He kissed her lips and her forehead with all the tenderness he felt for her. “I shall hear no talk of goodness, but if you wish to call me lucky—insanely fortunate—you may do so.”
They began to walk toward the house. “I feel as if I should hurry,” he observed. He could not make himself walk any faster than a besotted, meandering, moon-faced man strolling along with his lover.
“By rights, you should, but I am feeling selfish just now. Tell me of Lydia.”
“Of all her family, she asked for you.”
“For me!”
“She was very certain she wishes to see you first, before she comes home. Will you let me take you to London?”
“You will have a very hard timenottaking me to London, Mr. Darcy.”
“Your father may have other ideas, love.”
“You had better tell him, then, that I shall be marrying you just as soon as may be, and that from now on, if I go anywhere, I shall be going with you. And we shall take Jane.”
He chuckled. “For propriety’s sake?”
“Indeed. One elopement ought to suffice for excitement, and I cannot say what sort of indecency I could be tempted to if I were alone with you.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she looked up at him.
“You know, do you not, how very much I love you?”
“I do not believe I do. Some months, perhaps years, and many such avowals may be required for you to convince me of your feelings.”
“I am at your mercy, Elizabeth, but must you torment me with your charming mischief?”
“You have always liked me better for it,” she whispered, leading him forward into the parlor.
***
Elizabeth and Jane retired in the haze of relief and exhaustion that marked their remarkable day. They had listened with tears, laughter, gasps, and moments of shocked silence, as Mr. Darcy recounted Lydia’s terrifying experience. Mary and Kitty had gathered in the parlor with their older sisters, along with their father, and when she finally heard that Lydia was not dead because of her, Kitty wept so uncontrollably that Mary took her up to her bed.
Mr. Bennet had read Mr. Gardiner’s note and then listened in grave, attentive silence to Mr. Darcy. He looked twice as bewildered as Elizabeth had ever seen him and perhaps a little benumbed. After half an hour, he seemed to be more himself and invited Mr. Darcy to his library to hear any details that might not be suitable for his daughters’ ears.
What he heard instead, Elizabeth could only guess at, but he was surely shaking his head in disbelief that Mr. Darcy, a man he would rather politely despise, would take away one of his daughters the very minute all five of them were restored to him. He had barely recovered from this blow when Charles Bingley came into the library for a private word, and when that was gotten through, he went out on his horse for what remained of his morning.
Elizabeth would have liked to have been vulgarly curious about this, but she was much too busy. She and Jane spent the rest of the morning with Mrs. Bennet, impressing upon her the need for her to hold her tongue, for once, on the subject of Lydia’s flight from Brighton. The degree of their success was questionable, and they were worn out from the effort.
“But is she not to marry Wickham?” Mrs. Bennet asked tremulously.
“Mr. Wickham left her between Brighton and London, ma’am. He was not a good man.”
“Pshaw, Lizzy. You are very severe. Not a good man! Not a good man you say? But he looked so very well and had all the manners of a gentleman. He will be a promoted in no time. You shall see I am right.”
“He is a rake and a scoundrel with the looks and manners of a gentleman. Even Jane, who likes everybody, cannot approve of him.”
“Jane does not like him?” she asked in confusion.
“No, Mama,” Jane said. “I do not like him, approve of him, or even wish to think of him ever again. What we must think of is Lydia’s reputation. We have decided that she went from Brighton on a planned visit to Mrs. Gardiner’s cousin in Winchester, and that any confusion about Lydia’s whereabouts that comes to our notice will be waved off as jumbled hearsay.”
“But why? Why must we say she went somewhere she did not go? If Mr. Wickham has not married her, he must be found and made to do so! He must!”
They were getting nowhere, and Elizabeth, greatly irritated, finally spoke with brutal candor. “Mr. Wickham is gone and will never be found, I assure you. Never! And if we do not hush up Lydia’s impropriety, none of us have the slightest chance of marrying anyone, much less marrying well. Who would want a girl from such a family that their daughter of fifteen would be allowed to run wild in Brighton and be ruined by a rake? Nobody! Now, if you want us to be well settled, and I believe you do, you had better practice believing what we are telling you.”
Their father arrived before the tea was poured, and when he asked how they got on with their mother, Jane only shook her head sadly. Mr. Bennet took off his hat and put down his riding crop with a snap. “Lizzy, Jane, Kitty and Mary,” he said sternly, “you will come with me to your mother’s room.”
Once there, he stood at the foot of the bed and began to speak to their mother with a cold authority none of them had ever heard from him.
