Page 46 of Conundrums & Coincidences

“It is impossible to choose just one. I do greatly admire Mary Astell, though. Like my own father, hers gave her a good education. But it was a cleric uncle, noticing her quick, natural parts and thirst for knowledge, who became her teacher. Her delight in learning made her wish education was readily available to all women. One of her published treatises was on”—she looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes and a smile upon her lips—“the improvement of their minds. There was opposition, of course, but the authoress defended her position with wit and intelligence.”

Darcy stood grinning down at her. “I am not surprised she is a favourite of yours, nor am I opposed to ladies being educated.”

“There is much to admire in her writings.” She recited then in a higher voice than her own, “‘If God had not intended women should use their reason, he would not have given them any.’ You cannot argue with that, sir. Nor can you dispute the fact that if a woman can neither love nor honour, she does ill in promising to obey.”

Egad. Tick, tick, tick… Darcy counted as eleven seconds elapsed. “Obey is part of the marriage solemnisation. And I would expect a…degree, at least, of obedience from the woman who would be my wife. However, I do not wish for one who always agrees with everything I say.”

“A degree.” Fists on hips, she regarded him with both challenge and that characteristic twinkle in her eye. “Alas, an education and a degree are exactly what a woman cannot obtain. Instead, we must become obedient wives.”

She is toying with me. Darcy grinned at her.

“Speaking of wives,” she continued, “‘He who does not make friendship the chief inducement to his choice of a wife—and prefer it before any other consideration—does not deserve a good wife and, therefore, should not complain if he goes without one.’”

“That, my dear friend, I enthusiastically agree with, support, and applaud.”

She gently ran the tips of her fingers across the tops of delicate flowers in the nearby bed, and Darcy read a sign naming them as melancholy gentleman or Hattie’s pincushion.

“What think you of tulips, sir?”

If there had been tulips in the garden, they were long gone by June. What a mysterious mind she has. “I…suppose I…like them.” There were two lips Darcy very much wanted to plant his upon, and he watched them with fascination and desire as she spoke.

“Mary Astell asked of womankind: ‘How can you be content to be in the world like tulips in a garden, to make a fine show, and be good for nothing?’” Elizabeth looked him in the eye. “Think on it, sir. To be free to sway in the breeze and be admired in one’s natural environment, only to be cut down and brought inside, placed in a pretty vase to wither, die, and be discarded.”

Darcy’s heart landed in his boots. “You paint a dismal portrait of being a wife.”

“Based on my parents’ marriage, I cannot paint a very pleasant picture of it.”

Overcome with disquiet, Darcy tried to swallow, but his mouth was a desert and his future a bleak landscape without Elizabeth Bennet in it. He barely managed to choke out, “Do you… Do you intend to never marry?”

Sliding her hand from his arm, she looked to the horizon. “Because of my family’s situation, I formerly had little choice. The only privilege I had was to accept or reject an offer. Now I could be an independent woman. Truth is, though, I long to marry and raise a family with a man I trust, respect, and love and who reciprocates those feelings. I desire a marriage with a balance between romance and reason, somewhere between Jane’s idealised view of it and Charlotte’s more sensible perspective. Having witnessed Mr and Mrs Collins’s harmoniousness, I wish I had not been so harsh when my friend told me of her engagement.”

Glancing about at the thriving flowers, she spoke almost to herself. “It is a garden’s nature to be forgiving. I pray those I have wronged may be as understanding and merciful.”

“You know you have my forgiveness, although there was nothing to absolve.”

She thanked him for being so understanding.

He poked his walking stick at the loamy soil of the flower bed. “I imagine understanding and forgiveness must be as essential to a married couple as rainwater to a parched garden. As a landowner and gentleman farmer, planting is not entirely new to me—though I rarely get my hands dirty.”

A barn owl, with its distinctive heart-shaped white face, flew low and silently over a nearby hedgerow. They both watched it disappear amongst distant trees.

From behind, Christopher came running into the walled garden. “Miss Bennet! Oh, and Mr Darcy. Mr Monroe and Miss Rigby are at breakfast and asked me to find you both. If you wish for a repast before departing, you had best come in now.”

Blast! Another lost opportunity. Darcy had been prepared to make Elizabeth another offer of marriage, but he would not see her go hungry during the carriage ride to London. So, to the breakfast room they were to go.

An hour later, Rachel rushed out to bid farewell to Elizabeth. In fact, it seemed the entire household had done so.

Darcy knew the new mistress of Oakwood Manor deserved everyone’s respect and esteem as well as all the good wishes bestowed upon her at parting.

Arm in arm with her former chaperon and the maid, Elizabeth approached Darcy’s carriage, which was drawn up before the front door. He had insisted they travel in his well-sprung one rather than the attorney’s inferior conveyance, though Darcy had not referred to it as such.

Miss Rigby was heard saying, “Rachel here spent hours washing the stain from your pale-yellow gown, mending the rent in it, and embroidering a spray of primrose flowers over the flaw, concealing it completely.”

“It is carefully tucked up inside your trunk now, miss.” Rachel seemed close to tears over their leave-taking.

Elizabeth thanked the maid for that kindness as well as for her exemplary service over the past se’nnight. Then, rather impulsively—and imprudently in Darcy’s opinion—she gave Rachel a quick hug. Restraint had been used when she had taken leave of the butler, housekeeper, and the footman brothers; however it had appeared to Darcy as though she wanted to embrace them one and all. Such behaviour spoke of her warm-hearted nature.

After the attorney had given final instructions to the housekeeper and butler, he and Darcy joined the two ladies in the carriage. Then, with Mr Monroe’s own equipage following behind, they began the journey to London with a quick stop at the coach house so Elizabeth could bid farewell to Mr Bolton and Jimmy and leave with them a packet of comfits.