I could not blame her but did not want to wind the old man up, since it was the exact same question I would ask in his position, and I suspect I would have asked it sooner and more emphatically. Even though I could not really respect the man overall, I had to give him his due in that particular topic.
I continued in what I hoped was a reasonable tone. “The only pressing reason is that we have already accomplished that which a courtship is designed for. We know each other better than most couples on their wedding day, and we would like to get on with our lives.”
“There must be more to it than that,” he said suspiciously.
Elizabeth had her temper under control, which I assumed was a skill she had to practice regularly.
“The pressing reason is that I do not want to endure the torture of a courtship at Longbourn,” she half-snarled. “You saw how long Mama blathered on about Mr Bingley dancing twice with Jane. You yourself commented on it. She has been castigating Mary and me as the most unworthy of her childrenfor years, and she has called me a ‘spinster in the making’ more than once. How exactly do you expect her to react if I start receiving calls from a man Mr Darcy’s station? If you wonder, peek in the drawing room right now and see what poor Mr Bingley is suffering. I refuse to endure it!”
“You will endure what I decide you will, Elizabeth. Your majority is still six months away unless you plan to do something mad like elope to Scotland.”
Elizabeth looked like she would break a tooth if she were not careful, and I tried to calm things without giving ground.
“I would vastly prefer not to do that,” I replied, not entirely willing to close the door on the idea entirely. I wanted the man to know I was serious and stubborn (like our Miss Smith).
“Do you expect me to just trust your word, Elizabeth?”
“I do. I have never lied to you.”
“Ah… so you do not consider lies of omission to be such?”
Elizabeth looked angry, and started to get mulish, but then seemed to realise he was trying to goad her into saying something he could react to in some way that might make him feel clever or powerful.
“What omissions would those be?” she finally asked with an icy voice.
“Do you really think I would never learn about you spending hours and hours with your elder sister preparing to sell off my treasures before I was cold in the ground?”
I was stunned that he could object to that, but since we had decided to not tell him any more about our previous acquaintance than necessary, she simply shrugged. “You will be dead! Why should you care if I arranged to keep your family from starving in the hedgerows?”
“Why not simply ask?”
“Because I asked!” she hissed angrily. “I asked and I asked and I asked. I asked about the entail. I asked about crop rotation.I asked about inventories. I asked about allowing us to marry tradesmen. I asked about a season in town. I asked about you writing old school chums. I asked about this and I asked about that and I asked about the other. I never got anywhere! You left me no choice!”
She said the last with the sort of iron-edged voice that in a man would presage violence.
Her father showed he was not quite as stupid as he seemed—he was just lazy. “Have you been involved in these clandestine arrangements, Mr Darcy?”
I was having trouble reading the man, and could not tell if he was angry, or just winding us up for his own amusement. To this day, I seldom know what he is thinking, though it is no longer much of an issue since I rarely see him and even more rarely care.
“I have,” I said, seeing no point in denying it. I still had no idea how much I would reveal, but it seemed the idea of revealing nothing was off the table, and there was no harm in at least some of what I had helped Elizabeth with.
“Have you done anything… untoward?”
At that point, I thought I had taken his measure and surmised he was just trying to goad me into either revealing more than I wanted to or losing my temper. He was welcome to try all he wanted. I was not to be worked by the likes of a man who never left his library.
“No sir, nothing the slightest bit untoward. Miss Elizabeth has occasionally given me some advice, since I am a bachelor raising a young sister, and I have returned the favour, but none of that could be considered the least bit untoward. Until last night, we had never been closer to each other than a few feet.”
“So, when did you propose?”
“This morning,” Elizabeth said.
“In the middle of some sort of assignation?”
He was skating close to the edge there because our meeting on Oakham Mount was entirely improper by the usual standards, though hardly notable given that we had been meeting clandestinely for five years. That particular nugget was one that I was not willing to give him. I decided to give him something he could sink his teeth into, but not enough to unravel the whole story.
“Miss Elizabeth gave me some advice in the summer that saved one of my family members considerable grief. I wished to thank her, but it was not the sort of thing to be done publicly.”
“Why not in the privacy of Longbourn?”
