Alice swept the remark aside with a cheerful gesture.
“Let us not lose ourselves in unimportant details. What did you discuss with Mr Darcy?”
Elizabeth reflected that she was not entirely certain herself what had truly passed between them.
“We spoke more in hints than in plain words. We agreed to forgive one another for the manner in which we behaved in Kent.”
“You too?”
“Yes. Whoever began that quarrel, I ought to have preserved my composure. Had I answered him coldly and disdainfully, I believe it would have had a greater effect. Instead, we resembled two lions attacking one another.”
“And? I understand you both regretted the form the conversation assumed.”
“Not merely the form. He began his marriage proposal in Kent by declaring that he had come before me after losing a struggle with himself.”
“How many unnecessary battles.”
“Yes. Finally, we made peace.”
“And?” Agnes persisted.
“And nothing more. Yet it is a considerable improvement in our relationship.”
“A greater improvement would have been to discuss the substance of the conversation itself…the proposal of marriage.”
“Oh no, nothing of that sort was discussed, nor do I believe it ever will be.”
“You mean you do not believe he will ask you again?”
Elizabeth stared at Agnes in astonishment, as though it were only at that moment that the possibility of a renewed proposal had truly occurred to her, though in one form or another it had been the subject of her thoughts for weeks.
Until then, she had always considered what answer she might give to a proposal of marriage, without reflecting that an answer required a proposal; without imagining Mr Darcy actually asking her to become his wife.
For if she had done so, she would have been obliged to imagine him very differently from the silent, deeply tormented gentleman at the Parsonage. She would have had to imagine the elegant, smiling man who had welcomed her to Pemberley asking her to be his wife.
If Mr Darcy were to ask her to marry him, she would probably reflect with the greatest seriousness and with a changed vision of life and love.
She did not feel the love she had once imagined, the love she had seen blossom between Mr Bingley and Jane. Yet she was very near to acknowledging that he was an extraordinary man, one who might, in time, inspire such feelings, and who offered her entrance into the wonderful realm that was Pemberley, rescuing her permanently from hardship.
“You truly had not considered that he might ask again?” asked Agnes when her silence continued.
“Not concretely.”
At that very moment, a servant knocked at the door and brought several letters.
“They have arrived from Derby, miss, but they are all for Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth regarded them affectionately. One was from her mother, one from Kitty, and another from Mrs Phillips.
“I shall leave you to read them.”
Elizabeth thanked her and reminded her that they were expected in the drawing room at four o’clock for tea.
Elizabeth often exerted herself to appear calmer than she truly was.
At times, she would find herself enjoying an event, a landscape, or a pleasant idea. But almost immediately, she would remember her father’s departure, or Longbourn no longer being their home, and a cloud would settle over her spirits.
Yet that afternoon, it was Elizabeth, who had once been cheerful and confident, who entered Pemberley’s drawing room.