Page 20 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

The carriage was at the gate. The horses were stamping in the cold. His valet had been sitting on the box with a face like a funeral for a quarter of an hour, and Mr Darcy was still standing in the lane with both her hands in his.

"It is only three weeks," said Elizabeth. "Four at the most."

"Five," he said. "With the roads as they are. And Twelfth Night."

"Five, then. People have survived five weeks before. Sailors survive years."

"Sailors," said Mr Darcy, "are not engaged to you."

She laughed, but it was a poor sort of laugh, and he heard it, and his grip tightened.

He had to go. She knew it; she had told him to go. He had promised Georgiana, weeks before the assembly, before either of them had dreamt of this, that they would keep Christmas together at his uncle's house in town. His sister had not been out of the Matlocks' care since Ramsgate. She had written to him, when he sent her the news of his engagement, a letter so long and so blotted with tears that he had shown Elizabeth only the last line: I am so happy for you, Fitzwilliam, that I cannot stop crying. Please come home soon and tell me everything.

Elizabeth would not have kept him from that for the world. But she had not known, until this moment, standing in the frozen lane with the carriage waiting, how much it was going to hurt.

"You will tell them?" she asked. "Your family? All of it?"

"I have written to my uncle already. I will tell him again to his face." His jaw set. "They will not all be pleased. I will not pretend otherwise. My uncle had other ideas for me, and my aunt Catherine had very decided ones. But I am not ashamed of you, Elizabeth. I will never hide you. If I have to walk into every drawing room in London with you on my arm and dare them to say a word, I will."

"You need not dare anybody on my account."

"I know. I intend to do it anyway. I have been looking forward to it."

That made her laugh properly, and he smiled down at her, and for a moment the cold did not matter.

"Write to me," she said.

"Every day."

"You cannot write every day. You will have nothing to say. You will have to tell me about the weather."

"Then I will tell you about the weather," he said, "every day, in great detail, until you beg me to stop."

He glanced over his shoulder, at the window of the parlour, where five faces were pressed to the glass. Then he looked back at her, and bent his head, and kissed her on the mouth, quickly and firmly, in full view of her mother and all her sisters.

A shriek went up behind the window. Elizabeth, crimson, did not care in the slightest.

Then he let go of her hands, one finger at a time, and got into the carriage. She stood in the lane and watched it down the hill and round the corner by the church, and kept watching the place where it had been, until Jane came out with a shawl and put it round her shoulders and led her gently indoors.

#

Darcy House, Grosvenor Square. 4th December

My dearest Elizabeth,

The weather in London is grey, with a fine persistent drizzle from the east that finds its way down a man's collar. The fog came up from the river at four o'clock and the lamplighters are out already. There. I promised you the weather. I have kept my word, and now I may write what I like.

I saw Georgiana this afternoon. She ran down the stairs at Matlock House and into my arms as she used to when she was eight, and did not let go for a full minute, and then she held me off and looked at my face and burst into tears and said, "Oh, you are happy. I can see it. You are really happy." I did not know it showed so plainly. I suppose it must.

She wants to know everything about you. What colour your eyes are. (I said dark. She said that was no description at all, and I was obliged to admit that I have a great deal more to say about your eyes than "dark", and that most of it is not fit for a sister's ears.) Whether you are musical. (I said you sing like a thrush and play like a woman who would rather be out walking. She laughed. I have not heard her laugh since July.) Whether you will like her. I told her you would love her. I hope I have not promised more than I can deliver, but I do not think I have.

My uncle is less easily pleased. We had a conversation this evening in his library which I will not set down in full, since you would only laugh at the parts where he raised his voice. He had hoped I would marry the daughter of a man he is trying to bring over to his party in the Lords. He was kind enough to tell me she has forty thousand pounds and a very good complexion. I told him I wished her joy of both, and a husband who valued them. He did not find that amusing. My aunt Matlock said very little, and looked at me a long time, and then asked whether you were kind to servants. I said you were kind to everyone, including Miss Bingley, which I consider heroic. She did not reply, but she did not frown either, and with my aunt that is something.

I will not pretend it will all be easy. But I told them the truth: that I have chosen, that my choice is made, and that I have never been more certain of anything in my life. They may come round or not, as they please. I find that I do not much mind which.

I have your glove. The one you took off on Oakham Mount. You dropped it on the path going down, and I picked it up and meant to give it back, and did not. It is in my breast pocket as I write. I am aware that this is a confession of the most shocking sentimentality, and that you will tease me without mercy. I find I do not much mind that either.

Yours, entirely,