Darcy and Elizabeth What If? Collection 1 (30 page)

‘Not at all! You have done me a very great favour,’ said Mr Darcy, smiling.

‘I have done you a . . . ?’ asked Mr Bingley incredulously.

‘A very great favour,’ repeated Mr Darcy.

‘What can you mean?’

‘I mean I have known for some time that I am in love with Elizabeth. I could not end my engagement to Jane. It would have been an ungentlemanly thing to do, as well as leaving me open to a lawsuit for breach of contract. I had promised to take care of her and provide for her, and to go back on my word was unthinkable. But now, everything has changed.’

‘It has indeed!’ said Mr Bingley with a wide smile on his face. ‘With your permission, I will be the one to take care of her and provide for her, and love her and cherish her to the end of my days.’

‘And if I do not give my permission?’ asked Mr Darcy.

Mr Bingley looked shocked. But then his face broke into a smile again. ‘I believe you are teasing me! Miss Elizabeth has taught you to tease people! She has done you good. You never would have joked about such a matter before you met her. Well, then, Darcy, if you refuse your permission, I will just have to love Jane, honour her, marry her and cherish her without it!’

‘Love, honour, marry and cherish,’ said Mr Darcy dreamily. ‘How fortunate we are, Bingley. We have both found women we love with all our hearts and cannot live without. I never thought such a love was there to be found.’ He added under his breath, ‘But I hoped for it when I saw a pair of fine eyes.’

The carriage rolled to a halt in front of the house.

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Mr Bingley.

‘We let the ladies refresh themselves and then I will speak to Jane,’ said Mr Darcy. ‘I will ask her if she wishes to be released from the engagement, and if the answer is yes —’

‘Which it will be,’ said Mr Bingley with confidence.

‘Then I will go to Elizabeth, and you will be free to go to Jane. It is lucky the engagement was never announced. Close friends and family know about it, but the world at large is ignorant of it and so there will be no gossip when I marry Miss Elizabeth instead of her sister.’

‘Who would have thought that a disaster could bring about such a happy conclusion to our troubles?’ said Mr Bingley. ‘For I must confess, I have been worrying about it for some time.’

‘Not as long as I have,’ said Mr Darcy. ‘Now the only thing I have to worry about is if Elizabeth returns my affections.’

‘Do you doubt it?’ asked Mr Bingley.

Mr Darcy’s anxiety showed on his face.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘No one could refuse you, Darcy.’

‘No ordinary woman, no. The sight of Pemberley would be enough to win any usual woman. But Elizabeth is not a usual woman. She is not swayed by such things. She will only marry me if she loves me, of that I am sure.’

‘I have seen the way she looks at you in unguarded moments,’ said Mr Bingley. ‘Believe me, you have nothing to worry about.’

Elizabeth, Jane and Kitty were sitting in Miss Bingley’s upstairs sitting room, which they had been loaned until they should recover from their shock. They were warm and washed and dry, and they were talking over their experiences: the horror of the accident but the pleasure of the rescue.

Lydia had already rejoined the boating party. She had been completely unconcerned about her wetting, seeing it as a lark. She had loved the drama and excitement and she had loved being the centre of attention. And then, to complete her happiness, she had been given one of Miss Bingley’s beautiful silk gowns to wear instead of her usual muslin.

Kitty was more shaken. She had recovered from her accident but she had been dismayed when Mr Wickham had not come to her assistance. She had only been saved by Mr Denny’s quick thinking, for she was not a strong swimmer and the strings of her bonnet had become entangled with some weed, making it difficult for her to rise to the surface.

Elizabeth had decided to show her the letter while she was still out of humour with Mr Wickham and it had set the seal on Kitty’s miserable day. Elizabeth and Jane had done all they could to cheer her, reminding her of her loving family and reassuring her there would be other gentlemen in the future: gentlemen who were just as handsome as Mr Wickham and far more honourable.

Kitty had retired to the corner of the room, where she was nursing her wounded spirits with a book of fashion plates, a pot of tea and some delectable cakes.

This left Elizabeth and Jane alone. They sat in awkward silence, which was such an unusual circumstance that it had never happened before. They were very close and loved each other dearly, but for the last few weeks they had not shared their feelings and Elizabeth was bursting to speak to Jane. But she had done Jane a great wrong by falling in love with Mr Darcy and she did not know how to begin.

So, unusually, it was Jane who began the conversation.

‘Lizzy, I don’t know what to do,’ said Jane.

It was a cry from the heart, and Elizabeth was at once full of love and sympathy for her sister.

‘I am going to disappoint you and my aunt and my sisters and all my friends and relatives, but I cannot go through with my marriage to Mr Darcy,’ said Jane. ‘I am not in love with him, Lizzy. In truth, I am rather frightened of him. He is so superior, and I do not have your gift of teasing him out of his stateliness. But if it was only that, I would perhaps feel obliged to go through with the wedding for my family’s sake, but it is more than that, much more. You see, Lizzy, I am in love with his friend. I am in love with Mr Bingley.’

‘Jane!’ Elizabeth was flooded with relief and happiness, and saying her sister’s name was all she could manage for the moment, as the news had rendered her speechless.

‘I am sorry!’ said Jane, taking Elizabeth’s cry as a cry of reproach. ‘I truly am. I have done Mr Darcy a great wrong and I have let my family down, but I cannot marry him. Forgive me, please, for if you turn against me, Lizzy, I do not know what I shall do.’

‘Oh, Jane!’ said Elizabeth, her eyes sparkling with happiness. ‘If you only knew how much your confession means to me, for I have a confession of my own to make. I am in love with Mr Darcy!’

‘In love with Mr Darcy?’ said Jane incredulously. ‘But how can anyone be in love with Mr Darcy? He is so aloof.’

‘You do not know him as I know him, Jane. We have often sparred with each other, and I have teased him dreadfully, but we have spoken on deeper subjects, too, and he has revealed his feelings to me as I suspect he has never revealed them to anyone else. He has shown me sympathy and patience and generosity when I was overwhelmed with sorrow, for I could not help remembering our parents’ cruel fate. There have been so many times, Jane, when I have admired him and respected him that I cannot begin to list them all. I have known for some time that he is the only man in the world I would ever want to marry.’

‘And yet you never said anything!’ said Jane.

‘How could I? He was engaged to you. I thought I was betraying you by falling in love with him and so you were the one person I could not confide in. I knew you were already finding it difficult to think of yourself as the mistress of Pemberley. How much more difficult would it have been if you had known I was in love with him?’

‘I would have ended the engagement at once.’

‘Would you? Or would you have felt obliged to continue with it, for the sake of the family?’

‘But if Mr Darcy marries you, dear Lizzy, the family will be provided for anyway!’

‘
If
,’ said Elizabeth.

Her voice lacked its usual confidence.

‘Do you doubt it?’ asked Jane.

‘I do,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I have plagued him and teased him and argued with him and laughed at him. I do not think I am Mr Darcy’s idea of an ideal wife.’

Jane’s face fell.

Elizabeth, seeing it, said quickly, ‘But that is nothing for you to worry about. You must not marry him if you do not love him, that much is certain. Besides, you must set him free before you can marry your Mr Bingley.’

Jane shook her head and played with the fringe on her shawl.

‘That is just it, Lizzy. I do not know if he is
my
Mr Bingley. I think he likes me, but whether he likes me well enough, or loves me well enough, to marry me, I do not know.’

‘There is only one way for us to find out,’ said Elizabeth, standing up. She had always been braver than her sister, and now she knew she must have courage for two. ‘Come, Jane, let us go downstairs and meet our fates. One way or another, this afternoon will decided the rest of our lives.’

Elizabeth and Jane descended the sweeping staircase with quickly beating hearts. Their borrowed silk gowns swished and whispered as they moved. They had to hold up the hems of their skirts, for they were not as tall as Miss Bingley, whose dresses had been loaned to them on her brother’s authority.

‘Do you think they will have returned to the boating party?’ asked Jane.

Elizabeth did not know. It was Mr Bingley’s duty as a host to be with his guests, but his sisters could take his place for a short time. As for Mr Darcy, he did not need to be at the party but he might have felt it necessary to go with his friend.

Their soft shoes made no noise as they crossed the marble hall.

Elizabeth took Jane’s hand to give her sister confidence, and to give herself confidence, too, for the stakes were high and her usual certainty had deserted her.

The footman opened the door of the drawing-room for them and they went in. The two gentlemen were there and they rose to their feet as the ladies entered.

The gentlemen bowed and the ladies curtseyed.

Mr Darcy turned to Jane.

‘Would you take a turn around the terrace with me?’ he asked.

The French windows were open and the terrace beyond was bathed in sunlight. It was ornamented with stone urns which contained late blooming plants and it was very beautiful.

Jane nodded and Mr Darcy gave her his arm.

Elizabeth’s spirits plummeted. She sank down on to one of the sofas. She had been so hopeful, but now those hopes were dashed. Mr Darcy had not wanted her, he had wanted Jane.

Mr Bingley appeared to be on tenterhooks. He gave her a nervous smile and ran his fingers around the inside of his cravat, loosening it, then shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Elizabeth returned his nervous smile. Then she stood up. She was just about to make her excuses so that she could retire when Jane and Mr Darcy came back into the drawing-room.

Jane’s face was wreathed in smiles and she ran to Mr Bingley, who held out his hands to her.

Elizabeth looked at her sister in wonderment, and then she looked at Mr Darcy with growing hope. What she saw in his eyes made her heart stand still and her breath catch in her throat. Her mouth went dry and she felt so light-headed the scene took on a dreamlike quality. Mr Darcy was walking across the room towards her with so much love in his eyes she went weak at the knees. He caught hold of her and held her up, then he said, ‘It is you, Elizabeth. It has always been you. Will you do me the honour’ – Here he knelt in front of her: the proud, the arrogant, the haughty Mr Darcy, willingly humbling himself for her – ‘the very great honour of becoming my wife?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Elizabeth, taking his hands and drawing himself to his feet. ‘Oh, yes!’

And then he took her in his arms and kissed her, and Elizabeth was filled with love and happiness.

An hour later, Elizabeth was taking a turn around the gardens with Mr Darcy. They had talked at great length about all the things that had kept them apart, and revealed to each other that their love had been steadily growing for months, held back only by the tangled circumstance of Mr Darcy’s prior engagement. They had talked, too, of Jane and Mr Bingley’s romance, and they had laughed for joy at the happy outcome of such a difficult situation.

‘And we have Lydia to thank!’ said Elizabeth. ‘I never thought I would owe my happiness to my little sister.’

‘Yes. If she had not rocked the boat it might have taken us weeks, or even months, to break the web I had unwittingly trapped myself in. I will buy her a new bonnet as a reward!’

‘Mr Darcy, you have learned how to tease!’ said Elizabeth.

‘Thanks to you. You have lightened my being, Elizabeth. You have saved me from my own pomposity and conceit. I can never thank you enough for everything you have done for me.’

‘I think that Pemberley will be an adequate recompense!’ she teased him.

‘Ah, yes, Pemberley. You will make an excellent mistress for Pemberley and an excellent hostess.’

‘I am already looking forward to it. But tell me,’ she said. ‘What did you mean when you said that it had always been me?’

She had scarcely noticed it at the time because she had been too caught up in everything else that was happening but now his enigmatic words returned to her.

And so he told her.

‘I had no idea,’ said Elizabeth. ‘So you saw me in a carriage several years ago?’

‘I did, and I could not get you out of my mind. Your face haunted me and I dreamed about you for years. But then, when I finally met you, I had just proposed to Jane.’

Elizabeth remembered the frozen look on his face when he had been introduced to her.

‘And I took your expression for pride!’

Now that everything had been resolved they could laugh about it, and the struggles they had gone through only served to make their final union all the sweeter.

‘When will we be married?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘As soon as you like. You have passed the anniversary of your parents’ death’ – Here they both fell silent for a time, remembering, and feeling sorrow for those who had gone. Elizabeth missed her father with an intense pang, knowing how much he would have liked Mr Darcy. And her mother! Thoughts of her mother’s excitement made Elizabeth laugh.

Mr Darcy looked at her questioningly.

‘You did not know my mother, but she would have been in raptures to know I was marrying a man with ten thousand a year!’

Mr Darcy smiled.

‘I am glad you have such happy memories.’

‘I do,’ said Elizabeth.

Her mother had been silly and frivolous but Elizabeth had loved her, and it gave her a warm feeling to know that her parents would have loved Mr Darcy. She missed them, and she always would, but it gave her joy to know they would have approved of her marriage.

‘I think we should marry in the Spring,’ said Elizabeth. ‘That will give us time to prepare for the wedding. In fact, I thought it would be nice if we had a double wedding with Jane and Mr Bingley.’

‘An excellent idea,’ said Mr Darcy.

And so, in great happiness, they continued their walk, looking forward to a bright future.