“All of the servants who are in my employ,” I said. “They are in a position where other servants will challenge them on the morality of their master. You know this is true.”
“Well, that is too much to take on, Fitz,” he said. “I daresay most men in your position do not take it on.”
“It can have detrimental effects,” I said. “Men who do not have sterling morality are known as such. It can mean that business transactions fall through, that men do not wish to allow you to marry their daughters—”
“Well, in this case, that won’t matter, because you will be married.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
“You could do it if you wanted and you know it,” he said.
I shook my head. “I could not.”
But I was at Longbourn early the next day, too early for callers. I was shown into the breakfast parlor, and Bingley was there, and he looked up at me and raised his eyebrows, and I stammered out, “I wish to speak to Miss Bennet alone.”
“You wish,” said Mr. Bingley, “to speak to my future bride alone?”
“I do,” I said. “If she is not your bride yet, she can still hear what I have to say.”
Mrs. Bennet crowed, “This is truly the most exciting set of days in my life in decades. My nerves! I can hardly handle the mad swings of it all.”
It was a warm spring day in early May.
Miss Bennet and I went walking through the fields around Longbourn.
I did not know what to say. “I did not think I would come to see you and do this,” I said. “I spent all night staying up and protesting that I could not do it. There is a certain sort of woman I should marry, and you have never been that sort of woman, and now that you have attempted to elope with Mr. Wickham, it is even worse, and it is all insupportable.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, then, insupportable, Mr. Darcy?”
“So, I have struggled against it,” I said. “Struggled in vain, I think, for it will not do, I cannot leave you to marry Mr. Bingley. I must tell you how ardently I admire you, how I love you, how I have thought of little but you since the first time I set eyes upon you. You must understand, Miss Bennet, you drive me to do insupportable things, and I cannot help myself, I must ask for your hand. Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
She continued to walk and said nothing.
I walked next to her.
“Well,” she said finally, “you have done it. James said you might, and I said you would not, for I sat across from you in that carriage and saw the expressions you made, the way you disapprove of me.”
“I do not disapprove of you, madam.”
“You do indeed. Your entire proposal has been about how much, in fact, you disapprove.”
“No,” I said. “Other people disapprove. I think you’re wonderful.”
“Other people?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“People whose opinions you care about.”
“Well…” I was not certain what to say.
“I suppose you realize that Mr. Bingley came to me this morning, and that I have already accepted his proposal, and that everyone in the family is quite relieved at this turn of events,even though my father cannot understand why Mr. Bingley would do such a thing, and James’s reason that he and Bingley are fast friends does not satisfy him. But they are not going to deny his offer, and neither could I. I had a letter from Lady Susannah telling me that she wishes me to stay away for the rest of the week.”
“She had heard already?”
“I told you, the servants knew,” she said. “Everyone knows. She made it out as if she was only thinking of me, and she said that I must rest, and that she would quite welcome me back in due time, but I could read between the lines, you know.”
I nodded. “Of course. I am ever so sorry, Miss Bennet.”
