part0025

She sat and Darcy followed suit, a trace of the light-heartedness they had just shared still lingering in his countenance. He looked so different when he laughed, Elizabeth thought. More handsome, decidedly. More approachable perhaps – not that she had found it difficult to talk to him at any time, except during those dreadful days when, having just discovered her own feelings, she had no hope of having them returned.

She soon found her hand cradled in his, as he tentatively began:

“Yes, you saw it clearly. This shadow between us, I do want it put to rest. I should not withhold anything from you, nor do I wish to—”

“I know. I imagine that disguise of any sort is your abhorrence.”

Darcy glanced up and searched her eyes. There was affectionate amusement there, and aye, perhaps a gentle hint of teasing, but not a shred of malice. He looked down again, and resumed tracing light caresses on the fingers ensconced in his palm.

“A great deal was left unsaid, throughout the course of our acquaintance. It is perhaps too soon for some things, and far too late for others. There is everything to be said for honesty, I should not wish for anything else between us… Yet I cannot see the purpose of inflicting unnecessary pain…”

Elizabeth made no answer, and after a while he resumed .

“It does not detract from the severity of my transgressions, nor does it excuse them, but I would like you to know that no disrespect was ever intended or implied in the offer of Farringdon. At the time, I persuaded myself it was for the best. I no longer hold that view, needless to say, and ‘tis many months since I began to heartily wish I had shown better judgement. Nay, not judgement,” he amended with a frown. “I have spent an unjustifiably long time doing just that: sitting in judgement, and pondering over matters that had very little to do with it…”

He drew a deep breath, knowing all too well that he was rambling. Yet how was he to bring himself to voice sentiments he had long come to disown? And moreover, how would such disclosures not cloud the happiness they shared?

He looked away, as though to find the strength to say the words:

“I must acknowledge that, much to my regret, I was too engrossed in my own concerns, and those of family, which had always opposed judgement to inclination,” Darcy said at last, then changed tack. “I pondered for too long on certain… decisions and their impact, and not long enough on others. Farringdon was a mistake in so many ways. You were too kind to ascribe it to good intentions. Aye, perhaps it was well-meant, but this was not the path I should have chosen. There is a much weightier transgression that I should—”

He stopped abruptly and forcefully exhaled, then released her hand and stood, pacing away from her as he rubbed his brow. Good heavens! That was even harder than he thought.

“For a number of reasons, I thought I could do nothing else,” he finally said after a long pause, his back turned. “I cannot relate them to you, Elizabeth. At the time I thought them natural and just, but—”

“Shall I try to phrase them for you, then?” Elizabeth offered, a slight edge to her voice, and Darcy spun around to face her. “You were concerned about the circumstances of the entail, which Mr Collins had inadvertently disclosed. You… wished me well, but had severe doubts about the wisdom of marrying me. We are hardly from the same sphere, after all, and I have neither fortune nor connections. My family’s position in life is so decidedly beneath your own, and the total want of propriety some of them display does not improve matters. There. Does that cover it?” she concluded, matter-of-factly .

Darcy was silent for a while, uncomprehendingly searching her countenance with no small amount of anxiety, not quite knowing what to make of her demeanour.

“And… are you not… offended?”

Elizabeth took a deep breath, and did not answer. She had been deliberately harsh in the summation she had just presented, somehow hoping to have it contradicted, at least in some of its thornier points. Hoping to be reassured that he did not see her inferiority in so stark a light. Having her own estimation of his thoughts and motives, however unpalatable, was one thing. Having it thus confirmed in full was quite another.

There was little purpose in denying it, least of all to herself. Much as she had thought on it and attempted to make peace with his initial rejection of her, and much as the circumstances had changed, she could not absorb the truth without being pained by it.

He was a good man, perhaps the best man she had ever known – and he loved her. What was worse, she returned the sentiment. Worse, because it was a well-known fact that blind partiality lured the unsuspecting into making any number of ill-judged decisions. Of all people, she should know that all too well. She had been given daily proof, all her life, that sometimes people do marry in haste and repent at leisure.

She desperately wanted to believe in the man who commanded her affections and trust in the permanence of his love, yet sensed with every fibre of her being that she could not bear it if it did not last. Suddenly, Elizabeth found herself feeling no small amount of compassion for her mother. How had she endured it, to see her husband’s regard diminishing day by day, year by year, until what must have been at least tenderness, in the early years of their marriage, had eventually turned into disdain and open ridicule?

“Elizabeth…?” his voice prompted her gently, drawing her from the distressing reverie.

“Yes, I was offended. I cannot claim otherwise, however valid the objections. In some ways, I find I still am…” she replied at last, her voice laden with all the pain of her musings .

At the sound of it, Darcy returned to her side, hastily taking her hands in his.

“How can I persuade you that I am no longer the self-absorbed fool that I was? That I have wished against all reason to turn the time back to the early months of our acquaintance, and beg you to accept me? That I hated myself for the presumption of even considering such contemptible— instead of telling you that my life was not worth living without you?”

‘For a man unable to make speeches, he is acquitting himself reasonably well,’ Elizabeth thought, decidedly less impressed now by his eloquence than she had been on the day of his proposal – that blissfully happy day, when she had felt nothing but elation at hearing him declare sentiments she could barely bring herself to hope for. It was a challenge to be happy now, when every joy was tainted with doubts of its constancy.

“Yes, I assumed you had a change of heart,” she replied coolly in response to his assurances, sending a chill through him. “I cannot in all honesty say that it matters not. I can accept that it is in the past. But the material point is, you have changed your mind once. You might change it again. And I do not think I could bear it,” she added, despising herself instantly for the vulnerability she had betrayed with the last words.

Darcy exhaled and was about to bring her closer, but thought better of it. She would not be comforted. In all likelihood, she would not even allow it. He would have to tread carefully. Very carefully indeed. Her pain brought a dull ache to his chest, and he knew he had to make her believe in him. Somehow.

“Elizabeth… Pray, let us sit…”

He guided her gently to the bench they had just quitted and sat beside her, tentatively taking her hands in his. He felt a small measure of reassurance when she did not withdraw them. He took a deep breath, praying for the wisdom of choosing the right words.

“I cannot explain what I can no longer condone, Elizabeth, so I will make a very poor attempt at making you see what sort of a man I was before I met you. I was a selfish being all my life, in practice although not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son – for many years an only child – I was spoilt by my parents, who though good themselves, allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared to my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth. Through you, I came to see there was so much that I was missing. Within myself and without. That the life I was accustomed to was barren and dull, with very little substance. And yet, I did nothing to— I persuaded myself there was nothing to be done. I cannot justify it. I can only say that I was brought up in the knowledge that upholding the family status was paramount, and that my firm, my final allegiance should always be to its preservation and enhancement. I… acted upon this, but there was not a moment that I did not regret it. Away from you, I finally came to see that I could marry rank and status and have an ornate life, but lacking in everything that makes it meaningful. Or I could marry you, if you would have me, and have all the bliss that a true communion of spirits can bring. I know I gave you little reason to trust in the strength of my affection, but I beg you would allow me to redress that. I love you, Elizabeth, and that will never change. Ever since May, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could not envisage making anyone but you an offer of marriage, and I resolved to put my fate into your hands, in the hope that you would have me—”

He stopped, as Elizabeth’s countenance, wistful and softened during the first part of his discourse, suddenly turned cold and expressionless, and she slowly but firmly withdrew her hands from his. She crossed them in her lap and stared at them for a long time, then looked away over the fields.

“Elizabeth?” he asked, deeply perturbed by her altered manner.

At the sound of his voice she abruptly stood.

“I would like to return to the house now,” she said, her voice lifeless, quite unlike anything he had ever heard from her before.

Without another word she turned away, her countenance closed and her lips thinned into a severe line of displeasure. Darcy’s heart sank. Her distress pained him more than anything, and he cursed his ill-judged attempt to unburden his heart. Why was it that although he loved her more than life itself, all he could do was hurt her, time and again ?

“I was afraid of that,” he exclaimed as he stood and followed, gripped by acute remorse. “No good could ever come from raking up the past, when everything has changed.”

Elizabeth glanced up briefly, her eyebrows raised, then cast her eyes back to the gravelled path, overpowered by sadness and disappointment. He spoke well. Oh, aye, he spoke very well indeed, despite his claims to the contrary. Yet actions spoke more clearly than fine words ever could. Some circumstances might have changed. Yet apparently he had not. Not in essentials.

It was mortifying in the extreme to apprehend it. She had assumed he had overcome his scruples, and that his original views on her inferiority were now materially altered. Until a few moments ago, she had been convinced that the decision to offer for her was very recent and, although hard-won, was taken with a full acceptance of what their future connection would entail. Although saddened by the notion, she could understand why he would require a long time to reconcile himself to the match. She would be a simpleton indeed – worse still, a self-deluding simpleton – to fail to acknowledge the difference in their stations, or pretend that the improprieties some of her relations uniformly displayed would not be a trial and a constant source of vexation. He was, after all, accustomed to the most elevated society and the best it had to offer. The very notion that he would offer for her regardless, and that he would overcome his distaste for associating with her relations because he loved her was felt as a compliment of the highest order. And now it was painfully obvious that he had not overcome it at all.

“I fear I have offended you grievously, Elizabeth,” he spoke in an accent of deep mortification. “There are times when honesty does nothing but disservice.”

“I have to disagree, Sir. I find that honesty is always preferable,” she said stiffly, her diction precise.

She guessed more than saw Darcy turning an anxious stare upon her at the pronouncement, but chose not to acknowledge it as the implications of what he had inadvertently revealed weighed heavily on her heart.

He had no wish to associate himself with her relations, except Jane. Dearest Jane! Who would ever dare object to her, all goodness and kindness that she was? But the rest of them… He clearly was st ill very much aware of their inferiority – and, by extension, hers. He would not acknowledge anything of the sort for now, perhaps not even to himself, but it was to be expected that one day he would. And there was a strong chance he would resent her for it.

The solemn thought was banished with a wince of pain. She could not envisage an end to their engagement. There was no doubt of their mutual affection. Was it so unreasonable to hope that in time and in her presence, he would truly change?

With a gesture of impatience, Elizabeth grimaced at her own folly. What woman had ever altered her husband’s ways? If he had no wish to change in the very beginning, when the novelty and strength of their attachment must increase every desire to please, what hope was there for it afterwards? Had her mother succeeded in changing her father – or the reverse, for that matter? Theirs must have been a love match. They were too ill-suited in every respect to have been drawn together by anything but unconquerable partiality. Yet what felicity had they found in their incongruous union?

Before she could overcome the pain such thoughts engendered, her progress back towards the house was halted by a hand on her arm. She looked up and, to her mortification and his acute distress, her eyes filled with tears.

“Elizabeth, I beg you,” he urged. “You cannot return to the house, not with this unresolved between us. We must talk.”

She nodded. She hardly knew her own mind and could think of very little else just then other than her love and her fear, but she could only agree. They had to talk.

“Would you sit?” he inquired with quiet solicitude.

Elizabeth shook her head.

“What are your thoughts, my love?” Darcy asked as he reached for her hand, but she clasped them behind her back. He dropped his own by his side, then drew his other hand over his face. “Would you…?” he faltered, then tried again. “Could you tell me how I might atone for the wretchedness I caused?”

“I am not seeking atonement,” Elizabeth replied through unwilling, stiff lips .

“What are you seeking?”

Elizabeth brought her hands forward to stare at them, as she nervously rubbed her thumb over her palm. It was a long time until she raised her eyes to his.

“To my fear that I was too hasty in entering into this engagement,” she said at last.

The words fell like an axe, and cut just as deeply.

She could not possibly imply—

“Elizabeth!” he exclaimed, his countenance mirroring his shock and grief. “Pray do not tell me you have changed your mind!”

Her hands went to her temples and she closed her eyes. Her complexion had grown frightfully pale, and the disturbance of her mind was visible in every feature. She was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open her lips till she believed herself to have attained it. This pause was to Darcy’s feelings dreadful. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, she said:

“I cannot overcome my fear that I should not marry you, Mr Darcy. Many would regard me as a simpleton for it, but it cannot be helped. I am unable to weather a loveless marriage.”

“Perhaps not now,” she conceded coolly. “But I fear it will become so. Undoubtedly very soon.”

Darcy was terrified by now and, were he to own the truth, more than a little offended. He took a deep breath to compose himself, knowing that too much was at stake, and that any display of temper would probably bring about the end of all his hopes. He endeavoured to keep his voice even as he said:

“You have good cause to doubt me, ‘tis true, yet I would have hoped I made you see by now that whatever I might be, I am not fickle. What would you have me do, Elizabeth, to persuade you that my heart is yours, and will always be?”

She waved her hand – in dismissal of his question, he thought at first, until he understood that she was struggling for the power of speech .

Finally, with assumed tranquillity, she answered.

“I had the opportunity to note that a marriage where partners do not esteem each other cannot be agreeable, to either party. Pray allow me to finish,” she urged when he seemed eager to interrupt and offer reassurance that this was not their case. “Forgive me, Mr Darcy, but a passing fancy is not a sound foundation for a happy union. I have— I was willing to believe that you had somehow reconciled yourself to the disparity in our stations, and overcome your disdain for the inferiority of my connections. As it is, I find it difficult to believe it now,” she concluded, her voice leaden.

Darcy stood frozen to the spot, his face ashen, unsure of how to proceed.

“Why now?” he brought himself to ask. “What has changed?”

Elizabeth sighed tiredly. And then explained to him as she would to a child.

“You claimed that you esteem me, admire me, love me, and that ever since May you were determined to offer me your hand. And yet your conduct throughout the intervening months does not bode well for the level of consideration I should expect from you after our marriage. I dread to think what it would dwindle to, were we so foolish as to start so low. I see you still fail to understand me,” she observed sadly, in response to the look of devastated confusion in his countenance. “Despite the avowed strength of your affection, you have not sought me out, and even after our chance encounter you have chosen to avoid my family’s society. Some of them could be a trial on one’s patience, I grant you, but what would I be expected to do should I marry you, Sir? Never see them again? Cower in mortification and in dread of your reaction whenever some spiteful matron mentions in high society that I have one uncle in trade and the other an attorney in a small country town? Wait patiently for your regard for me to turn into bitterness as you begin to regret the youthful fancy that had prompted you to make me an offer of marriage?”

She had warmed to the subject by then and sadness was replaced with no small amount of anger, and her eyes sparkled. A wave of renewed passion swept through him at the sight, along with a rush of hope when the true source of her distress was thus revealed.

“It was not your family I was avoiding, Elizabeth,” he said quietly, hoping she would be willing to hear him out .

“Who, then?” she asked, not knowing what to make of this and rather disposed to dismiss it as yet another fine speech.

“I fail to catch your meaning, Sir,” she said, confusion written clearly in her countenance.

“I persuaded myself that you cared for him. I did not wish to disturb your peace. Nor did I wish to witness it,” he quietly owned.

“A rather long and convoluted tale. My cousin suggested it was a possibility, after his visit into Devonshire.”

“How did he come to mention me? Did he know anything of our acquaintance?”

“Nothing at all. He was merely commenting on the improvement in his friend’s spirits, which you had apparently wrought. Fitzwilliam said that Colonel Brandon seemed taken with you, and that he would be a fool not to propose. I rather understood the sentiment,” Darcy added dryly.

“When was this?”

“In the spring.”

“Was that the reason for your change of heart?”

“In part,” he answered truthfully. “It made me see I could not bear the thought of a life without you.”

“And yet you have not spoken until now…”

“It was… The circumstance was of my own making. I should have declared myself when I had the chance. I did not. Moreover, it was by my contrivance that you went to live in Devonshire. I had forfeited every right to interfere, had you come to care for Brandon.”

It was bewildering how swiftly the perspective changed again, and Elizabeth could say nothing more as the whirlwind of conflicting emotions tugging to and fro finally got the better of her. He did esteem her after all. And loved her. With a strength and magnitude she had not imagined, not even in her most confident hours. Despite his own loss, he would have been prepared to step aside and not intrude while she walked away to be happy with another man. He would have remained silent in order to respect her wishes and preserve her peace of mind – and that spoke more of the depth of his affection than anything ever could .

Elizabeth glanced up in undisguised wonder, elated and humbled by what she had just learned.

“I have always prided myself on my discernment and acuity, but they have never served me so ill,” she said with a small and very conscious smile. “When we met in town, I had not the slightest hope that your feelings might be such—”

She blushed and looked away, and Darcy’s mind reeled.

He ruefully shook his head at the thought of his needless agony and the countless missed opportunities, but her rosy countenance reminded him of his duty.

“I apologise for my impertinent question,” Darcy retracted quietly, yet she would not allow him to continue.

“Of which you were unaware.”

“Of which I was unaware…” Elizabeth repeated softly, a lump rising in her throat as she began to grasp how he must have suffered. Almost without thinking, she withdrew one hand from his clasp and brushed his face with the back of her fingers. To her surprise, his features contorted as if in pain. He covered her hand with his and pressed it to his cheek.

“I cannot bear to lose you,” he whispered suddenly, unexpectedly, and turned his face against her palm to press his lips on the tips of her fingers.

Tears came to her eyes as she said that, in an unprecedented and alien display of emotion which she found, to her utter mortification, that she could not control. The thought that mere moments earlier she had, even in passing, considered their permanent separation, became too much to contemplate. She averted her face, the belated shock overpowering. Before she knew how it came about, she was in his arms, tears falling freely onto the crisp whiteness of his cravat. His hand came up to rest at the back of her head, the gentle hold turning into a fiercely protective clasp as he drew a ragged breath.

“Never,” he whispered against her hair; and then again: “Never! ”

Elizabeth knew not how long they remained thus, no perceived impropriety in their closeness, just the healing of a painful wound. Her tears dried up, her sobs subsided, and his soothing voice was slowly bringing her back into the real world with words of love, softly spoken. With a steadying breath, she eventually withdrew and gave a little conscious laugh as she raised her hands to dry her tears.

“Forgive me,” Elizabeth said at last. “That was very foolish.”

Darcy made no answer. He merely shook his head and smiled as he lowered his head to brush his lips against her cheek. It was still damp from her tears, and soft, and very cool. He cupped her face into his hands, caressing away her remnant tears with his thumbs as he trailed light kisses towards the corner of her mouth. By the time her arms came up to encircle his neck, he could not care one jot that they might be seen from the house. The trifling detail was not even worthy of consideration.

They were seen. Drawn by the beauty of the day, Jane had come to glance out of the window and started in surprise and vague unease at the scene below. She averted her eyes instantly and would have walked away, but for the unsettling notion that Elizabeth looked as if she had been crying. Despite her better instincts, Jane peered down at the couple. Whatever might have caused Elizabeth’s pain seemed put to rest now, but the thought that Mr Darcy could have distressed her sister to the point of tears was decidedly unwelcome.

Jane sighed. She had acknowledged to herself a long time ago that, ever since her marriage and the separation from her dearest sister, she had become inordinately protective of Elizabeth. She had so much joie de vivre , so much sparkle, that many people were misled into thinking she was stronger than she was. It was only to Jane that her inner vulnerability was apparent. And she was not about to tolerate her sister coming to any harm.

Jane walked away from the window and sat. Mr Darcy was a good man, and she was as pleased as could be about the engagement. After all, he was her husband’s closest friend, and there was no doubt of his integrity or his willingness to make Elizabeth happy. Jane knew as much, and rejoiced at the prospect of their union with all her heart. Yet, as of that morning, she could not help thinking she ought to keep a discreet but close eye on the matter.