Page 20 of A Prudent Engagement

“He had meant to come away on Saturday in any case,” Elizabeth replied with a flush.

Jane shook herself and looked up. “I am surprised since you dislike him so much that you let him.”

“When I might be home with you faster, and with no expense and in great comfort?” Elizabeth replied, her face heating further. “I do not know that I dislike him. No longer. I do not think that I do. Perhaps.”

Charlotte laughed. “I was always right.”

“Upon what matter?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, no,” Charlotte replied with smiling eyes. “I fear that if I tell you precisely what I am thinking about, you will be difficult merely for the sake of being contrary.”

It felt good to smile with her friend, who seemed to be teasing her upon a possible suitor. It felt good, even though Jane still sat with her arms around her legs.

Her papa would have approved of laughter at such a time.

He would have wished for her to laugh at herself and to think about matters that led to happiness rather than to simply exist in grief.

“Mr. Darcy was more civil than I had expected from what we had been told of him,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “Quiet but wholly civil. It was most kind of him to invite you both to ride in his carriage. It is more than most gentlemen would have done.”

“He…is very kind.” Elizabeth felt an odd reticence to talk about her suddenly mixed feelings and the way that she now believed him to be in love with her.

“That hardly matches what Mr. Wickham said about him,” Mrs. Gardiner replied, studying Elizabeth. “Nor does it match the image of his character that you conveyed.”

“I do not know!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I only know that I always thought he disliked me, so I was determined to dislike him. And now I do not know! But I do know he has been kind and—he understands. He truly understands what it is to lose a most beloved parent. I have every reason to be grateful to him, and I am. But I still do not know.”

“I see,” Mr. Gardiner said. “Elizabeth, I have only just met the man, but from what I have heard of his character, the way that he acted this evening was by no means his usual manner. Might I suggest that Mr. Darcy seemed to me as behaving like a man who had a particular interest in your well-being. Has he spoken of anything of that sort?”

So, they must talk about this.

Elizabeth’s cheeks burned. She sat down next to Jane, who had looked up with an expression of interest but had not changed her position on the sofa with her arms protectively wrapped about her legs.

“He did say…he said that he means to speak to me more. He—both Charlotte and I suspect that he may mean to…” Elizabeth glanced at Jane’s eyes and then looked away.

It was somehow not right to have even a hope of happiness when near Jane.

And that was not because of their father’s death.

“We think he means to make me an offer. His manner today—the kindness he showed. Perhaps we are wrong—he is a very great gentleman, but I could not help suspecting that he is in love with me.”

There.

She had said it aloud to that portion of her family whose opinions she respected the most.

And the expectation in the words rang true rather than hollow now that she had directly voiced it all.

She did believe that he would ask her to marry him.

Elizabeth added, “Say nothing to Mama—promise me, Jane, that you will not. Not unless—everything is uncertain. Both my feelings and whether he will make an offer.”

“Lizzy, you must know that he will not,” Jane said. “Great gentlemen do not make offers to penniless girls such as us.”

“That is not like you to think in such a way,” Elizabeth said.

“Papa died! And you are not acting like yourself either. How can you be anything but miserable. Papa is dead. We are all penniless, and you are imagining that Mr. Darcy might save us. When he never looked on you with anything but scorn. And he—he despises us all. And you would be very wrong if you married him simply for his fortune. That would be unlike you. I always tried to tell myself that there is good in everyone. I even counselled myself into not being unhappy about Mr. Bingley. And then the Almighty rewarded me by killing Papa, and I cannot—I will not—I do not want to see any of you while you speak like this!”

Jane leapt from her curled position on the sofa and ran out of the room.

Elizabeth hurried after her.