Mr. Darcy bowed again, and Mr. Bennet ascertained a wry smile. “I do, Mrs. Bennet. Much too high.”
“Mama, you snatch my task. My chief burdenandconsolation is to berate Mr. Darcy until he considers himself as only a little more august than an ordinary man.” Lizzy laughed happily.
Darcy now bowed to Lizzy, in exactly the same manner he had been bowed to Mrs. Bennet. “Exactly so, madam.”
“Enough dilly-dallying! Mr. Darcy, I understand you have business to conduct with me, asecondtime on the same matter. In my day, we didn’t bother a father every timewehad a falling out with our diamond jewel.” As the bows seemed to work so well for Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bennet imitated him by bowing to Mrs. Bennet. “Not thatIever fell out with you, my dear.”
Mrs. Bennet in reply flutteringly pressed a hand against her cheeks, and from her wink Mr. Bennet suspected her bedroom door would be open to him this night.
With a furious scowl Mr. Bennet glared at Darcy. “Fashions change. Fashions change.”
So saying, Mr. Bennet waved Darcy into the room, and waved Lizzy and Mrs. Bennet away. “You both may order the gentleman around at your leisure onceIhave done with him.”
They entered the book-lined study, and Mr. Bennet closed and locked his door behind Mr. Darcy.
“That is an ominous sound,” the gentleman said, walking to the desk. He put his hand on Lizzy’s chair to move it around.
“Not that chair. It is Lizzy’s.”
Darcy studied the brown gentleman’s leather chair levelly. “The chair is much like her.”
“At the least you see that. Draw that one by the window up. You ought have seen Lizzy’s face when she entered the room on thepreviousoccasion and she saw that you’d moved her chair. I think she had not quite realizedherchair could leaveherspot next to me. She promptly picked up and placed the chair back where it belonged.”
“You ought to have told me this washerchair, so I could have known to leave it in place.” Rather than settling the chair he had picked up across the desk from Mr. Bennet, Darcy placed it next to Lizzy’s. “The symbolism is now appropriate.”
“You next to her, and she between you and me?”
Darcy scratched his cheek and shrugged. “Should I expect this interview to be more involved than the previous one?”
Mr. Bennet pulled out the fine cognac and two crystal glasses he kept hidden in his desk for such occasions. He did not drink a great deal. This was the same bottle he’d opened when Mr. Darcy requested Elizabeth’s hand the first time, still half filled. He poured modest helpings into the pair of snifters. “Elizabethhas my permission to marry whomever she chooses, and she has my blessings no matter what she does in life.”
“Iwish your blessing as well.”
“You wish me to be happy you are marrying my Lizzy.”
“Yes.”
Mr. Bennet gestured for Darcy to pick up the snifter, and they did together and clinked the glasses and sipped. Mr. Bennet paused to savor the aroma, as he knew he was supposed to with fine brandy. “She said you swore an oath as a gentleman to listen to her in the future when you argue, and to let her make her own decisions.”
Darcy inclined his head.
“Not enough.”
“What do you wish me to do?”
“Put it in the marriage articles, that your promise will be confirmed by an annual interview where Elizabeth must testify to two of her male relations, while you are not present, that you have listened to her when she disagrees with you, and not made any decisions for her.”
Darcy looked the picture of confused curiosity. He tilted his head and placed his glass down; he scratched his forehead and furrowed his eyebrows. “I cannot tell if you are in jest. Such is a safeguard to Miss Bennet — though what threat can be placed to ensure I follow this condition? Or that Elizabeth answers honestly if I am a brute? It strikes my pride as a gentleman to have it suggested such an expedient isnecessaryonce I have given my word.Herobjection was that I was too gentlemanly.”
“Would you prefer me to jest or be in earnest?”
“I accept such a condition, ifyouconsider it a necessary safeguard for Elizabeth.”
“Nonsense. Settlements can only enforce financial matters, and we both know you are not a brute. I wonder instead at your intention to let Elizabeth disagree and choose for herself. What about your children? If you and she disagree about a matter of education, or of who a child might marry, or how they may be entertained, who will decide? Your son shall either gain permission to marry the dairy maid who has caught his fancy at sixteen, or he shall not.”
“I consider it unlikelyElizabethwould approve of such a match either.”
“Her? She would never approve of a boy rushing off to marriage at such a tender age —youwould argue for that match.”
