Page 4 of Elizabeth Bennet Says Yes to Mr. Darcy

“Perhaps Mr. Collins offers him an incomparable subject of study.”

“Perhaps.”

A knock at the door interrupted our exchange.

Mr. Darcy entered a few moments later. He greeted Charlotte, then me, and remained standing before the fireplace without offering the slightest reason for his presence. His pallor and agitation struck me. His fingers closed and relaxed behind his back. He circled the room twice. Charlotte, after several minutes of silence that had grown almost cruel, rose.

“I have forgotten to give the cook an instruction.”

She left the drawing room before I could protest.

I set my book upon my lap.

“You wished to speak to me, sir.”

He stopped before me.

“Yes.”

The word seemed to cost him. He looked away, drew a deep breath, and turned back to me with an intensity so naked that my irony withdrew of its own accord.

“I have struggled against what I feel,” he said. “I believed I could master it. I reminded myself of all the reasons this inclination is imprudent—the objections of my family, the difference in our situations, the consequences of an alliance with persons whose conduct…”

He broke off, perhaps because my expression had changed.

I did not understand at once, however. My mind, encumbered by Jane’s letter, refused to recognize the obvious. Then he spoke my name.

“Elizabeth, I love you.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Mr. Darcy loved me.

The man who had scarcely found me tolerable at our first meeting, who had observed my family with barely concealed disapproval, who seemed incapable of spending ten minutes in my presence without growing more rigid, had just confessed that he loved me.

He continued. His declaration was passionate in principle and disastrous in form. He spoke of the violence of his feelings, of reason vanquished, of the weakness of my connections, of the inferiority of my birth. Every phrase that should have honored me contained a wound. In other circumstances, I might have answered him with all the anger such a proposal deserved.

But Jane’s letter lay in my pocket.

Five thousand pounds.

I saw Longbourn closed behind Mr. Collins. My mother seeking a house she could not afford. Jane hiding her grief beneath a smile. Lydia refusing to understand why no merchant would extend her credit any longer. Kitty weeping alongside her. Mary affirming that adversity elevates the soul while fear blanched her lips.

And before me stood a man who possessed ten thousand pounds a year.

The thought disgusted me.

I rose so abruptly that my book fell to the floor. Mr. Darcy took a step toward me, then stopped.

“I have offended you.”

“You have taken great care to explain why your affection humiliates you.”

A dark flush spread across his face.

“I did not mean to…”

“Yet you have succeeded.”