and the rest of the family were busy with Bingley and Jane, and Darcy took the opportunity to speak to Elizabeth.
“Your father...,” he began, sounding more anxious than he had intended, and finding that he could not go on.
Elizabeth answered the unspoken question for him. “He is willing to accept my assurances,” she said simply, and then suddenly smiled so happily that Darcy nearly forgot the others in the room standing close to him.
For once, he was grateful for Mrs. Bennet’s intervention.
“Mr. Bingley is waiting for you in the coach, Mr. Darcy,” she said sharply, and he took his leave.
36
After saying goodnight to Bingley, Darcy went to his room at Netherfield, but found himself disinclined to sleep.
The events of the past two days had given him little time for reflection.
Although not of a disposition which relied on the approbation of others, he wished at that moment that he had someone to whom he could confide his joy in the happy future which now lay before him.
Bingley was a good friend, but he was not someone to whom Darcy had ever displayed his innermost feelings, and his cousin Fitzwilliam was elsewhere. Then he recalled his conversation with his sister when they were last together.
She had been so much more perceptive than he had expected when she had asked him,
He had paused, before deciding to answer her honestly.
He recalled his surprise when she at first made no reply, but instead came across the room and took his hand, and then said,
Perhaps Georgiana would be more than the young sister he needed to protect from now on. Someone who would be close both to himself and to Elizabeth. Darcy drew up a chair to the desk, took paper and pen, and began to write.
The clock in his room had struck the hour before he concluded the letter,
The following day, Mr. Bennet had made the announcement to the rest of his family before Darcy arrived with Bingley at Longbourn, and he and Elizabeth were the centre of many happy congratulations.
Mrs. Bennet appeared to be so in awe of her intended son-in-law, that she ventured not to speak to him, unless she was able to offer him some attention, or mark her deference for his opinion. She confined her conversation to such queries as “Tell me, Mr. Darcy, what dish you are particularly fond of, so that we may have it this evening?”
Soon after their arrival, his host took him aside into his study.
“I understand from Lizzy that you took the major part, Sir, in bringing about the marriage between my youngest daughter, Lydia, and that fellow Wickham. I am most exceedingly obliged to you for your trouble. You must let me repay you, as soon as maybe.”
Darcy had given some thought to how he should reply to this request, should it arise. He had concluded overnight that it would give him the best opportunity of convincing Mr. Bennet of his real attachment to Elizabeth, of which her father had seemed to be in some doubt on the previous day.
“I have, as I believe you know, Sir, more than sufficient means, so that the expenditure is of little concern to me. But even if I had been in a different situation, I would have done every thing just the same, for Elizabeth’s peace of mind. In all that I had to do, to bring the marriage about, she was always in my thoughts. I did nothing without her being foremost in my mind. And without her beside me, there can be no happiness for me in the future. So let there be no more talk of repayment, I beg of you. Your consent to our marriage is more than enough compensation for me.”
Mr. Bennet had never appeared to Darcy to be a man lost for words, but this seemed almost to leave him without speech.
When he did recover, it was to say, quite simply, “Jane is a good girl, but Lizzy is my favourite child of all my daughters. Without her I shall have little comfort here. I hope that you will not object if I visit her at Pemberley, especially when Mrs. Bennet is busy elsewhere, perhaps a little more often than I ought.”
Darcy replied, “I shall be happy to shake your hand on that.”
Later that morning, Bingley agreed that his carriage should be sent to Longbourn on the next day, so that Miss Bennet and her sister could take luncheon at Netherfield. It was arranged that Mary Bennet should accompany them, as Bingley had made her the offer of playing on the piano-forte, which she had last seen on the night of the Netherfield ball the previous November.
When Elizabeth and her sisters arrived at Netherfield on the next morning, this occupation soon took Mary away from the rest of the party, and Bingley and Jane went off with the housekeeper to discuss the decoration of the rooms to her taste prior to their wedding.
Darcy and Elizabeth made their way to the drawing-room, where he took the first opportunity of asking what Mr. Bennet’s reaction had been when she spoke to her father about their marriage.
Elizabeth gave him that lively smile that was sure to set Darcy’s heart racing, as she said,
“I told him that you have no improper pride—that you are perfectly amiable. I assured him that you really were the object of my choice, and explained the gradual change which my estimation of you had undergone. I told him that I was certain that your affection for me was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months’ suspense.”
Elizabeth added, with an even more mischievous smile, “And, of course, I enumerated all your good qualities, and finally convinced him that we should be the happiest couple in the world!”
It was with some difficulty, at the end of this recital, that Darcy retained the measure of composure appropriate to his situation in the company of an unmarried lady without any chaperone on hand.
“And did you,” he said, to steady himself, and seeking to echo her own bantering tone, “tell him that you cared a little for me?”
“Yes, I did,” she replied and, in a much more sober manner as she turned to face him directly, she said, “and I do, though not a little, as I hope you know by now.”
37
