Chapter Sixteen
Elizabeth rose from sleep the next day with a rather confused sense of time, and she was not sure, until she studied the location of the sun, that it was morning.
She had — foolishly — offered to sleep on a cot bed brought into Jane’s room, next to both Jane and the old crib that Lady Catherine had brought down. The plan had been that she might be able to attend to Jane’s needs and pick up the baby to offer to Jane when she woke. Thus, Elizabeth would spare all the servants the necessity of staying up the whole night.
Bennet slept a great deal, but he also woke irregularly, sobbing and sticking his tongue out in that adorable way that very young infants indicated their desire to suckle. Again, and again. Each time Elizabeth would be awake for the best part of an hour before finally falling to sleep once more — and then being woken again after a seeming instant to repeat the whole.
But that was not what Elizabeth thought about once she realized that the day had begun.
A huge grin spread over her face.
Breakfast time had already passed, and Jane slept comfortably in the bed next to her.
A servant sat in a rocking chair in the room next to the bed, holding the tiny little baby — it was strange how much smaller Bennet was than Emily, even though Emily was still not a whole two years old.
They increased in size so, so quickly.
Despite her defects, Lady Catherine had provided a steady and sensible presence during the birth, and she also showed a great deal of kindness in eagerly seeing to all of the needs of Jane’s that she might attend to.
Elizabeth rose and stretched her shoulders and after nodding to the servant headed out.
She found Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam still in the breakfast room. Colonel Fitzwilliam was deep in a newspaper, while Darcy sat on a windowsill leafing through a book. Emily sat at the table holding a half-eaten lemon tart, the filling smeared on her face, a little in her hair, and all of it everywhere over her clothes.
“Oh my, what a mess,” Elizabeth said, approaching the girl.
“Tart,” Emily replied and held the pastry up for Elizabeth to examine.
Elizabeth sniffed theatrically. “It looks delicious.”
“Deli!” Emily replied and took a big bite.
“She used to require that all present partake of whatever she ate,” Darcy said, “but in her present elderly state, Miss Emily has become convert to the radical notion that often it is best that everyone has their own food.”
Elizabeth laughed.
She noticed the way Darcy looked at her, seriously, but with a complete happiness that made him yet more handsome.
“The most unexpected thing she has ever done was the time she put a piece of bread in my mouth, made me chew it, and then stuck her fingers into my mouth to examine it afterwards,” Darcy said.
“That is grotesque.” Colonel Fitzwilliam put down his newspaper. “Why did you permit her the liberty?”
Darcy shrugged. “It pleased her to do so, and no harm was done.”
“You do not make her cry often,” Elizabeth said. Their eyes met and Elizabeth felt a shivering promise of future happiness and joy in his serious expression.
She sighed longingly.
Darcy kept smiling at her, but then he said with more seriousness, “I often worry that I am failing at this age when impressions are received most deeply to instil the proper sense that there are often things she cannot have, but…” He shrugged. “I cannot choose to deny her for the sole cause that I wish her to experience disappointment on occasion.”
“And what wisdom is dispensed upon this topic by those tomes on the art of rearing the young that you consume voraciously?” Elizabeth asked, looking at him with a glowing smile.
Rather than replying immediately, Darcy pointed at a tray on the table, “Elizabeth, the plate there is for you, and there is another that is being kept warm by the oven to give to Jane when she wakes.”
“You both ought,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, flapping out his newspaper and picking it up again, “to behave in a less familiar manner if you hope to conceal from anyone, particularly our lovely aunt, that you have clearly come to an agreement.”
Darcy flushed.
Elizabeth grinned, feeling that glow of happiness from how Darcy had used her name.
“Could you not guess from Darcy’s happiness over breakfast that such had happened?” Elizabeth asked.
“I do not think my cousin is the sort of person in whom happiness overflows to mirth. His excellent mood could have been explained by what we learned of your cousin last night.”
“He did not mean it, I hope, in that way!” Darcy replied laughing.
“Now you both must explain the matter to me,” Elizabeth replied. She was suffused with satisfaction.
“Oh no, not I,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “Those secrets which he revealed about the depths of his heart and affections whilst in his cups and awaiting his child shall not be shared by me !”
“He also said,” Darcy replied, “many times, that he very much worried for Jane, I mean Mrs. Collins. It made me think better of him.”
“He ought to be concerned for my sister!”
“I offered him a comforting thought to help him cope with his anxiety about the fate of Mrs. Collins,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, with that smirk.
“Darcy, what is the joke, I do insist you tell me,” Elizabeth grinned at her betrothed. She was so happy she could burst.
“I, ah…” Darcy said, “I perhaps ought to follow Colonel Fitzwilliam’s example and consider what he revealed last night as under a seal of silence. Gentlemanly manners, you understand.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrow.
“I can only say that he expressed the depths of his ah, consideration and gratitude—”
“He was talking about how much he loves Lady Catherine? What makes you both so surprised by that? It is the only explanation for why he does not simply go to Longbourn to live without any work.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam goggled, while Darcy laughed.
After breakfast Jane and Bennet were both awake, and Elizabeth sat with her sister while she ate. The midwife returned and asked how Jane felt, but all that was said during the examination was satisfactory — painful, a little bloody, and unpleasant, but satisfactory.
Elizabeth had ample opportunity to hold Bennet, cuddle him, enjoy the scent of the newborn and marvel at how tiny, tiny, tiny the miniature hands, feet and toes were.
The child himself, both while asleep and awake, flung his limbs out randomly, and seemed to have crying and sticking his tongue out as the only intentional behaviours.
Darcy took his offered opportunity to hold the baby.
Elizabeth had expected nothing else from how he behaved with Emily, but it warmed her heart to see how confidently and easily he took the baby, and the way that he cheerfully bounced him on his shoulder, and was not bothered at all when Bennet burped up in a way that some of the spit missed the cloth they had put there to catch it.
“I assure you John has not forgotten his tricks,” Darcy said laughing, as Elizabeth pointed at the white streak along the back of his fine wool coat. “He has become an expert upon removing such stains.”
Lady Catherine visited, and she also held Bennet, and proved to be as capable as Mr. Darcy at holding a baby, keeping the head supported, the child in constant motion, and everything safe and friendly.
“Mrs. Collins,” that fine lady ordered, after making faces and silly sounds at Bennet, “You must soon set him on a schedule. Place him on a pot for ten minutes every morning so he will learn to relieve himself. Only feed him every four hours. Not each time he cries or begs for you. And wake him from naps that go too long. You ought to by steps teach him to not sleep the whole day through, but to be a diligent and useful sort.”
Elizabeth and Darcy shared a look, and Elizabeth refrained from commenting upon the nonsense of worrying about how diligent and useful a creature was when they had only left the safety of the mother’s womb less than four and twenty hours ago.
That nonsense made a smaller part of the mixture of Lady Catherine’s advice than things which were sensible, commonsensical, or at least defensible. Even the matter of a schedule was defensible, though Elizabeth thought that when she had a child, she would let him suck whenever he wanted for at least the first six months or so.
Afterwards Elizabeth and Darcy took Emily out for a walk, and they determined during the course of it that it would be best for him to not announce the marriage to his aunt until Jane recovered sufficiently to return with Bennet to the comfort of her own rooms at the parsonage.
Perhaps Lady Catherine would not engage in any shocking behaviour, but perhaps she would. It certainly would not make things more comfortable for everyone involved, as the woman would be made unhappy.
Afterwards they spoke about what it had been like for Elizabeth to watch Jane give birth.
“Enough of that,” Elizabeth said after telling her tale. “The whole affair was frightening, and we must talk about something else. Tell me, when did you first know that you were in love with me?”
“I believe the matter was so gradual,” Darcy said seriously, “that I was half in the middle before I had known that I had begun. I had been very determined to avoid doing any such thing.”
“ That ,” Elizabeth said with a smile to avoid giving it any sting, “is not a matter I am likely to forget.”
Darcy smiled. “Every gentleman makes mistakes, it is only the exceptional ones who correct them.”
“Ah, I now understand.”
“I do not like to think about how you were made unhappy… I suppose… I did not think much about that. When I approached you after arriving here, I did not imagine that you would refuse me… I always assumed that my wealth, my position would draw any woman. Your rejection, though it was not harsh — you telling me that you would not marry me if I approached you with that attitude was of great value to me. You were wholly serious, and you were right to be so.”
“I knew what I wished for.”
“Precisely. I had always assumed that I would be received with acceptance by any woman whose hand I deigned to ask for, but you showed me that a woman worth admiring would demand more.”
They smiled at each other.
“I think I spent the entire time since I left Netherfield calling myself a fool for not marrying you, that is when business left me time.”
“But you never came back,” Elizabeth replied. “I knew you would not, but I had dreams for a month of seeing you riding to the door, telling me that you cared for nothing else, and that you had returned to marry me.”
“I did make you very unhappy.”
“Oh.” Elizabeth held up her hand. “I am only determined to think about the past as it brings me pleasure. And that will not. And I assure you that I did not allow myself to become miserable. I look at the world as too much of a joke, I never failed to think of myself as a little ridiculous.”
“I do not know if that is the way I wished you to comfort yourself,” Darcy replied, with a little frown.
“You must accept me as I am — but you had some excuse for not always being miserable yourself, as you were absorbed with your sister.”
“I hope…” Darcy drew in a breath. It seemed from his manner that the subject of his sister was one that he still worried upon. “I know that you are not one of those persons who hold me blameworthy for not wholly casting her off.”
“I am determined,” Elizabeth replied, “to adore her.”
“And you do not hold me deeply blameworthy for not having prevented the whole affair?”
Elizabeth thought for a second, wondering how to say what she wished to. Then she shrugged. “You are less anguished and filled with guilt by far than I anticipated upon hearing the tale.”
They continued their walk, following behind Emily and Nell for several minutes. When Elizabeth began to speak again Darcy raised a hand. “Permit me to marshal my thoughts.
“The matter is one of scandal and poor judgement, but the worst consequences were avoided.” He said seriously, “Her motives were not immoral. And as she had been taught, she refused to permit Mr. Wickham liberties until they had concluded their marriage. Wickham had preyed on her affection, her sympathy for the difficulties of his situation, and he had convinced her that we had wholly made peace.”
“That does not explain why you are not angry at yourself for allowing even that much to happen.”
“I did not forget that at all points I acted from good motives and decent information. I have learned a lesson. I will never grant Emily an independent establishment at fifteen. But,” Darcy shrugged, “occasionally heiresses are the victims of fortune hunters. What I think you ask is why I do not judge myself harshly, in the way I have about aspects of my marriage to Anne. The chief difference then is that I was angry that I could not make myself be different than I am — I judged my own character.”
“Ah, all is clear.”
“Do you see through wholly now?” Darcy asked, his eyes warm on hers. “I fear you shall grow bored quickly if I can be understood so simply.”
Elizabeth laughed. “There is a great deal to you that I have yet to learn — I derived the same lesson from the tale of your sister. A young woman ought never be placed in a situation where she is not surrounded by those who have known her from childhood. A single hired companion with hired servants is far too great a risk.”
“Yes,” Darcy replied. “The character of the girl should have little bearing on the matter — such mistaken behaviour can come from many states of mind and be motivated by good principles as well as wild impulses. What is necessary is for the girl to be wise and knowledgeable in the ways of the world, and that can only come with age and experience.”
“Do you think about Emily?”
“And Georgiana as well — but we have talked too much about me.” He took her arm. “How often, after you overcame those first months of sadness—”
“How lightly you speak of that.”
“How often did I return to your mind?”
“Oh, I made a specific point to not think about you more than once or twice a week. Three times on special occasions, especially when the weather was overcast or particularly cold.”
Darcy laughed.
“I reread The Monk three times, it was helpful to be reminded that the affairs du coeur of fictional persons could involve enormously more suffering than my own.”
He grinned and squeezed her and stole a kiss from Elizabeth that stole her breath. “I do not see why that would comfort anyone, but I am glad you could find solace — but you only thought of me three times a week?”
“Merely twice most weeks.”
Elizabeth laughed at Darcy’s expression. She added, “By the end of our separation, I had reached the point where I nearly enjoyed it when gentlemen who are not you attempted to flirt with me — so you see, I have great expectations of you.”
“Oh, and what are they?”
“You shall adore me to an excess. You shall exhibit your responsible, solemn, and honourable character. You shall continue to look excellent in both buckskin breeches and pantaloons, and you shall regularly kiss me.”
The gentleman of course kissed her at that speech.
“A woman without mercy,” Darcy said.
She felt as light and giddy as a butterfly. “And how frequently did you think of me? ”
“Every day — for hours together when I was particularly in a mood.”
She flushed, feeling her neck go pink. “You silly man.”
He grinned at her, and she kissed him.