7
Dinner at Netherfield in the company of Jane, Bingley, and his sisters was turning out more poorly than Elizabeth could ever have imagined. In Darcy’s absence, she had not wanted to come, but Caroline Bingley had insisted she accompany Jane.
“It will do you good, poor dear.”
If being the recipient of Miss Bingley’s frequent “poor dears” was not Elizabeth’s least favourite thing at the moment, it was amongst the bottom three, bested only by being tied up in a sack with rats, or being wife to her cousin, Mr. Collins, in that order. Comportment at Bingley’s house a week after the news of Darcy’s unceremonious decampment had turned absolutely funereal. Surprisingly, the same could not be said at Longbourn. Upon having been informed of Darcy’s leave-taking by Jane, Mrs. Bennet looked upon the matter with unlikely wisdom.
“Not to fear, Jane. Mr. Darcy dare not break the engagement less than a fortnight before the wedding. The marriage is secure.”
Yes, the marriage was secure. Elizabeth knew that as well as her mother. The marriage would take place regardless. Regardless of what? That was what worried Elizabeth. Eleven days before their wedding, Darcy had left Hertfordshire without warning. Not knowing what could have precipitated such a ghastly impetuosity upon the part of so deliberate a man was extremely vexing to Elizabeth, and his letter (actually no more than a note) had shed little light:
Dearest Elizabeth,
I regret I must away upon business. I shall return in time for final arrangements for the wedding.
Yours,
F. Darcy
When Bingley had handed Darcy’s missive to her that day, he smiled. But it was an odd little smile, one accompanied by a slight twitch in his left cheek, as if it was less determined to present a happy face than its owner. Obviously, he was at least minimally aware of the note’s contents and his unease did nothing to appease Elizabeth’s. Taking the letter with more angst than she would have liked to expose, Elizabeth excused herself from Jane and Bingley intending to retire to the privacy of her bedroom to read the letter. But such was its brevity, she had it read halfway up the stairs. Standing upon the landing, she refolded it. Then she opened it and reread it. She refolded it.
His note was economic at best. Compared to the verbosity of his letter responding to her refusal of his marriage proposal, it was not merely terse. It was very nearly rude. Could he not at least have used the word “love” once? “Yours,” he had signed it. She signed her letters to her aunt and uncle with more affection. Her only comfort was that he had not written that he wished her “health and happiness.” An invective such as that would truly have been an outrage.
Daring not to press Bingley for details, Elizabeth spent that evening listening to the contrived gaiety of his and Jane’s conversation and gave her sewing much more attention than it had ever known of her. And whilst she embroidered, she thought again about why Darcy could have left with such haste, with not a word to her.
Certainly not because he thought he could express himself better by hand. It was unlikely a less flowery correspondent could be found in all of England.
Uninfluenced by Jane and Bingley’s pretence that all was well in the realm of romance, Elizabeth sat in silent misery. In her meditation, speculation was unavoidable.
Had her unguarded response to his kisses cost her his regard? Until then, she had held only the vaguest notion of contrition for her behaviour. The provocative abandon she had felt only the day before had degenerated into a black cloud of humiliation that threatened to follow her into perpetuity.
“Yours,” indeed.
*
After Bingley took his leave, Jane came to Elizabeth.
“Perhaps you don’t wish to speak of it, Lizzy, but I must tell you that Charles is just as perplexed at Mr. Darcy’s away as are we all. He spoke not a word of it. It is said he took his leave before first light.”
“Truly, Jane, I am vexed that he would leave so. But there are often unforeseen circumstances at such a vast estate as Pemberley that might well have necessitated his immediate attention.”
That answer sounded as contrived as it was and Elizabeth attempted to mitigate it with a smile, determined not to appear inordinately fretful. But she fretted. And the cost to her nerves and ego were considerable under the guise of “sisterly” solicitation from Bingley’s sisters, Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst.
Hence, their dinner that night at Netherfield was insufferable, seated as she was betwixt Caroline (“You poor, poor, dear Eliza”) Bingley, and the bibulous Mr. Hurst, who had no conversation beyond a disparaging comment upon each dish just consumed and a preference for the one upcoming. Elizabeth had no opinion upon any of the ten courses of the meal, for she choked down only enough food to keep Caroline from remarking upon her lack of appetite.
Looking down her narrow nose, past her exceedingly long chin, Caroline clucked again and again to Elizabeth (who knew not if it was meant as a comfort or a threat), “To think, Jane will soon be our sister,” pausing dramatically before adding ominously, “as shall you, Miss Eliza.”
Sister to Caroline Bingley. Happy thought, indeed.
Having been thwarted in a rather overt and lengthy play for Darcy’s affection, Caroline Bingley was not even marginally successful at appearing happy at their engagement. She professed absolute euphoria at the match. If she had displayed even a little coolness of manner, a certain reserve in her voice when she spoke to her, Elizabeth might have felt some sympathy for her disappointment. But as it was, the more fervently did Miss Bingley vow her everlasting devotion to her new “sister” the more firmly she announced herself an unctuous hypocrite.
At the head of the table, Jane to his right, Bingley and his betrothed were conspicuously in their own world. Howbeit their besmitten countenances only emphasised her singular status at the table, Elizabeth was grateful Jane was unwitting of Caroline’s thinly veiled insults about the Bennet family’s circumstances.
“What a sweet country frock, Miss Eliza! You must be frightfully happy to know soon you shall afford fashionable ones!”
Elizabeth was bereft. Four days until their wedding and she was still without even a word from Darcy. Trapped with the Bingley sisters behind an obscenely becandled épergne subjugating clearly half of the table whilst watching Jane and Charles look lovingly into each other’s eyes, Elizabeth felt a great deal of self-pity.
Hence, the clap of thunder that rattled the windows was most unwelcome. The accompanying rain meant she and Jane would be overnight guests as well. Breakfast on the morrow must be partaken in the same unhappy manner as dinner. Briefly considering feigning illness, Elizabeth emptied her wineglass and set it down rather soundly, thus inducing a stare from Mr. Hurst and its hurried refilling from the footman. She was tempted to upend the glass again, this consideration taking her attention just long enough for the evening’s entertainment to be decided upon as cards. Given the manner in which fortune had trespassed upon her most recently, she fancied her partner would be Caroline Bingley and silently groused to herself.
Another clatter of thunder culminated with the crash of the front door loud enough to dislodge the portico, and the party synchronously jolted in their chairs. The wind that rushed in blew out many candles from the vestibule to the dining-room, sending the servants bustling to resecure the light. But before they could, another horrific rattle of thunder erupted, this one punctuated by a show of lightning that revealed a spectre at the door of the dining-room. Louisa Hurst shrieked.
But Elizabeth did not. Still, she was startled. For the convulsion of flickering light revealed the very face she saw every time she closed her eyes.
“Darcy!” Bingley declared.
That proclamation was met with a gradual relighting of the candles, which unveiled the condition in which Mr. Darcy had entered the house—soaking wet. He handed his hat to a servant, who then yanked and heaved mightily whilst endeavouring to relieve him of his saturated greatcoat.
Bingley bounded from his sea
t, hand outstretched to Darcy, “I say, Darcy, come sit by the fire or you shall catch your death!”
(Mrs. Bennet would have been very alarmed. Were three days enough time to take pneumonia and die?)
Apparently the drenching Darcy took had come only from an impetuous, umbrellaless dash from his coach to the house and he convinced Bingley he had not been so foolish as to make the trip upon horseback. After waving off Bingley’s concern, Darcy looked through the dim light at each dinner guest. When his eyes lit upon Elizabeth, they rested their search. Elizabeth saw that they had, as did everyone seated at the table, for all eyes followed the same course as did his. To say she was disconcerted would be understating it by half. His appearance was so sudden, she had not time to decide what to say, much less how to feel, particularly since the room seemed quite anxious to register it. So, her cheeks did what they did best. They coloured.
Excusing himself for dry clothes, Darcy quitted the room almost within a minute of his introduction. There might have been cause for Elizabeth to wonder if he had really been there had not she continued to be scrutinised by her company. (Mr. Hurst held his oft-replenished wineglass halfway to his mouth for clearly a quarter-minute, which was evidently a record abstention for him.)
There was enough time to compleat the meal and retire to the comfort of the drawing room before they were joined by a now-dry Darcy. He bowed and spoke to everyone there before he came to Elizabeth. All Elizabeth wanted was to have a private conversation with him, but it appeared he was in no great haste to have one with her. For he merely took her hand, barely brushing his lips across it as he sat down next to her, immediately initiating a conversation with Bingley.
The evening was spent in that perverse manner. Darcy sat next to Elizabeth, very nearly touching her, but had hardly a comment to her beyond the storm. Darcy and Bingley nearly had their foreheads touching, so confidential was their conversation. Elizabeth only learnt through determined eavesdropping that Darcy’s wet arrival had come about by reason of a stop at Longbourn.
Darcy told Bingley (and more than one Bingley sister who was eavesdropping as well), “There I discovered the Miss Bennets were dining at Netherfield. I feared their carriage might be caught in this storm, thus I strove on.”
It appeared to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy had gone to a great deal of bother and grief to find her so he could ignore her. Yet, when agreement was made to retire and Miss Bingley called for a servant to show the Miss Bennets to their bedchambers, Darcy caught Elizabeth’s hand, allowing the others to quit the room and leave it to them. At last.
Howbeit she fought it dearly, Elizabeth felt herself trembling. The defence she had fashioned to ward off the worry, vexation, and humiliation over his departure had just collapsed. Relief that he had returned and anger over the manner in which he had taken leave were threatening to make her cry. She did not trust herself to speak. It was he who needed to explain himself, not she to inquire.
But he offered no explanation. He offered a gift. Elizabeth eyed the small silk-wrapped present in his hand meanly. Did he fancy he could treat her so thoughtlessly and buy her forgiveness with a trinket? She eyed the silk again. Even an expensive trinket? If she was, indeed, to become Mrs. Darcy, this must be addressed.
Her hesitancy to take the package from his hand induced Darcy to draw the end of the bow himself, thus revealing within the silk a sapphire the size of his thumbnail. It was surrounded by three rows of diamonds and swimming in a sea of pearls. It was only when he held it up that Elizabeth saw it was a necklace, the sapphire and diamonds its clasp. She saw, too, that if he thought a gift would buy her happiness, he did not fancy such felicity purchased cheaply.
“My father gave these to me as he lay ill the month before he died. He told me my mother had wanted me to present them to my wife. They belonged to her.”
Thereupon, he placed them about the neck of a thoroughly chastened Elizabeth.
“My costume, I fear, does not do such a treasure justice,” Elizabeth finally managed to say. “Miss Bingley is anxious to help me improve my wardrobe…something in brocade, I think she suggested…”
In her discomfiture, it was not what she wanted to say. She looked up at Darcy and said what she did want to say.
“I thank you.”
“Lesser beauties, of course, might need brocades and other such finery. But upon you, Elizabeth, it would be redundant.”
She fingered the pearls gently. He placed his fingers even more gently atop hers.
The tip of his forefinger located the largest pearl as it nestled in the indention at the bottom of her throat and rolled it lightly against her skin.
“You made a special trip to Pemberley for this? Could you not have sent someone and not have disappeared for so long? Sir, do not think me ungrateful, for I am not. But it has been an agony…”
Her trembling voice announced the strain of the previous week and Elizabeth was afraid the emotion of the moment would make her weep.
“Yes,” he said, then, “No…I did not…” he stopped again.
It was apparent any further explanation for his leave-taking would not be easily offered. Abnegating to that self-evident truth, he abandoned any accounting for his departure and turned Elizabeth about to look at herself in the mirror upon the wall behind them.
“So very lovely,” he said quietly, but as he spoke, he was looking at her countenance reflected in the looking-glass, not the pearls.
Her gaze returned his there in the mirror. And through that surrogacy, a communion more intimate than had hitherto been encountered took place. And within the length of that gaze, he encircled her in his embrace, his arms beneath hers. He kissed her neck just beneath her ear. And as he did, she watched his expression alter from shared intimacy to private anguish. Was it his dead mother’s pearls about her neck? There was no opportunity to query, either in the mirror or directly, for he took her formally by the hand and led her out of the drawing room and to the stairs.
Once there, they were overtaken by Miss Bingley come in search of Miss Eliza to show her to her room. In place of a goodnight kiss and profession of love, Elizabeth was led away by her cunning, chattering hostess. Hence, she could only take a fleeting glance over her shoulder at Darcy, hands hanging uselessly at his sides.
*
Troubled, Elizabeth sat in the middle of the plump mattress in her rather fine room at Netherfield and considered seeking Jane for a talk. But the house was asleep and she was not certain to which room Jane had retired. It would be imprudent to sneak about the halls knocking randomly upon doors in her dressing-gown. A light rap upon her own door stole her attention from pondering propriety. She brightened. Perhaps Jane had found her. Then darkened. Perhaps Miss Bingley wanted to inquire as to the suitability of her accommodations. By the time she padded across the room, she had steeled herself for the cloying sweetness of -Caroline’s solicitations.
Therefore, the expression she bore when she opened the door to Darcy was not a particularly inviting one.
So dramatic a change did her countenance make, it was quite obvious his appearance was not anticipated. Her alteration of expression did not influence his, thus revealing he expected her astonishment. Automatically, she put her hand to her now vacant neck. Had he come to retrieve his mother’s necklace?
Without hesitation, she took a step back with the door, in mute acquiescence to his admittance. In any other circumstance, she would not have acted so rashly, supposing the probability he came to wish her goodnight. But he was in his shirtsleeves and his face still bore stifled traces of the wretchedness she had seen in the mirror; hence, her reaction had been instinctive.
He stepped into the room. She closed the door, exceedingly aware that the single layer of muslin cascading from her trembling shoulders was beginning a shimmy over which she had no control. She endeavoured to halt it by leaning back against the door. One must suppose that he took note of her gown as well. For once in the room, he stood very still and took a lengthy study of her pers
on, from her loose hair to her bare toes (which curled under the inspection).
Unexpectedly, he turned and walked away from her into the middle of the room. He reached out and rested his hand upon the top of the post at the end of her bed, and, looking more into the air than at her he spoke.
“I fear I must apologise for taking leave so suddenly and without explanation…”
At this, he glanced at his own hand reposed atop her bedpost and, rather self—consciously, removed it and placed it upon his hip. Elizabeth gave a slight nod, but did not speak.
He continued. “I could have sent my man for the necklace, it is true. But I chose not. I had to take leave…from you, us…lest I…forget myself. Compleatly.”
With an unlikely blend of contrition and indignation, she said, “I supposed you had made your escape from the shameless libertine you have ascertained your intended to be.”
At this, he looked at her in sudden realisation that she thought that he had gone, not in defence of her honour, but by reason of her comportment.
“It is myself I do not trust, Elizabeth, not you.”
It took a few moments for the magnitude of his confession to settle upon her mind.
But, it ultimately did. Evidently, his passion was more indocile than her own. Both relieved and amused, she asked, “You came to me in the night to tell me you do not trust yourself alone in my company?”
As she said this, she walked toward him, feeling a little giddy at his expression of confoundment. Furrowing his brow slightly, he deliberated upon that for a moment.
“It appears, indeed, I have.”
By then, she had reached him and taken his hand. The coldness of hers allowed him to change the subject from dissection of the reason why he stood in her room at that hour to the mundaneness of the chilliness of it. He busied himself demanding she find her slippers, robe herself, come stand by the fire, none of which she was able to do, for he drew the duvet from the bed and wrapped it about her shoulders.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 6