Strolling

Strolling

They spent the short journey to Hyde Park walking in contented silence with a footman trailing unobtrusively behind for propriety’s sake. Both vacillated between thinking furiously and simply trying to enjoy the walk.

As they entered the park, Darcy pointed out different paths, along with each route’s important characteristics. They went into one rather secluded wooded trail, its entrance almost invisible from the main walkway.

“I suppose this is a hidden treasure for locals,” she observed.

“Not just locals. I suspect if you visited the park a few times you would discover it. The path is not exactly hidden but making it obvious would defeat the purpose.”

They walked along the secluded path for some time, neither quite willing to challenge the silence just yet.

At long last, Elizabeth noticed the sun was closer to setting than rising, and thought it was a good metaphor for the choices she would have to make. She also had to arrange lodging for her and her father. She supposed that if Mr Darcy was willing to offer marriage, he could probably offer a bed for the night; but it had not been discussed, nor had she notified the Gardiners of an impending visit. But, of course, she reflected that thinking of such practical matters was just an excuse to avoid discussing harder topics.

She took a deep breath and began. “I suppose we should talk about your extraordinary… well… I do not know exactly what to call it. I suppose ‘proposal’ is not the right word. Perhaps pre-proposal? suggestion? scheme?”

Darcy chuckled. “If you want an unambiguous proposal in the usual form, I would be happy to make it straightaway.”

“I am not prepared to hear it just yet. I believe we must have some conversation first.”

“I am at your disposal. ”

She thought furiously for a few more minutes as they ambled along. They passed someone Darcy obviously knew, but he just tipped his hat and continued.

Elizabeth finally said, “I suppose we have several things to discuss. To start, let us take your assertion that you like me well enough, and perhaps might even love me, at face value for the moment—much as it both strains credulity and demands explanations of your behaviour. How can you account for it? How could you begin? I can comprehend you're going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?"

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."

“Elaborate,” she said in some exasperation.

Darcy pondered for a few minutes. “I suppose it is many things. As contrary as it sounds, I suppose I am partially falling in love with you because you dislike me so intensely.”

“Will you eventually start making sense?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion while silently thinking her all men are idiots theory was gaining credence by the moment.

“Perhaps. Let me ask a few questions that may help. Do you find me reasonably handsome… or at least handsome enough as to not dim my marital prospects.”

“Do not fish for compliments. I already told you I found you handsome.”

“I am more trying to be comprehensive than fishing for compliments. I share at least something with your elder sister.”

“I suppose so, though I have a hard time working out your point. If you assert a major handsomeness gap between you and Mr Collins, that does nothing save boast that you are not stone-blind.”

He chuckled. “I assume we may similarly dispense with the rest of the eligibility criteria. I am rich, young, healthy, well-educated, in full control of my fortune, can boast connections to peers, and so forth.”

“Yes, yes—in principle you are astonishingly eligible. I suspect you are presently wondering whether I am obstinate or stupid, since I am not jumping on your proposal like a dog on a bone. Will that suffice?”

“It will. Now… do you think Mrs Bennet is the first mercenary mother I encountered… or the worst… or even in the top three dozen?”

Elizabeth ducked her head and blushed in shame.

Darcy quickly added, “I am not criticizing your mother, much as it sounds like it. I am simply trying to establish a point.”

“Then make it!” she snapped irritably.

“In the circles I inhabited for the last decade, your mother would be considered a rather clumsy amateur in a world of professionals. Her motivations are little different from most, but she lacks both subtlety and a killer instinct. It would have been risky, but she could probably have obliged Bingley by simply making up stories about what happened during your stay at Netherfield, and yet she did not. She could have easily engineered a compromise during the ball, and yet she did not. She could have vastly improved Miss Bennet’s chances by simply listening to your advice about lowering her voice or speaking more sensibly at the ball, and yet she did not.”

“Hooray for my mother,” she growled.

“My point is—for a decade, everywhere I went, in the country or the town, I was a target. Mothers… daughters… fathers… uncles… brothers… aunts… allies… rivals… you name it, I have had hundreds of people trying to herd me towards advantageous matrimony. Not advantageous for me, mind you, but for them. Even my own aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the woman you explicitly came to ask about, has been relentlessly pushing a false narrative that she and my mother engaged myself and her daughter in our cradles. ”

Elizabeth laughed. “She seems unaware that mothers have not the slightest power in coercing children to marry, let alone aunts. My mother would flog me if she thought it would work more effectively than cajoling and berating. And yet, here I am, a penniless, powerless female, trying to make my own decisions about my own life based on my own criteria.”

“Exactly!” he said emphatically. “You just made my point for me.”

She shook her head several times. “How?”

“Because you are honest! You dislike me entirely on my own merits! Even though I was oblivious, you made it plain to see for anyone less lunkheaded. I would happily bet if I canvassed the Bingleys, I would find three out of three who recognised your dislike immediately. I would even give good odds that Hurst worked it out, and he is disguised most of the time. I did not see it because you were polite, but you never did a single thing to earn my regard. The fact you treated me as just another idiot may well have been the sincerest thing any marriageable woman has ever done.”

“Then I pity you. It sounds like a long, lonely, miserable existence.”

“It has been. The combination of my shy, reticent nature, and somewhat isolated upbringing, left me entirely unprepared to recognize affection—even within the confines of my own heart. Now that my eyes have been opened, I cannot imagine ever going back to the way I was.”

They walked on for some time, and Elizabeth finally said, “I will accept that for the moment, and to be honest, it helps your suit somewhat. Being inexperienced and clumsy is far superior to being unable to learn or insincere. The fact that you openly slighted me, surprisingly, helps your case as well. You did not find me handsome enough to tempt you, and you made no bones about it. At least you are similarly honest.”

Darcy ducked his head in shame and appeared ready to apologise again, but Elizabeth just held up her hand to dissuade him .

“Let us not revisit that. It is water under the bridge, aside from whatever lessons we may take from it. That said—just to get it out of the way once and for all—may I ask if your comment at the assembly was the last time you openly disparaged me?”

Elizabeth saw the look of shame that came over his face, and suspected she knew the answer before he spoke.

“I think the first fortnight I said several ungentlemanly things to the Bingleys.”

“You need not list them all. Just tell me the worst you can remember.”

“ She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit, ” he admitted with chagrin. “I believe I unleashed that jewel after the assembly.”

Elizabeth fumed silently as they walked another forty or so yards, trying to get her temper under control. “Much as it pains me, I believe I will have to forgive you for that. I must admit that I am somewhat impressed. I thought it impossible to say something worse than what you said at the assembly, but you outdid yourself.”

“I confess to it. I am curious about why you wish to forgive it rather than giving me the chastisement I obviously deserve. Do you have an overly strong belief in forgiveness?”

“Not as such… or at least… no more than the usual. To be fair, Mr Collins has said far stupider and more hurtful things after he knew me for a month instead of a few hours—and yet I am giving his proposal a fair trial. It would be silly to hold you to a higher standard, though all reason says I should.”

“You mean I had the best chance to be a good man and have not lived up to my background. I should be held to a higher standard, so the gap is much wider.”

“Exactly. Mr Collins is not the least bit clever. He is the son of an illiterate miser, so he at least has some excuse, whereas you are the son of a wealthy gentleman, brought up with the best of educations. You should be held to a higher standard, though should and are, tend to be two very different things. I understand behaviour among the first circles is decidedly worse than among the tradesman class, for example. In general, I think men believe better situations make them better men , when it is quite the opposite.”

“I concur. And just so it is spoken plainly, I do aspire to be a better man, and I do not and will not participate in the dissolute behaviour of much of my set.”

“That is good to know. I suppose that brings us to the most difficult part of this discussion—the crux of the matter.”

“Meaning?” Darcy asked in some confusion.

“Meaning, the only reason I am not jumping all over the merest hint of a proposal with both feet. The reason I have not snapped up the opportunity, even though you are vastly more eligible than Mr Collins in every way.”

“I am dying to know what it is.”

“Because… how can I say this? I worry about the vast disparity in our situations. I worry that, over time, after your infatuation fades, as such things do, you will come to your senses. Could you expect to rejoice in the inferiority of my connections? to congratulate yourself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath your own? Will you still be enamoured with me when I inevitably come to resemble my mother, in looks if not deportment.”

Darcy looked ready to speak several times, but each time he began, he was startled by how close her words sounded to what had been going round in his head the previous months, which was not in the least little bit to his credit.

Elizabeth sighed. “I fear, more than anything in the world, enduring my mother’s fate: years and years of disrespect and neglect.”