Page 71 of A Prudent Engagement

Chapter Sixteen

It had only been when Elizabeth really understood that the continuation of their connection would necessarily cause enduring pain to Darcy—when she knew that he could not live happily with her after this—that she finally understood her own wishes and inclinations.

She loved him.

And, in that love, it was impossible that she could tie him to a connection that he wished to end.

She had meant to argue, to explain, to convince him that he must maintain the engagement and be happy in it.

She did not cry on the walk back to Longbourn.

Her duty had been done, and it would be easy, she hoped, to tell her mama.

When she arrived home, she quietly entered—soon it would not be her home. Without Mr. Darcy’s money they must give up Longbourn and find a sufficiently cheap place to live.

Elizabeth smiled involuntarily as she unlaced her boots.

It was an exultation of sacrifice.

She would give up everything for him, and it was her duty to desire that he would one day be exquisitely happy with a woman whom he could trust—though Elizabeth was not such a saint as to banish from her heart the hope that he would require a length of many months, or even more than a year, before his heart had recovered enough to let another enter it.

Mrs. Hill found her placing her boots to the side. “Miss Lizzy, you’ve been missed all day. And there is a great matter of something that has Miss Jane and Mrs. Bennet in a whirl. Mrs. Collins is here as well, in the drawing room.”

“Charlotte?” Elizabeth replied. “Very good. I shall be glad to see her. And I must speak to her about a matter of business.”

Elizabeth looked hard at herself in the mirror. She then splashed her face with water.

Signs of her tears were still present, but she hoped she would be able to speak with creditable confidence to her mother. She did not know what to expect from her mama—being ordered from the house was not without possibility. She was, however, tolerably convinced that Charlotte would give her a place to sleep until such time as she was in a fit state to make plans of a greater duration.

Through the hall and into the drawing room.

When Elizabeth entered, to her surprise it was Jane who leaped up and seized her hands. “Were you able to make it right? Tell me—tell me.”

Her mama and Charlotte also looked at her with concern, while Mary, who was seated at the pianoforte, ceased to play so that she could also hear what Elizabeth had to say.

Bravery.

That was Darcy’s voice in her head.

Elizabeth wondered for how long she would hear him speaking in her mind at times when she needed such reassurance.

“No. Or, I did what was right. I ended our engagement—Mama, I know I am your most difficult daughter. I refused one eligible gentleman on the most absurd grounds that I did not like his look or manners, and then when I told you that I had accepted another, I found myself forced to end our engagement as he had lost the ability to trust in my affections. I am utterly absurd, and you are quite right that I shall end an old maid. But I am your daughter, and I cannot be different from what I am.”

Jane wrung her hands. “Oh, Lizzy, if only you had told me that you loved him.”

That made Elizabeth laugh. “And when did you learn this?”

“From how you looked after I told you what I had said to him—could you not tell him that you loved him? Would he not have believed you?”

“He would have simply thought I spoke to appease him. Poor man—I do hope I have not given him cause to distrust women in general. Poor, poor Fitzwilliam.”

Charlotte sighed. “Eliza, he would not have ended it.”

“I know that very well. But he would not have been happy. And you see, Jane is right, I do love him.”

“What nonsense,” her mother said with a friendly eye. “You are my most ridiculous daughter.”

“And why are you not upset with me?”