Page 90 of Knowing Mr. Darcy
She realized she must have known this, somehow, deep down, in that moment when Mr. Darcy looked into her eyes at that ball, when she had snatched back her glove from Mr. Bingley.
She had felt as if she had fallen for Mr. Darcy right then, in that instant. It had seemed quick, out of her control, the height of madness.
But, in actuality, her love had happened slowly, in steps.
First, she had witnessed his intelligence and his unique way of seeing the world. She had come to respect his mind, to respect him in that way.
Then, she had begun to interact with the idea of physical attraction at all. First, Mr. Wickham had allowed her to see that she might be attractive.
Her attraction to Mr. Wickham in return, however brief it may have been, was likely what made her realize she wasnotattracted to Mr. Bingley in that way.
So, then, when that moment happened at the ball, where she became mired in the quicksand that was Mr. Darcy’s gaze, she had felt it like it happened in a moment. But truthfully, she had observed enough of Mr. Darcy to know what sort of man he was, and to know he was the right man for her to love. She had known this deep down, but her logical brain had resisted the inner knowing, had fought and questioned and worried, even as she was swept along by that tide that reassured her of its truth.
They had both known.
But they were both the sorts for whom that sort of internal knowing was not enough. They must feel as if they came to their conclusions in a serious and rational manner, after some thought, devoid of any emotion or intuition.
Thankfully, marrying Mr. Darcy had proved to be the most rational, level-headed thing she had ever done. Everything about him was quite wonderful. She could not have made a better match, not in any other world.
A year passed away, and she wasn’t with child.
She was concerned, but he was not, saying something about an anatomy class he’d had and how he could not even understand how it ever happened at all. “You know women are only fertile for six days each month. Six!”
She had not known this.
He told her not to worry. She tried to listen.
Everything else was lovely.
They hosted Bingley and Jane often at Pemberley. The men spoke often about how they intended to go hunting together and how they would someday teach their sons to shoot together. They purchased hunting dogs for the purpose of hunting, but, in truth, they did no actual hunting. They mostly stayed up late drinking port and slept late in the mornings and threw sticks in the garden for the dogs to fetch in between scratching the animals aggressively behind the ears and talking to them in sing-songy voices.
Jane was already with child. She wasn’t showing yet. She didn’t speak of it because she seemed to sense that Elizabethwas sensitive to the topic, anxious in some way. Only once did Jane speak of it, and it was only to say that being anxious might interfere with the process, that Elizabeth should relax.
Yes,Elizabeth thought,I shall simply relax, now that you’ve told me. Oddly, just your saying I should relax makes meever sorelaxed.
In truth, being told to relax made her more anxious.
They hosted Mary, who was writing her second novel. Her first had been accepted by a publisher who was going to bring it out in the fall. Mary was overjoyed at the prospect. Elizabeth had never seen her sister quite so happy. She was practically bubbly.
They did not host Wickham and Lydia. They did not even speak of Wickham, in truth. Mr. Darcy did not like him and never would.
But Elizabeth got closer to Georgiana and she even found a bit of kinship with Anne de Bourgh on a long trip to Rosings that winter.
And then they were in London, and it was Georgiana’s first season, and there were ever so many balls, and she was distracted. She wouldn’t say relaxed, not at all, but she stopped thinking about babies.
And then her bleeding didn’t come.
Mr. Darcy was wretched about it, pronouncing there was no reason she ever should have worried and acting quite proud of himself as if he’d really done anything all that much in the first place. Why, he’d failed to impregnate her many more times than he’d succeeded, but he acted as if he’d done some impossible feat.
Men.
Jane’s baby was born months earlier, and Elizabeth wasn’t so far gone that she could go and attend and be there for the first few weeks. Jane, however, was too tied up in babyhood to make the trek for Elizabeth’s birth, but Mary came and so did Kitty, and neither of them were particularly helpful in the end, since Mary was busy writing and Kitty had developed a crush on the parson in Derbyshire.
But the baby came regardless, as babes are wont to do.
It was a little boy, who they named James. She lay in bed in the wake of it, and she held him tightly in her arms and whispered into the shell of his perfect tiny ear.
And she thought that everything worked out in the end, hadn’t it? Even if things had seemed as though they were veering off course a number of times.
