To sit at a window all morning on the chance of a gentleman who had not the smallest intention of appearing would be folly.
But Elizabeth did not put the boot on. She compromised by doing nothing at all, but doing it anxiously.
Her aunt and uncle went to look at the church after breakfast, but Elizabeth did not accompany them. She pleaded a letter owed to Jane. Aunt Gardiner accepted the excuse without the least sign of believing it, but she bore Uncle Gardiner off without comment.
Elizabeth watched them go from the parlour window, her aunt’s hand at her uncle’s elbow, the two of them pausing at the corner to disagree comfortably about something of no importance. That morning, it seemed to Elizabeth very nearly the most enviable condition in the world.
Over breakfast, Uncle Gardiner had mourned a little over having left his fish at Pemberley, but observed that Mr. Darcy would very likely call before they left Derbyshire. Aunt Gardiner had said nothing, but she did smile. Then she had carried her husband off to the church, leaving the field clear with a delicacy Elizabeth was grateful for. But if Mr. Darcy did not come, she did not know what she would tell them when they returned.
Her uncle and aunt were sure he would come. But they did not know what she knew. They had not been at Hunsford in April. They had not heard her refuse him so completely that she still could not think of it without blushing, nor had they seen his face when she did it.
The rules of propriety were plain. A gentleman made his offer once. If he was refused, he accepted the answer and troubled the lady no further. To come again, to ask a second time, to lay himself once more before a woman who had told him he was thelast man in the worldshe could ever marry—that was not what a gentleman did. And Mr. Darcy was the very model of an English gentleman.
Everything she had been taught about marriage proposals said that he would not come, and that she had no right to wish he would.
But she still wished it with all her heart.
She did not write to Jane. She sat at the window and watched the green as the residents of Lambton went about their Saturday business—a carter, a dog, two children rolling a hoop with more enthusiasm than skill. All the while, she argued with herself.
Mr. Darcy would come. He had seemed about to say something before Miss Bingley had cut in to issue her insincere farewells, and she did not think he would allow them to depart without another word. He would come to take proper leave, at the least.
Or so she told herself. It was equally possible that she had entirely mistaken him—she had done it before.
Everything he had done the day before—the lemonade, the kindness to her uncle, the rush to save Henry Atherton from his own determination, his gentleness with Miss Atherton, the patience and quiet support he showed his young sister, his rush up the slope in the storm to gather his guests and help lead them out of danger, the constant, steady care he had shown them all the whole day—might be no more than the conduct of a man resolved to prove he was not who she had believed him at Hunsford. A vindication, and nothing more.
Miss Bingley’s voice came back to her, unwanted, and Elizabeth thought it might be worse still—that this was simply the man that he had always been and that his behaviour had nothing to do with her at all.
But no. She did not think Mr. Darcy’s character would allow him to be petty. Even if the look had been her own imagination, fashioned from nothing more than wishing, he would not becruel. She went to the window to observe the sun and found herself watching the road.
If he had meant to come, he would have come by now, for it was full morning. The shadows on the green had drawn in to almost nothing. If he were coming, he would be here.
By the time she had turned all of this over some forty times, she was thoroughly wretched, had come to hate the word Monday, and had made up her mind that he was not coming, though she had not been able to persuade her heart.
This was ridiculous. She would not sit here all morning waiting for a gentleman who had given her no reason to expect him. She would walk to the church, find her aunt and uncle, admire the stained glass with all the composure she could command, and think no more of Mr. Darcy.
She had one boot on, and the other in her hand, when a groom called out in the yard.
Elizabeth moved back to the window, her boot dangling from her fingers, and saw a man on horseback. She knew the figure. She had, after all, spent time the previous morning becoming acquainted with the breadth of his shoulders.
Her heart did something foolish and painful as she sat down, shoved her foot into her boot, and stood.
Her head told her that he had come to take his leave. It was the correct thing. A gentleman did not allow an acquaintance to leave his county without a civil farewell, and Mr. Darcy did the correct thing as regularly as other men breathed.
She had perhaps three minutes to prepare herself for nothing more, and then he was at the parlour door. The maid announced him, and he was in the room, and the maid was gone. They were alone, which they ought not be, and which neither of them mentioned.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy.”
They stood silently for a second or two before Elizabeth said, “My aunt and uncle are at the church. They will be sorry to have missed you. They will not be above half an hour, if you?—”
His eyes were . . . oh, his eyes. “I did not come to see your aunt and uncle,” he informed her, his breath coming slightly faster than it ought.
His voice was very level and exact, just as she recalled it from the parsonage in Kent, on the worst evening of both their lives.
“I lay awake most of the night,” he said, “unable to decide whether I had any right to come to you. This morning, I wondered still. I dressed, ate, walked out, and even then had not settled my mind. But then I was on the road to Lambton without actually having decided. Do you know why, Miss Bennet?”
She could not speak, and so she simply shook her head.