His Choice of a Wife

by Heather Moll

  “Jane would have given more consequence to your character and more usefulness to your habits and pursuits.” Darcy now feared that Bingley would do nothing with much zeal but sport and society, and his time would otherwise waste away without benefit of books or the company of a refined partner. “She would have been a respectable wife.”

  “Mrs. Goulding has already stopped receiving the Bennets, and it won’t be much longer before other families shun them as well. It might be a temporary ostracism until the next public scandal comes to mind, or it could be irreparable. I have to think of my credibility and that of my own sons as they become gentlemen. What if you cannot find Mr. Wickham and make him marry Miss Lydia? You will have no other options left to maintain the Bennet family’s honor, short of calling him out or finding another man willing to marry her. Miss Bennet sympathized and, being the angel that she is, released me from my promise. I am grief-stricken and will not soon recover.”

  “You will return to good spirits before the summer is out, I have no doubt,” Darcy reflected coolly. “Your autumn might be spent in sport, and then you will throw yourself into the pleasure of the Season in town. Undoubtedly, you will find a young lady with the usual stock of accomplishments who will be fashionable, happy, pretty, and fortunate enough not to have a sister who was seduced by a scoundrel.”

  Suspicion was not in Bingley’s inclination, and he gladly accepted Darcy’s view of his future without hearing the acrimony in his voice. His friend could not be that racked by grief if he was already imaging a revival of his spirits. Bingley would recover in due time, find some beautiful girl of good family, marry her, and be reasonably content. To Darcy, Elizabeth was irreplaceable. He had decided in April that he would marry her or not at all. Darcy’s heart ached at the thought of ever separating from Elizabeth, but Bingley, although dispirited now, would leave Hertfordshire and never look back. Jane will pine away in quiet misery at home while Bingley cheerfully goes out into the world.

  “I ought to find enough company and recreation in town to keep me thoroughly engaged. I fear I shall fall into melancholy and drink should I remain idle. I shall be in better spirits when I next return to Netherfield.”

  “You are joking, Bingley! You must give up Netherfield.” It was incomprehensible to Darcy that Bingley would consider remaining anywhere near Hertfordshire, but then it was also unimaginable to him that a gentleman would abandon his betrothed, so Darcy knew not what to think.

  “Miss Bennet would not begrudge—”

  “Your jilted intended and her family live three miles away!” Darcy’s anger at Jane’s suffering boiled anew. “If you remain, Jane will always wonder whether you are going to renew your addresses. You cannot place her in a situation where you might be tempted to bestow affection and confidence on one who must now be nothing to you but the object of distant civility. I will not have you torment a respectable lady who will be my sister!”

  “Yes, you are right. I shall have to give up Netherfield.” No debate or conflict was worth Bingley’s attention. “In any event, I shall leave in a few days to escort Caroline and Louisa back to Hurst in Bath.” Bingley paused and, after looking away embarrassed, said, “I know you will still marry Miss Lizzy, and of course you must consider her feelings, but I would regret to lose our friendship.”

  Darcy made some short, polite wish for the same and then took his leave. While he hoped that his friendship with Bingley could be maintained, he knew that, no matter the result of his search for Wickham, he would align himself with Elizabeth and her family. His loyalties ought first to be given to his new family, and this, Darcy felt, was where he and Bingley would never be of a similar mind.

  ***

  Darcy’s eagerness to see Elizabeth had him stalking the edge of Mr. Bennet’s property the following morning before dawn. Elizabeth’s eyes squinted against the morning sun, but that did not keep her from giving him a dazzling smile as she approached him. Without hesitation, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him close. Nothing seemed more natural than to have her pressed against him, and Darcy softly laughed.

  Elizabeth missed nothing akin to amusement coming from him. “You may have convinced everyone else that you are stern and reserved, but I know the truth. I require that you tell me all!”

  “I am remembering,” he said with a smile. “I recall a time in Georgiana’s sitting room when I was both eager and uneasy to put an arm around you. I was certain that my heart would burst from my chest—it was pounding so hard at the thought of touching you, let alone waltzing with you. And now there is nothing more calming and more necessary to me than to hold you as close as possible.”

  “My dear Fitzwilliam, that was very nearly your prettiest speech yet.”

  “Only very nearly? Do you challenge me to improve upon that? I would compose a few lines in your honor, but I remember how you oppose the pairing of poetry and love.”

  “I was terribly misguided to think so, and you must not hold it against me,” she replied with mock seriousness. “Your task, while we are parted, will be to write me a sonnet to feed our fine, stout, healthy love!”

  By unspoken agreement, they walked in the general direction of the empty tenant cottage. Darcy looked at her, intending to continue their conversation but was distracted by her straw hat. Its wide brim might be useful for keeping the sun from her face, but it inhibited an intimate tête-à-tête. He stopped and plucked the blue ribbon beneath her chin that held the bonnet in place and pulled it off her head.

  “You disapprove of my hat?”

  “In general, I have no opposition, but it prevents me from viewing your face.” He was about to press on when he looked at it again. Darcy felt a twinge of sadness when he remembered that the last time he had seen her wear this bonnet was in the grove of Rosings Park when he had handed her his letter.

  “You wore this hat in Kent.” He held Elizabeth’s gaze, and the hard edge to his voice must have told Elizabeth the instance he was remembering. Then, more quietly, he continued, “There was no doubt in my mind that, after you took my letter, I would never lay eyes on you again in all my life.”

  “Then it is a wonderful relief that I returned to the parsonage early and that you and your cousin were still there to greet me. Although I do believe that our paths ought to have crossed again at some point.”

  “You think I might have visited Netherfield again if I confessed my interference to Bingley and sent him back to Hertfordshire? I felt remorseful about meddling in their affairs, but until I saw for myself that your sister was in love with him, I would have kept my silence. Should he have returned on his own, I do not think I could have borne it to go back to Netherfield and risk encountering you. To be near you and know that I would never be as precious to you as you were to me…” He trailed off and shook his head.

  “Thankfully, your anger towards me abated after you wrote to me, and I thought better of you soon after reading your letter. Otherwise, had you not come back to Netherfield with Mr. Bingley, when would I have been fortunate enough to see you again?”

  “Perhaps we might have met when you traveled to Derbyshire with your relations this summer.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “You think I would have encountered you sightseeing in Dovedale, or when we both were applying to see Chatsworth?”

  “Perhaps, since Mrs. Gardiner preferred to visit with friends in Lambton, you might have been persuaded to visit Pemberley.”

  “That is even more unlikely! It would be a mortifying indecency to be found touring Pemberley when I had thrown away your offer to be its mistress. You would think I had intentionally put myself in your way and would hate the sight of me.”

  “I am unsure what I might have felt if I saw you and the Gardiners there, but it would not have been hatred. I hope that I would have been improved enough in manners to greet your party civilly. As I consider the possibility, I am sure tha
t, had fortune smiled on me and put you in my way, I would have done everything possible to obtain your forgiveness and lessen your ill opinion of me.”

  “Perhaps I might have encouraged you if I had any inclination that your feelings and wishes towards me were unchanged.”

  Darcy swallowed thickly. He experienced such powerful emotions whenever he was near her, and the intensity of those emotions had not lessened with their increasing intimacy. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her, to drown in the sensation that was his dearest Elizabeth. Instead, they quickened their pace to the cottage.

  As they walked in companionable silence, Darcy wondered how their lives would have unfolded had they followed instead that improbable longer road to reconciliation. Wickham might not have been intent on revenge, but Lydia may have exposed herself in some way in Brighton. It was only a matter of time before discussion of Wickham and Lydia, and Jane and Bingley, and every other distraction, impediment, and challenge that stood in the way of his taking Elizabeth home to Pemberley would encroach on his time with her. For the present, he contented himself with walking to the cottage in the early sunlight with his favorite person. When they were nearly there, those disruptive thoughts intruded.

  “My father is ashamed of his treatment of us.”

  “He ought to be.”

  “His actions were primarily derived from jealousy and disappointment over my leaving home. I thought he envied the happiness we would find in each other, but his real regret was that I shall marry a man who is not only nothing like him but in every way a better man than he could even wish to be.”

  Darcy considered this in silence as the vacant cottage came in sight. He still remembered the tears she held back when she spoke of her father’s heartless teasing. He might be more agreeable in company, more civil and humbled, but his temper he could not yet vouch for. Elizabeth would want him to forgive Mr. Bennet, but he could not so soon forget, particularly when his offenses were against his cherished Elizabeth.

  “In time, all will be forgotten, but not yet. I am still of a resentful nature when those closest to me are wronged, and it would be a falsehood to say I can forgive him now. I shall show him every courtesy, but do not ask me to absolve him today.”

  Elizabeth opened the cottage door but paused. “You are resentful in this instance for my sake. I know you are not coldhearted as I once believed. You have happily made me an object of your tender affection. I have never been first in anyone’s life before, Fitzwilliam,” she added quietly.

  Darcy smiled and led her inside. “That is a position in my life to which you will simply have to resign yourself.” He closed the door behind them.

  ***

  After having met with Fitzwilliam at dawn, Elizabeth had to hurry back to Longbourn so that she would not be missed. He would arrive in a little more than one hour to formally say good-bye to the Gardiners and take his leave of the Bennets as he left for London. The entire house was an uproar of activity as the Gardiner children made free use of every room they came upon, the servants bustled up and down the stairs, Mrs. Gardiner comforted a teary Jane as best she could, and Mrs. Bennet was in fidgets making certain that Lydia was comfortable.

  Elizabeth saw nothing—thought nothing—of the commotion of the house. She glowed with happiness from within. She thought only of the last three hours with him at the cottage. Fitzwilliam’s words, his expressions, and still more his manner and look, had been such as she could see in only one light: he loved her and would love none but her. The scandal of Lydia’s child and Jane’s jilting would not deter him, and he pledged his love and promised to return in the course of a month for her, no matter the results of his search.

  The absolute necessity of seeming like herself before the others produced an immediate struggle. Elizabeth wanted to rein in her smiles, for she could not forget the serious troubles facing her family, but she thought only of him. She once discerned Mrs. Gardiner looking upon her with a critical eye and felt a wave of guilt, as if her adoring feelings about Fitzwilliam were printed across her countenance, but the moment passed.

  The time of the Gardiners’ departure had come, and Mrs. Gardiner kissed her children good-bye while Mr. Gardiner teased them and promised to carry them all away in his coat pockets. Mr. Bennet stood apart from the family, looking solemn and impatient, but Elizabeth supposed his silence was better than anything he might have to say to Lydia. Mary and Kitty said good-bye to their sister, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to the idea of separating indefinitely from her youngest daughter.

  “Oh, my dear Lydia,” she wailed, “when shall we meet again?”

  “I don’t know! This tour will last three weeks! How dull. Darcy must find Wickham soon and make him marry me. I hope to return soon after we are married.”

  Perhaps it is in our best interest that you do not.

  “Oh, but what if he cannot be found? Darcy and your uncle tell me you must be kept away in Ireland if you refuse to marry anyone else! Write to me very often, my dear!”

  “As often as I can—I expect to be kept busy with some society,” she said confidently.

  Elizabeth strove to part from her sister in good humor, and from an unwillingness to quarrel, she ignored Lydia’s demand for her to make certain Darcy returned with Wickham in a timely manner and simply hugged her good-bye.

  Jane was attempting to appear as serene as usual. Elizabeth was surprised when Lydia approached her eldest sister and quietly wrapped her in her arms. Lydia whispered into Jane’s ear then pulled back with unshed tears in her eyes. Jane offered a sad smile and whispered in return. Elizabeth longed to know what Lydia could have said.

  The Bennet family’s collective attention was turned towards the sound of a rider galloping towards the house. Fitzwilliam appeared hurried, and she could imagine why. He had barely had enough time to return to Netherfield and make himself presentable before he needed to see the Gardiners off. He had intended to come in his carriage and leave for London from Longbourn, and Elizabeth hoped no one would ask why he had come on horseback.

  “Good morning, Darcy.” She spoke calmly as she turned pink at the memory of their recent encounter. He returned her greeting with equally moderate enthusiasm although she saw a sparkle in his dark eyes that meant he wished to say more—to do more than bow over her offered hand—but he went to her father.

  “Good day, Mr. Bennet. I trust you are in good health?”

  Fitzwilliam moved on to address the rest of her family while the Gardiner children cried out to him and pulled at his coat, asking whether they might join him on his trip to London. Elizabeth watched him be engaging and courteous with everyone. She would not have believed him capable of it months ago. Fitzwilliam was extending an invitation to the Gardiners to visit with Georgiana at Pemberley while they were in the area, then he was placating Mrs. Bennet as she fretted over the fate of her youngest daughter, and then he was quietly tolerating Lydia’s desire that, should he find Wickham, he tell him how much she would like to travel to Bath. Elizabeth felt that his social graces had become more genuine in recent weeks.

  Elizabeth stood apart from the others to watch the carriage depart and was disappointed that she was not joining them. She understood the necessity of Lydia’s immediate removal from the neighborhood, and Elizabeth did want to stay to be of comfort to Jane. Nothing could move forward with Fitzwilliam until he found Wickham, and until he returned, she would not even have the pleasure of a northern tour to distract her.

  Fitzwilliam came up behind her. “I might have married you yesterday, Elizabeth,” he remarked quietly so as not to be overheard. Jane was trying to calm her mother’s loud complaints, and her father was farther removed from them. “The banns have been read three times, and your father has signed the wedding articles, but it honestly did not occur to me until this moment. I was entirely focused on Lydia and the task at hand.”


  “Why does that matter?”

  He sighed and shifted his feet. “I presume you are not willfully misunderstanding me, so I must speak bluntly. Have you not considered that you and Lydia could be in the same situation?”

  Elizabeth stared at him in confusion, and, upon finally realizing what he meant, was surprised. “I am not!”

  “You are certain?” he asked quietly, his eyes rising above her head towards where her family remained waving after the Gardiners’ carriage.

  Elizabeth did not feel comfortable discussing this in full view of her assembled family. “No, but Lydia is showing signs while I am not.” She did not raise her voice above a whisper.

  “How are you certain as to what all those signs are?”

  “Charlotte,” she whispered. “Mrs. Collins was newly married when I visited, and she suspected her condition. She did not wish to worry Mr. Collins any earlier than necessary, although I think she feared Lady Catherine’s advice more than anything else. She was anxious to speak of it to someone who would keep her confidence and respond with an even temper. Besides, one cannot be entirely sure until the baby quickens.”

  “Then you might be,” he murmured.

  “Wickham spent the entire month of June seducing Lydia; you and I…”

  “If a child comes two months early, it might be believed that I married a poor woman only because she carried my child. Or worse, it could be suggested the child is not even mine. There will be those who find it hard to believe that I chose to marry without consideration to connection or fortune, and given Lydia’s fall, they may presume the worst.”

  “It is also possible that I am not with child, you will find Wickham, work upon him to marry Lydia, and return to marry me and all of this will soon be behind us.” She gave him a smile, attempting to ease his mind, but from the expression on Fitzwilliam’s face, she knew she had not succeeded. “There will be rumors regardless of when we marry. We cannot escape the censure that Lydia’s child and Jane’s abandonment will bring. We already resolved to be the happiest couple in the world, so this cannot affect us.”