Page 83 of Fortuitous Encounters

“WAIT!” Elizabeth snapped with enough force to give the gentleman pause, but not loud enough to be heard more than a few yards away.

Darcy paused, stared straight ahead for a moment, and gradually turned around to walk the few paces back to face the lady.

Elizabeth felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and into yet another very awkward situation. To have declined four proposals from two men in half a year was far-far beyond what any young lady should have to endure, and yet… and yet… and yet it was her burden to bear.

She handed the letter back unopened, and spoke timidly, almost shyly. “Pray, put that away for a moment. It would be both improper and dangerous for me to take it, let alone read it… but—”

Darcy felt more like a frightened rabbit than the Master of Pemberley, but if he wished to behave in a more gentlemanlike manner, the least he could do was follow the lady’s instruction—especially when he had just broken all the vaunted rules of propriety he harped on about during his ill-fated proposal the previous day. It also belatedly occurred that he had no right to boast of the propriety of fifteen-year-old girls. Given the events of Ramsgate, Lydia Bennet looked downright demure.

He tucked the controversial letter into his waistcoat pocket unopened. “My apologies. I did not think this through.”

“May I ask an incongruous question, sir?” she asked shyly.

“Of course,” he said, but it was clear he spoke more out of obligation or habit than desire.

Elizabeth shuffled her feet nervously. Why was she going to all this fuss and bother? Given her reaction the previous day, she should either take the letter or leave it—but otherwise, just get on with her day and thence her life. The thought bothered her, though. The idea of ‘last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry,’ being the last words she ever spoke to him did not sit well. Haughty manners or not, it was uncharitable and unfair to rate him below her other erstwhile suitor.

After a bit of handwringing, she finally looked at him directly. “Do you ever think about family strength and weakness? I mean—in terms of resilience over generations?”

Darcy was startled by the question, which was as incongruous as claimed. That said, he left off trying to work out what the lady meant, since he was unlikely to succeed, and just answered the question at face value. “I think about it nearly constantly. As I said in that long-ago discussion at Netherfield, I inherit the work of many generations. I am responsible for the honour of both my predecessors and successors. Why do you ask?”

He was matching her handwringing by holding his behind his back so tightly his arms looked like he was trying to break one.

Elizabeth tried to lighten the tension with a small jest. “Do you think it one of those questions born of the inscrutable female thought processes that men always claim they cannot comprehend?”

He chuckled along with her, though nervously. “I think I can make the claim honestly,” he said, then paused significantly and continued in exasperation. “It is probably my fault, but I can remember almost no truly honest conversations with women since I entered society. I do not even understand my sister, let alone anyone else.”

“Why is that?”

“Do you want an honest answer? It will sound… prideful.”

The way he said ‘prideful’ made her think there was something more to his pride than she had previously believed, or perhaps he was still stinging about the conversation in the parlour at Netherfield.

“We both said horrible things to each other yesterday. Could we, at least for the duration of this conversation, speak openly and honestly?” she asked timidly.

“I would like that very much.”

“Pray continue.”

Darcy gave a great sigh. “Imagine making your elder sister rich beyond all imagining. Throw her into London society with no mother to guide her, a distant father who disdains London entirely, much like yours, and naught but a few close friends. How many honest conversations would she have with men? Keep in mind, I am speaking of Miss Bennet, not you.”

She gave the effort her full attention for a few moments and sighed in resignation. Jane had been fending off men since she came out at fifteen. It would have been even worse except Meryton had few single men and even fewer willing to tolerate Mrs Bennet. She thought about it for a while and nodded in resignation.

“She would be fending off fortune hunters and rakes all day every day.”

Darcy nodded, unwilling to speak further, and gave the lady some time to think upon it.

“I understand. May I continue my original inquiry?”

“I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,” he said, in a gentle, almost jesting tone. He hoped to see more of the spark that was Elizabeth Bennet. If this was to be their last meeting, he desperately hoped to end it on better terms than it started.

She laughed, remembering the phrase from the Netherfield ball, and began her question.

“I was thinking about familial strength and weakness. In my great-great-grandfather’s day, Longbourn included all of Sir William’s land and some of Netherfield. Its income was double or treble what it is now. My great-grandfather was not the man his father was and lost what became Lucas Lodge. My grandfather was even less than his father. He gambled away the Netherfield lands while at Cambridge, so his father instituted the entail to try to keep what remained at least intact, if not prosperous. My father is the last of the Bennets, and it will go to Mr Collins with an income of two thousand in a good year; though, to be honest, we have few of those. He has a very silly wife and five dowerless daughters, half badly behaved, without a marriageable one among the lot. Can you see where I am going with this?”

He did not know whether she spoke in generalities or specifics, so decided to address the pattern the lady described.

“I believe you assert that something has weakened the Bennet line nearly into extinction?”