Mr. Bennet laughed. “And some of her other features as well, I would imagine.”
It was impossible for Darcy to not blush at that reply.
“Well, well, well.” Mr. Bennet sighed. He stood up from the desk and pushed his chair back with a scrape. “Do understand that I’d prefer it if you were wholly perfect and without a fault. But as I cannot havethat, I suppose I must make do with you having an awareness of your own fallibility and a determination to do better.”
He stuck his hand out. Darcy took it and shook it.
“Congratulations to you both. And I do have every hope from what you have said that you and Elizabeth will have more than the usual chance of happiness and a long and good marriage together. But remember, forgiveness and acceptance, even if only directed towards your wife, is always important. You are promising to love, care and nurture her, in better and in worse — the worse includes those times where you are certain thatshehas done wrongly. She will still be your wife, no matter what she does, and no matter what you do. You cannot think of her as someone who youcanever rightfully resent. Even if it is a rightful resentment, you must reject it.”
“I understand, sir.” Darcy felt an odd respect towards Mr. Bennet, the father of the woman he was to marry, settling over him. He didn’t think that he had felt this sort of sensation towards anyone since his own father had died.
“Now go tell my wife the excellent news — she will be delighted with you, and give you all of the praise as a suitor that you no doubt expectedmeto heap upon your head.”
Darcy smiled. “I have been generally aware that in those respects that are generally viewed as important, I am an excellent candidate for your daughter’s hand.”
“And in other respects as well. I love Lizzy dearly, and she has always been my favorite. I shall miss her very much, and I may visit you in your Derbyshire pile rather more often than you expect.”
“You will always be welcome.”
“I shall alwaysmakemyself welcome,” he replied with a grin, “whether I am or not. You’ve an excellent library, don’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The day after Elizabeth returned to Longbourn, Lydia begged to be one of the party when she and Mr. Darcy made off for their walk. “Please, please. Can we go by a shop? Papa does not let me goanywhere! Not even to Aunt Phillips’s or a shop, or to talk to Maria, or Harriet oranyone! It is notfair.”
Elizabeth shared a glance with Mr. Darcy.
They both considered the restriction on her sister entirely reasonable and deserved.
Seeing that gaze, and correctly interpreting its significance, Lydia stamped her foot several times. “It'snot! I decided on my own to not go with Mr. Wickham.”
“Ah, but,” Darcy said cautiously, “speaking as one who is not a member of your family yet, but as part of the general community, most would consider simply making the initial plan, no matter how changed your sentiments would eventually become, to be disreputable.”
“Well they arewrong! And I don’t see what business it is of everyone anyways if Ididdecide to marry that awful man. It would have been bad formecertainly. But it is nobody else’s business — can I come on the walk?”
Elizabeth laughed, and seeing no reason to not allow her to be with them as a chaperone in addition to the dour Mary, who had already proven that she did not have the sort of blind eye that a better chaperone would, she said, “Of course you might. We’ll even stop by the hat shop, and I’ll buy you a new bonnet.”
“Oh! Yes. I want to find one that isparticularlyugly — to see if I can make something worth wearing out of the parts. La! It is soboring. Boring, boring, boring — and by the time Papa is done with his snit, the officers will be gone, and I’lldieof boredom.”
The three of them left out the door, and went down the street.
“I had not known that was a fatal curse,” Darcy said solemnly, as Elizabeth suppressed her giggles. “Might I inquire how frequently members of your acquaintance have shuffled off the mortal coil due to boredom?”
“Oh piles and piles! Half the girls in my school die of boredom once a month. Or twice that often. I myself have died of boredom near a hundred times, only this last year.”
“Oh my. You mean to say you have returned from the life beyond so frequently? — and what is it like past the veil?”
Lydia smiled as she theatrically shivered and said, “When one dies of boredom, it is impossible to remember precisely what happens between then and the recovery of life, but it is always a horrid memory of endless dullness, and one will do anything to avoid suffering so once more — oh it so unfair! I shall miss all the officers.”
“Papa once observed to me,” Elizabeth said, “that life is not always fair. An odd fact, and one that ought to be corrected if at all possible. Perhaps next time youdie, you might attempt to speak with the Almighty, and suggest that he rearrange this realm so that everythingisin fact fair?”
Lydia pushed Elizabeth’s arm. “You do not take me seriously at all. Nor what I suffer.”
At the way Elizabeth looked at her in reply to that speech, Lydia giggled. “Fine, fine, fine. I shall notliterallydie. But it is most unfair. And just because I am young.”
“And because you nearly eloped with Mr. Wickham.”
“He was so cruel! He grabbed me and dragged me. I tried to fight him off. He hit me.” Lydia tapped her cheek where the fading yellow bruise was still visible. “I was never so delighted as when I heard that your cousin had killed him.”
