Page 7 of He Insulted My Entire Family Before Proposing

Charlotte saw it too. Her gaze moved from Darcy to Elizabeth and back again, and in that glance she completed the full calculation of a practical woman confronted with an emotional disaster in formal clothing.

"I believe," Charlotte said, "I am wanted in the house."

Elizabeth nearly seized her sleeve.

But Charlotte had already moved, basket in hand, leaving behind only the scent of cut flowers and the unhelpful knowledge that married women could retreat from danger under cover of household duty.

Darcy entered the garden.

"Miss Elizabeth," he said.

"Mr. Darcy."

He looked toward the house, then back at her. "May I have the honor of speaking with you?"

Honor, Elizabeth thought, was having a very busy week.

"You may speak," she said.

His color rose. He seemed, for one astonishing moment, uncertain. Then pride came to his rescue, arranging his shoulders and lifting his chin. Elizabeth watched the transformation with fascination. It was like seeing a man put on armor to enter a flowerbed, where Charlotte's cut stems lay in a basket and a beetle was conducting its own affairs with greater sense than either of them.

"In vain," he began, "have I struggled. It will not do."

Elizabeth went very still.

The words were passionate. His face was pale with feeling. A month ago, perhaps even a day ago, the sight might have startled her into softening.

But now she heard beneath the declaration the scrape of machinery: family considerations, unsuitable connections, saved his friend.

Mr. Darcy had come to say something momentous.

Whatever he meant to say, the objections had come with him.

CHAPTER 3

There were proposals, Elizabeth supposed, that opened like flowers.

Mr. Darcy's opened like a charge read aloud.

He spoke of admiration, but with the air of confessing to a dangerous fever. He spoke of affection, but as if affection had trespassed where judgment had forbidden it to go. He spoke of struggling against it, resisting it, reasoning with it, and finding all efforts useless. By the time he admitted that he loved her, Elizabeth felt less beloved than accused of entering where she had no right.

"My feelings will not be repressed," he said, with that grave intensity which might have moved her had it not been surrounded by so much evidence of repression attempted. "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

Must, Elizabeth thought.

Even his surrender arrived as an instruction.

She said nothing. Any interruption would have been taken for encouragement, and she had no wish to assist him in his own prosecution.

Darcy continued. His words came faster now, warmed by feeling and sharpened by resentment at having felt it. He did not disguise the struggle. Indeed, he seemed to think the struggle proof of love's magnitude. Her inferiority, the degradation of alliance, the obstacles of family, the objections that judgment had laid before him - all were named. Not brutally. That would have been easier. They were named with anguish, as though every insult cost him and therefore ought to count in his favor.

Elizabeth listened in astonishment so complete it became calm.

So this was his generosity.

He had examined her family, found them wanting, injured her sister, repeated his contempt where it could travel, battled the inconvenience of liking her, and now stood before her expecting gratitude because desire had defeated disgust.

At last he stopped. The silence after such a speech should have been delicate. It was not. Birds continued outside the garden wall with offensive indifference. Somewhere in the house, Mr. Collins dropped something and apologized to it.