She searched his face for a moment before asking quietly, "What reason?"
He hesitated, though only briefly.
"I believe it is time I travelled into Hertfordshire."
She looked at him in evident surprise.
"To Netherfield?"
"No." A faint smile touched his lips. "To Longbourn."
Understanding dawned slowly across her face.
"Oh."
"I have already sought your uncle's permission to wait upon you whilst you remain beneath his roof. It seems only proper that, before I presume any farther..." He paused, smiling a littleat his own awkwardness. "I should request your father's leave to address you."
Elizabeth looked into his handsome face. The prospect had always existed somewhere in the future, indistinct enough to be dreamt of without ever seeming entirely real. Now, hearing him speak of travelling to Longbourn as though it were the most natural undertaking in the world, she felt the future suddenly drawing very near indeed.
"I ought perhaps to have asked whether you approved of the plan," Darcy said after a moment, frowning faintly. "I appear to have assumed a great deal."
At that she laughed, the sound warm enough to banish the last trace of his uncertainty. "No," she replied. "Only... I was trying to imagine Papa's face."
Darcy's composure wavered.
"I confess," he admitted, "that I am a little worried he will laugh me out of his book room."
Elizabeth drew closer against his side. "You need not be afraid," she said softly. "Papa sees through people very quickly. He will know exactly what manner of man you are."
Darcy turned to look at her. "And what manner of man is that?"
She smiled up at him with a warmth that caused his blood to heat. Her amber eyes sparkled with mirth.
"The one I mean to marry."
Chapter Twenty
Fitzwilliam Darcy never did make the journey to Longbourn he had planned with such anxious care.
For several days, he occupied himself with imagining the interview. At one moment he was perfectly certain that Mr Bennet would receive him with civility; at the next he became convinced he should be dismissed before he had managed to speak half a dozen sentences. Elizabeth, who appeared to derive an unaccountable pleasure from these fluctuations of confidence, assured him that her father generally reserved his severest wit for those he liked best. Darcy found the observation only moderately comforting.
In the event, however, the matter was taken entirely out of his hands.
???
Jane had passed a very agreeable half hour in the drawing room at Netherfield.
Or perhaps agreeable was too generous a description. It was certainly agreeable to find herself once more in Mr Bingley's company. He had greeted her with unaffected pleasure that shecould not help believing the past week had been every bit as tedious for him as it had for herself. The recent storms that had delayed Elizabeth’s arrival in London had also hit Hertfordshire, and for the first time in many days, they had been able to enjoy a quiet conversation.
The remainder of the company was rather less easy, despite the invitation to join the company being issued by Miss Bingley herself. Jane immediately reproached herself for the thought. She had always wished to think well of everybody and Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst had shown her every civility during her illness. Yet there was a sharpness to their conversation that she had not formerly perceived. Scarcely a neighbour or acquaintance could be mentioned without becoming the subject of some unkind observation. Jane found herself wondering, not without discomfort, what was said of her and her own family when they were no longer present to hear it. Perhaps, she reflected with reluctant honesty, Elizabeth had judged them more accurately than she.
Mr Bingley had just been entertaining her with an animated account of a young spaniel which had somehow conceived itself to be a horse. The little creature had taken to following the stable lads about and accompanying every ride, galloping furiously alongside the hunters until exhaustion obliged somebody to carry it home. Mr Bingley's talent for telling a story lay not inwit but enthusiasm, and Jane found herself laughing almost as much at the delight with which he related the adventure as at the adventure itself.
"The fellow has even attempted to eat oats from the feed trough," he said with perfect seriousness. "He cannot imagine why the horses are so much taller than he is."
Jane laughed. "Perhaps he merely believes himself rather young."
"That must be it," Bingley agreed at once. "Given another year he fully expects to grow to sixteen hands."
