Page 26 of A Prudent Engagement

“Is that perhaps why you are always so serious?” Elizabeth asked.

“Am I?”

“You certainly are,” she replied with a flashing smile. “And quiet. And you find, as you have already said, it difficult to converse with strangers. I only wonder whether so much responsibility at such a young age…you were forced to make decisions upon which the well-being of your whole family depended. Is that perhaps the source of your quietness?”

“I do not think so. I was affected by my father’s death, but not in that way. I was quieter at school and university than any of my companions, and I found occasions when I ought to acquaint myself with new people difficult long before my father’s death.”

“Ah.” Elizabeth frowned a little. “It is your fundamental character. I was perhaps unkind when I told you once that you ought to simply practise more. It is not so easy a matter as the pianoforte.”

Darcy felt that awkwardness again. He had a strange sense that he was the one being judged, when always in his life he had been the man in command whose place it was to choose whether to be pleased or not.

He sat straighter and said, “I am as you see me—yet, even if it is a matter of fundamental character, you are likely right that I ought to also practise.”

Mrs. Collins glanced over at them and said in an amused tone, “A diplomat’s answer.”

Elizabeth laughed. “No, no. Mr. Darcy always speaks the truth as he sees it, and yet, as they say, still waters run deep.”

“I despise disguise,” Darcy replied.

“I do not say that you ever disguise anything.” Elizabeth’s brows knitted together. “There is a matter I must have, not now—” she glanced at Mrs. Collins and her sister. “A matter that I shall hope that…ah…oh, I have no idea what I am saying.”

“You may ask about anything.”

“Then tell a story about better times. Did your father like to laugh?”

Darcy frowned. He tried to remember. “I do not know. He always sought to be different with me and Georgiana from how he was amongst his friends. He always was firm and kept a distance between us—it was a matter of principle for him.”

Elizabeth’s mouth tightened.

He again felt that he was being judged by her and perhaps found wanting—even though the subject of the conversation was his father.

“I know,” Darcy said, “that the principles that your father pursued were very different. I believe that he did not wish to be a terrible object to his children.”

“Lord! How awful,” Miss Bennet exclaimed. “That is so sad—but I see that you do not wish any pity from me. But, Lizzy, you would not wish anything of that sort.”

Elizabeth reddened at her sister’s words. “I think you misunderstand Mr. Darcy. You did not find your father always a terrible object. You could not have, with how you speak of him. And you would not wish your children to be frightened of you—do say that you would not. Oh, but I should not tell you what to say on such a matter, except I trust you when you say that you avoid disguise, so if you do mean to be amongst fathers as Genghis Khan was amongst rulers, you would own it openly.”

Elizabeth laughed a little in a way that made Mrs. Collins join in. Darcy smiled. Miss Bennet’s face did not change at all from her determined frown.

Elizabeth asked seriously, “Was your father a terrible object to you?”

“No.” Darcy shook his head. “Only when I feared that I had disappointed him.”

“And do you mean to be the same—for your children to always be terrified that they have disappointed you?”

“You wholly misunderstand the matter,” Darcy replied. “I was inspired to great efforts by the hope of his approval. And—he was a good man. A good father. Just not warm.”

“What did this goodness consist of?” Elizabeth smiled. “I apologise. I ought not to subject your memory of your father to such criticism. Only...” Her brows contracted again. “I told you that I wish to understand you better.”

“I am happy to answer such questions. My father always did his duty. He always saw to it that our moral and intellectual education was well conducted—I know now that he was not perfect, but he often seemed to be so when I was a child. And…but I hardly know. I always had a sense he was disappointed in me, that I was a little inferior to what he expected me to be.”

Darcy paused. For the first time since he had heard of Mr. Bennet’s death, he remembered the way that doubt had once filled him about whether he should marry Elizabeth.

He would have disappointed his father, again, by marrying her.

Elizabeth looked at her knees.

Darcy did not fill the silence for what seemed like a dreadful duration.