She stared at him for a moment – with absolute astonishment.
“Y- Yes,” she finally answered. “I would be glad… I would be honored, Mr. Darcy.”
He just nodded. Their eyes locked, then Mr. Darcy looked down at his letters again – he still had his pen in hand – Elizabeth did not know how to act, she felt so awkward – a little lost – so after a few moments of silence she stood up, curtseyed, and left the room.
There were a few hours before sleep still, and many things to do – but Elizabeth was – let’s just say it was not easy to keep her mind on her tasks.
She walked in a sort of transient state – hardly believing what had happened – wondering about Darcy’s restrained attitude – maybe she had imagined it all – her ears were buzzing in the strangest way. What was the title of that play – that Mr. Haynes had written, before he had been so awful to Georgiana? Not One Word, was it? Or Do You Love Me? That story where not one romantic word was uttered in all the course of the four acts – despite it being a love story – this proposal of Darcy’s certainly fit the bill. Elizabeth tried to find humor in it but could not – she did not want to live inside one of Mr. Haynes’s plays.
Darcy was kept to his study. Elizabeth prepared herself a supper tray and ate in her room – then went in a fitful sleep. Soon it was early morning. A grey dawn was rising – she dressed herself without quite knowing what she was doing – a walk would clear her head – when she opened her door Darcy was waiting for her in the hall, standing in front of her room, his back on the wall.
He straightened up instantly when he saw her.
“Good morning, Miss Bennet,” he said very formally.
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy,” she answered, feeling very ill at ease – very conscious of their solitude in that deserted third floor, in that almost deserted house. All Jane’s admonitions came back to mind – he just had to walk toward her, push her back in her chamber, and – she did not know if she had the physical or moral strength to resist – then she noticed his pallor, and the circles around his eyes – he looked like a man who had not slept – but he had taken notice of her reaction.
“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, in a soft voice.
“No,” she whispered, “of course not.” Strange how something could be a lie and a truth altogether – her voice was slightly trembling – to her own ears she did not sound very convincing.
He had one of those strange, ironic smiles he wore sometimes – tinged with a hint of bitterness. “Do you think I would hurt you? Or…”
“No! No Sir, please forgive me…” Elizabeth could not well explain – the stain of infamy – Jane’s cynical beliefs – her own desires, maybe – she shook her head – there was a long pause.
“Miss Bennet, I wanted to ask…” he finally began. “I had the strangest idea… that… I asked you to marry me, and you accepted. Was it a dream?”
She gave a strangled laugh.
“It was not, Sir. Or it was a shared dream, because I remember it too.”
“Good, good,” he said, still pale, still staring at her. “I am glad.”
There was a new pause. All of Elizabeth’s fears had evaporated, but she felt so tense, like something in her was going to burst.
“Then,” he continued, “would you do me the honor of breaking your fast with me?”
She nodded, still too overwrought to talk, but finally managed a smile and a “of course, Sir”. He smiled in return – it seemed he could not get his eyes off her.
“I thought we might eat here – in Augustine’s parlor,” he added, nodding towards a very small room near the top of the stairs. “We could go downstairs, if you prefer, but they are coming today – to take all the furniture from the blue drawing room – I mean, this morning.”
The blue drawing room was his father’s favorite room. “I would love to have breakfast here,” Elizabeth answered with a smile.
They entered Augustine’s parlor – Elizabeth briefly wondered who “Augustine” was, and if she had been happy. It was an old-fashioned, dusty room – the first rays of the sun coming through the high, round window, illuminating the beige and brown colors of the beaten furniture – they sat down before Elizabeth realized there was nobody to bring them breakfast – and no way to ring for it anyway. “I will get a tray for us,” she said quickly.
Darcy jumped on his feet as soon as he understood the situation. “No, I will get it,” he protested. Elizabeth grabbed his hand to stop him – then quickly let go, as if she had been burned.
“No! Of course not, Mr. Darcy. You are not going to fetch a tray in your own house,” she said, horrified.
“You are my betrothed, not a servant,” he protested in turn, and Elizabeth could not help but laugh – sincerely, this time – the awkwardness between them dissipating with their shared amusement at the absurdity of the situation.
“I am still in your employ, sir,” she said teasingly. He answered his smile with a bright one of his own – not saying anything, just looking at her.
An elderly footman, one of the few that were still in the house, ended up bringing them breakfast after Darcy had found him downstairs. They ate a simple fare of ham, bread, and coffee – sitting very close to each other on the ancient sofa, conversing in a low voice – about Augustine, about Darcy’s childhood memories, about the season changes on the lime trees outside. Elizabeth thought she had rarely felt such a feeling of contentment. They were not even touching, but the moment was – luminous – their eyes kept meeting, and there was such an intensity in his – who would have thought, Elizabeth mused, that an old, forgotten parlor with maroon dusty furniture could be so romantic – and then Darcy received a message and had to leave to see Lady Harden, who was worried for her husband’s health; Elizabeth went to Lambton – the sun shone all day on to the park.
In the evening, Darcy summoned her to his study again. The mahogany desk was gone, the chairs too. Darcy had put his ledgers on a simple wooden table clearly obtained in the kitchen – his eyes shone when he saw Elizabeth – then Mrs. Reynolds came in, bringing tea. She did not look happy to find them alone, but before she could say something Darcy clasped Elizabeth’s hand in his, and said,
“Mrs. Reynolds, I have some joyous news to share. Miss Bennet has just agreed to be my wife.”
Mrs. Reynolds looked astonished, and then relieved.
“Oh, I am so happy!” she said, before realizing that the surprise in her voice was not flattering for either of the parties. “Please receive my heartiest congratulations, Mr. Darcy, and you too, Miss Bennet,” she added, in a more formal tone. She turned to Elizabeth with a very sincere smile. “You will forgive, I hope, the stout partiality of an old servant if I say that you are a very lucky woman.”
“Oh! I know I am,” said Elizabeth, with another radiant smile – she had not been able to stop smiling since the morning. Darcy was looking at her with so much silent joy she colored and had to avert her eyes – the orange and crimson of the setting sun were painting the bare, empty room with sumptuous colors.
“We have to celebrate,” Darcy said, “Mrs. Reynolds, do you – is there any good wine left in some cellar somewhere?”
“Oh if you please, sir” Mrs. Reynold said, “allow me – I have a bottle of excellent brandy that my nephew brought to me some years ago. I never opened it – this seems like the perfect occasion.”
She came back with the bottle and three glasses, and a few moments later the three of them were sitting on the floor – yes, on the beautiful oak floor, bathed in the golden light – Elizabeth had tears in her eyes, of melancholy and pleasure alike, and Darcy’s voice was a little strained.
Again, the three of them talked of everything except of the upcoming sale – the date of the wedding, what Elizabeth was going to wear, the house in Scotland, quirky stories about the Darcy family – of Georgiana when she was little. It was a bizarre, but pleasant situation – of course they could have moved to one of the rooms that still had chairs, but nobo
dy suggested it.
It felt right, somehow, to toast for happiness in that empty space, as an ending, and a beginning – and two weeks later Pemberley was sold, and they were married.
∞∞∞
In Glasgow, Elizabeth was very happy.
The house was indeed comfortable – not far from the center of town. They had some land, and four servants – a situation which was, of course, akin to poverty compared to what Darcy was used to, but for Elizabeth, being mistress of a house felt like an unexpected luxury – she had more than she could ever have hoped to call her own after her father’s death.
Their income was comfortable enough, she thought, and it was slowly growing with Darcy’s new investments and endeavors – and more than all of this, she was married to a man she adored.
A man who had never said a word of love to her. Oh, she did not doubt his affection. She saw it in his gestures, in his gaze – in the need he had of her, at all hours. There was nothing he liked more, she felt, that when they were both in the same room – in the winter parlor, near the fireplace, when she was reading and he was writing letters – or even when she worked in his study, on the other side of the desk.
They could not afford a man of business. So Darcy, disregarding centuries of traditions that said gentlemen should not dabble with finances, took care of money matters himself – that was the only way to build – or rebuild – the family’s fortune.
Elizabeth worked beside him, doing her part of the research and letter writing. They had a partnership, our heroine thought with much satisfaction – the activity fed her intelligence and spirit in ways that she had not known she needed.
Anyway, as Mrs. Egerton wrote in her letters, old conventions were dying quickly – and those who did not follow the tide of change were condemned to drown. Darcy and Elizabeth discussed those modern mores with their new friends, the Evans, who lived next door – other English exiles, as Mrs. Evans jokingly called them – Mr. Evans was also a former gentleman farmer and was searching for a new path in the world. “We hardly have a pound left,” Mrs. Evans stated, “but at least they could not sell my sense of humor!” – they all got on very well.
So – love. Not one word. Elizabeth found her husband’s behavior quite puzzling. All his looks, all his acts spoke of tender devotion – he had married her, after all, when she had not a penny to her name, and at night he showed her a passion which – well – maybe it was unladylike to think of it during the day – still, she often did. But he would not even use a term of endearment. She was “Elizabeth,” spoken in a soft voice, or “Mrs. Darcy” – generally uttered in a formal, amused manner.
Was it because when he declared himself the first time in Hunsford, all those years ago, she had harshly refused him? Yes, surely that was the answer – he could not talk of love to her since the one time he did, he got violently rejected – very well – he was such a wonderful husband, he made her life so full, it was no hardship to gratify his wishes on that subject.
Or maybe it was a little hardship, because Elizabeth had an affectionate character and missed the easy playful warmth she had with Jane – but again, if such was the rule – so be it.
Elizabeth was, in fact, so certain of her husband’s regard that when she received a letter from Amelia Bingley congratulating on her marriage, and subtly implying that Elizabeth was very lucky that there had been a war – and that it almost ruined the country – because it had allowed her to make a union that would never have happened otherwise, our heroine had no difficulty laughing it off.
In fact, Elizabeth thought with a smile, if the war had turned for the better, Darcy might have proposed sooner – she imagined another world, where she was mistress of a prosperous Pemberley… a very different Mrs. Darcy, with a house in London and every earthly comfort – obviously it was a pleasant daydream, but she very much liked her existence as it was, and would have missed their cozy little house, she thought, if that had happened.
∞∞∞
That game – not one word of love – was sometimes difficult to play, and there were almost slips, of course.
Sometimes Elizabeth would look at her husband and her heart would swell – and then she would nearly – but she would bite it back. One day – they were talking about Jane, actually. Even if their income was small, her sister’s situation with two young children was worse, Elizabeth thought. She asked Darcy if they could help, by sending a sum each month – it was a real sacrifice, because money was so tight – but he agreed readily. When he said “yes,” Elizabeth had taken him in her arms and kissed him with tenderness and passion – right there, in the study, where a servant could enter at any time – he was so very flustered after.
She was moved. He had done that for her, she knew, because she would have suffered, picturing her sister’s distress – after the kiss Darcy could hardly look at her, he was so very embarrassed; they did not, generally, display any signs of physical affection during the day – at that moment, she had almost told him everything – the extent of her feelings and admiration for him – and fortunately refrained herself at the last moment.
She just said “thank you” – and thought he could hear everything in her voice anyway.
Another evening. There was to be a dinner party, at the house of local nobility. Despite their fall from fortune, they were both considered important guests, and Elizabeth was looking forward to the event – even more so because it would be her first formal outing as Mrs. Darcy. There had been a lot of friendly dinners and teas, but not any sophisticated soirées yet. She had a dress made, simple but very fetching, and was feeling quite proud of herself. Her husband entered their chamber when she was ready to put Mrs. Egerton’s pearls in her hair.
He held a small ivory box, and gave it to her.
“I sold almost everything, but kept this,” he explained. “They were my mother’s, but not only – they have been in the family for generations.”
Rubies – a necklace, a pendant, hair combs, and earrings – late 18. century fashion, but Elizabeth loved them even more because of it.
“The, er, the prices of precious stones had fallen so low at the time,” he explained in a hoarse tone, as if he was embarrassed to offer her such a splendid gift. “It hardly seemed worthwhile to sell them – and they have such a striking color, I felt, when I saw them – I thought they would go very well with your complexion, so I…”
His voice faltered. Elizabeth was watching him in the looking glass. The jewels were among the first things Darcy had sold, months before Pemberley had changed hands. The idea that he was already thinking of her – thinking of her wearing the jewels – she was speechless for a moment.
He seemed to understand the implications too, and kept silent, while she slid the combs into her hair – he took the heavy necklace and placed it wordlessly around her neck. The ensemble was very beautiful – sumptuous, even.
“The story is,” he finally continued, “that my great great uncle had it made for his wife, at the time – he was very much in l…”
He stopped. Elizabeth did not say anything. “They were very close, I believe,” Darcy finally concluded.
The necklace was too magnificent for constant use, but she wore the pendant every day.
∞∞∞
They slept side by side. The house had a master and a mistress chamber, but the latter was so small and unpractical that they tore down the wall.
“Do you remember, when I came to see you in your study – in Pemberley, after the ball, and asked you to confide in me?” Elizabeth whispered, one night, as they lay abed. The candle was still burning.
“I do.”
“I feel as I did at that time – that something is troubling you. And that you would feel better, maybe, if you told me.”
Darcy watched her for a moment. There were so many things to say, but most were forbidden. He would not burden her with his doubts – not with those concerning her at least.
The silence was so long that Elizabeth began to l
ook worried. She put her hand on his cheek, to caress the light stubble there. “Won’t you open your heart to me, Fitzwilliam? I swear, I will handle it gently.”
He lay down on the pillows and closed his eyes.
“I seem to be in the throes of conflicted feelings,” he explained, at last.
There was a pause, while he gathered his thoughts. “The mere mention of Pemberley fills me with guilt. I feel as if I failed everyone… my ancestors, my descendants, and even you. But,” he added before Elizabeth could protest, “at other moments, in a terribly odd way… I experience a great sense of relief.”
“It was a terrible weight,” Elizabeth said, after a while.
“So it was. And what I do today – with you – trying to remake our fortune in completely new ways – it is… It is easier, really.”
Do You Love Me Page 9