Page 43 of Moments of Truth
Mrs. Bennet, far from being abashed, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and declared she was the happiest of women.
The days slipped by in such fashion, each marked by visits, walks, and the kind of conversation that strengthens attachment more than eloquence could do. Bingley never uttered a word of gallantry that was not heartfelt; Jane never smiled but it seemed a benediction upon his spirits.
And through it all, Elizabeth’s heart swelled with gratitude. To see her dearest sister so beloved, so cherished, after all her quiet suffering—this was joy enough to repay her for many trials. And yet, when her eyes wandered unbidden to Mr. Darcy, when she caught the restraint with which he held himself apart, her pulse quickened with a more private, searching hope.
But that tale belonged elsewhere. For now, Jane Bennet’s courtship unfolded with such sweetness that even Mary admitted, in a low tone to Elizabeth one evening, “I believe this union may prosper. Their affections appear sincere, and sincerity is no common blessing.”
Elizabeth pressed her hand and smiled. “No, Mary, it is not. But I think they will make it common between them—for a lifetime.”
***
Mr. Darcy’s first regular call at Longbourn, under Mr. Bennet’s newly stated regulations (no earlier than eleven, no later than four, and never without a proper chaperone), was conducted with so complete a propriety that even Mrs. Bennet—who preferred triumph to restraint—was half disposed to approve his punctuality. She received him with a fluttering civility which, had it been a shade more composed, might almost have approached dignity. Mary sat prepared at the pianoforte with abook of sonatas; Elizabeth, resolving to see as well as to judge, took her workbasket and a steadier breath than she possessed.
He entered without parade, bowed with a gravity that neither chilled nor presumed, and took the chair Mrs. Bennet recommended (after recommending two others). His first enquiries concerned Mr. Bennet’s health and Mrs. Bennet’s nerves; his second, more quietly offered, sought to know whether Miss Elizabeth had found the May winds less unkind than April’s. The turn of his voice—its guarded warmth—brought the faintest colour to her cheek.
Mrs. Bennet, who could not keep her transports buried for long, began upon the felicities of Hertfordshire in summer, the excellence of the asparagus, the obstinacy of their poultry, and the advantages of a gravel walk if only one could prevail upon the gardener to roll it twice weekly. Darcy listened with an attention so patient that Elizabeth, who had once charged him with hauteur, felt the first stitch of her needle tighten with surprise and a most unlooked-for gratitude.
Mary was invited (by Mrs. Bennet, with great emphasis) to “oblige the company.” She played with conscientious care. When the movement ended, Darcy rose and asked, not for praise, but for a second piece—naming one that seldom drew notice save from those who loved it. Mary, startled into pleasure, obliged at once. If ever a heart was won at Longbourn by the choice of a sonata, it was Mary’s that morning; and Elizabeth, catching her sister’s shy glow, thought that a man attentive to what others esteem had learned a better lesson than all the maxims in Fordyce.
When next he called, Mr. Bennet himself proposed a short turn in the garden; he placed Mary between them with her book, and took the path a few paces behind. The air was soft; lilacand hawthorn breathed so sweetly that conversation needed no ornament beyond sincerity. Darcy spoke less of himself than of what he admired—of Derbyshire’s hills, not Pemberley’s splendours; of his sister’s love of music, not her proficiency; of duties that were onerous, and how they might be discharged without making others sensible of their weight. He asked for Elizabeth’s opinions with that quiet earnestness which makes a question feel like a confidence. She, who once accused him of contempt for her judgment, felt a delicate reversal: that he sought it; that he was, in some inward place, eased by it.
A spray of hawthorn had bent across the walk; he held it aside for her to pass, and she was conscious—absurdly conscious—of the nearness of his hand, of a courtesy so simple it could never offend. “Thank you,” she said, and the words, hardly more than a breath, seemed to alter the day’s complexion.
Mrs. Bennet’s contrivances could not be wholly spared. One afternoon she insisted that Mr. Darcy be shown the poultry-yard, “for a gentleman ought to know a fine Dorking when he sees one.” Elizabeth, rosy with amusement, led the way, Mary escorting the rear with an air of pious resignation. Darcy bore the expedition with a composure that never once slipped; he asked after the price of feed, admired a broody hen with unexpected seriousness, and—most astonishing of all—endured a long dissertation from Mrs. Bennet on the profits of eggs in a wet spring. When at last they emerged into the kitchen-garden, Elizabeth ventured, with a sparkle she could not hide, “You bear trials heroically, sir.”
“Some trials,” he returned, his eyes alight for a moment, “bring their own reward.”
She understood him, and the understanding was a sweetness she had not expected to taste again.
Their conversation, on other days, turned to books. He did not overwhelm her with authorities; he confessed to gaps in his reading and asked what she recommended to fill them. She named Cowper; he nodded, smiling, and said he should be glad to see the world with a gentler philosopher than himself for guide. When she rallied him for the severity of his early opinions, he accepted the charge with so manly a humility that her raillery transformed into respect. Where once their words had struck sparks, now they gave light.
Georgiana’s name arose by degrees. Darcy spoke of his sister with a reserve that sprang not from pride but from tenderness—how she loved the early morning at the pianoforte; how she was shy and yet, among the few she trusted, the kindest of companions. “It is my hope,” he said, looking not at Elizabeth but at the open window and the sweep of meadow beyond, “that, when it may be proper, Miss Darcy might profit by Miss Bennet’s friendship.” Elizabeth answered softly that she would consider such a request an honour indeed; and because she had seen his care to place propriety before inclination, she felt the honour more.
Mr. Bennet’s scrutiny, though masked by humour, was exact. He did not leave his favourite daughter without the shelter of his own presence; he proposed chess when conversation flagged, and, when it did not, he pretended it did. One evening, after Darcy had taken his leave with a bow that was almost shy, Mr. Bennet observed, “He is not a lively man, Lizzy; but then, lively men make lively blunders. I do not say he is perfect—perfection is the prerogative of fathers—but I begin to suspect he has two rare qualifications: he does not talk nonsense, and he listens when others refuse to be nonsensical.”
Elizabeth, who could not trust her voice, smiled and turned a page she had not read.
There were walks on the lane—with Kitty, or Mary, or Mrs. Bennet herself pressing between—when the hedgerows were all a-bloom, and the talk, though guarded, deepened imperceptibly. There were mornings Darcy arrived on horseback, dismounted with a thoughtfulness for the groom, and stood a moment by the gate as if collecting himself for happiness. There were small tokens of attention that were no tokens at all—never a gift, only a remembered preference: that she liked the west window in the parlour for its light, that she never took a second cup of tea unless the first had been too hot, that her laughter, when it came, was loveliest at the end of a long day.
Once—only once—he asked forgiveness directly. They had reached the old elm at the field’s turn, Mary lingering a few yards away to admire the clouds. “Miss Bennet,” he said, and the formality told her how much he felt, “you have been generous beyond my claim. If ever you should remember my past with pain, I entreat you to set against it not my words but my endeavours. I would wish to earn the peace I have disturbed.”
She looked up—steady now, for his humility steadied her. “I have remembered it,” she answered, “and do not mean to forget; but I hope to remember it as part of a lesson that has done us both good.” Then, because candour had begun their new acquaintance and must sustain it, she added, though her colour rose, “I was not less in error than you.”
He was silent a moment, and the gratitude in that silence had more eloquence than speech.
Mrs. Bennet declared, in the privacy of her chamber, that Mr. Darcy improved prodigiously when one knew how to manage him; and if by “manage” she meant allow him to be everythinghe had quietly become, Elizabeth could not object. Mary, for her part, confided to Elizabeth that Mr. Darcy had a mind fitted for seriousness, “which is, in a husband, a very great advantage—provided,” added Mary with unbending integrity, “that he knows when not to be solemn.” Elizabeth laughed and kissed her.
So the weeks unfurled—tender, measured, and wonderfully secure. It was not the violent rapture Mrs. Bennet would have applauded from the housetops, nor the sparkling warfare Elizabeth had once mistaken for felicity. It was something rarer: the daily discovery that respect had ripened into trust, and trust into a warmth that made even silence companionable. If once they had stood opposed—pride against prejudice—they now advanced, step for step, into a country neither had travelled, where humility could be brave and affection, at last, unafraid.
On an evening of soft gold light, Mr. Bennet, having watched long enough to satisfy both his caution and his heart, closed his book and spoke with playful gravity. “Lizzy, if a certain gentleman should, at the proper time, request a longer walk than a chaperone can easily compass, I may be prevailed upon to believe that the gravel will take no harm.”
Elizabeth, startled into a smile that trembled, curtsied as if to cover the treachery of tears. She thought of a letter grave and honourable; of hands that had learned to serve rather than command; of a look that had once offended and now kept its distance for her sake. If ever happiness is to be tried again, she told her heart, let it be thus—slowly, rightly, with gratitude.
And because gratitude is the most reliable architect of joy, she believed it would be.
Epilogue
Happy indeed, beyond all her maternal ambitions, was the day when Mrs. Bennet at last beheld two of her most deserving daughters respectably and, in her estimation, magnificently married. The proud appellations of Mrs. Bingley and—far greater still—Mrs. Darcy never grew stale upon her lips. She found a thousand occasions to recount their triumphs to neighbours who might, in her fancy, envy but could never equal her. Yet even such great events as these could not wholly transform her into the composed and reasonable matron her family sometimes wished for. Her nerves and her exclamations remained as lively as ever; but perhaps Mr. Bennet, who valued the comforts of habit, found in her unchanged folly a certain familiar solace, and might almost have been startled had her manner grown truly sensible.
