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“Darcy, if you try to tell me that Miss Bennet is unworthy of me, I’ll—I’ll—!” Mr. Bingley’s hand clenched. “I’ll do something!”
Do you think you can bear with complacency their vulgarities and intrusiveness for the rest of your life? What marriage could survive that? And you may be sure that the very amiableness of Miss Bennet’s temper will prevent her from ever setting them at a distance.
If you do not propose, you will certainly disappoint Mrs. Bennet’s hopes but not necessarily Miss Bennet’s. She will not be heartbroken. In fact, she may even be slightly relieved.”
By the end, she only felt curiously detached. It was a shock—there was no denying it was a shock, and the agitated young man with the glowing eyes and impassioned tones seemed like a stranger. He was a stranger, she realized all at once. She did not really know him at all. And she found she could not hate him; he had been so . . . so very frank, so very ardent, so very unlike the man she thought she knew. In a moment, all her prejudices, all her notions of his attitudes and behavior, seemed overthrown.
am sorry I made my feelings so little known to you. You must understand that until I had determined to my own complete satisfaction what my intentions were, I did not want to behave in such a way—that is, I did not wish to give rise to expectations which—” He bit his lip. “I understand,” she replied. “And you,” her voice took on a faintly satirical edge, “are too well acquainted with the difference in our stations to doubt why I did not presume you to be forming an attachment just because you chose to walk with me on occasion.”
“Do you doubt my affections?” he demanded. “Do you believe I spoke lightly of love? I assure you I did not!” Elizabeth took a steadying breath, unable to look at his face. “I do not doubt their warmth, sir. What I doubt—what I question,” she began to walk slowly on, “is their durability.”
“I am sure, Mr. Darcy, that everything you said last night regarding my unsuitability to be your wife is true, and perhaps even natural on your part, but the language that you used—the warmth of your expressions—if you feel so strongly now, sir, when you are in the first flush of passion, how will you feel once that passion fades—once you have me as your own and my charms are no longer as fresh as they once were—and once the evils you fear come upon you because of me? I could not bear to be married to a man who resented and regretted me.”
“I only wish to convey that I am prepared. I know what I have chosen. I do not think it possible that I could resent you for any consequence of our marriage because I have already taken into account every possible consequence. If I had fooled myself into thinking it would all be easy, then you would have cause for worry. But I have done nothing if not anticipate the difficulties and determine that you are worth enduring them.”
“You can hardly blame her for wishing a good marriage for her daughter, Lizzy. It’s what your mother wants for you.” “Oh yes! It just seems too bad for Miss de Bourgh that she is not offered a choice in husbands. Any young woman with so handsome a dowry should at least be offered a choice; if she is going to purchase a young man, she should be able to purchase one to her liking, don’t you think?”
“Up until the night he proposed, it had not. In fact, I was sitting there disliking him very much indeed. But somehow, the knowledge that he loved me made me reconsider his behavior. It is clear that I misunderstood him most of the time. I thought he meant to ignore or censure me when he meant only to admire. Might I have misunderstood him in other ways?”
I suppose, on the whole, I would rather have a husband who says too little than one who says too much.”
I am at least as afraid of regretting a refusal as I am of regretting an acceptance.
“Marriage to any man is a—well, a leap of faith of sorts that means tremendous, permanent changes in a woman’s life. I do not know that it would be possible to be without any doubts at all, no matter the man.” One side of her mouth turned up. “You will soon discover what a cynical woman you have chosen, Mr. Darcy.”
She looked back steadily; he bent his head and kissed her firmly on the mouth. She understood him. He was claiming her, reminding them both of everything she had agreed to. She was his now, and he kissed her because he had the right.
“Does she love you?” Again the clinched jaw, and he turned his face away a little more. “She doesn’t, does she?” asked Bingley with sudden insight. “She doesn’t love you, but still you are determined to marry her.” “Do you think I do not see the irony in my situation?”
“What if she does not change, Darcy? What if she never grows to love you as you do her?” Darcy’s mouth tightened, and he looked back with a defiant expression on his face. “She must,” he declared. “She will. Love is stronger than indifference; her feelings must give way to mine. I cannot believe it otherwise.”
“Those pearls represent Mr. Darcy’s love, Lizzy.” “Yes.” She touched them with her fingertips. “Yes, exactly. His love. His love which I take greedily, like his money, and cannot return. I hang it around my neck along with these, and,” she sighed, “Aunt Gardiner is right, Jane. I may find it heavier than I can bear.”
Lifting an amused eyebrow, Elizabeth fixed Miss Bingley with her bright eyes and said coolly, “Too true, Miss Bingley: My mother is the beauty, and I am the wit.”
“I don’t actually have anything to say,” he admitted as she looked at him questioningly, “except that I love you.”
He clearly was marrying her to suit no one but himself.
“I’m glad you came in. I have been reading over the settlement papers Mr. Darcy had drawn up for you. Would you like to see them?” Elizabeth colored. “No,” she said firmly. “That will not be necessary.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? He has been very generous. Don’t you wish to see what price your young man places on you?”
Within only a few days most of the household treated him as so much furniture.
“I have no obligation to Anne,” he said sharply. “Of course you do! Why, she has been expecting your proposal any time these last five years!” He appeared thunderstruck. “If so, then that is your doing, not mine! I have never given you any reason to suppose I would marry my cousin!”
When he had proposed to Elizabeth, he had made a choice—a deliberate choice but a painful one at the time—to place his personal inclinations before his sense of duty. Duty then meant his name and his family, and the obligation he bore to increase their consequence and improve their standing in society. Somehow in the last weeks, so fleeting yet so long, duty had taken on another face. Elizabeth.
“No, you and I will never meet on the field of honor, Darcy—you because you’ve too much honor, I because I’ve not enough.”
“I think I dreamed that we were walking around a very large house arguing,” she offered timidly. “I don’t remember what about. I also dreamed that we were in the apple orchard, and you were helping me pick apples. You appear to be very adept at climbing trees in my dreams.”
“You are quite wrong. I am sure that I am capable of the fiercest jealousy imaginable if given sufficient provocation.” “Is that so?” With his free hand he began to trace her right eyebrow. “And what would you consider sufficient provocation?” “Is it your intention to supply it, sir?”
He saw again and again that look in her eyes—that sparkling look that once he had thought meant that she was happy, she was stimulated, she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Even knowing the last wasn’t true, it had never occurred to him that she was displeased with him, that she had always looked so, and gave those gay, bold answers because she was actually angry.
you want to marry a woman whom you love, and who loves you equally in return,” he said at last, “then you should not settle for less. Make your choices, not mine. I took the course I felt I must, but neither can I recommend it to anyone else. It is not,” he added after a moment, looking suddenly grim, “for the faint of heart, believe me.”
“Well, did your young man vanquish the dragon again?” So he had caught the significance of her sudden departure. “Yes, Papa.”
“They all knew it, did they not? Absolutely everyone knew that I was among the last men on earth you would ever wish to marry—everyone except me!” He drew his hand back slowly and stared down at the ground. “What a fool I was,” he whispered.
“Do not ever speak to me about what you owe me!” His words hung between them. “Do you wish that I had not accepted you?” she asked at last, feeling strangely desolate. His face softened a bit, and he reached out towards her, only to pull back. “No. But I told you once that I did not want your gratitude, and I tell you now that I do not want your sense of obligation or—heaven forbid!—your pity.” “What do you want?” He looked until her eyes fell. “You know what I want.”
