “You are also not mistaken in your first assertion that the cousin I referred to was Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
He let the matter rest a moment, and gradually Elizabeth sifted the pieces together in her mind, at last clapping her hands as she realised the truth.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam...and Miss de Bourgh! Why, what a charming pair they will make!”
She fancied she recalled, then, any number of glances she had observed between the two the previous evening, and imagined relating this good news at Hunsford. How happy Charlotte would be to hear of it, for the two friends had lost an hour to discussing poor Anne de Bourgh, and how much Charlotte longed for her to find some companionship outside the iron grip of her mother. Elizabeth grinned, fancying Richard Fitzwilliam a more than able opponent to Lady Catherine in ensuring Anne’s freedom and happiness in the years to come.
“I am glad to see you smile, Miss Bennet,” Mr Darcy mused, and Elizabeth coloured, realising that he had been observing her rather more closely than she had noticed.
“Indeed? And why would I not, to hear such happy news?” Her expression faltered, as an unspoken question raised itself in her mind. Her lips parted, but before she could voice it, Mr Darcy shook his head.
“No, you need not ask whether I mind my two cousins finding happiness. In fact, I am rather relieved. It frees me from the interference of my aunt, who has for some time, seen fit to match another pair of cousins who would, I assure you, be far less suitable a match. In any case,” he paused, his brow furrowing with thought before continuing, his voice taking on a strange, muted tone. “One of this pair has developed feelings for another.”
“Anne,” Elizabeth said, smiling at the notion of a romance developing in secret, right under Lady Catherine’s rather bulbous nose.
“Yes, Anne,” Darcy said, dropping his gaze to his feet. “And me.”
***
ELIZABETH DID NOT REPLY straight away, so that Darcy was rather afraid she had not heard him. He kept his eyes pinned to the ground, not quite daring to look at her, but at last, he could bear her silence no longer and raised his head. He intended on meeting her gaze only briefly, but found, once her dark eyes fixed on his that he was quite unable to look away.
“I wonder, Mr Darcy, if you are familiar with Shakespeare?”
This question came so suddenly and so surprising that Darcy was a little taken aback.
“I have heard of him, yes,” he remarked, drily. “But I am not what one might call familiar. Why do you ask?”
Instead of answering, Elizabeth slid a heavy volume across the table towards him.
“He wrote a play entitled Much Ado about Nothing. It is about...”
“Nothing?” Darcy quipped, surprised at his ability to make jokes when the young lady in front of him held his very heart and soul in her hands and seemed utterly unaware of her power.
“Yes.” Elizabeth laughed. “Exactly. Nothing. Actually, it is about love. And the different ways people have of expressing their love. There is a lot of fun pointed at those who use great, flowery declarations of love to win one another’s affections, and those who spend so much of their time arguing that they scarcely realise they are in love until it is too late...” she trailed off, and Darcy noticed a pink tinge seeping into her cheeks.
“Indeed.” He sniffed. “And what must that be like, I wonder.”
“I scarcely know,” Elizabeth whispered.
“Don’t you?”
Prompted by something in his voice, or some indiscernible movement in his being, she lifted her head and met his gaze, unflinching.
“Yesterday you accused me of running away to London, of striving to separate my friend from your sister, and departing with all hast, preventing even a farewell between them.” Darcy grimaced. “You are right. I did engineer that, or help to engineer it.” He would not take sole responsibility for that which was, at least in part, Caroline Bingley’s suggestion.
“But it was not merely an attempt to separate my friend from your sister. Indeed, in that, I acted in error and can only hope to make amends.” He held his hand up to prevent the inevitable questions that must have burned on Elizabeth’s lips at this mention of Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet. “But, Elizabeth, it was not only my friend and your sister I sought to part. I sought to remove...myself. For I felt, then, that I was in danger of losing my own heart to a young lady in Hertfordshire. I wager I had been losing it by degrees long before I became aware of it.” He tapped the heavy leather-bound book on the table. “Perhaps like your Benedick here.”
Lizzy’s smile grew, as with one word he betrayed that he was indeed familiar with Much Ado and would have understood her meaning even without her explanation.
“There, too, I acted in error, and in cowardice. But now, it seems, Providence affords me the chance to undo things.” He grimaced. “Providence, or my cousins, for both Anne and Richard, in their own way, have pointed me to this path, and now I know I must walk it, be it untrodden and shaded from view.”
“You speak as if it were a dreadful thing, Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth ventured at last. “But surely even the most fearful journey, when undertaken with a companion, is not so fearful after all. I wager it may even be enjoyable, if one is with the right companion.”
“And would you consent to be my companion, Miss Elizabeth? It is too soon to ask it, I know, and yet it seems so long since first the question occurred to me. Perhaps, had I stayed in Hertfordshire...”
“And yet, perhaps not,” Elizabeth said. She bit her lip, hesitating a little before continuing.
“Mr Darcy, you have apologised for your abrupt departure from Hertfordshire, but I must apologise for my behaviour at our meeting here. I blamed you for that which was not your fault. Or at least, not entirely your fault.” She smiled, her eyes shining with fun. “I am quick to judge and slow to change my judgments, and yet in this, I wonder if we are not alike.”
A clock in the hallway chimed, recalling Darcy to himself, and he straightened.
“Miss Bennet, the evening is drawing on. I ought to see you home to Hunsford, for surely Mr and Mrs Collins will be wondering what has become of you. I will arrange for the carriage and then perhaps we might begin the journey, for it is but a short distance to travel together.”
Elizabeth smiled, as if she deduced some hidden meaning in his words, and, emboldened by the gentle expression, and the comfortable mood that had descended on the pair, Darcy determined to ask the question that had been on his lips all day, and many days before it.
“I wonder, Elizabeth, whether I am presumptuous in thinking our feelings are not so very different from one another’s. My cousins bid me be brave, and yet I find I am not as brave as once I thought myself capable of being. Not even as brave as Mr Collins, though it pains me to admit it.”
At this, Elizabeth laughed.
“There is bravery, Mr Darcy, and then there is foolhardiness.”
“Which is this?” He was unaware he had spoken his musing aloud, until Elizabeth slipped her hand into his, and then, without a word more being said, the question was uttered, and answered, and another young couple took their first faltering steps towards home together.