“They love each other, yet there is a wall between them, and I fear that neither of them knows how to tear it down. If there is a resemblance to our story, it is the love. Their love is strong on both sides. They are suited to each other because their qualities complement one another, and also because they already know and will tolerate each other’s faults.”
“Splendid, splendid, my love, then help them tear down the wall and find each other now, not fifty years from now!”
Chapter 24
Nobody except Mr Kendall was disconcerted or unhappy about the travelling arrangements.
Mrs Bennet was relieved to spend a little time beyond the duchess’s watchful gaze, whilst Lydia and Kitty liked the idea of travelling with Mr Kendall.
As for Elizabeth, she was pleased to accompany her uncle and the duchess. She looked forward to seeing the Gardiners with real pleasure. She liked her aunt’s house, which was both cosy and elegant. The parlour was not as large as the duchess’s, yet it possessed a generous balcony overlooking a garden where they had often played as children. Years before, Mr Gardiner had bought his nieces a small galloper with four horses that could be turned by an adult. Elizabeth remembered spending entire days upon those horses, indifferent to cold, heat, or rain. The Gardiner children loved it no less. Through the open window she could hear their squeals of delight.
“Please, Lizzy, go down and send them in before the other guests arrive.”
The little ones surrounded Elizabeth with cries of pleasure, but their mother quickly shepherded them into thehouse. Alone in the tiny garden, Elizabeth stroked one horse in particular, her favourite. Secretly, she had named him Jimmy-boy, and she loved him almost as much as she feared real horses.
“You are not, after all, so frightened of horses, Miss Bennet,” said a voice nearby.
Her heart immediately began to race when she saw Mr Darcy watching her from the garden gate while Thomas’s cheerful voice drifted down from the balcony above, and she recalled how eager he had been to hurry her to the Gardiners. She suddenly suspected a scheme in Darcy’s benefit, yet the thought vanished almost as quickly as it arose. Mr Kendall was the duchess’s grandson; Thomas could hardly take sides. Most likely it was mere coincidence, or perhaps Mr Darcy had simply taken the liberty of arriving early.
“My poor uncle Gardiner,” said Elizabeth, watching Darcy turn the horses round. “He hoped this galloper would teach me to love the real brothers of these little creatures.” She stroked each horse as it passed.
“But it did not succeed,” said Darcy.
“No.”
“Yet it seems that, in the end, a gentleman overcame your fear of horses.”
There was so much resentment in his voice that Elizabeth turned to face him. His expression remained as unreadable as ever, yet his tone betrayed him.
“I do not require any gentleman to overcome my fears and doubts,” she replied. She wished neither to reassure him nor encourage the rivalry she disliked so much.
The competition between the two gentlemen increasingly resembled a sporting pursuit in which she had no wish to participate. Yet when she looked again at Darcy, the familiar mask of serenity had disappeared. Concern had taken its place. His feelings were suddenly plain to her, and she smiled. Theystood in her aunt’s garden, far from Kent and all that had happened there.
“Friends?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then tell me, Miss Bennet, which was your favourite horse?”
She turned the galloper until Jimmy-boy came beside them and then entrusted him with a secret she had never shared with anyone.
“This one. His name is Jimmy-boy.”
“I suspect that is a secret,” he whispered.
“Yes, it is. A dear one.”
“Thank you. It is the most precious gift I have ever received.”
His words made her tremble with pleasure and expectation. Love seemed to surround them, waiting only to claim them both. She gently touched the horse, and Darcy turned the galloper so that he could stroke the same spot. It became a game that they both enjoyed.
“Pay attention,” she said playfully. “Jimmy-boy loves only me.”
“The little horse and I are of the same opinion, then,” he replied.
He moved a little closer, determined to ask her to marry him.
“Elizabeth—”
