Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (22 page)

Ensconced as they were, a hundred miles apart, Elizabeth and Jane had been unable to manage more than a sedate correspondence by post. Bingley’s townhouse was only a few blocks from Darcy’s in London. Hence, by Easter the sisters would be unconditionally reunited. However, that winter, the Bingleys could only manage to come to Pemberley for the week of the ball.

And so the families gathered in Derbyshire.

* * *

As it was but a week, Maria and Kitty wanted to waste not a moment and begged a ride to Kympton, much in want of finding a milliner with ribbons in colours they had yet to discover. Mrs. Darcy was happy to have them out from underfoot, their pleasure compounded by knowing the livery of the carriage in which they rode bore the Pemberley colours.

As Mr. Gardiner was the favourite uncle of both their wives, Darcy and Bingley were inclined not to be displeased with his company. Nor would they have been despite that inducement, for he was a man of superior knowledge and his conversation marked his good manners. (Altogether, he was found to be the most superb of relations, one whose acquaintance was not a punishment.) Much taken with sport, particularly fishing, he was handsomely diverted at Pemberley. When he was not afield, he was most inquisitive of Pemberley’s fine library. It was an astounding collection, the pride of the master of the house.

“I have often chided Darcy that he has no need, but for all of this, he is always buying books!” Bingley told Mr. Gardiner.

A happy marriage had not altered Mr. Darcy’s disposition in so great a fashion that it now overflowed in mirth. He still smiled but little in company and conversed with not more ease, yet he was clearly pleased at their admiration of his library. He prest his company to avail themselves of the treatises, maps, charts, and memoirs to their hearts’ content. Bingley, who very seldom found time to read, seemed happy at the prospect of investigating the books of Pemberley with someone who knew less of them than he.

* * *

After treating her Aunt Gardiner to the long-promised, much-anticipated pony cart tour of the little lake beyond Pemberley Manor, Elizabeth and the ladies took tea and biscuits in the small-parlour. Knowing their husbands fully occupied, Jane and Elizabeth were most anxious for a post-wedding tete-a-tete, one the bouncing cart did not accommodate. Their dear Aunt Gardiner, it would seem, was almost as happy for an accounting as her nieces.

Foremost, they laughed in sheer amazement at the scope of feminine gossip now rendered unto them.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said to her aunt, who had not been privy to the chatter at the ball, “inducted into the guild of married women as we are, it seems the salacious gossip we can hear is limited only to the hours in the day.”

Her aunt listened to their lively remarks with pleasure. They were both quite dear to her. But it was Elizabeth’s happiness that she held with greater self-satisfaction, knowing what part she played in the Darcys’ betrothal.

She did not know that she was not the first to notice Mr. Darcy’s growing regard for her niece, however. Surprisingly, Charlotte Collins’s pragmatic nature saw it first. It was on Elizabeth’s visit to Kent that Charlotte suggested that a man of Mr. Darcy’s stature would not call on the wife of a lowly vicar (particularly one as weak-headed as Mr. Collins) with such dedication if not for some further motive.

If Charlotte saw it first, she saw it not best. Astuteness in recognising true and abiding love fell to Mrs. Gardiner. From her first step onto the grounds of Pemberley and into her niece’s waiting arms, her aunt detected a glow in Elizabeth’s complexion even more pronounced than on her wedding day. Jane was sublimely happy, she could tell. Elizabeth, however, dwelt in the very lists of empowered love.

* * *

An afternoon spent in quiet reminisces and merry tales of household woes did not wear out the sisters’ thirst for truly intimate discourse.

Therefore, when their aunt inveigled her husband away from the books to take a rest, Jane and Elizabeth wasted little time before they retreated atop the Darcys’ bed (much as they had on their own at Longbourn) to talk at length.

As they had not truly confided since their weddings, they eyed each other cautiously, perhaps each waiting for the other to broach the single conversational topic that was of greatest interest to them both. However, this exchange of information demanded some delicate manoeuvring. For it necessitated sharing confidences of a physical act that neither entered into alone. Their bond as sisters was still just as strong, but their devotion to one another had been eclipsed by the vow of “forsaking all others” with first loyalty to their husbands.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth furiously schemed a way to talk about making love -without mentioning her lover, thus protecting said lover’s tenaciously held desire of privacy. However, before she managed such a feat, Jane (of all people) initiated the subject of The Marital Bed. She did so in true Jane fashion, fretting about Elizabeth’s discomfort upon her first night as a wife without actually mentioning devirgination.

“Oh, Lizzy,” Jane said, “are you well? In your first ardour, you were not…ill-used?”

Elizabeth reassured her forthrightly, “Yes, it was painful at first. But, of course, in repetition it was not.”

She smiled, expecting Jane to return her knowing look. Jane, however, sighed with resignation.

“I suppose ’tis a woman’s lot.”

Elizabeth did not consider associating intimately with her husband as her “lot” in life. Rather, she considered it a considerable gift from heaven above. Hence, a bit puzzled, she attempted a little interrogation.

“After the initial act of love, the consecutive ones, were they not pleasurable? Did they not transport you to rapture?”

“I daresay, Lizzy, you sound like Lydia!”

Jane had exclaimed such before fully appreciating the breadth of that particular insult (or that it was an insult, for Jane would never deliberately say something unkind to Elizabeth). Fortunately, Elizabeth knew that and chose (only with great test of will) to overlook the unintentionally scurrilous comparison. Yet Elizabeth had to admit, though wrapped up in her hyperbole, Lydia’s version of physical congress was not a fabrication. Availing oneself of a husband’s love torch was quite glorious.

“I hope,” said Elizabeth rather primly, “that I do not at all convey my sentiments with the same unwarranted embellishment as does Lydia. Nevertheless, I must confess, Jane, my sentiments are not dissimilar. Making love to one’s husband is quite euphoric. Surely you have found this to be true.”

With Elizabeth’s concurrence before her, Jane believed she must reconsider and did so carefully.

“I do enjoy Charles’s kissing me. However, I cannot say without a doubt that I have ever felt anything akin to rapture when he…becomes impassioned. But I truly have no complaint, for although he is quite diligent in his attentions, it does not last all that long.”

Elizabeth was confounded. Charles Bingley was devoted to Jane. He held her hand constantly, kissed her incessantly, and showered her with every manner of compliment. Certainly, Bingley’s affection was unquestioned. It does not last all that long? She and Darcy had whiled away hours whilst in such pursuits. Perhaps this was simply a matter of imperfection of technique. It must be addressed. Here, however, was where overlapping loyalties became a confusing issue. Elizabeth did not want to offer confidences of her own husband’s love-making prowess, but was tempted to by reason of affording Jane connubial bliss. Gathering from what Jane said, Charles Bingley seemed utterly, well…staid. Or, at least unlearned.

Compromise of loyalty was found in the third person.

With a scholarly voice, Elizabeth began, “’Tis said, that if the husband takes time and caresses his wife properly, she should find the same pleasure as he, Jane. She should be brought the most…”

“Who said that, Lizzy?” Jane interrupted.

Exasperated, Elizabeth abandoned third person for bluntness. “I said it, Jane.”

There were few euphemisms at her disposal and she despaired of having to become quite frank, but did.

“When Mr. Bingley has his—his ‘activity’ should excite you to great passion.”

Jane looked at her as if she was certain her sister had run utterly mad.

“Lizzy, pray, whatever are you talking about?”

If bluntness was absolutely necessary, Elizabeth believed she could be blunt.

“I am talking about…that tingling and pulsing that you feel down there when your husband rubs your insides with his member. It fairly makes your eyeballs roll up into your head.”

There. That should leave no room for misunderstanding. Absence of experience, however, did not allow Jane to appreciate the clarification and she blushed with embarrassment. Thereupon in reflection, she regained her composure enough to lower her voice and bid reassurance.

“I cannot say that I have ever felt that way. ’Tis truly possible?”

Elizabeth shook her head far more emphatically than was actually necessary.

“Yes, ’tis quite possible—every time, Jane! One can find indescribable bliss. Good heavens, yes!”

Jane shook her head as if not daring entry of such unimaginable thoughts.

“Lizzy, ’tis man’s province to be served in such a manner. It is an act of generation, is it not? This is for procreation. Men must be inspirited to emit their seed. It falls to wives to have babies, not invite rapture.”

“If a man is allowed pleasure whilst procreating, cannot therefore a woman?”

“But Lizzy, everyone speaks of it as a duty.”

“You know as well as I many amongst our society did not marry for love. To them, perhaps, it is a duty. If I had no feeling for my husband beyond admiration of his character, I should think I would agree. As it is, I love him compleatly, just as you do Mr. Bingley.”

Gripping the mattress, Jane sat very still for a few moments, as if pondering that possibility. Thereupon, she turned back to Elizabeth and lowered her voice to an even more confidential tone.

“’Tis true, I admire Charles. However, I believe I love him in all ways, for I would not be happy if we did not share affection. Sometimes after he has…been obliged, I feel that I should like him to hold me longer, kiss me more. Sometimes ’tis difficult to sleep after he has returned to his bed.”

He returned to “his” bed? No wonder the lack of spontaneity. That was passion by appointment.

“Tell him of your discontent! For as a loving husband, he should want to please you. Tell him, Jane!”

“Tell him he must…titillate me? I could never say such a thing to him, Lizzy!” Jane gasped. “He might think me unhappy.”

“You are discontented. He loves you, he should want to know.”

Jane’s horrified confoundment bid Elizabeth to abandon the notion of enlightening Bingley. She took an alternate route, by way of Jane’s initiative.

“If you dare not speak of it, perchance it is the simple matter of situation…”

They had been married near a month, Elizabeth reasoned. Thus, if Bingley was too dim to figure this out, Jane must for him. However, Jane was not moved to forward this reasoning. Indeed, there was not a flicker of understanding.

Determined as she was for Jane to see the light, Elizabeth struggled with the notion that if Jane could just situate herself atop her husband, this manoeuvre would keep Bingley from escape long enough for Jane to…. Such a suggestion would surely -scandalise them both. The sisters stood upon the precipice of absolute and irredeemable indecorousness, and Elizabeth was not quite ready to take the leap alone. Fortunately, she did not have the opportunity.

Jane announced with finality, “I could never injure Charles with criticism of his love. I am quite happy as I am.”

Thusly, Jane dismissed the entire possibility of connubial achievement. Conversation moved on to the weather.

* * *

That night before sleep encroached, Elizabeth lay in a disgusted heap pondering her sister’s marital impasse. Next to her, but beneath the bedcloth, her husband stretched out his full length and waggled his feet as if in invitation for her to join him. Rather, she enlisted his reluctant participation in a conversation of which he wanted no part.

“Jane and Bingley do not both share the same pleasure from physical connexion,” Elizabeth said incredulously of Jane’s dilemma. “This is intolerable. I encouraged her to confide in Mr. Bingley, for certainly he would want to know. But she worried it might cause him grief. She is too good.”

Hitherto, Darcy lay quite passively, endeavouring, with great conviction, to believe he was not part of this particularly mortifying discussion. He pondered with great abhorrence the understanding that ladies even spoke of such matters to each other. Only when Elizabeth bade his opinion did he venture a comment.

“If your sister does not think herself unhappy, then perhaps you should not attempt to convince her otherwise.”

That was not the desired response. Elizabeth took another course.

“You and Mr. Bingley are the very closest of friends, Darcy. Moreover, very close friends are almost as brothers. Perhaps you could suggest to Mr. Bingley that he…”

“No,” he held up his hand. “Absolutely not.”

“But why? Certainly, he would benefit from your expertise. How could you deny him your good advice when it is possible to help?”

“No.”

“I believe you should not have to come right out with it. You could wait until an opportune time. Whilst breeding the mares, perhaps. Then with all due nonchalance…”

Aghast, he said, “I cannot begin to imagine how you think that conversation would ensue. Absolutely not.”

She rolled onto her stomach and rested her chin petulantly in her hand.

“Well, I cannot say anything to Mr. Bingley…”

Darcy half-rose with a look of abject horror upon his face. Would she actually consider such a gambit?

“I said I could not!” she replied defensively to his unspoken reproach.

With an exaggerated sigh of relief, he dropped his head back upon the pillow. She, however, continued to ponder the problem for a few minutes longer. That was, until she realised all this talk of Jane’s rapture—and her husband’s nakedness underneath the sheet—was making her reflect quite intently upon her own. Recognising her expression, he drew her beneath him.