That night Elizabeth could not help but be dissatisfied with herself. She found it difficult to sleep.
She had been so heartless and callous as to believe that only because Jane desperately sought to keep a serene countenance that underneath it shewasmostly serene.
There had been Jane’s tears the first time that they had spoken of Mr. Bingley’s abandonment. But since then, while Jane had been clearly sad, Elizabeth had seen no sign of this sort of eruption.
She should have known.
If only Mr. Darcy had not left town with Mr. Bingley. She wished very much that she could talk to Mr. Darcy again, and tell him about how unhappy Jane had been, and ask him what he thought she should do. She missed Darcy.
She missed his comforting presence, his smiles and his conversation, far more than she would have imagined.
He would have known what to say to her to make her feel better.
Jane’s unhappiness made Elizabeth feel a deep guilt at any twinge of her own unhappiness. She and Darcy had never behaved as lovers. He had never given her any hint that might be construed as a promise, or an act of courtship.
Yet… yet, that openheartedfriendshipand desire for her company had always been there. Not flirtation, but affection.
Her friend had gone away to another county, to London, and likely she would never see him — even though he was the best gentleman she had ever known, and even though he had saved Jane’s life by bringing Mr. Thompson to take command of her treatment.
The end of the Bennets’ connection with Mr. Bingley meant that she would likely never see Mr. Darcy again. Even should both of them be in town at the same time, she could not call upon him. Papa would have no interest in calling upon him, and Elizabeth could not imagine Mr. Darcy ever calling at Gracechurch street.
To picture him in her aunt’s cozy drawing room, perhaps surrounded by her dear nieces and nephews — an appealing, but unlikely picture.
So she had lost a dear friend.
That was a good excuse for a little unhappiness.
Chapter Fifteen
Upon arriving precisely at the specified time in the afternoon for his dinner with his uncle at the Earl of Matlock’s townhouse, Darcy was helped out of the carriage by his footman. Once the door was opened and he made it into the entry vestibule on his crutches he found a rolling Bath chair with the footman to push it. A very fancy and elegant example of the species of rolling chairs for invalids, silk embroidery, gold threading, decidedly oversized, and with an arrangement around the single front wheel that he might steer by.
Very kind of his uncle to ensure that such a provision was there for an invalid, even though if Darcy had the slightest intention of using a Bath chair, except for rare and specific circumstances, he would have brought his own.
He ignored the chair, and settled his crutches to begin swinging down the hallway towards where he knew from long experience the drawing room was. The butler who'd opened the door said, “Sir, would it not be more comfortable if you sat?”
“No,” Darcy replied flatly.
“Ah, well, her Ladyship was most insistent.” The butler wiped his forehead. “Are you wholly certain you would not be more comfortable?”
“Aunt Amelia?” Darcy asked with a bit of confusion. His uncle’s wife was many things, many of them admirable — sufficiently insistent to frighten their butler of many years was not one of them.
“No, sir. Lady Catherine.”
“Ah. Lady Catherine.” Darcy shook his head with a smile, and without any further words proceeded in his own ambulatory pattern to the drawing room.
Perhaps if he lived in a different world, where there were ramps everywhere, and not a great many stairs, he might make more use of wheeled chairs. Or if they were better designed to manage rougher ground, or if an easy method by which their user could propel them himself was developed by the ingenuity of artificers. From conversations he had in Bath, Darcy knew that only in the past fifty years that the art of producing chairs in which a man might be pushed had advanced considerably.
As matters stood he quite disliked the prospect of being pushed around in such a device. Especially as he regularly would need to quit the chair and return to his use of his crutches and the considerable strength of his arms and shoulders if there was any particular roughness in the road — which therealwayswas.
Lady Catherine was here.
Well, well, he could well imagine upon what topicshewished to speak with him. Darcy had implied in a letter to his uncle that he might be willing to marry sooner rather than later — it was a point that his time at Netherfield had not changed. His illness illustrated with perfect clarity that one ought not endlessly wait with the expectation that tomorrow would be as good as today to accomplish an important goal.
Marriage and the first efforts to produce an heir ought to occur within the next year.
Darcy swung his way past the larger than life row of paintings of the earls of Matlock that decorated the hallway.
That must explain the intensity of his attraction to Elizabeth Bennet. Though wholly unsuitable to be his wife, she wasmoresuitable than any other lady he had met in the neighborhood, and that part of his mind which was looking for a proper prospect to enter the state of holy matrimony had thus selected her.
