Page 4 of Moments of Truth
She replied in the expected manner and then added, with a steadier tone than she felt: “My eldest sister has been living in London for three months now. Have you perhaps seen her there, Mr. Darcy?”
Mr. Darcy dodged the question, saying he had spent most of his time at Pemberley. Yet the faint tightening of his jaw, the averted gaze fixed upon the window, and the pause before he spoke betrayed more than his words would ever allow.
***
In the days that followed, the cousins found their time at Rosings divided between Lady Catherine’s imperious commands and their own attempts to escape into the quiet of the countryside. Her ladyship’s voice, forever dispensing advice on the management of parishes and estates, resounded ceaselessly through the halls; yet, whenever duty released them, both gentlemen were glad to take refuge in the park or to call atthe parsonage, where conversation was conducted in a far more natural tone, untouched by ceremony and all the freer for it.
It was there that one subject of interest soon began to emerge in their routine: Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Darcy had not expected to see her at Hunsford, but her presence as a guest of Mr. Collins and his wife Charlotte altered the complexion of his visit entirely. She seemed, by the mere act of being herself, to introduce freshness into days otherwise marked by Lady Catherine’s predictability. Even the familiar walks about the grounds, once tedious, took on new life when he thought he might encounter her among them.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, ever the sociable one, was immediately drawn to Elizabeth’s quick wit and lively manner. Her playful observations, delivered with a sparkle of mischief, set him laughing in ways he had not in months, and he declared more than once that Hunsford afforded better company than many a London drawing-room. Her conversation, light without frivolity, amused without offending, seemed to breathe vitality into the very air he inhaled. He found her presence infinitely more stimulating than Lady Catherine’s endless monologues about the proper way to direct servants or regulate a household.
The evenings at Rosings proved awkward for Darcy. Seated across from Elizabeth at dinner, he could scarcely keep his eyes from drifting to her. Her countenance, animated in the play of candlelight, absorbed his attention despite every stern reminder to himself that it was folly to admire her. She was lively in conversation, her laughter brightening the otherwise solemn atmosphere of the grand dining room, and each time the sound reached him, it unsettled him more than the sharpest remark from Lady Catherine ever could. The silvery cadence of her mirth seemed to pierce through the gravity of his mind andawaken in him an emotion he had long denied—hope, fragile yet irresistible.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease. He engaged Elizabeth in spirited exchanges, his tone light, his humour ready, much to Lady Catherine’s mild irritation at being upstaged. Darcy sat in brooding silence, torn between admiration and restraint, his conscience whispering of her family’s want of fortune, while his heart rebelled against the dictates of rank. To those around him, he appeared grave and taciturn; to himself, he was in turmoil. His every glance towards her was a skirmish between desire and discipline, his every silence a battle hard won yet bitterly felt.
Elizabeth, for her part, could not fail to notice Darcy’s peculiar behaviour. She had long since decided that he was a man of pride and coldness, and his reserve at Rosings only confirmed the unfavourable impression she had formed in Hertfordshire. His cousin Fitzwilliam, by contrast, was open, talkative, and obliging. With him she felt most at ease, even daring to tease him about his cousin’s severity. “Mr. Darcy must believe he was born to frown,” she once declared with a laugh, and the colonel, though amused, could only offer the faint defence that Darcy was not half so unfeeling as he appeared.
These half-jesting remarks lodged themselves in Darcy’s mind more securely than Elizabeth could have guessed. He sat, appearing unmoved, yet inwardly every word seemed to strike against his guarded heart. What she dismissed with a smile, he received as judgment; what she delivered in play, he felt as pain. Yet even in the wound, he discerned the strange sweetness of caring too much for one who thought so little of him.
TWO
As the days passed, Darcy could not help but be drawn further into Elizabeth’s orbit. Each evening seemed to place them in some new proximity, and each encounter unsettled his equilibrium a little more. Her refusal to be cowed by Lady Catherine’s domineering presence, her unstudied intelligence, and her quicksilver wit all stirred something in him that he had not fully anticipated. At moments, when she spoke with others, he found himself silent only that he might better listen; when she laughed, he discovered—though he would never have confessed it aloud—that the sound haunted him long after she had left the room.
Darcy often lingered in the drawing room after dinner, ostensibly to please his aunt, but in truth for no reason so respectable as that. He listened with studied composure to Elizabeth’s lively exchanges with Colonel Fitzwilliam, though every laugh of hers seemed to reverberate more strongly in his chest than any argument of his cousin’s. Against his better judgement he would, on occasion, hazard a remark of his own—never without immediate regret, for Elizabeth’s bright eyes had a way of turning even the simplest reply into an examination. Yet these brief encounters carried always a peculiar tension: as though some invisible thread drew them irresistibly closer, while at the same moment pride, prejudice, and propriety conspired to tug them apart.
One particular evening, after an exceptionally long and tedious discourse from Lady Catherine on the sacred art ofarranging table settings—a lecture so detailed that even the salt spoons seemed to quake under her authority—Darcy once again found himself drawn into conversation with Elizabeth. The candlelight, softened by the polished glass of the sconces, fell warmly upon her countenance, animating her eyes with such brightness that every syllable she uttered seemed to strike him with dangerous clarity.
The company had thinned; Lady Catherine retired in high satisfaction with her own eloquence, and Mrs. Jenkinson followed in her wake. Only Fitzwilliam remained, stretched upon a chair with indolent ease, his smile half-amused, half-knowing, as one who perceived far more than he chose to reveal.
Elizabeth, in her characteristic fashion, did not hesitate to press him. “I daresay, Mr. Darcy, you appear quite sure of your opinions on every subject,” she observed, her eyes sparkling with playful mischief. “One wonders whether you ever allow for the faintest possibility that you might be wrong.”
The remark struck Darcy with disarming force. A familiar heat rose to his cheeks—not from indignation but from the uncomfortable suspicion that she spoke the truth. “I assure you, Miss Bennet,” he replied, striving for composure, “I am as capable of error as any man.” Yet the stiffness of his tone betrayed him, rendering the admission more a defence than a concession.
“Capable, perhaps,” Fitzwilliam interposed with infuriating good humour, “but willing to admit it? That, Cousin, is a different story entirely.” He leaned back with the air of a man delivering judgment upon a case he had long since won, clearly enjoying Darcy’s discomposure.
Elizabeth raised a brow, her silence eloquent, and Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled again, adding with mock solemnity, “Yousee, Miss Bennet, I have known him since boyhood. Were one to publish a record of his confessions, it would hardly fill a pamphlet.”
Darcy cast his cousin a look meant for censure, but anger would not come. Instead, he felt a curious admiration for the young woman who dared to challenge him so freely. Here, at last, was no sycophant, no schemer eager for his notice, but a creature of candour and courage—undaunted, irreverent, radiant in her defiance—and for that very reason, dangerously irresistible.
***
Another evening, Mr. Darcy learned from Mrs. Collins that Miss Bennet, ever eager to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Rosings and the endless lectures from Lady Catherine, found solace in her daily walks through the park. Mrs. Collins mentioned it with a fond smile, half-amused at her friend’s preference for hedgerows over drawing rooms, yet grateful that Elizabeth had discovered a retreat from the parsonage’s ceaseless noise. Even at Hunsford, Elizabeth could not find peace, for Mr. Collins filled the air with either rehearsals of his sermons or freshly minted praises of his patroness, unoffered in her presence but no less oppressive in their repetition. Such exertions often drove Charlotte and her sister Maria to contrive errands into the village or market—pretexts invented with a frequency that betrayed their desperation. Elizabeth did not always join them; more often, she preferred the stillness of the fields and the liberty of thought afforded by solitude.
The grounds surrounding Hunsford Parsonage and Rosings Park were vast and beautiful, and she took full advantage ofthem, wandering along the paths lined with budding trees and early spring blossoms. The damp air smelled of turned soil and wild violets; the first birds called timidly in the hedgerows. With a book tucked beneath her arm, she often paused on a sunlit bench, though more frequently her thoughts wandered farther than her eyes could travel. The fresh air cleared her mind, and the solitude allowed her to read—or at least to carry the comfort of a book, whether she opened it or not.
Mr. Darcy also enjoyed walking around Rosings when visiting his aunt, but upon hearing Mrs. Collins’ remark, an idea fixed itself with unwelcome force: chance might be persuaded to favour him, should he arrange to walk when Miss Bennet did. In truth, it was no accident. Darcy, unable to trust himself entirely, insisted his cousin accompany him—half to lend propriety to the pursuit and half to disguise it beneath the veil of coincidence. Colonel Fitzwilliam, delighted by the scheme, declared himself on his first “mission as a spy” and entered into the game with good humour.
Thus it happened that Elizabeth, rounding a bend in the path one morning, found her solitude interrupted by the approach of two gentlemen. She greeted them with composure, though a flicker of surprise crossed her countenance.
“I fear we intrude, Miss Bennet,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam with a bow. “My cousin and I had the same notion—that a morning so fine should not be wasted indoors. You will forgive us if chance has made us rivals for the same path?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Chance, Colonel, is most obliging these days. I begin to suspect it conspires against my solitude.”
“Surely not against it,” Fitzwilliam replied, his tone light. “Rather to improve it. A walk is well enough alone, but in company it may prove excellent.”
“Depending on the company,” Elizabeth returned with a playful glance to his cousin.
Mr. Darcy, who had thus far remained silent, found himself compelled to speak, though the words emerged with more gravity than ease. “I hope, Miss Bennet, you do not count us unwelcome intruders.”
