Why a man who has everything to recommend him (excepting an amiable countenance) should be anything but self-assured I could not say. But I suppose it is not for me to judge. I do far too much judging.
I suddenly feel much lighter. I haven't married a disagreeable man at all. He is really a kindhearted, wonderful man who is simply hiding all his good qualities so he does not have to talk to people.
I am also feeling a little proud of myself for considering his character so rationally, so removed from my own assumptions. Marriage agrees with me. From here on out I will be more rational and less apt to jump to conclusions. I will be gentler with Mr. Darcy, more patient, more understanding, more—
"I do not wish to converse at this time. I do not understand why that should be such a great imposition to everyone or why I should forever be defending my lack of inclination, but here it is: I do not wish to converse."
"I'm sorry?" I asked, bewildered by his sudden declaration.
"I know you are punishing me for my lack of conversation with your humming. Tuneless humming. What I must assume isintentionallytuneless humming as I have heard your singing and know you are perfectly capable of carrying a tune if you wish."
Oh, goodness. I had really thought I had cured myself of that bad habit.
"I wasn't humming." It is always worthwhile to try denial first, just in case it works.
"You most certainly were."
"I was not humming intentionally, tunelessly or otherwise. Sometimes, when I am thinking deeply, I hum. I don't even realize I'm doing it."
"Wonderful."
He put so much disdain into that one word every promise I just made to myself about being kind and patient and understanding flew straight out of my head.
"Oh, yes, I am sure you are completely without any bad habits. It must be lovely to be utterly perfect and thus able to look down on the rest of us mere mortals."
He rolled his eyes—yes, he actually rolled his eyes—and then looked out the window wearing his bored/irritated/tired/contemptuous/haughty face. "Do you plan to once again enumerate all my failings. I would think by now you've done that thoroughly, but perhaps you have new grievances?"
Perhaps I did.
I had endeavored not to say anything because it had all turned out . . . well, not right but settled. It had all been settled and the past wasn't worth dwelling on and of course I had to be so, so, so, so bloody grateful he had condescended to come back at all but—
"Why did you abandon me?"
His expression shifted to a look of bemusement.
"At the Netherfield ball. You left without telling me your plans. Without a word."
"I sent your father a missive once everything was arranged," he replied calmly. There was not even a hint of defensiveness in his tone, just a statement of fact. His words were a verbal shrug.
"Yes," I spoke patiently, but it was the sort of patience one might employ when speaking to a small child one suspects to be slow-witted, "but that was two full days after the ball. Did you not think of how I would feel during that time, not knowing what you intended todo?"
"How could you wonder at my intentions? What else was there to do? I went to see my solicitor to draw up the settlement then I applied for a license. I do not think either of those tasks could have been completed with more celerity"
"I am not challenging the rapidity of your performance, I am expressing dissatisfaction at your lack of communication. You left me to face the consequences alone. I thought myself—and my sisters along with me—completely ruined."
A flicker of remorse crossed his features, but then his usual cold severity came rushing back. "I returned. What more do you wish of me?"
"Nothing. I wish absolutely nothing of you," I replied. I was right from the first, he is an unfeeling, haughty, horrible man.
Three
3rdDecember, 1811
Evening
As soon as the maid who had helped me out of my dinner dress had taken her leave, I collapsed upon my bed. Or rather I collapsed upon the bed in the chamber I had been directed to upon arriving at Darcy House.
It did not feel like my bed. I did not believe anything in this house would ever feel like mine. Nevertheless it was, at least in name, my bed. In my bedchamber. My bedchamber which had three doors. One door led to my private sitting room. One door led to my dressing room. And one door led to my husband's bedchamber.
