Chapter Sixteen

The next morning Darcy met me in the hall as soon as I exited my room, full dressed for the day and eager. His eyes alight with happiness.

"Come, you shall breakfast with us today — though I fear for both our hearings when Georgiana sees us together."

I laughed. "She is not a particularly loud child."

"She will shriek in happy excitement, I assure you," Darcy replied with satisfaction, "upon seeing our hands entwined, like this." And so saying he took my hand, and leading me by it, he led me into the breakfast room — I had eaten within with Georgiana on occasion when Mr. Darcy was absent from his manse, but never before while the master was present.

Georgiana entered the room a few minutes after us, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.

"Hello, Brother." She half mumbled, immediately going towards the coffee tray. She reached it. And then her hand stopped, suspended halfway to the carafe.

She looked at us.

My hand in Mr. Darcy's. Both of us smiled at her.

Georgiana did in fact shriek, and I was quite happy she had not yet picked up the coffee, for she would have dropped it, shattering the glass.

"Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy! You mean to say you have agreed to marry!"

She embraced me tightly, squeezing me hard, and at the same time jumping up and down. She embraced Mr. Darcy as well, who was smiling with a wide grin. "Yes, yes. We talked it out last night — we are to be married. Soon as the banns are said and the trousseau ordered. Will you be happy for me to make Lizzy your sister?"

"Happy! Yes!" Georgiana was almost distracted in her rapturous joy, and it was infectious, and I squealed in delight as well. She exclaimed, "Sisters — you have been my sister in my heart ever since I met you."

"And I have felt the same, Georgie. You have become my dearest friend. We will all be family to each other."

I do not think any of us ate much during that breakfast, but I cannot properly recall. However I remember that deep feeling of joy, of satisfaction, and of life fitting together as a happy life ought.

"You must give Cathy a vacation for today," Darcy said, smiling delightedly once we had finished breakfast, and when it briefly was only the two of us again. "I shall take you to Lambton, and we will order your wedding clothing. And I'll send to my banker in London for jewels for you to wear. Hurry and dress for the road."

I raised one eyebrow at Mr. Darcy. "I look forward to the chance to shop — but it is your mind, and not your jewels I marry you for."

"Ah, but I want to see you wearing my jewels. I am not offering them for your sake but purely for the pleasure it will give my eyes to see you draped in them — you would not deny me such an innocent pleasure, Elizabeth?"

I laughed. "For your sake alone?"

He winked at me. "You will be praised by all as an altruist if you let me buy you jewels."

"An altruist? No woman can do more for charity, no more for the world in general than to allow her besotted admirer to drape in her jewels. Is that what you mean to say?"

"No, not in the slightest. I mean to say no woman could do more than that for her besotted lover. I care not at all for the world in general. It has proven itself over the long centuries to be equipped with sufficient capital to shift for itself in this respect."

"Ah but then altruism does not enter into the question." I leaned up to Mr. Darcy, so that my lips were near his. "For you see, I love your person as I love my own. So if I do good to you, it is as if I did the good to myself."

He kissed me, as I'd wished him to. "Then be selfish by permitting my happiness, if you value it so much as your own. But you shall need to be happy yourself then, for I cannot be happy if you are not."

I kissed him again, and then hurried up to my room to change into a travelling dress that would work better for a carriage ride of five miles.

When I came downstairs again, I was met by Mrs. Reynolds who stood in the hall, and from how she approached me immediately when she caught sight of me, it was evident that she had waited out on purpose to see me.

"Miss Bennet, I have just heard the most surprising news from Mr. Darcy. The strangest news. I can hardly credit that I am awake." She looked older and more troubled than I had ever seen her before, the grey hair in a bun, hidden under an old fashioned widow's cap. She fiddled with her hands, pressing them together, pulling at her sleeve. Her brows were furrowed. "Is it true that the two of you are to be married?"

"Yes, yes! He asked me last night, as we walked in the garden."

"Are you certain? Certain things are as you understand? — that there is no confusion."

"Confusion? What confusion could there be?" I replied sharply. "Mr. Darcy asked me to marry him, and I agreed."

"Yes. Yes," she mumbled, pressing her hands together. I had never seen Mrs. Reynolds in such a state. She rubbed her hand against her cheek. "I had seen that he had made a pet of you, and added you more into the family circle, but I had no notion…"

"I assure you that both our feelings are sincere and true."

"I trust you to be sincere," she replied, frowning. "But it is so strange. I had been certain… Miss Bennet, I beg you to be on your guard. A young woman can never be too much on her guard — great gentlemen do not often marry their governesses."

I hardly was in a mood to listen to such speeches. I had expected universal exultation, for everyone to act as Georgiana had upon hearing of our engagement.

"Mr. Darcy is an honorable man. And I am an honorable woman. Your suspicions have no place."

"I know you are a good girl, dear." Mrs. Reynolds held her hands up, as though to push away my frustration. "Only I am surprised. Exceedingly surprised."

"That Mr. Darcy could fall in love with me?"

"I never thought to see him marry again… I had believed… ah but it must not be so. If you and Mr. Darcy both insist you are to marry, then it must be true, and it must be right. He is an honorable man. He would never…" She pushed her grey hair back, setting her cap askew. "But it is so strange."

I frowned, and with less good will in my heart towards her than I usually had, I hurried down to the door, where the carriage awaited.

Darcy encouraged me to spend a great deal at the dressmaker's warehouse in Lambton, and to spend far more than I was comfortable with. I felt odd. It was too much — too much to switch from the modesty and comparative poverty that I had lived in. Perhaps I now was the princess of a fairy tale, but I could not accustom myself to such riches in an instant. I told as much to Mr. Darcy, and begged him to be satisfied by my only ordering a few, more modest, dresses.

To my relief, after he heard me passionately say how I despised any sense of feeling as though I was being purchased, he nodded seriously, and replied, "You are not — and you know you are not. But I can well understand your compunctions, I would have them as well in your place — but you still must let me drape you in my jewelry."

I laughed at him. "So long as we both agree that it is a loan, and they remain your jewels until at least such time as the marriage has been solemnized, and the vows said before the church."

"What an unreasonable woman!" he exclaimed, smiling.

"I do feel a sense of my position — how I shall be seen."

"No one who knows you can think anything but the best of you."

"Mr. Bingley's sister and wife."

Darcy laughed. "You truly do love to argue — but they are hardly the sort of person whose judgement one would depend upon."

"I do not depend upon their judgement. But you said no one, and I have disproven via example your contention."

Darcy laughed.

I smiled happily at him. "You love me not despite, but because of my disputatious nature."

He grinned back at me, looking happier and more satisfied than I thought I had ever seen him.

That night it filled me with a warm glow to watch Mr. Darcy play a game of draughts with Cathy, teaching her the rules as they went, and carefully ignoring certain winning moves so that the game might remain close. I sat next to them, in theory reading a work in French upon their long civil wars over religion, but in reality watching Mr. Darcy. The way that his lips moved as he spoke, the way his shoulders filled his coat. The way that his cravat hugged his neck. I now had the right to admire him in such a way.

I wanted to hug his neck in the same way his cravat did.

When we sent Cathy away to bed, Darcy walked up with her to the nursery with me to tuck her away. He had never done this before, and he patiently read a story to her as she fell asleep.

When we left her room, Georgiana theatrically yawned, and winked at me, before declaring loudly that she too was most tired and would retreat to bed herself.

The instant she was out of sight, we moved to each other, and Darcy kissed me again and again, and I kissed him back. A wife ought to delight in the body and feel of her husband, and I knew I would delight in his body. It was difficult for me to remember as he kissed me so softly and sweetly that I must stop him, and I could not yet permit him to take every liberty with my body that I wished to have taken.

It was the image of Mrs. Reynolds, and her dour face, saying that men do not often marry their governesses from that morning that woke me to the danger.

I regretfully stepped away from Mr. Darcy, and the two of us returned to the drawing room, where we sat close to each other, so that the knees brushed against each other, but not on the same sofa.

I said to him beaming upon him, "You have become so much kinder as a father. Far better in your behavior."

"You asked me to."

"And you ignored me, and spoke to me of how it was impossible when I did."

"Then I saw her merely as her child. But when you were in Meryton, I missed you. My heart ached and longed for you. And… when I played with Cathy, and I smiled with her, and walked her around the park, and read from my newspapers and books to her as you had begged, it was as though you were here once more. And I realized… Cathy brought you into my life."

I smiled at him and poked him in the chest. "I do prefer that enormously, but it is not supposed to be why you love Cathy. You ought to love her upon her own merits without any reference to another person."

Darcy grinned at me. "Disputatious maiden — I promise though, I will never look upon her with that past distaste again."

He embraced me again, and I thought pleasantly upon how he would become an excellent father, and how Cathy would one day be a lovely sister for our children together, and Georgiana the perfect aunt.

The month of our engagement passed quickly, but not smoothly.

For the first week, Darcy was purely happy, as was I.

But Mr. Darcy, slowly, day by day those moments when a thundercloud gathered on his brow came again. He would clench his fist, and look at me so intently, as though he was memorizing every pore, dimple and contour of my face in a terror of loss.

When we took walks together in the gardens and the forested park, when we came upon a vista from which the whole house could be seen, rather than delighting in this view of his estate, Mr. Darcy's eyes would inevitably turn to that tower, and then he would turn to me, and embrace me with an intensity that scared me.

And as for me?

Did I have any presentiments of doom in this time?

I do not know.

I knew that Mr. Darcy was fey. That his emotions were high, and that he was scared of something. So I was scared as well. Yet, I convinced myself that whatever faced him, whatever it was, we would be happy in facing it together. That he had said nothing should tear us apart ever more, and I believed him.

To my sorrow, I believed him.

One day I did brave to ask him — brave to ask him? It shows how strongly Mr. Darcy felt, and how strongly I felt his emotions. For in no other area would I ever need special bravery to ask my Mr. Darcy anything.

"What bothers you so?" I smoothed my finger between Mr. Darcy's furrowed unhappy brows. "Why do you frown so while I am near you?"

"I am scared. Affrighted by a thought I cannot shake, that I do not deserve such happiness, such closeness with you. That every day which passes, every embrace we share. Every time we kiss, you become more necessary for my soul, my body and my being — I have never loved before you, Elizabeth. I do not think — I do not think my heart could bear it were I to lose you."

"You shall not." I replied, touched, "I am here, by your side. I shall stay with you."

"Do you promise?" he asked fiercely. "No matter what happens, do you swear to stay by my side?"

"What fear do you have — what could make you doubt my constancy?"

Darcy's face clouded, and he turned it away from me.

"No, tell me truly — what brings this fear to you?"

"I beg you — Elizabeth, I beg you do not ask me what makes me fear. Anything but that question."

"I only wish to comfort you."

"Your presence does — your presence comforts me. I only fear that you will prove to be merely spirit and phantasm, and one day I shall awake, and reach for you with my arms, and there will be nothing but vapor, dispersed like the smoke from a fire, or the steam from a kettle of tea, and I'll look for you. I will traverse hill and dell, up and down the lands of England, but you shall prove to have been fairy, and never real, and I shall mourn forever more."

I squeezed his hand, though I was in truth a little amused by his conceit. "I assure you, Mr. Darcy, I am flesh and blood — no belle dame sans merci who will leave her knight gallant to pale and fade upon the heather heath."

His eyes remained troubled, and he did not smile again for another hour, and I did not dare to ask him about his fears again. I was sure that once the marriage, once that significant event had occurred, his nerves would settle, and he would accept the reality of my presence in his life.

And despite Mr. Darcy's nerves, each day seemed to be a perfect jewel to me. I was deeply in love, and I was entering a family, with Georgiana and Cathy that I adored.

There is one further strange incident from the period before our wedding day that I will relate.

We intended to leave England for a time following the marriage. All four of us would travel together, and I would be able to see Mr. Darcy's favorite lands that he had touched during his travels. The elegant and cloudy avenues of Amsterdam, the lovely ordered gardens of the French. The philosophical salons of the argumentative Germans. And then when summer had passed, and the weather began to cool, we intended to travel by stages down the sun soaked, art filled Italian peninsula.

The canals of Venice, the cathedral of Florence which Mr. Darcy insisted was the most beautiful building in the world. The ancient ruins in Rome, and the popish paintings and statues of Michelangelo.

All were promised for my delight. The prospect seemed to me a wonderful, if fevered dream.

The clothes and trunks had been ordered and packed, and lined the walls.

As we were to be absent from England for a period of six to nine months, there were certain matters of business Darcy wished to settle before he left the country again. He was absent from the house two nights before the wedding to visit a clump of farms he owned thirty miles from Pemberley.

Before I slept that night, I took out from its case the large wedding veil which had been ordered from London and had arrived for me to wear.

The fabric was silky and strong. It was an expensive item, and beautiful. The wedding was to be small, with just Georgiana and a few servants there to sign the register as witnesses. Darcy spoke of how he hated the memory of his first, large wedding, and he wanted this to be the opposite.

But the veil was beautiful. I sat it on my head, and smilingly looked at myself in the mirror. I was transformed into a beautiful creature, a bride. I imagined Darcy looking at me as I walked up to him before the altar wearing this veil. I imagined the way he would smile at me, and the way his eyes would at last be calm and satisfied.

Then with a yawn, I put the veil down on my dresser before the mirror rather than packing it away again, blew out the candle, and went to sleep.

During the night I was troubled by dreams of Pemberley become a ruin. A fallen in house, a burnt husk where only the owls and snakes lived. And then I entered another dream, a stranger one.

I thought I woke, and that someone had entered my room holding a candle alight.

In my dream I believed it to be a servant, come to stir the fire, and I cried out to the maid, "Sophie, what is it!"

But no answer was made. I then had a strange fear — what if the woman was Grace Poole, come into my room as I had again forgotten to throw the bolt, and she was here to do some deviltry to me in the absence of Mr. Darcy.

My heart beat in terror.

And behold I could see by the candlelight that the woman was not Grace Poole, but rather a small woman whose face I had never seen before. Her hair was wild and tangled, and her face furrowed with odd scars.

She looked towards me, but made no speech and walked up to the mirror where my veil had been left sitting upon the dresser. Placing the candle down upon the dresser she picked up the veil, and fitted it on her head, looking from side to side, checking the appearance.

Then as I watched, silent, unable to speak nor to move, paralyzed by that odd unreality that we all feel in a dream, or when caught between waking and sleeping, she pulled the veil off her head, and with an angry gesture, this woman ripped the veil down the middle, and returned the pieces to the dresser.

She picked up the candle again, and left the room.

And I lapsed into other dreams almost immediately.

When I woke the sun was brightly sneaking around the edges of my curtains. I lie in bed tired and disconcerted, as though I had not slept well. My mind returned to that dream. It had seemed so very real when it occurred, but I knew such a thing was impossible.

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes.

No doubt it was a reflection of the nerves I felt at the closeness of my wedding day — tomorrow. And Mr. Darcy had been absent from the house the previous night. I longed to see him again.

If I stayed abed much longer Georgiana would send up a maid from the breakfast room to drag me from bed, and Cathy would miss me.

I stood up, and went to the curtains, flinging them open wide.

I luxuriated in the rare British sun, and in the warmth upon my face. I smiled, and stretched, tossing my hair and throwing aside every worry for the future. I was happy. And I was secure and I was safe.

I turned back to my dresser and mirror, to prepare for the day.

The heavy silk veil sat upon the rosewood dresser, torn in two.