The three of them talked on other matters, but Mr. Bennet was awake rather past his bedtime. After a few minutes he mostly ceased to interject himself in the conversation and he laid his head against the winged side of the sofa, and after five minutes he closed his eyes and began to softly snore.
Elizabeth looked at Mr. Bennet with a smile and a great deal of affection.
The two of them became a little quiet for a few minutes, but Darcy thought it was more out of comfort in each other’s presence than a lack of things that might be said.
The candles were low and made Elizabeth’s skin glow warmly. He would miss her very much. More than anything else in Hertfordshire, including Bingley. If only… But Darcy did not know what that “if only” pointed towards. He only knew that he liked Elizabeth’s conversation very much, that he would worry for her when they were absent, and he wished that they would not be apart.
She looked at him with what he suspected were similar thoughts.
“Canyouread Miss Bennet’s feelings?” Darcy asked of a sudden.
Elizabeth laughed at the question. “The cypher of the eternal smile?—but to what does the question turn.”
Darcy frowned in thought. He did not know that it would be proper to explain that he had been seeking to perceive if she liked Mr. Bingley.
“She is hard to understand,” Elizabeth said. “Even those who know her best find it difficult. She has always been guarded—I think it is because she can recognize wrongness in how loud Mrs. Bennet always is. No one ever wonders whatshethinks.”
With a smile Darcy repeated his question, “And you? Canyouread her feelings.”
“Often. There are subtle hints. And she is less guarded at home. But anyone who has not spent weeks in close conversation with her would be unlikely to understand much of what she thinks—must you go so soon? But you must. You have your duties. I’ll say it again: I shall miss you greatly.”
“And I you.”
They smiled at each other. They spent the next hours just enjoying each other’s presence.
They had an inexhaustible store of things to say to each other. He felt as though he might talk to Elizabeth forever without any chance of boredom.
Eventually Mr. Bennet awoke with a start, and he laughingly asked how long he had been asleep, pulled his watch from his waistcoat and looked at the time, and then with a smile at them both said, “Much as Mrs. Bennet might protest,thisis late enough that we cannot be accused of leaving unfashionably early if I have the carriage called around.”
Chapter Nine
The morning following the ball Elizabeth woke early—that is around ten in the morning—and went down to sit in his study with Mr. Bennet, who had woken also.
Elizabeth was filled with an odd mix of melancholy and joy.
Sadness at Mr. Darcy’s departure predominated, but Elizabeth thought that she really must not have lost her heart to him. If she had she would certainly have woken sobbing, been unable to go about any of her normal occupations and stared helplessly out the rainy window for the whole of the morning and afternoon. And likely she would have remained in that state until well into the new year.
If those of her novels that were more serious were to be imitated, she would in fact have never recovered from this melancholy, and then died an untimely death of grief, after which everyone would finally recognize her virtues and worth, and Mrs. Bennet would be the loudest of the mourners at her graveside.
But alas, she would no longer be alive to hear how dearly beloved she had been.
Suddenly Elizabeth giggled at an odd thought.
Mr. Bennet looked up from his book and raised his eyebrows in question.
“I only just imagined a book, written by a humorist such as the author ofTristam Shandy, where someone no one likes very much, a worthless fellow, is believed dead. And he returns to the wake or a memorial and overhears as everyone says very nice things about him, since one almost always speaks kindly of the dead, but then they are all shocked, and not overly pleased,when he appears amongst them alive, and asks them now to say such things to his face.”
The conceit brought a laugh to Mr. Bennet, but after a minute they both returned to their own thoughts.
Dying of a broken heart did not appeal to Elizabeth, and neither did feeling unhappy for months without end, so of a certainty it was for the best that she hadnotfallen in love with Mr. Darcy. Or only a little, at most.
What had protected her in this point? She was most aware of Mr. Darcy’s merits, both of person and character. There had been too great a distance between their situations in life, and she had been too aware of her own deficiencies of birth formarriageto be imagined on. And as she had come to know his character, it became clear to her that imagining any other connection was equally insupportable.
Mr. Darcy liked her as much as hecould, and had their respective situations been equal they very wellmighthave formed an attachment. This was a cause for happiness, not grief, and what was more, a reason to think highly of herself for having interested such a gentleman.
“Oh,” Elizabeth said to Mr. Bennet, “there was a thing Mr. Darcy said to me, about that officer who Lydia and Kitty are so enthused by, that I think—”
“In Latin or Greek please,” Mr. Bennet interrupted, “You may choose, but we have not yet practiced today.”
