Maybe Papa would speak some secret fear of Darcy’s mind and convince him, while making a tease, that a woman slightly old and very bold was not to his taste. Elizabeth studied her dim reflection in a small mirror kept in one of the display cabinets Mrs. Bennet had littered around the rooms of Longbourn.
Ridiculous. She looked as fetching as ever. Her appearance had not changed in any great way in the last three hours.
Elizabeth picked up a book to make a pretense of reading. At last Darcy entered the room. Elizabeth saw his smile and the anxiety passed away, as though it had never been there. She was safe with him. She wanted to marry him.
“Your father wishes to see you.”
Elizabeth briefly took and pressed Darcy’s hand before she went to that most familiar room. Her father’s bookroom.
The stove dimly burned red, and the light from the low winter sun illuminated her father. She had been struck once before that time was catching him. She saw it again. He had taken his spectacles off and Papa contemplatively studied the wall of books to the right of the desk. Two small cut-glass snifters and a dusty dark green bottle of fine cognac sat open on the desk. The glass in front of her father was mostly full, while the one in front of the chair where she usually sat had droplets of the golden liquid in its bottom.
Her chair had been moved to sit across from her father, instead of next to him. Evidently Darcy had used it. That gave a queer sensation, as though his moving her chair and sitting in it was a deeper intimacy than the kisses they had shared the night before. Almost a violation of some space around her sense of who she was.
Papa gestured towards the chair. “Lizzy, please sit down.” He pulled out an additional glass, and filled it with a slender, carefully measured line of cognac. The fruity waft of the alcohol reached Elizabeth.
Elizabeth looked at her chair. She moved to move it back to its proper position, but then she paused. Her hand sat on the soft plush upholstery. Wouldn’t sitting where Darcy had moved her chair be some sort of symbol of the way her relationship with her father must change now that she was to marry?
That thought was shrugged away.
Things between her and Papa would change in superficials, but in fundamentals they would be as they always had been. She moved the chair back to its proper place next to Papa.
He smiled to see her do it.
As she settled herself, Papa took a sip of his cognac and let it rest it in his mouth before swallowing. “Very good batch. Even Mr. Darcy praised me upon the flavor. Gift from Gardiner few years back; I hid it for a special occasion.”
Elizabeth sipped, slightly surprised by her father’s commentary. He was not a gourmand.
“I gave him my consent. Mr. Darcy is the sort of man I would never refuse anything if he condescended to ask. Besides, I don’t have time for that nonsense about father’s choosing. You have a mind of your own. My refusing my blessing would do nothing to change it, if you’d settled it.”
Papa’s dour manner frustrated Elizabeth. “You are capable of frankness. If you do not approve, say as much.”
“I neither approve nor disapprove. I only worry — I did not marry well. Do not say anything, you know this. We live together tolerably, and I have been happy — I never really placed my expectations of happiness in my wife. A man can waste his time as he chooses, while women’s time is wasted at her husband’s choosing.”
“Mr. Darcy would never mistreat me, or—”
“I know. I know. I know.” Papa wearily held his hand out to stop her from speaking. “You are in love, and Darcy issans pareil. The character of a perfectgentleman. He will never mistreat you, but you and he may differ in what you expect, and he is a man who will have his will done.”
The perfect gentleman. Elizabeth threw that as an insult at Darcy once. She laughed. “Papa, I have not forgotten thedelightfulspats we had when we first met.”
“He is a proud man, accustomed to having his own way.”
“I am a proud woman, able to oppose him. I am who he needs. Mr. Darcy does not want a wife who would obey him in every way. He needs a prickly woman.”
“What will he do with her once she is his wife? An extension of his family, name and self.”
Elizabeth felt a cold and frightened. She thrust that emotion away. She loved Darcy; she trusted him. “I am no untried child. I know what I am about.”
“There is time to change your mind — it soon shall be past such time. If you possess any uncertainty…Lizzy, I beg you to ask yourself rationally and be sure…”
“I have considered — you perhaps are jealous, Papa? You said I ought to marry, but this shall be a great change for us both. We have been so tightly connected, and…it will not change, not in the foundation.”
“Dear Lizzy, I only worry for your happiness.”
“And. Darcywillbe my happiness — you shall always be welcome. Mr. Darcy will send his best carriage to fetch you if needed. Pemberley has a vast library; we will expect you to look at the rare books many times. You will come often, do promise.”
“Lizzy, I will go anywhere you are, as often as I am wanted.”
“That will be very much. Mr. Darcy agrees — he does not like too much company, but he will always welcome having you near.”
