“I was right, obviously, not to tell you before we reached an understanding,” he said. “I was concerned you would feel obligated to me, but I had no idea of it producing so strong a sense of gratitude as this.”
“That is because you do not know what I do.” She stood back from him, and he was startled to see how affected she was. “I have said this to no one, but Wickham all but admitted to me that he was carrying on an affair with Mrs Younge. She is their landlady and nearest neighbour. Lydia was completely oblivious. It broke my heart that she was being so ill-used. Now you have sent them away from all that. I will not fool myself into believing he will not succumb again to temptation, but at least he is away from that woman.”
Darcy regretted, now, not visiting Wickham himself to deliver a rebuke of a more memorable variety. He had wished—foolishly—to believe that some hidden vestige of decency had induced his erstwhile friend to marry Lydia. Would he never learn that the man was beyond redemption? “If there were anything more I could do to help your sister, I would, but—”
“There is nothing more to be done—and you have already done more than either of them deserves. But you have givenmegreat comfort, and I thank you with all my heart.”
“I am gladder than ever to have assisted, then, though it did add a week to the time I took to get to you.”
Elizabeth looked relieved to be restored to lighter matters and turned them back to the path with a renewal of her usual liveliness. “You were lucky it did not take you longer. I was about to run away to stay with my aunt Wallis in North Devon. Mrs Reynolds has been of some use after all in confessing to you when she did.”
“I would have found you, wherever you had gone. And Mrs Reynolds will have none of the credit for my present happiness. I could not have stayed away from you much longer, but I was waiting for you to return home. I was told, when I called at the Plough and Horseshoe, that you had gone north. I assumed you had gone on with your holiday. I have been waiting—wretchedly, I might add—until I thought you might reasonably have returned to Longbourn.”
“We had, originally, planned to go to Chesterfield when we left Lambton. They must have thought that was where we were going. We did not advertise what we were actually hastening towards, for obvious reasons. I hope it will be a comfort for you to know that we had discarded that plan some days before we received the news about Lydia. About the time that my aunt thought I might be forming an attachment to you and would prefer to stay in Lambton, in fact.”
“That is both comforting and maddening. It would have saved me considerable distress had I known you felt that way.”
She gave him an intoxicating look of impish contrition. “I didtryto let you know. I could not put anything in a letter, but I did send you a message with your coat.”
“Yes, but as I said, Mrs Reynolds burnt it.”
“No, not the note. It might be—” She pointed to his coat pocket and asked, “May I?”
Darcy nodded and to his surprise, amusement, and rapidly increasing pleasure, she slid her hand into his pocket—in search of what, he dared not permit himself to suppose.
With a triumphant cry, she retracted her hand and waved a ribbon in the air between them. “I pushed it too far into the stitching. I am not surprised you did not notice it.”
“What is it?”
“The ribbon I used at the picnic for the game of Lead Balloon. Do you not remember it?”
Darcy shook his head, nonplussed. “I was not looking at yourribbonthat day.”
“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose and chuckled wryly. “So, my attempt to let you know that I admired you was a miserable failure?”
“I will admit—and only because I am now secure in your affections—had I found that, I would absolutelynothave equated it with a declaration of your regard. I would have just thought you left your ribbon in my pocket.”
Elizabeth’s slight chuckle turned into full blown and hearty laughter. “How wonderfully like you that is, dearest Fitzwilliam!”
If a heart swelling with happiness was something that could truly happen, Darcy thought his might burst to see her so joyful, so beautiful, so enticingly, miraculously his. He could not kiss her again, for he had spotted Bingley and Miss Bennet coming back along the path towards them, but it was enough simply to know that she would be his wife, and that he would be endearingly hers for as long as he had on earth.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
GLAD TIDINGS
Dearest Aunt Wallis,
I can scarcely believe I am writing this, but I have pinched myself until I am black and blue, and I have not woken up yet, so it must be true. I am engaged! You will think, when I tell you to whom, that I have lost my mind, but you will have to trust that I know what I am about. Remember that, as my godmother, you are obliged to nurture my happiness, and since he has made me the happiest creature alive, it behoves you to try to love him as much as you possibly can.
His real name will mean nothing to you, for you have never known it, so I shall begin by telling you that I am soon to be Mrs Starch. Yes, he is the same Starch who refused to dance with me when we were first introduced, the same Starch who persuaded Jane’s Wet Lettuce to leave, and the same Starch who proposed to me so abominably earlier this year. But these recollections have now been mentioned for the very last time and are to be entirely forgot. Henceforth, you are to know him as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (and Wet Lettuce as Mr Charles Bingley). I shall attempt an explanation and hope that I am as convincing in my praise of him as I was in my censure.
For reasons that are no longer of any significance, my aunt and uncle Gardiner and I did not go to the Lakes this summer. We travelled only as far as Derbyshire. We may blame disappointment for my not writing to you with news of the change at the time, and I have not told you since because Lydia’s misadventure overtook everything. But here it is. We travelled to Lambton, in Derbyshire, which I later found out was little more than five miles from Mr Darcy’s estate, Pemberley.
(I believe I told you that he owned an estate, but I admit, I may have stinted on the details of its size and eminence. I ought to tell you, then, that it is one of the largest and oldest estates in the north of England. When I complained that Charlotte had defended his pride, this was what she meant. It suited me to omit the fact that he is one of the most illustrious men in the country. I preferred you to hate him.)
My aunt Gardiner wished to visit Pemberley. I was considerably less keen, as you might imagine, and was in agonies until we learnt from a maid that the family was not at home. Well, Aunt, we went, the maid was proved wrong, and some of the most mortifying moments of my life ensued. By the end of it, however, Mr Darcy and I were reacquainted—and by the end of another week, we were a good way to coming to an understanding. Be not disappointed by this apparently rapid resolution—I have lived up to Lydia’s precedent to some degree and found a goodly number of opponents to my chosen suitor. Miss Bingley, Lydia, Peacock, Mr Darcy’s housekeeper, even the rock upon which his house is built all threw obstacles in our path, but we have, at last, prevailed!
You will want me to account for how my feelings have undergone such a material change, I suppose. I never told you the contents of the letter Mr Darcy gave me in Kent, and I shall not now, for it was written in the strictest confidence, but you are aware, I know, that it had already worked to soften my opinion of him. I was further astonished in Derbyshire by the alteration in his character. The conceited gentleman who ignored me in Netherfield’s library had been replaced with the gentlest, most generous man I have ever met. I anticipate that you will warn me it is but a temporary change, but I do not believe that is so. He has altered in the way he behaves towardsme, that is certain, but I think only because he has learnt to comprehend me better—and if that alone is not a reason to love him then I do not know what is—but I do not consider that he is altered in essentials. Rather, I have come to better comprehendhim.
