“This way, sir, if you please, sir,” the girl gulped out and led him to the stairs. The sound of his boots upon the steps emphasized again to him the quietness of the place. No voices, no rattle of china or sound of steps masked his advance up the stairs and down the short hall. The maidservant stopped before the parlor door and, opening it, curtsied to the occupants. “Mr. Darcy, miss.”
“Thank you,” a hesitant voice from inside replied. Darcy stepped past the girl and into the room, upon which he immediately went cold. His heart’s lady stood there in perfect loveliness and, Heaven help him, perfectly alone! Surely the others were about — somewhere! Darcy swallowed hard and did his courtesy, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as he rose. No, no one! He looked back to Elizabeth, whose eyes seemed to reflect his own discomposure. Apologize, fool!
“Miss Bennet,” he began stiffly, “I must beg your pardon for intruding upon you. I had understood that all the ladies were at home.”
As the door to Hunsford cottage shut and the latch fell into place behind him, Darcy paused briefly to settle his beaver firmly upon his head and look about him before setting off down the lane and back in the direction of Rosings. The unfamiliar elation that had threatened to turn him giddy in Hunsford’s parlor was now somewhat abated, allowing him at last to think. He drew in a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and thanked Heaven for the renewed sense of control that his body, set in motion, bestowed. It was done, their first private interview! He had acted like a foolish schoolboy, of course, as unable to control his unruly emotions as the most callow youth suffering the pangs of a first love. To where did the man who had “lived in the world” disappear, he chided himself, leaving that curst fool behind to babble on, revealing every nook and cranny of his heart?
What had he said? He struggled to remember how it had begun. His brain seemed to have gone to sleep, for he was able to think of nothing intelligible to say. He replied to her inquiries with little grace and no originality. They discussed the Collinses, he seemed to recall, then the cottage, and something concerning Lady Catherine’s efforts toward its improvement. Darcy fought a surprising rush of pleasure as he recalled sitting across from her, her eyes and attention on him alone. Elizabeth. So beautiful in her spring green gown, her distracting lips in a gentle curve that invited him to smile with her at her friend’s practicality in marriage. Her hair — what would it be to see it down about her? “Gad, you are the veriest fool!” He cursed himself again as he battled against dwelling on the image his thoughts so easily created. This would not do! Darcy hefted his malacca into his palm and slashed at the bemused figure of himself he saw before him. His future could not be based on her hair or lips, or every objection and sneer he would later face would be richly deserved! And, he brought his thoughts to heel, you must not forget what followed.
He had meant it only as a passing observation, the business about fifty miles being “an easy distance” between Elizabeth’s friend and her family, but it had excited such a vehement reaction that some devil in him decided to tease her with it. “It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire.” He had smiled, prodding her. “Anything beyond the very neighborhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.” Oh, how becomingly she had blushed at his sally! Darcy slowed his ground-eating stride and then stopped altogether. He had arrived at the end of the path unless he meant to walk on in the other direction. The sheltering grove lay behind him and the path descended from this point into an open field, then the formal park, with Rosings lying beyond. He could be seen, and he was unwilling, as yet, to expose himself to the possibility of an encounter until he had it thought out.
Stepping back into the shadows, he leaned against one of his aunt’s trees and stared into space, re-creating that moment. Could that blush, so enhancing the creamy loveliness of her face and sending her magnificent eyes into a sweet confusion, have been the reason he had blundered on so recklessly? Or had it been her admission that she did not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family? She hinted at her own feelings, did she not? That she was not bound to Hertfordshire, especially if fortune made the distance inconsequential? Had she not couched her protest in terms of her friend’s attachment and not her own? The implications were obvious, even to such an addlepated idiot as he had been at the start of their interview. His delightful fencing partner was offering him her sword! Oh, not in every instance of their relationship, nor would he desire it; but in this, the most basic battle between the male and female of the race. Not only was she aware of his interest but she was signaling her anticipation of it!
Darcy closed his eyes, remembering the intoxicating thrill that had raced through every fiber of his being. Whatever Wickham’s lies had encompassed, she was pleased with his attention. The blush had been wonderful to behold, but it had been her surrender that had taken hold of him and, yes, pushed his tongue past the careful guard his mind had always posted upon his emotions. He had said it then, had even drawn his chair closer to her to catch every word, every breath that would result. “You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn.”
As he pushed away from the tree, the alarm he had experienced at the import of his own words returned. He might as well have declared himself then and there; a more transparent intimation of a shared future was hardly possible! Darcy stalked back several yards down the path toward Hunsford and then returned, only to repeat the exercise. The look of surprise on her face had confirmed to him that she had, indeed, taken his meaning and that a retreat from the position his emotions had led him to was immediately necessary. It was too soon. He had not weighed things to his satisfaction as yet! At the same time, he dared not trifle with her feelings or expectations! So, what had he done to retrieve himself ? He had plucked up a newspaper to mask his confusion and then asked her about being pleased with Kent!
Good Lord, what a blundering, caper-witted ass! Darcy stopped his pacing, a scowl upon his face, and rapped the malacca into his palm with stinging force. If the lady of the house and her sister had not returned soon after, there was no telling in what further ways he might have made a cake of himself! In self-disgust, he collapsed against a tree, but his gaze was drawn back down the path he had come. What, in the end, was the result of his morning’s foray? She is entirely receptive, open to your attentions. She may very well expect them to continue after your rash words! It remained only that he come to the point for her to be his, for the sweetness he longed for to become truth. But, for the life of him, he could not as yet follow through. The social impediments remained; and they were mountainous, the familial ones hardly less so. All their claims fell upon him, and he felt keenly the justice of their reproaches. For what did he not owe to his name, his relations, and his posterity? Such an unequal match contracted merely to satisfy his appetites! Could the happiness it held out to him survive the opprobrium he would face the rest of his days? “No more!” Darcy groaned. He knew himself to be incapable of bringing peace to the warring parties within him. Both reason and emotion had failed him; there was nothing for it but to let fate run its course. “No more,” he repeated, no longer a plea but this time a command. “Proceed as you have begun, and trust to God that fate will intervene, that something will happen to end this!”