Page 132 of Hard Home

At the carriage door she stopped, with her foot on the step, and said, without turning round:

"He will do it whatever I say. He has done what he liked since he was four-and-twenty and there has never been one hour when I could have stopped him, and I came here knowing it, and I have made a fool of myself in a wet hedge in Hertfordshire.

"Tell him from me that his mother would have said the same as I have, and that she would have said it worse, and that she would also have come."

Then she got in, and the steps were put up.

The chaise went down the sweep and out of the gate, and Elizabeth stood in the middle of the gravel and watched it out ofsight; and when it was gone she found that she was shaking so hard that she had to sit down on the mounting block, and that she had not the least idea whether she had won.

Chapter Fifty-Three

He came on the Saturday.

Elizabeth had passed two days in a state she would not have wished on anybody. Lady Catherine had gone away furious; Lady Catherine would go to Darcy; Lady Catherine would tell him, in her own words, that his aunt had asked a young woman of two-and-twenty in a hornbeam grove for a promise and had been refused.

And Elizabeth had spent forty-eight hours discovering that she could construct that scene two ways, with equal ease, and that the two ways led to opposite ends of the earth.

If he still cared for her, her aunt's report was the best news he could possibly have. If he did not — if the summer had done what summers do, if eight days in London in August and a piece of his own line spent in a tavern had left him with nothing but a duty and a wish to be well out of it — then he would hear that she had refused to disclaim him, and he would be a man of honor with a claim upon him that he had not wanted for four months, and she had put it there herself.

She got very little sleep and was extremely disagreeable to Kitty about a bonnet, and apologized, and was disagreeable again the same afternoon.

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Mr. Bingley came at eleven on the Saturday and Mr. Darcy with him, and Mrs. Bennet, in the highest good humor, proposed that they should all walk out; and it was contrived, by that lady, with a want of subtlety which made Elizabeth wish the ground would open, that Mr. Bingley and Jane should go on in front, and that Kitty should be got rid of at the Lucases', and that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy should be left to walk together.

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.

She soon learned that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter which, in her Ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavors to obtain that promise from her nephew, whichshehad refused to give.

But, unluckily for her Ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise.

"It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly."

Elizabeth colored and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of myfranknessto believe me capable ofthat. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations."

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But she had something to say first, and she had been carrying it for a fortnight, and she said it before he could go on.

"Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding your's. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express."

"I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted."

"You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them."

"If youwillthank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But yourfamilyowe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you."

Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once.Myaffections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever."

Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances.

The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused overhis face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable.

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They walked on, they scarce knew whither.