“Then Uncle met Mr Bingley at the Club?” asked Elizabeth, imagining Mr Darcy might sometimes be there as well, surrounded by his friends and relations, for she was certain the Colonel was also a member.
“Yes, precisely so. He invited him to dinner…I know not what he said—”
“Perhaps that he knew Mr Bingley had rented a house near Meryton, and that he had met his family who resided at Longbourn,” supplied Mary, completing the tale as one accustomed to do so from her reading.
“Yes, very likely…It seems that at a club, gentlemen form connections quite easily.”
“And he invited him to dinner so simply?” Mary was still incredulous.
Jane hesitated. Her happiness had caused her to forget many details. Still, it no longer mattered, for the evening before Mr Bingley had come to dine.
“I knew nothing…Last night, as I was preparing to return to the Academy, they asked me to remain and dine with them. I could not comprehend the reason until the butler announced him, and there he stood before me. When we looked around, we found ourselves quite alone.”
“Oh, Mama’s education,” laughed Elizabeth.
“And he asked me to be his wife.”
“You forgave him immediately?” Mary’s tone betrayed all her former resentment on her sister’s behalf.
“Immediately,” confessed Jane without the least regret. “We are to be married in August, here in London.”
Elizabeth remained behind them, torn between joy and sorrow. It was evident she could say nothing to Jane, and Mary did not wish to know; for, of late, she had observed her sister conversing frequently with Miss Darcy.
She pondered a while what she ought to do, then wrote a short note to Mrs Gardiner, entreating her to call upon her. At length, she felt that her aunt was the only person in the world who could comprehend her anguish and keep her secret. For once, she—who had ever been regarded by those around her as strong and exceedingly independent—confessed that she needed someone to listen, to comfort, to strengthen her, to help her through those painful hours—to teach her, perhaps, how forgetfulness might settle in her heart in place of love.
“I am not certain that I know how to do this,” her aunt confessed with a sad smile after hearing her tale. “I do notbelieve there exists any recipe for recovering from love. Yet you possess what few women have—a purpose in life other than to seek another man, as most would feel compelled to do. You have this excellent work, which you love. If you allow yourself to be absorbed daily by the duties of the Academy, I am convinced that pain and regret will diminish. I do not say that you will cease to love him…but that you will learn to live with the memories, and to take pleasure in this beautiful life around you..”
Chapter 19
Darcy remained at Pemberley for only a fortnight, though he had intended to stay until the end of summer. His plan had been for the colonel to collect Georgiana from the Academy at the close of June and bring her to Pemberley, where, in August, they would receive the Ashcombe family and his relatives, the Matlocks. No date for the marriage had been fixed, which suited him well, for it allowed time to compose himself, to be no longer disturbed by Miss Elizabeth’s refusal, and to begin to think of the other Elizabeth as of his future wife.
Yet even the thought of her asthe other Elizabethgave him a sense of uneasiness, as though Miss Elizabeth Bennet still reigned in his mind.
Lady Elizabeth had remained in London, her mother being determined that she should acquire that polish of elegance which young ladies of the capital so readily possessed. Though she had resisted at first, she had at length consented, having already passed two agreeable months during the winter in Lady Matlock’s house, where she had felt quite at ease.
Your fiancée is delightful,wrote Lady Matlock.She is as proper as a girl of her years ought to be, yet full of life—especially when it is not I who invite her and my daughter-in-law to shop in Bond Street, but Richard who calls upon her to ride out with their friends.
It was precisely what he needed to hear. The mere thought that an impulse to marry might have driven him to take for a wife a young lady such as Lady Amelie filled him with disgust. In Kent, he had been ready to marry without caring greatly whom he chose…and that would have been an irreparable error. Lady Elizabeth was what he required; he was persuaded that, in time, their union would become steady and amiable. It would never be the ardour which had bound him to Miss Elizabeth; yet a woman who valued life at Pemberley and took pleasure in belonging to that community was, after all, of greater consequence than any other consideration.
He resolved to return to London, for the solitude of Pemberley, contrary to expectation, did him no good. He discovered that he required company and bustle—the theatre, cheerful dinners, and engagements at the club. He needed to forget that he had been refused with such firmness, almost violence, and to begin to frame his future in other terms than those he had conceived before Hertfordshire.
On the last day of his stay at Pemberley, his valet brought him an express letter from London, just arrived. Whenever he received an express, his heart gave a painful leap, for he feared for Georgiana. Yet that afternoon, the letter was from Mr Bingley.
He looked at it for a few moments with a faint sense of regret. His opinion of Miss Bennet had not altered, nor could it, for he had not seen her again. Still, he greatly regretted having interfered in Bingley’s affection. He was certain that Bingley’s sisters alone would never have succeeded in preventing themarriage; yet he himself had argued against it. It had been at least the third time that his friend had fallen in love, and always with young women more interested in his fortune than in his person. Still, that had not been his concern, and his interference had been an error.
After all, even the colonel admitted candidly that he should marry an heiress; yet that did not mean he would not make a good and faithful husband.
Darcy had disliked Mrs Bennet and the younger sisters exceedingly. Still, with Miss Bennet, he had scarcely conversed, for she and Bingley were ever apart, absorbed in one another’s discourse. He knew little of her, and perhaps a few moments of observation had not afforded him a just impression.
He opened the letter and almost let it fall, for it contained but one matter, expressed in several ways upon the page: Bingley had proposed to Miss Bennet, and she had accepted. The marriage was fixed for August, and Bingley relied upon him to stand as his witness.
Darcy laid the letter quietly upon the table beside his chair and looked about him at the books which had so often been his companions in times of trial. Here, he had taken refuge when his mother died. He remembered vividly how, after burying his father, he and Georgiana had spent many evenings in this same room, reading or conversing; for the parlour, the music-room, or the dining-room would too painfully have recalled their parents’ presence. The library had been a neutral space, a place of forgetting, where they had rebuilt their little family—only the two of them.
He took up the letter again and read it once more. Poor Bingley had written how entirely mistaken he had been regarding Miss Bennet, though not directly, for in his gentle manner, he made not the slightest reproach for the manymonths during which their happiness had been delayed on his account.
Joy seemed to spring from every line, from every word—some written with a trembling hand, doubtless from emotion. While Darcy rejoiced for him, the image of Elizabeth overwhelmed him. Elizabeth…the woman he had wished to marry from the first days of their acquaintance, and whom he had driven away with the absurdity of his own declarations. He ought to have told her how dearly he loved her, how ardently he desired to see her mistress of Pemberley.
The truth came upon him like icy water; he trembled from head to foot, for in his heart there remained no trace of the anger or resentment of that day. All was effaced, leaving behind nothing but love. He loved her profoundly, and Bingley’s happiness had but loosened his own heart from bitterness, revealing what dwelt within. There was nothing there but love.
