“I know.”
“I just… I can’t trust you the way I used to.”
He nodded.
“I suppose I never should have.Younever believed yourself to be perfect in essentials.”
That drew a wet laugh from Papa.
“You did think you were perfect!?”
Papa laughed again. “My image of myself was cast down even further than yours of me,” he replied dryly. And then he frowned. “Likely notasfar. But it was cast down very far. When I learned that there had been no scheme from your letter. I think I did not move for a full thirty minutes.”
“But you believed me.”
“Lizzy, yes. I believe you. The instant I saw what you wrote. I knew you wrote the truth.”
The unhesitating way that Papa responded made her heart clench again. She began crying again, but this time it wasn’t with pain.
He retrieved another handkerchief. “I’ll have none for myself until washing day if you continue in this way.”
Elizabeth giggled. “I can steal a few from my husband if you must. They are very fine silk.”
“Fine silk?”
“Very fine,” Elizabeth replied. “Only the best handkerchiefs are worthy of a Darcy.”
“You are happy with him.”
“I am… it is strange. I have come toknowhim. To trust him. He may frustrate me, even make me angry in the future, and I will him, but after… After the conversations we’ve gone through, after what I have learned of him, I know his heart is good. He is caring, diligent, active, and brave.” Then she smiled a peaceful happy smile. “Further, he has come to admire me for who I am, and to cease pining for the sort of woman he imagined he would marry.”
“In that case he deserves you.”
“And I hope to deserve him,” Elizabeth said happily, a warm realization coming through her heart.
The two of them sat there together.
It was a warm quiet.
“I can see, he is… he has become the chief gentleman in your life.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“That is how it should be, a wife should leave her father’s house and cleave to her husband. But, oh, Lizzy, I will miss you.”
“I will miss you, but you should visit, as often as you want.”
“I want you to be happy. More than anything else. To see that you are happy — I… I… Oh, Jove. It is so silly.” Mr. Bennet wiped his eyes. “I must be cutting onions, right now.”
“Maybe it is some irritant coming from the fire. I cannot see any onions.”
“That must be it.”
She stood up and embraced him.
He held her tenderly. “You used to be so small. You’d run around and scream holy murder. Yet somehow, you were so filled with joy when you did it that I could never bear to tell you to be quiet.”
“Did I?”
