To the southeast it was possible to see a haze that was the edge of London. Eventually the land around dropped beneath the horizon.
“Lovely,” Darcy breathed out, and led the horse in a small circle with the reins.
Elizabeth sighed. “You must have an even better view from so high up.”
“Undoubtedly. It is another advantage of having the facility to ride a horse.”
He said that dryly, but Elizabeth knew he was teasing her, and she had a strong urge to stick her tongue out at him. Instead she laughed, and smiled. “Maybe one day I’ll acquire that accomplishment, but not today.”
Darcy pulled out from one of his saddle bags an apple, took two bites from it, and handed it to the horse. Then, to Elizabeth’s surprise, he said, “Sit,” like he would to a dog, and the horse actually squatted and settled down on first its rump, and then its knees, like a trick horse at a circus.
Darcy swung his leg over the saddle, so he sat with both his feet now lightly pressing against the ground on the same side, and he untied the crutches, and settled them on the ground, then levered himself up to stand.
The horse then followed Darcy’s lead by standing again, and she licked his face once. Darcy giggled and said, “No, no. Athena, no!”
Leaning heavily on one crutch, he pushed the mare’s head away, who walked away now with a satisfied air.
Looking at Elizabeth with a slightly embarrassed air, Darcy said, “I am sure I might train her to cease doing so, but it is not so great a bother, and I rather like the gesture of affection.”
Elizabeth laughed and looked at him fondly. “You misjudge me wholly if you thinkIwill judge you upon such a matter.”
Darcy laughed with you — he had a deep voiced laugh, and she liked to hear it. “It is a general rule amongst horsemen that we assess one another upon whether we manage our animals in theproperway — now let’s take a look around.”
Darcy then worked himself around the top of the hill, carefully observing where he placed the crutch or his foot with each step, and only looking out at the view when he was not moving.
“You are quite mobile,” Elizabeth exclaimed with some admiration as she strolled beside him. She thought that with the way he swung himself forward, step by step, that he could likely move faster than she could.
“It helps that I have a fine horse, and a fine stable master to keep her trained and exercised,” Darcy replied. “A great deal of work has gone into teaching Athena until she can be fully commanded by voice, even on market day in the center of Bath. And it was no easy task to teach her to manage all of the motions necessary to aid me.”
“That was not all that I meant.”
The gentleman had a satisfied air in his reply. “You can see then why I refuse to consider myself as having anything to repine over — I confess Idotire easily, especially on such uneven ground.” And saying such, now that he’d made the whole circuit of the hill, Darcy sat on one of the grey stone benches.
Elizabeth sat on the bench next to him, aware that it would be forward and perhaps a little improper to sit directly next to him. Her seat was rather more in the sun, and she leaned back and smiled at him.
He smiled back at her, and the day was perfect.
They fell to talking upon ordinary matters, like Elizabeth might speak of with Papa — books and music. Town or country. Whether Gothic novels were fine entertainment or corrupting the fragile minds of young women. Elizabeth and Darcy twice over switched sides in that conversation, both of them being able to see that there was some legitimacy to each side of the great debate, and yet still enjoying the opportunity to canvas it.
Darcy spoke of his home, of hiking in the peaks, and sailing boats in the Lakes, and of fox hunting in Scotland. His way of speaking and telling stories, even though they were ordinary, left Elizabeth riveted, wanting to know more about him.
Just the ordinary sorts of subjects that made up agoodconversation!
After a period of time that was perhaps rather too long for propriety, the two arose, and Darcy shared several more apples with both Elizabeth and his horse, before he remounted in the same way as he had dismounted.
The two walked together down the hill, still conversing, and there was a little glow in Elizabeth’s heart when they separated outside of the avenue that led from the main road to the entrance to Longbourn.
She’d been gone at least an hour longer than she had meant to be, her hand was still a bit scraped, and the knee of her dress was very scraped. All that was impossible to regret.
What was possible to regret was returning to the loudness of Longbourn.
Elizabeth no sooner reached the drive than Mama burst out of the door, and ran up to her exclaiming, “Heavens! You have been gone so long. And your dress! Oh—” she moaned. “Lord! It is ruined. And you are so dusty! You must quickly change, and cease to act the hoyden. Our cousin, Mr. Collins, arrived unexpectedly!”
Chapter Five
Elizabeth quickly learned that Mr. Collins had a few weeks previously written to Mr. Bennet to express the solicitous and benevolent intention worthy of a member of the church of England to call upon his honored cousins and heal the unfortunate breach that had existed between his regretted father and Mr. Bennet.
Mr. Bennet received this letter and replied, assenting to the visit. However, due to a mistake about the dates, the blame for which lay wholly on Mr. Collins’s side, the clergyman arrived a full week earlier than expected.
