Then, he snored.
MR. DARCY HADto keep reminding his sister that she was not, in fact, even out in society, and there was no reason to rush to find a husband, that she was young, exceedingly young, entirely young, that she had years of life ahead of her.
But, as it happened, he remembered the way of it when he had been an adolescent, the impossibility of understanding the future. It seemed that everything was happening now and that it would remain that way forever.
His sister was in an ecstasy of terror about marriage.
To her way of thinking, she had nearly married two men and both of these experiences had gone badly, and now she was doomed to never have happiness unless she found a husband immediately to remedy the situation.
He spent half of his time arguing with her about this and the rest of the time chasing her about.
She had gotten free of Mrs. Nable, her companion, on two occasions out in town and gone off on her own. (“And what did you think you were going to find?” he had asked her. “Were you going to find a husband on the corner all alone in the midst of the afternoon in London in the summer?”)
She had little answer to his questions.
Well, this wasn’t true. She had a number of answers, but none of them made sense. They only made sense in that desperate way of youth, when everything is intense and impossible. He knew not what to do for his sister. He was considering sending her away, though both times he had broached the subject, she had broken down into great hulking sobs and called him a brute for even suggesting such a thing.
They needed to go to Pemberley.
There was only one thing keeping him in London, of course.
Elizabeth.
He needed to go to her, had been trying to find a way to go to her, but between running after Georgiana and Richard’s funeral and seeing to his own business, he hadn’t gotten there yet.
Well, this was his excuse, but the other thing was that she was all alone in that house, and he was going to go there, all alone, and call upon her, and then he was going to…
The last time they were alone, things had progressed to a certain degree.
Mr. Darcy didn’t know a lot about this, he had to admit, but he had an idea that things between men and women never really went backwards. He had progressed to the point of kissing two women he courted and regretted it both times, because then it seemed as if kissing was expected each time they could sneak in kisses and if there were no kisses, it was a calamity, and also there was a push to kiss longer, kiss more passionately, for one’s hands to wander…
You didn’t start kissing and then stop kissing, and he didn’t know what happened if you had not actually kissed a woman but had instead let her…
Oh, how hadthathappened?
He had sneered at Richard once, accusing him of seeing Elizabeth as a plaything because of her status as possibly ruined, and he wondered at himself. Had he moved her into a different category as well? Had he treated her differently than a woman like herself should be treated?
He was fairly certain that most men did not ask their wives to put their mouths on them in that way.
Of course, he hadn’t asked.
No, at some point, you ordered her to do it, didn’t you? You said she must take the tip of you.
The point was, if he went to her house, if he started visiting her regularly, things were simply going to start happening. He wanted it. She wanted it. It was inevitable.
Maybe there was nothing all that terrible about that, in the end. He was going to marry her. She wanted him, of that he finally felt secure. There was no way she had donethatto him if she didn’t want him. She had no reason to do it, none at all, and she had once professed to find the entire idea of male seed disgusting and she had willingly swallowed his, in hermouth.
So.
She wants me,he thought, and he felt good all over, actually good, like all was right with the entire world.
There was nothing wrong with his having her now, nothing at all. They were very clearly meant for each other, and this all made sense now, why he’d been obsessed with her for so long, and why he’d gone to the ends of the earth for her and why she was the most important person in the world to him.
He should take her to bed, because she belonged there.
Well.
There was nothing wrong with it except notyet.
