In His Head, In His Heart

Today I’m going for a walk down the memory lane, and I hope you’d like to come along with me. An old favourite has a new cover:

So, what do you think of Mr Bennet’s Dutiful Daughter now? Doesn’t she look like she’s thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, what have I done?’

And since we’re walking down the memory lane, I also thought I’d post a short vignette I wrote some years ago. (It goes with the Darcy Rose I found at Cliveden, in Buckinghamshire).

I must have said many times before that I love reading and writing ‘early marriage’ scenarios. It’s so lovely and poignant to see our favourite couple blundering towards each other while Elizabeth is yet to discover her feelings, and Mr Darcy is head over heels in love, but that hasn’t quite done away with his vanity and pride.

This scene isn’t in the book. It’s just a little vignette from Mr Darcy’s point of view.

Our favourite couple have just had the Regency version of a blazing row (the first of their two major disagreements). Mr Darcy had insensitively advised Elizabeth to start distancing herself from her Cheapside relations, and even if you haven’t read the book, you can imagine what Elizabeth had to say to that. He went out for the evening. And now he’s back. It’s late – the middle of the night. And they still haven’t resolved their disagreement. But all will be well, surely, Mr Darcy tells himself. After all, Elizabeth married him for love, did she not?

IN HIS HEAD – IN HIS HEART

His raised hand, poised to knock, fell away from the polished wood and Darcy rubbed his mouth and chin instead, in a half-nervous, half-frustrated gesture.

The nervousness, once recognised as such, only served to fuel the frustration. Not long ago he would have scoffed at the merest intimation that he would come to this – pacing in his chambers like a schoolboy confined for some misdemeanour; loitering on this side of the wretched door in all devils of a quandary over the most ludicrous of matters: whether he should knock on his own wife’s door – or not.

His friends and foes alike would laugh themselves into a fit to see him thus – tied into knots over a slip of a girl, eight years his junior. Bewitched body and soul by this mesmerising, fiery and sometimes downright infuriating woman who just so happened to be the love of his life.

The frustrated scowl gave way to an unexpected smile. Fiery. She was that. Had always been, from the earliest days of their acquaintance. A fire that had drawn him like the hapless moth to the proverbial flame.

He sighed. Her father’s illness and subsequent demise had sadly dimmed the fire he relished and feared in equal measure, but could not extinguish it. Not in someone as vibrantly alive as her. It had sparked again in the least likely, indeed the very worst of circumstances: their bitter disagreement over her unsavoury relations. For two days the sudden discord had poisoned every moment – yet even as the most hurtful words had shot between them he had recognised the old sparks with a jolt. Had welcomed them, even!

Darcy’s lips tightened into a grimace of exasperation. What did it say of him, for goodness’ sake – and worse still, of her power over him – that he should desire her all the more when she was fiercely rebellious rather than softly spoken and amenable to reason? That, ever as she argued the most preposterous and untenable of positions, as far removed from his ingrained sense of right and wrong as it could be, he should still want nothing quite as much as to stride forth and silence her absurd suggestions with a kiss?

The mental picture was doing him no favours whatsoever, and with a muted oath Darcy stepped back from the door that linked his bedchamber with hers. He stood in no need of further proof that he could barely trust himself around her, and keeping his distance over the last couple of days had been the only means of not having her see him as either a savage or a fool. Yet all he had achieved was to miss their time together all the more – miss her – as he had resigned himself to spending the previous night at his club and the best part of tonight at Fanshawe’s townhouse. In both instances seeking not companionship, but sanctuary.

Even had he sought it, there was no companionship to be had among the assortment of men in various stages of inebriation. In order to escape them, on the first night he had availed himself of a bedchamber at White’s, little as he had imagined he would sleep – and he had not. He could not bear to exile himself to the soulless solitude of yet another restless night there. He needed to come home. He needed her.

The thin sliver of light under the interconnecting door had caught his eye from the very first step into his darkened chamber. It was very late – yet she had waited up. Hope swelled, and a fresh wave of tenderness threatened to undo him. She had waited up!

His valet was dismissed in no time at all. Darcy had neither the patience to be helped out of his apparel, nor any thought to spare for their habitual exchanges and arrangements for the morrow. It was all that he could do not to glance too often at the tantalising strip of light in his man’s presence, like the veriest mooncalf. And now Weston was gone – his valet had left as bid a quarter of an hour ago, or more. Yet here he was, still in his shirtsleeves and still battling with all manner of maddening indecisions.

Enough! Although still quiet, Darcy’s footsteps grew suddenly firmer as they brought him back to the confounding door. She had waited up. Bless her guileless heart, she never was one to hold a grudge. She always dealt fairly, as honest in her loyalties and her affections as in giving voice to her displeasure. She loved him. And she must be pained by this artificial distance as much as he. Enough!

The least he could do was to assure her he did not cling to resentments either. Surely he could trust himself to walk in and bid her good night!

Darcy rapped with his knuckles – two taps, light and quick – and before he could even strain to listen for an answer, the door moved away on well-oiled hinges. It had been left open – by a hair’s breadth, but open – and another surge of hope rushed to flood his heart.

The door was still moving, and the widening gap allowed him to finally grasp why his knock had remained unanswered. She was asleep. Not in her bed, but curled up in a wingchair. Waiting for him to come home to her.

There was such overwhelming joy in that simple thought that Darcy did not dwell on the wasted hours as he pushed the door open until the gap was wide enough to permit him to walk in. A couple of floorboards creaked under his footsteps, yet she did not stir. Not even when, crouched beside her, he reached for the book in her lap, to lift it and noiselessly place it on the table.

It was not the first time he had watched her sleep. It had happened before – most notably, and most blissfully too, on the first morning of their marriage – when, out of habit, he had awakened much earlier than she, and had remained precisely where he was, cherishing the joy of waking up beside her and finding her beloved features softened in repose, rather than clouded with concern and sorrow.

More often than not, he could scarce credit the good fortune that she was his wife. This was one of the occasions as he sat on the floor, elbow on one knee and chin in hand, revelling in every detail of her appearance. The tremulous light from the three low-burning candles played on her cheek, the moving shadows now and then creating the illusion of fluttering lashes. Yet it remained a mere illusion. She was still asleep when Darcy stood to slide an arm behind her back and the other underneath her, to lift her off her seat, then straightened up with her warm weight cradled to his chest.

Her head fell on his shoulder and naturally found its place, nestling under his chin, as she gave a sleepy little murmur of contentment – and he remained stock-still, his heart overflowing. She loved him. And nothing else mattered in this world.

The longstanding yet nebulous notion that he would do anything for her suddenly came into the sharpest focus. He knew then that he would relent; that he would put an end to their destructive disagreement. He would do anything to make her happy – accede to her every wish, just for the joy of seeing her lips curl into a smile. It should have frightened him, that certainty, yet it could not. Not now, when she was in his arms, soft, warm and trusting, nestling against him; instinctively knowing that this was where she belonged. She was his, and she loved him. Everything paled before that. Every concession ceased to be a sacrifice.

If it meant so much to her to maintain a close connection with the Gardiners, then so be it. Let them call. He would even go so far as to dine with the man who, for all he knew, might have supplied the wine for his table or the silks for his sister’s dresses. Since Mr Gardiner was clearly able to keep command of a successful business, hopefully he had more sense than Mrs Bennet. And, to give credit where it was due, Mrs Gardiner was nothing like her sister by marriage. Surely he could survive the more decorous aunt, if he had brought himself to endure the mother!

His fashionable acquaintances had no say in this. No one – not even Elizabeth herself – would expect the denizens of Mayfair to dine with her Cheapside relations, and while she was still in mourning they would not be entertaining anyway. As for his relations, should they quibble – and quibble they doubtlessly will… Darcy suppressed a shrug so as not to wake her. Let them quibble. What fool would choose to please them over her?

This was all he had ever wanted anyway: to protect her from malice, keep her safe, make her happy. It might well border on insufferable presumption to claim that he knew what would make her happy better than she.

He bowed his head a fraction to press his lips into her hair as he turned to carry her to her bed. Everything about her was intoxicating. Her scent. Her warmth. The softness of her skin. And, much as he had endeavoured not to wake her a few moments earlier, claiming that he did not wish she would awaken now, as he settled her against the pillows, would have been a grievous falsehood. As would have been to claim he was not sorely tempted to slide beside her under the bedcovers. She might unthinkingly wrap her arms around him in her sleep, or she might awake to welcome him in the spirit of the truce she had so sweetly offered before dinner. Yet, however tantalising the prospect, he knew full well that he wanted a great deal more. Not sleepy habit. Not conciliation. And, heaven forefend, not placid compliance. So, for now, he merely brushed his lips over her cheek and whispered, “Sleep well. I love you,” before reaching to cover her with the counterpane. Then he blew out the candles and quietly walked out.

* * * *

The pruning scissors closed across the stem with a muted snap, releasing the perfect bloom into his keeping. Walking into the orangery in the middle of the night in search of floral offerings was so out of character as to border on the juvenile or the quixotic, but Darcy was very far from seeing it as such as he returned to Elizabeth’s bedchamber to place the token on her bedside table. A single red rose, as beautiful as she, and as vibrant as his restless heart.