“And I have one more thing to add. William is not asking for your permission to marry. He is here as a courtesy to you. With or without your blessing, Elizabeth and he will marry on December 24th. I, for one, shall wish them joy, and if you wish to see Georgie and William again, you should do the same. Do you really want to be estranged from yet another family member? Is it not enough that Antony and you do not talk or that his sisters rarely visit because they are afraid of you? Think of the consequences before you say another word.”
With that, Anne sat down, and the only sound was the clock ticking away the minutes. After an uncomfortably long silence, Darcy went over and took hold of his aunt’s hand, but she would not look at him.
“I hope you will take Anne’s advice because nothing will change my mind about marrying Elizabeth. However, I do not wish to impose upon your hospitality, so Georgiana and I will leave in the morning as there is much to do. Elizabeth and I will have a reception at Longbourn in the spring, and I hope you will attend.” Darcy then signaled to his sister that they should retire.
The next morning, with her mother still in her bedchamber, Anne was the only one to see her cousins on their way.
“Oh, William, I wish I could be there for your wedding, but as you know, I do not travel well in the winter. By the way, when is the next full moon?”
“On the twenty-eighth. But you need not worry as Elizabeth borrowed a book on astronomy from the circulating library in Meryton and wrote down all the dates for the full moon for the next two years.”
“Then you are obviously in good hands.”
“Anne, you seem quite chipper this morning. Considering that things did not go well last night, I find your good cheer puzzling.”
“Oh, I disagree. I think things went very well. You managed to have the last word with Mama. Can you ever remember that happening before? And because of that, I am hopeful that we shall see you in the spring.”
Darcy nodded his head in agreement as well as in admiration of his fragile cousin who had taken the field and won the battle, if not the war.
Chapter 27
The day after Lord Fitzwilliam’s visit, Lizzy and Mrs. Gardiner ventured out with Madame Delaine, Georgiana’s modiste, who knew where all the best warehouses were located. Since Lizzy and Mrs. Gardiner’s French was only marginally better than Madame’s English, it proved to be an interesting experience for all parties, but by the end of the day, Lizzy had the material for her dress, and some of the “whatnots,” as Mr. Darcy put it, to go with her bridal attire, all of which was put on his account.
“I told Mr. Darcy that Papa put away one thousand pounds for my dowry,” Lizzy explained to Mrs. Gardiner, “but he said that because of Lydia’s marriage to Wickham, he had no doubt that it would become necessary for her to ask our father for assistance, and the money for my dowry would be there to help her.”
“That is very generous of Mr. Darcy, but of course he is a man with real assets, unlike Lord Fitzwilliam, who apparently does not have the money to pay the coalman.”
An enjoyable morning was followed by an equally pleasant afternoon. When Lizzy arrived at the Gardiner residence, there was a letter waiting for her from Mr. Darcy. However, with the memory of his previous letter fresh in her mind, she put it in her pocket to be read in the privacy of her bedroom.
After supper, thirteen-year-old Margaret, the older of the two Gardiner daughters, treated her cousin to a number of delightful pieces, including a Scottish air, on the pianoforte. Following the completion of her performance, their governess escorted her four charges upstairs, and Lizzy and her aunt shared their shopping experiences with Mr. Gardiner, who was polite, but clearly uninterested in their excursion. To engage her husband’s attention, Mrs. Gardiner told him of Lord Fitzwilliam’s visit, and he laughed so hard that he nearly popped a button on his waistcoat. After wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes, he managed to sputter, “Do I have anything to worry about, Mrs. Gardiner? Should I work at home to keep the wolf at bay?”
That comment reminded Lizzy of Mr. Darcy’s letter, and she excused herself. But before closing the door behind her, she could hear Uncle Gardiner saying to his wife, “All I can say, my dear, is that Lord Fitzwilliam has damn fine taste in women, and he has definitely put an idea in my head. Shall we retire early tonight?” Lizzy could hear her aunt giggling.
Once in bed, Lizzy stared at the letter. Surely, it must be better than the one he had written to her on his journey home from Scotland, and after another moment’s hesitation, she broke the seal.
Dearest Elizabeth,
Be not alarmed, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those words which were so repugnant to you when last I wrote. I write without any intention of paining you.
And Lizzy hugged the letter to her chest and thought how clever he was to open his missive by mocking that first awful letter he had written to her when she was at Hunsford Lodge.
Being unsure if I would have the time to write to you once I was in Kent, I penned this letter while in town, and so it will contain no news, only my love.
I have never written a love letter (and you can attest to that fact). So what do I say after I confess that my love for you is so strong that no wind could bend it nor rock could break it? I imagine that most gentlemen would make reference to that wonderful moment when he first saw his lady love. But I cannot do that because I was abominably rude to you at the assembly, and the first time I saw you smile was when you were laughing at me for being such a boorish man. I must also omit references to Lucas Lodge, the ball at Netherfield (where you were the prettiest girl in the room), and, most definitely, Hunsford Lodge.
So I must move past our unfortunate beginning to the day I saw you at Pemberley. You were sitting on a bench without a bonnet. (Didn’t your mother warn you about getting freckles from being out in the sun without a bonnet or parasol?) Your face was turned toward the sun, and because your eyes were closed, I was able to gaze upon your freckled countenance for several minutes. When you opened your eyes to find me staring at you, I thought that you might run away, but you did not, and in that moment you sealed your fate because I knew exactly what you were feeling, and it wasn’t anger, animosity, or dislike; it was something quite different.
Lizzy treasured the memory of her visit to Pemberley. She had been sitting in the garden, and with the sun warm upon her face, she had been thinking about the Hunsford letter. In it, Mr. Darcy had admitted that he had interfered in Jane and Charles’s relationship, but not for the reasons she had suspected. And if he had failed to properly judge the depth of her sister’s affection for Mr. Bingley, she had been completely blind to Wickham’s true character. If Mr. Darcy’s behavior had been less than exemplary, there was certainly enough criticism to go around, as she had these preconceived notions about him, every one of which had proved to be wrong.
But on such a beautiful day, thinking unhappy thoughts was unpardonable, and so she had set them aside. While waiting for her aunt and uncle to come down the garden path, she had been thinking of what it would be like to be embraced and kissed by the handsome owner of this beautiful estate, when she sensed that someone was nearby. Upon opening her eyes, she found Mr. Darcy standing not more than twenty feet from her, holding his jacket and with his shirt opened, and she had been both embarrassed and…