Chapter Fourteen

Early the next morning Emily asked Darcy whether they could see Be-ne again. That was when Darcy decided he could wait no longer.

In vain had he struggled. It would not do. His feelings would not be repressed. He had to tell her how ardently he admired and loved her.

Yes, he owed Anne better, but… it was simply hard for Darcy to remember at this moment why he had ever thought he needed to repress his feelings for Elizabeth. Anne herself had told him that he ought to marry to please himself.

When Emily fell asleep for her nap that afternoon, Darcy set off to call on the parsonage. He had a deep feeling of guilt, but also determination. Darcy did not have any anxiety upon the outcome of this interview — he was an excellent match, she had once indicated to him that she had hoped for him to offer, and her behaviour the previous night, both in its friendliness, occasional shyness, and occasional frustration showed that her preference for him had not changed.

Darcy still hesitated. He turned into the park instead of immediately going to the parsonage.

It was wrong.

There was no question that he would end up before Elizabeth, begging her to make him the happiest man in the world, but there was that thing inside of him that insisted he first contemplate all the reasons why it was wrong to make this offer.

He had decided he would not remarry, so he should not remarry. Anne always deserved better from him than he had been able to give her. And if he had not been able to love her, he could at least, as Mr. Collins had said, make his life into a shrine for the departed.

The sense that he deserved to suffer ached in his guts, but the idea of turning around, and not calling on Elizabeth, would be far worse.

He could not resist his overwhelming need for her. He no longer wanted to. The affection he felt for her, the delight her presence gave him. He was a better, more complete, and simply happier gentleman when she was near. He could resist her beauty, but he could not resist her cleverness, her laughter, or his hope that he could make her happy.

Besides, Emily liked Elizabeth.

Darcy strode through a lovely grove under the thickening leaves of the trees. He was now approaching the parsonage from the other side, and this time he would enter and call. But when he came near to the gate, Darcy spotted a light figure stepping out, dressed in a straw bonnet and lovely lilac pelisse.

“Elizabeth,” he called out on seeing her.

She turned with a smile and walked up quickly towards him.

Nothing existed but that glow, the rich colour of her hair, the perfect tilt of her head, the line of her neck, her curls. The way her stockings clung to her ankles.

Darcy’s mouth went dry.

“You do not have Emily with you?” Elizabeth asked.

“She is at her nap,” Darcy replied. The guilt began to exist again. He could not speak more.

“I wished to tell you,” Elizabeth said into the silence, “how much anxiety I felt for you upon hearing of the intended elopement of your sister. I felt very keenly for you.”

“It was a shock. I had never imagined she might behave in such a way.” Darcy liked the excuse of a different topic to delay the moment .

“And you hated to have your business spoken of widely. You have that sense of privacy that must have despised every whisper.”

“I do.” Darcy took a deep breath. “But what is to be done?”

“And might you tell me of your sister?”

“At least she did not marry him. And at least he did not…” He paused. It was not a matter he was used to speaking of.

“This will eventually be… not forgotten,” Elizabeth said, “but I do not imagine that many will despise her in five years for a thing which happened when she was so young.”

“And her dowry remains thirty thousand pounds. A great sum with which to purchase friends from the mercenary sorts.” Darcy grimaced.

“Are you concerned that only such persons will have an interest in marrying her when the time comes?”

“I do worry.” Darcy tilted a hand back and forth. “She insists that she plans to never marry. But I do not take such a saying when she is still heartbroken seriously.”

Something in the way Elizabeth looked at him made him flush.

He had said something that could be applied to his own case. And it could, as he had determined to ask her to marry. His own protestations had proven to not be worth much. But Darcy was not heartbroken. He’d never cried, he’d just known that he had not treated Anne as he ought.

“It is us women who judge other women the most harshly in such matters.” Elizabeth half laughed. “Amongst gentlemen your sister can play the role of one who had been a helpless girl, but who has learned her lesson, and who is wholly different now — there are of course men who will flinch away, but not most, and I do not know that those who have such scruples would be the best matches in any case.”

“I do not think her virtue was fatally compromised on that road. Not from her words to me and my aunt — the wife of my uncle, the Earl of Matlock, not Lady Catherine. By no means would I have ever subjected Georgiana to Lady Catherine’s harangues upon the matter.”

“I know.”

“I nearly fought a duel with Wickham, but I remembered Emily — even if my father’s godson is not a sort of man who can shoot well, there would have been some chance of a mischance. I could not risk it, not even for a matter of honour. Do you despise me for that?”

Elizabeth was silent. Darcy looked at her closely, with a sort of anxiety.

She suppressed a smile. “Mr. Darcy, it is gentlemen who consider such matters so seriously. Most women wish that their gentlemen would en masse leave off the practice of shooting at each other. I do not doubt your bravery. Nor that you are honourable.”

Darcy nodded. He tried to make himself start to speak. To begin to make his offer.

“And Emily has become so much taller. That is your influence. Neither Lady Catherine nor your cousin are particularly tall. And she speaks so much! So many sentences, and she learns new words so easily. Half of what I say to her she imitates nearly perfectly.”

“I was disconcerted,” Darcy replied, “when she began to say ‘no’ clearly. Specifically, when asked her if I might flip her upside down, as I had habitually done. She usually replies, ‘no, no’.”

Elizabeth laughed. “But she always giggled and grinned.”

“I wonder. Perhaps she never liked it so much. Sometimes though she still deigns to permit this, her humble servant to flip her upside down when he requests the boon, so I suppose it is only that she prefers to determine when it shall happen.”

“The perfect father.” Elizabeth’s smile was warm.

“Permit me to express my gratitude once more for your kindness in helping to care for Emily. It made me feel far easier when I heard of it. And at a difficult time.”

“It was a pleasure to be there.”

Their eyes met.

The gaze held, and it was impossible to speak while looking into her eyes in such a way. Darcy was suffused with tension, a sense that now was a turning moment in his life. He stepped forward to Elizabeth, and he brushed his finger against her cheek. “Elizabeth, I cannot resist, I cannot stop myself. No matter what I intended or wished, I need you. I—”

She backed away from him shaking her head.

Pale.

“No, no, no.”

He felt a spasm of anxiety.

“You must know that I love you. That I cannot stop myself from desperately wanting you. The power of my feelings controls me. Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

Elizabeth stared at him wide eyed. She pressed her hand against her mouth.

Silence held.

Birds twittered. A small lizard ran across the forest path behind Elizabeth. A light breeze rustled the leaves.

Darcy knew that she would accept him. What then took her so long to speak?

“Please, I beg you,” Darcy said, “remove my suspense, and say that you will make me the happiest man…” He then frowned. The commonplace phrase did not sound right in his head.

“Mr. Darcy, I cannot make you happy. If I believed that — but it is pointless to wish. You would always be filled with a sense of regret, a sense that you had made a mistake by marrying me, and I have no wish to be married under such circumstances.”

Her response was a gut punch.

It was barely possible to understand the words. She was refusing him? On grounds of his own happiness?

Darcy stepped forward towards her, holding out his hand. He wished to take her hand, or stroke her cheek, or simply touch her.

“Oh, no.” Elizabeth stepped back, shaking her head. “Do not look at me with such wounded eyes! You cannot — do you think of what I suffered? It was not easy. I loved you. I — you made it clear that you did not care enough for me. I understand you better now. You are haunted by the memory of Anne. I understand. Heavens! I cried over the matter more times than I could count — my mother thought I was unhappy since my clever scheme to trap you had failed — I had no scheme! And then… then… I heard about how a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush a thousand times from Mama, from letters from Mr. Collins, from everything. And now… you…you — I have overcome that feeling. I have moved beyond it. And I assure you, I did.”

The whole was spoken fast. It seemed to come out in almost one long breath.

The whole time Darcy stared at her. Red spots on her cheeks. Flashing eyes.

He felt sick.

“I had not realized… I did not know you felt so much.”

She wiped tears from her cheeks. “Mr. Darcy, you have many virtues, but a keen awareness of what others feel is not amongst them.”

He could not let her go. He needed to talk her into agreeing to marry him… “Elizabeth, please, do not think of—”

“I thank you kindly for the honour of your proposal,” Elizabeth replied. “But I assure you that my response is firm and will not be shaken. I am convinced I would not make you happy, and of more importance, that I would not long be happy in a marriage with you. No sensible woman would marry a man who is so haunted by the ghost of his first wife that he cannot look at her without guilt.”

“I…” Darcy swallowed back something. He felt a pang through his heart, but this was right. “I ought to make myself a shrine to Anne’s memory, as your cousin suggested. I forgot—”

“Mr. Darcy, you loved her, and you never gave yourself the chance to grieve.”

“I did not love her. I couldn’t make myself feel that she was more beautiful than other women. I always looked at other women. I was not raised to behave as many dissolute gentlemen do, ignoring their vows, disrespecting the oaths I took. I never entered intimate congress with any other woman but my lawful and wedded wife. But on occasion I thought of it. I could not stop myself.”

“Mr. Darcy, you took her away from Lady Catherine. I believe you made her happy.”

“I—” Why were his cheeks wet? Darcy wiped away the tears. “I should have sworn myself to celibacy. I let her convince me too easily to make the attempt again and again. To have an heir. I feared for her health. I could not keep her safe and alive. And there was a part of me that wanted—”

“You have told me.”

“I can’t help but hate myself.”

“You loved her.”

“I did not—”

“I do not say that you were infatuated with her. I do not say that you thought her the most beautiful woman in the world. I say that you loved her, you admired her, and you never gave yourself the right to grieve for her.”

“She held my hand. As she died. She told me to be happy. She told me to name the child Emily. So much red. Red, red, red. The soaked towel. Then the convulsions, and… I have nightmares about that night. I kept trying to do something, begging God to make it not true. Afterwards I kept myself busy with Emily, but… I didn’t want her to die. Do you believe me? I truly did not want her to die.”

“You loved her.”

“I… did not…”

“You did.” Elizabeth said, “Sit down, sit down. You are overcome.”

Darcy stumbled to a tree stump. He could barely see.

“I did not wish for her to die. I did not.”

“Shhhh, shhhh.” Elizabeth put her arm around his shoulders and pressed him to sit. “Shhhhh, shhhhh, shhhh. Let yourself cry. You never let yourself cry?”

He had not.

“Let yourself remember the ways she was happy with you. Think about how happy she would be if she could see Emily, think about the ways you loved her, what you admired in her, and how she was worthy…”

Sitting across the breakfast table. Reading books together. When they shared the conjugal bed together. Her happiness the first time she had become with child, and her tears after she had lost the child. Holding her as she wept. When she became snappish and shrewish and difficult. The kindness she always showed to servants, no matter what disappointments she had recently suffered.

Her delight at her work with orphans. The way she always remembered how he liked his coffee and tea. Her happiness as the final pregnancy became advanced, and his anxiety. The way she had begged him to be present in the birthing room.

I won’t be so frightened if you are there .

“I’m not supposed to cry,” Darcy stuttered out. “Papa always said—”

“Shhhh. Shhhhh. Everyone should cry. When they are very sad.”

“I do miss her. I wish… I wish she could see Emily.”

“She watches her, with the rest of the angels.”

Darcy took Elizabeth’s hand, and he gripped it tightly. “I always meant to do right by her.”

“You did.”

“I… I wanted things to be different. I had never… not been able to manage myself and my own feelings.”

Elizabeth squeezed his hand back tightly.

The passage of tears ended, more slowly than it had come.

Darcy felt different. There was an odd feeling around his eyes, of released tension. His nose was stuffed up, and he blew it into his handkerchief. His was soaked, and like that time she’d cried, and he’d given her his handkerchief, she gave him hers.

He wiped at his eyes, rubbing around the sides.

Darcy took a deep shaky breath.

“Poor, poor Anne.”

Elizabeth nodded.

They stood, and then Darcy suddenly laughed. “I’d sought you out to make an offer of marriage.”

“You did.”

He took a deep breath. He remembered what Elizabeth had said. “I must… think. What you said. Your refusal was not exactly conditional, but, ah — I mean…”

He wiped at his face. The whole orbs of his eyes felt tired and achy, but also somehow good. He could not recall the last time he had cried. It had been a long time.

“You mean to ask whether my reply may have been different,” Elizabeth smiled softly at him, “had you been able to say that your request for my hand was endorsed by your judgement and character, and not the result of an impulse that you had failed, after a desperate struggle, to repress?”

“When you express the situation in such a manner, the answer you gave me seems eminently reasonable.”

“Women can be rational creatures. We established that last night.” Elizabeth then raised her hand to forestall him saying anything additional and frowned. “I do not want to… Mr. Darcy, I admire you enormously. You have defects, pride, a tendency to think lowly of those who are not part of your circles, and above all a tendency to hate yourself when you fail to meet your own expectations of yourself. But despite that, I do admire you. I do. I like you very much, I—” She sucked in her breath. Pressed her hands against her face. “I truly was unhappy, for a long time. You must think. Do so. I will not… oh, heavens, I shall go as distracted as my mother. This is so difficult to say.”

“What is?” Darcy replied quietly. But he was smiling once more.

“Determine what you truly want. Think about it. If I am truly your choice, without hesitation, then tell me that — not today. But soon. You must think. If I were to believe that you would find yourself happy, if married to me, I am likely to reply favourably, but I will make no promise at present. You must ask again. And… and do not delay overlong. I have once been heartbroken, and I am determined to not feel so sad again due to your choices, no matter what you choose.”