A/N: We gather our pieces as we begin toward the end of our story. .
Darcy's Struggle
Chapter 15: Leaving and Taking
Saturday, November 30, 1811
Saturday had been trying at Netherfield.
While Darcy had been abed late, half-awake, recovering from his vegetable bombardment by Lydia, even smiling at it, and half-dreaming, half-daydreaming of Elizabeth's wilderness kisses, Bingley had been conducting a rancorous family meeting with Miss Bingley and the Hursts.
Darcy discovered the upshot later, in the breakfast parlor. Bingley was still seated there, still flushed with annoyance, tapping his coffee spoon softly on the table.
Bingley explained briefly. The Hursts wanted Miss Bingley gone, and she was to be returned to London on Monday morning, traveling in Bingley's carriage with him. He was going to see his lawyers about his (and Miss Bennet's) settlement papers.
"Is there anything I can do for you while I am there, Darcy? At your service!"
Darcy nodded as he sipped his coffee. He put down the cup, grinning. "Yes, there is. Could you stop by a shop for me? I will send a note with you. I often buy there, and the owner knows me. He should be able to supply what I want, box it, and send it with you in short order."
Noting Bingley's curiosity, Darcy said simply. "A jeweler."
"Right, well, maybe I will take a few minutes and look around for myself, while I wait," Bingley said.
"So, you are taking Miss Bingley back to town?"
"Yes, Louisa will run the house once Caroline is gone. I doubt Caroline will seek you out again before she leaves; she intends to stay in her room. Her humiliation is complete. Supplying the news of my engagement to Miss Bennet seems to have finished her. She has been overmatched by 'two unaccomplished country girls', or so she puts it."
Darcy reflected. "Two 'girls' who have engaged in the toil of merit with honest hearts in a way that few 'accomplished' women have. Fashionable society transmutes virtues into glittering vices by eliminating the honest heart that is their substance."
Bingley glanced at Darcy, simultaneously wistful and amused. "You know, Darcy, I would like to talk in such rolling periods. Every sentence a veritable proverb!"
Darcy ducked his head, reddening. "You are in too much of a hurry for the next sentence," Darcy quipped — and both men laughed.
Bingley refilled their cups.
They lingered over coffee together, talking with no particular haste and no particular goal other than to revel in the happiness and satisfaction of their engagements and their two precious Bennet sisters.
Both men were enormously pleased, even if Darcy knew there was a difference in their situations. Bingley was confident of Miss Bennet's love (he told Darcy she had said the words to him after he proposed); Darcy was confident only of Elizabeth's desire. Of course, he was delighted to have that, overjoyed and complimented, but it was not all he wanted. With a date now fixed for the wedding, his hope was that she might be able in good conscience to tell him she loved him by or on that date.
But he would not pressure her. He had not spoken the words himself to her last night, neither in the wilderness nor at the wilds of the Bennet dinner table. The words demanded a response and he did not want those words from her out of obligation; he wanted them to be spontaneous, the felicitous overflow of a too-full heart, a cup that runneth over.
He hoped he had truly glimpsed tenderness in her eyes for a moment, tenderness preludial to teasing. But he was uncertain. She had taken his hand under the table. But her face and eyes were so alive, in such quick, otherwise delightful flux, that it was hard to arrest any moment, make it abide, and plumb its meaning. That she was capable of the deepest feelings he did not doubt. Yet, as he had noted before, she seemed to find the unalloyed, sincere avowal of emotion difficult. Her character appeared so open, and yet open declaration of feeling by her was rare. Emotion was more often carried obliquely in some facial quirk or hand gesture, or laced ironically into a bit of teasing or impertinence.
Miss Bennet had warned him that they were things Elizabeth did not say, not even to herself.
He vowed to stop worrying about himself, and about himself in relationship to her, about inequalities of feeling, and to concentrate on her happiness alone. He and his feelings would only enter into that concentration if she made him believe that he and his feelings were necessary to her happiness, that they were constitutive of it.
They might not be — and that was, frankly, terrifying, given how ardently he loved her, given the promises they had already made, and given the expectations that now surrounded them, but he was determined to see her happiness as she saw it, and not as he wanted to see it. He would not refract it through the lens of his wishes
He would suspend himself over the deeps of her heart, hold on doggedly, and hope for the best.
They were interrupted by a servant who came to announce visitors. "Sir William Lucas, Lady Lucas and Charlotte Lucas, here to see Mr. Bingley."
Bingley gave Darcy a glance and Darcy shrugged.
"Tell them I will see them in the library," Bingley offered. The servant left. "Come with me, Darcy. Do you know them?"
"I know of them but have not been introduced, except to Charlotte. I…stupidly…avoided Sir Wiliam at the assembly for fear that he would make me dance with someone outside my party."
"And now you're engaged to the woman you would not dance with. Intolerable." Bingley rolled his eyes in mock despair.
Darcy hung his head and shook it.
What had she thought of him, if anything, before he had declared her tolerable?
Darcy followed Bingley from the breakfast parlor to the library. Sir William was standing behind an armchair containing Lady Lucas. Beside them, on one end of the couch, was Charlotte Lucas. She smiled at Bingley but her smile wavered when she nodded at Darcy.
"Sir William, Lady Lucas, this is my good friend, Mr. Darcy."
Darcy bowed then sat down in an armchair. Bingley continued. "Welcome to Netherfield. I'm sorry you were not able to attend the ball."
Sir William, in a blue coat rather to ornate for a morning call, cleared his throat. "Yes, well, we were kept at home by an unforeseen but not unwelcome event. As you may know, my daughter, Charlotte, is recently engaged to Mr. Collins."
Bingley smiled, as did Darcy. "We did know that, Sir William. Our congratulations to you and Lady Lucas and of course, to Charlotte."
"Thank you, gentlemen. We have come to issue an invitation. We are going to host a small party at our house on Monday. An impromptu affair; It will be to celebrate our daughter's engagement to Mr. Collins. We were hoping the entire Netherfield party could attend. We would have sent formal invitations but we did not have time. Mr. Collins is due to leave us and return to Kent on Wednesday or Thursday. He could not visit you with us today because of a slight indisposition." Sir William's face colored a little.
As Sir William finished, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst entered, a bow and a curtsy. They had heard what Sir William said. "A party, Sir William?"
"Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst. We would be honored if you would attend. I do not believe you have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Collins, Charlotte's betrothed."
"No," Mrs. Hurst said, "I am sorry we have not had the pleasure. We would be most happy to attend, although neither my brother nor my sister will be able to join us. They leave for London Monday morning."
Bingley chimed in, disappointed, and slightly defensive in a way that only Darcy and the Hursts were likely to note. "Yes, I have business there and my sister will accompany me. But I dearly regret missing the party."
A servant entered with the tea things and Mrs. Hurst began to offer it to her guests.
Darcy stood and walked to Miss Lucas, seating himself on the other end of the couch. She gave Darcy an unsettled look as he joined her. The others were immediately deep in talk, Sir William lauding the merits of his new son-to-be, and the unexampled happiness of his daughter. As he spoke of that, Miss Lucas glanced over at Darcy. She seemed embarrassed and nervous.
He took the glance as an opening. "I am glad for the chance to speak with you, Miss Lucas. As the best friend of Miss Elizabeth, I have been anxious to know you better." He made sure his tone was warm; he smiled.
She seemed surprised. "That is gracious, sir, especially since she and I have been at odds of late."
Darcy nodded, and checked to see if anyone was attending to their conversation. No one was. Mrs. Hurst was involved in her hostessing. Sir William was talking of the fateful day when he had been knighted.
"It has been a time of upheavals and events, and it is unsurprising that it should make the familiar seem unfamiliar."
She smiled at him, still with observable uncertainty, not knowing where he intended to steer the conversation. "That is true. I have never seen Miss Elizabeth so unsettled."
Darcy swallowed hard. "Unsettled?"
"Mr. Darcy, forgive me, I did not mean unhappy; I meant only that she has always been so sure of knowing the minds of others and of knowing her own mind, so sure of her natural penetration, the quickness of her perceptions, that it is strange to see her struggle, unsure."
"She is unsure of me?"
He knew he was far overstepping the bounds of their brief familiarity, the bounds of conversation during a morning call, when nothing serious or personal was to be discussed, but he could not help himself. He needed to understand.
"No and yes."
Good God!
"What do you mean, Miss Lucas?"
"She was taken with you the night of the assembly, Mr. Darcy. I've never seen her compelled so by the mere sight of a gentleman."
"I was unaware."
"Yes, well," Miss Lucas' lip curled, "you were working at being unaware. And then you mortified her, humiliated her. She tried to turn it into a joke but I know her well enough to know when she is hurt, even if she will not admit to it."
"We have spoken of this and I have apologized."
"So Miss Elizabeth told me. Still, the truth is that our indomitable Miss Elizabeth finds herself terrified of you, I think."
Darcy had to whisper very deliberately to keep from shouting. Hearing the word from his own earlier reflections overset him. "Terrified?"
"That is not all that she feels, Mr. Darcy, but it is one thing that she feels. A new thing. I apologize for speaking with such liberty, but I owe my friend. You see, yesterday, Mr. Collins — "
"Yes, I am aware. He created no difficulty between myself and Miss Elizabeth, but she — "
"She was disappointed in me?" Miss Lucas' question was also a sigh.
Darcy nodded once, sharply.
"Like Miss Elizabeth," Miss Lucas said softly, "I am adjusting to upheavals and events, too. I had accepted that I was on the shelf, and now I find I was not, but it is hard to shake the resignation, the passivity, I felt for so long. I am sorry for what Mr. Collins said, and for letting him say it unchallenged. And sorry he sent that express to Rosings. About that, I had no knowledge until it was done."
"No matter. Rosings was going to know soon enough in any event."
The talk among the others was slowing, quieting. "Thank you for your frankness, Miss Lucas."
"Be patient, Mr. Darcy. Miss Elizabeth will make you a worthy wife. You have chosen better than you can yet avow."
When the visitors left, Darcy went out into the garden to walk.
He was attempting to decipher what Miss Lucas had said to him. He had not expected her to say much or for what she said to be puzzling. She seemed a rational woman but she had not made her mind clear to him.
Terrified?
Elizabeth was taken with me at the assembly?
He had no notion that she had paid him any special attention prior to his conversation about her with Bingley, unless it had been to disapprove of him. That she was taken with him made him even more ashamed of what he had said.
No wonder she had resented him. And it made her forgiveness — and her trust — more precious to him.
"I say, Darcy, you do not seem as happy as an engaged man ought to be! As I am!" It was Bingley, hurrying his steps to overtake Darcy on the path.
"I am happy," Darcy said, although he knew his sinking inflection undermined his assertion; he had too much on his mind.
Bingley slowed as he reached Darcy, matching pace. "You seemed happy last night at dinner, and I know some of that was for Jane and I, but I thought some of it was for yourself and Miss Elizabeth."
"I am happy for you and Miss Bennet, Bingley. I couldn't be happier for myself about the two of you. The thought that we will be brothers pleases me greatly."
Bingley smiled but his lips quickly thinned into a line. "But?"
"But, as you know, I am not, as you are, the beloved of my beloved."
It took Bingley a moment to understand that. "Ah, yes, Mr. Bennet's Plutarch. Come, Darcy, Miss Elizabeth, like Jane, does nothing by halves. It is a family trait."
Darcy laughed. "True," his laugh ended, "but I fear that this will be the first time, and that I will never own more than half her heart. For the sake of her happiness, not mine, I worry about that. She will not be happy if she can only give half herself. She deserves better, deserves more."
"You are too used to having your own way, Darcy. When I visit you at Pemberley, you remind me of Genesis. 'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.' There, you speak things into being. But not here, not in Hertfordshire, certainly not at Longbourn. You did not speak Miss Elizabeth into being — like you and I, she was fearfully and wonderfully made, made her own singular, responsible being. That is what you love, not any creature of your own will. Breathe, Darcy, and let her breathe."
Darcy looked at his friend and reached out to squeeze his shoulder.
The rest of Saturday passed. And then Sunday.
Saturday dinner at Longbourn. Elizabeth careful to station Darcy at the table beyond Lydia's firing range, careful to ensure the vegetable, boiled potatoes, was a poor projectile.
Sunday church services. Darcy seated, along with Bingley, in the Bennet's pew. The banns read for the first time for both couples. Long line of well-wishers.
Darcy deliberately said goodbye to Bingley Sunday night, and gave him the letter for the jeweler. Miss Bingley had not shown herself on Saturday or Sunday, taking her meals in her room, and Darcy was not in any hurry for an office of leave-taking, or Miss Bingley's likey attempts to manipulate him, to play on his sympathies.
Good riddance.
Monday, December 2, 1811
Darcy did not venture down to the breakfast parlor until he heard Bingley's carriage clatter away from Netherfield.
Darcy had his breakfast with Mr. Hurst, who had nothing in particular to say, then he prepared to ride to Longbourn. As he readied himself near the back door, Steele found him.
"May I have a moment, sir?"
"Yes, certainly."
Steele looked around them before he said anything. "I have come into possession of news about Miss Bingley."
"Miss Bingley?"
"Yes, it seems that the other day, when she sent one of the footmen into town with a message for the apothecary, she also sent a message to someone else. To Wickham."
"What? How would she know of Wickham?"
"I do not know. I would not have known about that message if I had not noticed her using the footman again on Saturday afternoon, handing him a message outside."
"I thought she was in her room all day Saturday and Sunday."
"No. I saw her sneak out of her room on Saturday evening and give a note to the footman. When he returned, I…encouraged…him to tell me of all his dealings with that lady, and that is how I found out about the first note. I waited to report any of this until I was sure she was gone, and I knew the full extend of her covert actions"
"What were the contents of these messages?"
"The footman said he does not know and I believe him. But the footman observed that Wickham seemed pleased by both, though he did not reply to either."
Darcy had told Steele on Friday of his visit to Colonel Forster. "She must have contacted Wickham at around the time I visited Colonel Forster."
"Yes. It is now time to be doubly cautious, sir. I do not know exactly what intelligence, if any, Miss Bingley had to share, beyond your engagement, or what she might have been urging Wickham to do. But Wickham by now almost certainly knows that you have visited the barracks, he almost certainly knows that you and Mr. Bingley are engaged to Miss Elizabeth and Miss Bennet. He has scope for revenging himself now."
"Yes, he does. Thank you, Steele. At least Colonel Forster and Mr. Bennet have been warned."
Darcy went to the stables and got his horse. He was headed away from Netherfield when he encountered a carriage, one of his own from Darcy House. He pulled his horse up and the carriage stopped. A moment later, his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, leaped to the ground, a smirk on his ruddy face. "Well, well, well, the bridegroom himself!"
"Richard! What are you doing here?"
Richard did not answer. Instead, he pivoted with parade-ground precision and extended his hand, and, a moment later, Georgiana alighted on the ground beside him, her soft face full of pleasure, and anticipation. The first genuine anticipation I have seen on her face since Ramsgate.
"Fitzwilliam, where are you going? To see your Miss Elizabeth, perhaps?"
My Elizabeth! His heart somehow simultaneously soared and sank but he was too moved by his sister's countenance to lament the stretching of his heart. Elizabeth seemed to demand that his heart grow.
Darcy leaped from his horse and embraced his sister, delighted to see her, blinking back tears for the first time he could remember in years. She embraced him back, squeezing him with an eagerness that surprised him. She was not normally demonstrative.
And then Richard was shaking his hand as if trying to uncouple it from his wrist.
"Is that right, Darcy, are you on your way to meet this country lass, this fair Hannibal, who managed to outflank the entire fashionable army of London?"
"Yes, but I can wait. And I could do without your martial metaphors. You could refresh yourselves and come with me, or I could take the carriage and ask Elizabeth and her sister to return with me to Netherfield."
Richard did not answer directly. "Martial, marital, same difference. It's all maneuvers. Are you not the one who in a recent letter wrote of Rosing's army and skirmishers? Love, my too serious cousin, has ever been a battlefield."
Georgiana laughed, and Darcy could see her posture relax as the two men she loved best sparred with each other. Ramsgate had created a gap between them, Darcy realized, partly because Richard could not convince Darcy to stop blaming himself for it all, and partly because Darcy had convinced Richard not to kill Wickham.
"So," Darcy pressed, "shall you come with me to Longbourn or shall I bring Elizabeth to Netherfield?"
Richard glanced at Georgiana. "Give us a few minutes to dust ourselves, and we shall go with you to Longbourn."
As Georgiana returned to the carriage, Darcy leaned close to Richard. "There is something we need to discuss as you change."
Richard gave him a subtle glance but kept his countenance for Georgiana's sake. "Trouble in this idyllic place?"
The question had no more than been asked when it began to rain, sudden and hard. Richard stared down at his dusty boots, the rain wetting the dust covering them, muddying them.
"'Fifth element — mud.' Or so Napoleon is supposed to have said."
Richard clambered into the carriage and Darcy mounted his horse to return to Netherfield.
A/N: I've been ill and endured a succession of doctor's visits, so I am going to postpone a longer, writerly A/N until a later chapter. I'm thankful for the reviews and favorites and follows.
The line from Napoleon that Richard quotes is slightly anachronistic, I believe, but thematically too good to pass up. — This is fiction, after all.