Page 89 of A Prudent Engagement

“I truly wish to know them better. And all that I have seen of them gives rise to respect.”

Even if Darcy had not anticipated enjoying the company of the Gardiners, the glowing smile which Elizabeth showed now would have been ample compensation for extending the hospitality.

“But I am not sure,” Darcy said when they began to walk through the trees and past the sprouting fields again, “whether I like to trust on this coincidence for our meeting again. It is too much like the contrivance of a novel.”

“The entirety of our tale is fit for one of those novels written by women,” Elizabeth replied. “Except that you are not a rakish fellow and have not fought one duel, nor seduced ten women. I have also not discovered in you a tendency to gamble to excess or lead other young men to their doom.”

“I advised Bingley poorly.”

“It was certainly not with rakish advice.”

“Wickham would be the rake in the tale,” Darcy suggested. “The man whose good character you fortuitously discover to have been fraudulent before he could cause any harm of a permanent nature.”

“Oh, that is better. But whilst my honour would be intact, my reputation would be in tatters. Would you be the only gentleman who still believed in my goodness?”

Darcy smiled at her. “I hope so.”

She laughed. “You hope? I had desired a more confident avowal of your unshakeable belief in my virtue.”

By now they had walked all the way round Longbourn once more and were on the avenue leading up to the door. Darcy pulled Elizabeth to a stop and looked at her clear, smiling eyes. “What I know with certainty,” he said, “is that in this world, I love you, and you love me, and we shall live very happily.”

Elizabeth sighed contentedly, then she stretched up on her toes to kiss him softly. “For a very long time.”

Epilogue

Oft has it been said that the course of true love never did run smooth. However, occasionally true lovers may experience a portion of their joint journey with good wind and calm seas.

The next month was such a time for both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and also for Jane and Mr. Bingley.

That is not to say that fate never added ripples to the current—Lady Catherine was thrown into an unusual tempest of disordered feelings by the news from Hertfordshire. She tolerated with admirable restraint the information when told first that Mr. Darcy was engaged to that scheming, wild, and ungrateful harridan, Elizabeth Bennet. Then she was delighted to hear that he had broken his engagement to the unworthy creature. But this fine lady was finally overset, and reasonably so, by the report that her nephew was in fact to marry Miss Bennet.

Upon hearing of this final reversal, Lady Catherine immediately took her carriage to Hertfordshire, with her daughter as an involuntary and a secretly amused observer, and she arrived at Netherfield while both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were at Longbourn. However, by the time the footman who had been sent by Mrs. Nicholls arrived with the message about her presence, they had both gone out for a long walk and could not be easily found. Unaware of his aunt’s presence, Mr. Darcy pleasantly spent the afternoon walking about with his beloved.

When the two gentlemen finally returned by horse to Netherfield, the afternoon was far advanced, and Lady Catherine’s patience—never, I fear, that excellent woman’s strongest feature—had wholly run out.

In front of the amused Mr. Bingley, the many servants, and Miss Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine ranted to Mr. Darcy about his duties to his family, the manner in which the shades of Pemberley would be thus polluted by the spawn of a tradesman, the despicable wiles to which low women descended, and the lack of respect that he showed to her position as his nearest relation.

Darcy listened solemnly until Lady Catherine had shouted herself out. “Is that all?” he asked.

“I shall continue to speak until you have ended once more—this time forever—your connection to that Bennet girl. Has she told you that she is with child? Is that why you have renewed the connection? I shall wager odds of ten to one that she is lying—we can pay her off in any case. It is far better to endure a breach of promise lawsuit than a degrading marriage.”

This statement made Darcy’s face grow cold and hard.

It also made Mr. Bingley let out a low whistle and Anne de Bourgh gasp. That woman had really not expected that her mother would say something which her cousin would find absolutely intolerable.

“Madam,” Darcy said, “you have insulted my future wife, my honour, and the honour of my house. Were you a man, I would challenge you. We are done.”

Lady Catherine continued to rant as Darcy left the room.

It was left to Bingley to expel her from his premises, a task which he found to be of great difficulty, despite his recent determination to be more confident and to directly say what was upon his mind—Bingley’s natural habit was to noddingly agree with anything said to him with conviction.

But, after some duration, Lady Catherine accepted that she would not be permitted by the footmen to follow her nephew to his suite of rooms, or the billiard room, or the library, or wherever he had ensconced himself, and while she could hope that he was able to hear what she might rant at him from the drawing room, that was not nearly so satisfactory as informing him of the deficiencies of Miss Elizabeth Bennet to his face.

Thus, Lady Catherine left, bowed out by Bingley.

She then went to Longbourn, which Darcy in his upset mood had not anticipated, and made a like speech to Elizabeth, accusing her of having seduced Mr. Darcy and being with child by him. She then offered a substantial sum of money to Elizabeth to drop her pretensions to the hand of her nephew.

Perhaps in a different time Elizabeth would have simply been upset and refused to continue the conversation when that speech was over, but being in a buoyant and often mischievous mood due to her happiness with Mr. Darcy, she enquired in a serious tone whether Lady Catherine was aware that the sum of money that had been specified, while great, was still far less than the worth of the Pemberley estate.