Sally O'Rourke - The Man Who Loved Jane Austen

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” she asked in a voice so soft that only he could hear.

Darcy grinned happily. “You might’ve said no.”

“I hope you’re not expecting me to perform some obscure nineteenth-century line dance now,” she replied, smiling for the benefit of his guests. “Because I don’t know any.”

“The one element of authenticity that we’ve let slide over the years at the Rose Ball is the dancing,” he said as the orchestra began to play. “Everybody seems to want to do the ones they already know, which is why the musicians are now playing a waltz that wasn’t even written until the mid-1800s.”

“Shocking!” Eliza relaxed and laughed as he took her into his arms and twirled her gracefully around the floor. Dozens of other smiling couples joined in, until the two of them were part of a large and joyous multitude of dancers.

“Fitz, why did you do this, the gown?” Eliza asked, looking up into his smiling eyes.

“You said you liked it,” he replied. She smiled to herself and her attempts to rationalize the gesture. She had said she liked it; it was as simple as that.

“Thank you for allowing me to wear it. I’m honored.”

“Eliza…” he began.

“Before you say anything,” she interrupted, “I want you to know that I’ve come to a decision, about the letters.” Eliza slowed and looked around the crowded floor. “I think I’d like you to hear what I have to say in private,” she told him.

Darcy nodded and led her off the floor and out through the ballroom doors. “We can go to my study,” he suggested.

Eliza shook her head, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy and overwhelmed by all that had happened. “No. I’d like to have some air. Please can we go outside, Fitz?”

An open carriage was just depositing a quartet of late arrivals at the entrance as Darcy and Eliza stepped onto the torch-lit porch. Lucas, the elderly gatekeeper, stood next to the carriage. He was wearing a red coat and an elegant top hat. “Lovely evening, isn’t it Fitz?” Lucas greeted him.

Darcy nodded. “It is, Lucas. Have you got time to take us for a little drive around the property?”

“Why yes, I think we can arrange that,” Lucas replied, winking. Smiling at Darcy, he helped Eliza up into the soft leather seat. Darcy got into the carriage and sat opposite Eliza.

Lucas climbed into the driver’s seat and clucked softly to the horses, a beautiful pair of matched grays in a gleaming harness rig trimmed in silver, and started them moving down the drive.

Darcy leaned toward Eliza and took her hand, “You must allow me to tell you how lovely you look tonight,” he said. “Thanks for indulging Jenny and Artie and making that wonderful entrance to the ball. Rose Darcy herself couldn’t have made a better impression on our guests.”

Eliza flushed. “Somehow I doubt that,” she replied, “but I’ll be eternally grateful for the compliment.” Darcy released her hand and sat back in the seat, his eyes never leaving hers.

The carriage entered the green tunnel of trees beyond the house. Eliza took a deep breath. “I want you to know that I’ve thought this through very thoroughly,” she began, “and I won’t change my mind.”

Eliza searched Darcy’s face, unable to read his eyes in the dim glow of the carriage lamps. “Though we hardly know one another at all, I feel that I’ve come to understand you, Fitz,” she continued. “And I know that the reason you wanted my letters so desperately was to learn what Jane thought of you, what she was feeling and, perhaps, to confirm absolutely in your own mind that what happened to you in England three years ago was really true.”

Darcy nodded but said nothing.

“But those aren’t good enough reasons for me to give the letters to you,” Eliza hurried on with her explanation, “because the letters would probably become public anyway and you’d still have what you want.”

“Eliza…”

She saw the pain registering in Darcy’s face as the carriage moved out of the trees and into the light of the rising moon.

“Please,” she said gently, “let me finish.”

Darcy fell silent and they moved along through a rolling meadow filled with glimmering fireflies.

“Over the past two days I have gradually come to realize a very real truth about you. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see what you cannot see yourself.”

He turned his head toward her, his expression grim. “And what is the truth about me, Eliza?”

“Even if there were no letters,” she told him, “there would be no doubt in my mind that the story you told me actually happened.” She paused, watching his brow furrow in confusion. “And there should be no doubt in your mind as to how Jane Austen regarded you after you were gone,” she concluded.

“I don’t understand,” he murmured.

Eliza smiled. “Do not you, sir?” she asked, playfully mimicking the formal aristocratic language of Jane Austen’s Regency period. “Fitz, you are the essence of Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy in every way. She wrote—or perhaps rewrote— Pride and Prejudice to make that character you. And in doing that she created the most romantic character in English literature—only you were real, and she made you real to anyone who’s ever read the book.”

Darcy fell back against his seat, speechless.

“Now,” said Eliza, “for my decision.”

“Your decision?” he breathed. “Didn’t you just tell me that it was your decision to keep the letters?”

“No, Fitz,” Eliza said, reaching into the silk bag she was carrying and removing the sealed letter from Jane Austen. “I only expressed the opinion that you didn’t need this,” displaying the unopened document, “to confirm anything.”

Smiling, she pressed the unopened letter into his hand. “But this is your letter. Jane wrote it to you, and whether it ever becomes public should be your decision alone, not mine.”

“Eliza, I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything,” she said with a smile. Eliza looked around, suddenly aware that the carriage had come to a halt at the far end of the moonlit lake. Lucas was standing up front with the horses, lighting his pipe and gazing off into the distance.

She looked up at the huge, glowing orb of the moon. “I think it’s bright enough out here and you’ve waited a long time, read it… now.”

Darcy looked up, as if noticing the moon for the first time. “Yes,” he said, “I believe it is light enough to read by. And I would like to read the letter now.”

He stepped out of the carriage. Then he reached in and took her hand. “We’ll read it together,” he said. “It belongs to both of us.”

Moments later, standing at a spot where a glittering path of moonlight across the water touched the shore, Darcy held up the letter and looked at Eliza. “You’re sure you want me to do this?” he asked.

She nodded and he broke the wax seal with a small snap, then unfolded the yellowing paper and began to silently read.

Something fell to the ground at Eliza’s feet and lay sparkling in the moonlight. Gathering up the folds of her gown, Eliza bent to retrieve the shiny object.

And then she began to laugh. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing I decided not to let Sotheby’s auction off this letter after all,” she said, holding up Darcy’s high-tech plastic business card.

Darcy stared at the holographic Darcy crest gleaming on the surface of the card, and then he, too, began to laugh. The sound of their voices melded, echoing merrily across the lake.

After a moment, Eliza grew serious again. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry and she felt the blood pounding in her temples as she lightly touched the fold of vellum in his hand. “What did Jane say, Fitz?”