A Merry Darcy Christmas

“She’s lovely indeed,” said Northover, taking Anne’s hand.

“What is your costume?” said Lady Catherine to him, her tone, to Elizabeth’s ear, was rather critical.

“I am Poseidon,” Northover replied casually. “I have a Trident somewhere.”

Like his friend Darcy, Northover was unmasked, though he wore a white robe and a had a crown as King of the Sea.

The first dance was a minuet, its steps too difficult for Elizabeth and Darcy to say much to one another, although at one point he managed to say, “Your dancing is a bit off, Anne. You are in need of practice.”

At the end of the minuet, Elizabeth sipped a glass of syllabub while Darcy spoke to Northover.

Elizabeth could recognize Mary, who had a shepherdess’s crook but no lamb, and Kitty, who was dressed as a serving wench. Mrs. Bennet was dressed—appropriately enough it seemed to Elizabeth, for her mother was surveying the dancers imperiously and with a very satisfied air—as a queen with a sparkling tiara made of paste diamonds perched precariously upon her head.

There was no chance for Darcy and Elizabeth to speak at all during the cotillion, which seemed to Elizabeth to go on forever.

It was only during the waltz that they finally were able to talk to another.

“You have two left feet today, Anne,” Darcy observed, holding Elizabeth lightly in his arms.

“I am not Anne,” Elizabeth replied, a little angrily. “I’m Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Well that explains it then,” said Darcy.

They whirled around the ballroom amid the other merry dancers, and Elizabeth felt as though she were in a dream filled with fantastic creatures.

When the tempo of the waltz slowed, Darcy addressed her again, speaking into her ear to be heard over the music.

“In the spring,” he said softly, “I asked you a question which gave you great offense.”

Elizabeth realized that he was referring to his proposal of marriage. “It was the way you put it,” she said, “not the question itself.”

“Nevertheless.” Darcy’s grip on her firmed ever so slightly. “The manner of my proposal to you was wrong, and for that, I apologize.”

“I accept your apology,” Elizabeth said.

They continued to dance the waltz, swirling slowly over the chequered marble tiles of the grand ballro

om to the music of the London orchestra engaged by Lady Catherine for its proficiency. Elizabeth was intoxicated by the movement, and the nearness of Mr. Darcy, and, probably too, she realized, by the brandy and wine in the syllabub she had imbibed.

“I intend to ask you the same question once again, and would hope that you would hear me out, for I have corrected my speech, both the words and its tone.”

“Proceed,” Elizabeth said. It was all she could manage.

“From the moment I first saw you at the assembly in Meryton, Elizabeth, I knew that I would be helpless to resist your charms.

“And when I saw you again at Netherfield, when you had walked such a great distance to see your sister Jane, and I reflected that I would’ve done the same for my sister, Georgiana, I realized that our spirits were kindred.”

Elizabeth remembered that morning and realized that what she had taken as his censure had been really his approbation. “I thought . . .”

“Please hear me out.”

They continued dancing, Darcy nimbly guiding them through the costumed throng.

“And when on the path at Netherfield you made the comment that if you were to join us, it would spoil the grouping, I understood the reference to Gilpin’s grouping of three cattle, and knew I could never again hope to meet a lady with so lively a wit as you.”

Elizabeth remembered that day they very well, when she had—at the time she thought slyly—compared Caroline Bingley, Mrs. Hurst and Mr. Darcy to Gilpin’s grouping of three cattle without mentioning the great landscape painter’s name. She had not been aware until now that Mr. Darcy had caught the reference.

“I’m sorry for that,” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t mean to . . .”