Page 20 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
“You’re mistaken, sir,” she said, her voice tremulous.
He stopped, inclining his head. “Oh.”
“No, I never thought… you and me?” She let out a high-pitched artificial laugh. “I’ve never evenconsideredsuch a thing.”
“Right then,” he said. “My mistake.”
“Yes,” she said.
Then, it was dreadfully, horribly silent, and no one spoke for a stretch of moments that seemed to drag on interminably.
Eventually, Bingley excused himself to go and check on Elizabeth, and Jane said she would go with him.
Caroline said brightly that she’d like a walk in the gardens, and Louisa accompanied her.
Mr. Darcy finished his letter. He felt like a cad.
CHAPTER FIVE
“AND TO THINK,” said Jane, shaking her head, “that she was in love with you, all along.”
Mr. Darcy let out a breath. ‘Well, she says that isn’t true.” It was afternoon now, and he was in the gardens with Miss Bennet. They’d run into each other only moments ago. Jane confessed she had thought to find Caroline and see if she might mend whatever it was that had gone wrong between them, and Mr. Darcy confessed he’d had the same inclination.
But now, they were only standing together near a large rose bush, in sight of the house, but with neither Caroline nor Louisa anywhere to be found.
“It wasn’t very believable when she said that, though,” said Jane quietly. “Even I could see that. I don’t like to think that people are lying, but I think she was partly lying to herself. We have all been there, have we not, being hopeless for someone who does not even know we exist?”
“You?” he said. “When has that happened to you?”
“He came in the spring. He was the nephew of Mrs. Gateling, but he must marry a woman with a dowry, so I think he trained his eye not to look anywhere except at money.” Jane shrugged. “No one knows, not even Lizzy. My sister loves me, but she can be harsh. She would have dismissed my feelings, told me to forget about them, told me it was pointless to dream when such a thing was impossible.I knew all that. I didn’t need to hear it from her mouth.”
Mr. Darcy was struck by the idea of that, of the difference in the way that it must feel for a woman like Jane Bennet to experience love. She needed a husband in a way that he did not need a wife.
Not that he didn’t need a wife, for he did. He would be half a man without one, and he must have children. But if he never married, it would be a different life for him than the life she would live.
And look at her!
Look at this beautiful, sweet woman. She was practically an angel on earth. Why wasn’t she married already? “He was a fool for not noticing you,” he said.
“No, no, he was not. He knew what was important,” she said. “Looks fade, Mr. Darcy. I may or may not be as pretty as my mother thinks I am. Mothers have a skewed view of their own offspring, after all—”
“You are pretty, Miss Bennet, depend upon it.”
She flushed. “You will turn my head, saying such things.”
He laughed. “I doubt that very much. There are heads that can be turned, and then there is yours.”
“My head could be turned,” she said, and there was emotion there.
He swallowed. He thought of Elizabeth, last night, saying what she’d said about Bingley.
Suddenly, he was angry. These girls, these Bennet girls, locked up in this country prison—well, he was exaggerating—but truly, why had they never come to town?
Well, he’d heard that they didn’t have a house in town and that they had relatives in Cheapside, and he knew that they might not have been invited into his own circle, but even so, there was a circle they could have been invited into, and it was better than this. How were these girls to get married and improve their lot in life if they did nothing but visit those public balls in Meryton?
He was angry, because he realized neither of them, neither Jane nor Elizabeth, had any notion of their own worth. They didn’t realize how pretty they were, howpleasant, how intelligent, how disarming.
Maybe it’s their humility you like,he thought archly.
