36

Elizabeth and Captain Darcy continued their morning walks, and the day after their dancing lesson, she read another of his letters before venturing out. Her face was still streaked with tears when she met him at the southern edge of the garden.

“Elizabeth, what is the matter? Are the twins in good health, and your sisters?”

“Yes, everyone is very well,” she replied, dabbing at her face with the handkerchief he offered her. “I read your second letter and it broke my heart for what you have suffered.”

Captain Darcy’s face underwent a series of changes, as if he was not entirely willing to reveal the depth of sorrow he had experienced in the earlier days of their separation. At last, he said, “I am sorry to have caused you pain.”

Elizabeth took his bare hand in hers and brought his knuckles to her lips, wishing she might kiss him as passionately as she had on the morning of her birthday. She longed to hold him and comfort him as he had needed at the time he had written to her, and feared there were no words that could adequately express the depth of her compassion.

“I would have gone to you at once if I had received such a letter when you wrote it,” she cried. “I would have found a way – demanded my cousin bring me to Pemberley, or asked your cousin to take me to you.”

He smiled sadly. “Would you really?”

“My aunt and uncle would have obliged me, if nobody else would. I am sure nothing could have kept me from you. It made me weep to hear of all the tribulations you endured in managing Pemberley, your sister’s silent suffering, and your mother’s grief – and I have only ever seen Lady Anne content and gracious in company, and your sister so merry amongst friends new and old. To imagine their cheerful dispositions so utterly shattered, and you burdened with the care of them, but none to care for you!”

Elizabeth had begun to choke out heavy sobs, and covered her face with her hands. “And I was so wretched for nothing, thinking myself such a sorry creature, believing myself forsaken, just as you believed yourself to be!”

Captain Darcy drew her into an embrace as she gave way to her sobbing. He leaned over so that his head was beside hers, and when he brushed his cheek against her face, she could feel that it was wet with tears. “It would have been my salvation,” he breathed.

“And you would have been mine.” Her words came out trembling as the force of her weeping still wracked her body against his. “I would have carried you off to Scotland and married you over the anvil, and then I could have been a true helpmeet. I would have cared for you as you cared for your family, and I would have devoted myself to their relief as well.”

As Elizabeth recovered her equanimity enough to breathe steadily and draw away from him, she could see that he was smiling brightly at her. “Elizabeth, would you have abducted me?”

“Absolutely and without hesitation,” she laughed.

“I would have gone most willingly, though perhaps that would have ruined the fun.”

“It would not have been very sporting if you did not oblige me to give chase at least once along the journey,” Elizabeth quipped. She had intended to jest, but the comical image in her mind’s eye gave way to something else, a sensation that made her feel suddenly warm inside as she managed to stop herself from asking if he should like such a gamely wife.

Captain Darcy seemed afflicted with the same heated ruminations, for he looked away for a while before saying, “Time has done a great deal to ease the difficulties I wrote of. Georgie got worse before she got better, but it drew my mother from the stupor of her grief. She has since taken a greater interest in Lou, and now Georgie is happily wed and making new friends with greater ease than I could have imagined. Even Pemberley is beginning to thrive once more.”

“I am glad to hear it, but I – I wish I could have been a part of that healing.” They had begun to walk beyond the garden, out toward the pond. Elizabeth stared out across the water, soothed by the glimmer of the rising sun painted across its rippling surface.

“It does a great deal for my own heart to hear you say so,” he replied. “To know that you were equally wretched is painful, and yet I am strangely relieved to learn that you had not abandoned me.”

“I feel just the same,” Elizabeth admitted. “I have said before that I cannot regret the circumstances that have given me my two darling children; it is rather that I wish I could have lived both lives. I know it is not at all the same for you.”

“Then we must do as we agreed, and dwell not upon what might have been, but what may be. What I very much hope shall be.” Captain Darcy entwined his fingers with hers as they walked along the gravel track that curved around the pond.

“Pemberley’s pond is much finer,” he observed. “Twice the size at least, though shallow enough to be fine for swimming in the summer.”

“I should have thought you more inclined to traverse it in a boat.”

“We used to sail little boats upon it every summer,” he replied, gazing across the water as if lost to the memory. “I had an aunt that lived with us for a time, for she was much younger than my father. She was like a sister to Marcus and me. Her birthday was the day of summer solstice, and we always made a great celebration of it, for my mother has always been fond of her. One year, when Marcus and I were fourteen, Aunt Isabel was to be wed the day after her birthday, and the festivities that year were extraordinary. Her fiancé, now her husband, is the youngest son of a Duke, so when I say that the party was opulent… there must have been a hundred guests! And it was all outdoors, for that was Aunt Isabel’s wish. We raced boats on the pond, flew kites, played lawn games, danced, had a lavish picnic, and when the longest day of the year faded into night, we floated little pleasure barges on the pond. Musicians played along the shore as we drifted, and there was a fantastic fireworks display. And then, to everyone’s surprise, the fireworks faded away and we began to see falling stars, dozens of them. Only my soon-to-be uncle knew of it, for as a sailor he was fascinated by astronomy.”

“That all sounds wonderfully romantic,” Elizabeth sighed. “Was hers a love match?”

“It was. Uncle Ambrose was in the navy and spent many years in the conflict in India. Aunt Isabel waited for him for years, for she was five and twenty when they finally wed.”

Something like hope resonated through Elizabeth’s chest. “And are they happy?”

“Deliriously so. They reside most of the year in Shropshire near the sea, when my uncle’s work does not demand their presence in London, and they have seven children.”

Elizabeth felt a pang of sorrow at yet another blessing denied, and she knew not what to say. Finally, she asked, “Is your uncle the reason for your chosen profession?”

“He is. My Aunt Isabel ever doted on Marcus, who was livelier than I, just as she is. But Uncle Ambrose understands me – I suppose it is because we are both younger sons. When I was faced with the same choice as he, the few limited professions acceptable for a gentleman, he knew that I was not suited for the church, which my mother preferred for me. My parents did not wish me to make such a dangerous choice, though he did his best to talk them down from the worst of their rancour.”

“My Aunt Madeline once told me that aunts and uncles are God’s apology for parents,” Elizabeth chortled. “I have always found that to be the case, indulgent as the Gardiners are. And theirs is a fine love story, too.”

“Your aunt is a wise woman,” Captain Darcy observed. “Though Heaven help you when Miss Lydia wields this wisdom against her sisters.”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. “How interesting that you assume she has not already done so!”

“She is a most devoted aunt; I shall admit I am impressed with her maturity.”

“As am I,” Elizabeth admitted. “I have sensed it in her letters, but it is a different thing entirely to witness each day.”

“I believe your elder sister deserves much of the credit. It would seem she has been a good influence.”

“Is that what you told her yesterday? I observed you speaking with her quite intently when we were all dancing together; whatever you said, it seems to have improved her mood,” Elizabeth mused. Jane had seemed happier with Charles with each passing day, but never more than the previous evening.

“I attempted to delicately hint that I have forgiven her for her schemes in Kent.”

“Do you no longer hold her responsible for… all the other awfulness?”

Captain Darcy gave a sombre nod. “I have forgiven Charles for a great deal more than that. As I said, time is a great healer, and the future is beginning to seem very bright. They deserve happiness together, and I am as desirous of Charles’s friendship as I believe you are of your elder sister’s.”

“True,” Elizabeth agreed. “I suppose when you put it so succinctly, the hurts of the past seem little in comparison to the potential of what may grow, for them and for all of us. And I do believe Jane must forgive herself.”

“I hope my words may be some help in that regard.”

Elizabeth nodded, her mind suddenly distracted by questions she dared not ask. What had Captain Darcy forgiven of Charles? Had it something to do with little Marcus’s origins? But she would not give voice to these musings, when there were happier things to speak of. Instead, she asked to hear more of the summer celebrations at Pemberley, and if he might resume such festivities. This occupied them well enough for another hour, when they adjourned to the nursery, a new addition to their old routine that she had come to cherish.

***

Richard found Lydia in the library; he had not expected to encounter her there, but it was a very pleasant surprise. She was seated at a little desk by the window, drenched in afternoon sunlight.

“I would not have thought to find you here,” he said with a grin.

“It is near the nursery, and I shall hear if my niece and nephews wake, and then go play with them,” she said. “And I happen to enjoy reading as much as anybody else. Particularly as the widow who used to live here left quite an interesting collection of romance novels. I have found them to be… shocking, but instructive.”

She smirked at him, and Richard could have swooned at the mischief in her gaze as she admitted to such scandalous reading habits. He was going to have to make her his wife before those dark, wicked eyes utterly ruined them both.

But then the moment was broken, for she looked back down at the desk and said, “At present, you find me hard at work.”

“And what is it that you are working on?”

“I am making a plan.”

“I suppose I ought to have expected as much,” he replied, and sauntered across the room to examine her scrawling. “What is this?”

“My next victory,” she said, squaring her shoulders as she grinned up at him. “I thought of inviting Georgie to come early, then you wrote to her, and then I thought of playing Regents and Lunatics, then you got Charles to hire a dancing master, then I summoned the Gardiners to come early, and I hear you took the gentlemen out fishing on the lake earlier today. It is my turn to triumph.”

Richard was delighted with her competitive spirit. There was undoubtedly an element of flirtation in it, but Lydia seemed alight with the challenge of besting him. He had never thought to value such a trait in a woman, but now he found it absolutely necessary, just as all her merits had become so vital to him.

“I hope you have a very grand plan, then, because the fishing was excellent,” he said, leaning against a bookshelf and folding his arms in a jaunty pose. He enjoyed watching its effect on her lovely countenance. “Your uncle heartily approved of Will, and Will likes him very much. Although your uncle was very cross that we played Regents and Lunatics without him.”

Lydia laughed. “Aunt Madeline said the same to me – she wishes us to play again once Kitty arrives. Can you imagine Mr. Collins?”

Richard guffawed. “He would be a natural at it, I think.”

“It is a pity the Collinses will likely not arrive in time for my next scheme of amusement. I am planning an excursion, for Lizzy and Captain Darcy seem to enjoy being out of doors together. Probably so they can sneak off and….” She broke off and gave a little cough. “Talk.”

Richard waggled his eyebrows. “Shall your plan afford them much opportunity for… conversation?”

“When we all first met in Hertfordshire, they were often riding in his curricle. I thought that for them to do so again would evoke pleasant memories.”

“Excellent,” he said, giving a clap of his hands before rubbing them together in anticipation.

“And I have not forgotten our other object, for it is to take place on Jane and Charles’s anniversary. They shall ride in the open barouche with my aunt and uncle, and it shall be perfectly natural on such an occasion for the Gardiners to set the example of a long and happy marriage – I shall speak to Aunt Madeline about it, and she will know best how to be subtle about it.”

“And what shall the rest of us do?”

“We will go on horseback, for it is not far. The vicar’s wife told me of a scenic spot not ten miles from here with some Roman ruins and a pretty waterfall.”

“You ride? How very accomplished.”

Lydia snorted and rolled her eyes. “Why is it every lady’s aim to be accomplished? How very dull. I should rather be diverted, and if what amuses me is reading or riding or playing the piano, then that is what I shall do, for the sake of my own amusement. Whether it is accomplished or not is of secondary importance, perhaps none at all.”

“You are marvellous,” he breathed. He cleared his throat, and then said, “I must begin my next plan, too; after this excursion, I shall have to be the next to amaze everyone.”

“Oh! I had thought of that,” Lydia said. Of course she had. “Are you at all acquainted with Captain Darcy’s Aunt Isabel and Uncle Ambrose? Surely you must be.”

“Yes, though it has been many years since I have seen them.”

“Well, you must write to them and invite them to join us.”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “You certainly make free with inviting people to your brother’s home.”

“He loves it,” Lydia said with a wave of her hand. “Have you ever met anybody so fond of company?”

“Yes – I am looking at her,” Richard quipped.

He was rewarded with a bright smile. “Tease me all you like, for this is my finest idea. After breakfast, Lizzy told me of her conversation with Captain Darcy this morning. She said that he told her of some summertime celebrations at Pemberley, and all the activities you all enjoyed when you were younger. Apparently your cousin hinted that such festivities would resume should she become mistress of Pemberley. And so we shall have such a celebration here, with all the same amusements, to give them a taste of what the future holds. But you must invite this aunt and uncle, for apparently their story is one of yearning and years of separation – Lizzy was in high emotion when she spoke of it. They must be present to complete the effect.”

Richard wished to cheer with approbation, to scoop her up in his arms and spin her about the room, praising her cleverness and her romantic heart. Instead, he teased her. “Am I to be your secretary, writing letters while you have all the glory of making plans? Shall I bear some communication to the stable master, too?”

“That would actually be very helpful,” Lydia said evenly.

“Very well,” he huffed, amused at her impertinence. “But you must allow me to advise you of what activities to plan for this outdoor party. I was always included in that family tradition.”

“I am writing everything down – I shall be your secretary for a while. Come and sit beside me, and tell me everything I need to know.” She gave him such a beguiling smile that he would protest no further; he brought an extra chair and placed it very near to her. “Prepare yourself, for I have a great deal to contribute, Miss Bennet. We shall be here quite a while before you are rid of me and can resume reading your salacious novels.”

“Horrid man,” she chided him, and then set about writing out her plans.

***

The day of their excursion was warm and clear, and full of promise. Lydia arranged their transportation, with the Bingleys and Gardiners in the open barouche, and their oldest cousin, a strapping lad of thirteen, was permitted to drive the two younger Gardiner children in the phaeton. Lydia, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and the Websters were all on horseback, and Elizabeth was in a curricle with Captain Darcy.

It was impossible that it should not bring back bittersweet memories for both of them. But instead of traversing an autumnal landscape, the early blooms and first green of spring held beautiful promise.

As their caravan of three equipages and four riders set off, Elizabeth and Captain Darcy began in comfortable silence, but once they were on the open road, with a greater distance from the rest of their party, he turned to her and said, “This reminds me of our courtship in Hertfordshire.”

A bitter thought intruded upon Elizabeth’s felicity – she recalled that at the time, he had never referred to their courtship as such, calling it instead a friendship. Where had such an awful notion come from? She had done her best to bury such negative sentiments, to begin again. But since reading his second letter and learning what his own suffering had been, she could not help reflecting on her own misery during their separation.

She had told him she would have gone to him, had she known of his wretchedness, had she any idea that he still loved her after leaving Kent. He had tried to go to her, but only after six long and devastating months. Half a year – twice as long as the sum of their acquaintance at the time. Long enough to doubt if any of it had been real, or if her memory betrayed her, making more of it all than had ever been there. She had not thought there was any anger left in her, and yet there it was.

Elizabeth attempted to suppress the unpleasant feelings, knowing they had agreed to look to their future. She gazed into the distance, forgetting to respond to his observation.

“You look like you are a thousand miles away, Elizabeth.” Captain Darcy flicked the reins and then rearranged them so that he held them with one hand, and the other came to rest on her knee.

She drew in a sharp breath but covered his hand with her own. “I remember it well.”

“Fondly, I hope,” he said, his eyes searching hers.

She had no wish to say that it was suddenly difficult to separate the pleasure from the pain in her remembrance. Instead, she said, “You had better keep your eyes on the road, for I certainly recall the occasion when you almost ran over a redcoat because you were gazing at me so ardently.”

He laughed. “I remember it – you had the most beguiling tendril of loose hair that kept blowing in your face, and I could not take my eyes off of you. My head was too full of wishing I could touch your hair.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Perhaps you should have.”

“Perhaps I should have traded the curricle for a carriage and driven us all the way to Scotland,” he said with a wink.

She wanted to scream her agreement, to weep that he had not at least made some commitment to her when he had the chance – so many chances lost.

When she again made no reply, he said, “I have been thinking, and I wonder if perhaps you ought not to read the third letter I wrote you. We are too often saying we wish to put the past away and move forward, and yet we revisit things that I suspect distress you.”

At last, he had said something to please her. Elizabeth offered him a reassuring smile, for she had no intention of spoiling their outing with such recriminations. “It is wise counsel, and yet I do not know if I can resist. Perhaps I am tormenting myself needlessly, but I wish to know what it says. Even if it is horribly mournful, I wish to have that final reminder that you felt as I did. Oh dear, that sounds cruel. What I meant is that I must overcome what I had felt at the time, that it was only myself who suffered, that you had chosen to leave me behind. I must do away once and for all with such feelings.”

“I understand the morbid curiosity,” he admitted. “I could not resist the temptation to know the worst, in your position. Let us read it together tomorrow, and be done with the past completely. Look around us, all the new life beginning to grow and blossom. It is time to really, truly begin anew.”

“Very well, tomorrow,” Elizabeth replied. “And then it shall be done and forgotten. And you may woo me without any further impediment. As secretive as we were then, I think I should enjoy a wildly indiscreet courtship.” Elizabeth had not meant to imply anything scandalous, and laughed when she beheld his expression of bemusement.

“After all, we must set an example for your sisters and their beaux.”

Elizabeth laughed again. “Both sisters – yes, indeed, although Lydia hardly needs encouragement. She has become rather the mastermind of everybody else’s romance in her event planning, and I even believe she has convinced herself that it is for the sake of Jane and I, and not her own private hopes.”

“Richard is so overt in his admiration of her, and she is a very confident young lady – they hardly need any help. Even the Bingleys seem happier.”

“Your words to Jane seem to have helped a vast deal,” Elizabeth said, leaning her head on his shoulder. “She is so fond of little Marcus, I wonder if it would help or harm things for Charles to tell Jane more of the child’s origin. Perhaps if he spoke to her about it, if he let all the horridness of it out in the open so that they might do as we do and have done with it already.”

Captain Darcy did not answer, and she peered up at him to find his countenance conflicted. She recalled him falling out with Charles, and her stomach twisted. “Do you know something?”

After a minute more of silent reflection, he said, “What I know is that Jane loves the child as her own, and they are happy. I see little merit in addressing such a painful subject, when he has already confessed his paternity of the boy. What more is there to say? Reopening old wounds would only cause considerable regression of the progress they have made. It is different for us – in speaking of the past, we are learning who the other person has become in the years since last we met. But Jane and Charles are not in the same situation, nor are their dispositions similar to ours.”

Elizabeth did not disagree, and yet she could not quite like his answer. She pondered his words for a while longer, trying to accept the truth in them. Certainly Charles would prefer to remain silent on the matter, but Jane had agonised over it. Elizabeth had told herself that perhaps the child was a by-blow fathered just before his union, when Charles was at liberty to satiate his needs as he could not yet do so with Jane. If Jane could but hear this, she might at least be assured that it had not taken place after they had said their vows, that his affections belonged to no other.

And yet, perhaps this was not the story, and if it was worse, Jane would revert to the wretched creature she had been before Elizabeth’s arrival in Yorkshire. She and Charles had certainly seemed to be growing closer in the revels of the past fortnight – perhaps it would be wrong to jeopardise that happiness. And this was the question that nagged at her – could Jane be truly and fully happy without knowing all?

“Elizabeth,” Captain Darcy said softly. “I do not wish to spoil the day with such talk. Can we agree to speak of something else, when there is so much to give us joy?”

Elizabeth knew that Jane would not wish anyone else to suffer on her account, and so she consented. They spoke of happier things – his sister’s marriage to a kind and devoted gentleman, Lydia and the colonel’s antics, and the wonderful addition to their party the Gardiners had made.

When they reached the site of the ruins and the waterfall, Elizabeth set out to interact with everybody, and was rewarded with laughter and many pleasant memories to reflect upon later. She took in the breathtaking sights with Captain Darcy at her side to share in them, and she was perfectly content. She watched him speak warmly with her aunt and uncle and even her young cousins, and she began to imagine him as one of the family. Thus she ended the excursion in better spirits than she had begun, speaking with the man she loved of her many delighted impressions of their outing and their companions, and she happily listened as he did the same.

It was a fine thing, she thought, that they would be done with the letters after tomorrow. Her heart was opening fully to him, and she felt herself very close to telling him that she was ready to begin their future.