Judith Brocklehurst - Darcy and Anne

“Come, Minette!” and she was off again, along the end of the terrace, past the formal grounds, and toward the stream. Edmund had been right about Minette: in the past few weeks since she had owned the dog, Anne had become a very good walker. She was healthier, and stronger, and now she seemed impelled by some new energy. The little dog, released from its leash, ran ahead of her. The path climbed, she went up, past pools and waterfalls, past rowan trees and limestone rocks, up and further up; she had never climbed so high! The ground grew steep, she had reached a dark, cavernous place, where the stream fell off a high rock, almost a cliff. Moss and delicate ferns grew there, the ground was always damp; the path went no higher; she turned back, and saw the whole of the valley spread out before her in a blaze of sunshine.

As she began to make her way down, stepping carefully on the wet ground, she saw that someone was coming up the path toward her. It was a man, she thought—yes! it was certainly a man. Visitors never came so far; it might be one of the gardeners; but she could see a gentleman's hat, and a brown coat; it must be her cousin, or a visitor. She came further down; the unknown man came up; a turn of the path revealed him to her. It was Edmund Caldwell.

When people as much in love as these two meet in such scenery and such circumstances, they cannot be long in reaching an understanding. Before a quarter of an hour had passed, Edmund had asked Anne to marry him, and she had said “yes.”

It was exactly as she had thought: he had fallen as deeply in love with her as she with him, and, they were delighted to discover, at precisely the same moment: when they had smiled together, over the little blue dish.

“But I did not know it,” she said.

“Neither did I. I thought it only friendship, and admiration, until I found you in distress over the money from your father's will. Then I knew. But what could I do, other than what I did? I could not allow myself to see you again, until today.”

And why had he decided to leave for Barbados? Again, it was as Anne had suspected. Even before the Duchess and her brother visited Pemberley, they had been discussing the possibility of a marriage with Lady Catherine's unknown daughter. Lord Francis's voice was extremely loud, and the Duchess's hardly less so. Naturally, in their hired lodgings, everything they'd said had been overheard. They had been interested, yet puzzled; Lady Catherine had seemed to be half eager for the match, and yet in no hurry; there had seemed to be some hesitation. They had thought Anne might be ugly, or deformed, or stupid. As soon as they had been to Pemberley, and had seen her, and knew that she was a pretty, lively young woman, his only question was, how much money he might obtain with her.

The Duchess had urged her brother to press on, and marry Anne, for she was bound to have thirty thousand pounds, let alone what she would eventually inherit. He objected that his debts were so large, and his way of life so expensive, thirty thousand pounds would hardly be enough, and the mother would give her no more, and might live forever. But she had persisted, and got him to agree. Every servant in the place had known about it; and soon the whole of Burley knew that Lord Francis was to marry the young lady who was staying at Pemberley. Then Edmund had met them in the street: “I know, we were arm in arm, and laughing,” said Anne. “I was never so mortified in the whole of my life; and you cannot imagine how stupid his conversation was.”

“That settled it for me,” said Edmund. “Gossip I could ignore—at least, I could try, I could remind myself that it was only rumour; but this seemed like proof, irrefutable proof. All I wanted was to be gone, to be out of England before your marriage took place. But somehow I delayed, and waited, for what, I did not know. Twice I told myself that I could not leave; I turned back because there was some question at work, something only I could deal with. Then I was advised not to go, for the ship would run directly into the hurricane season. This week, I was really going. Tomorrow was the date set for me to leave; and the end of the week for the ship to depart.”

“But how did you come here? Did you know about all this? Or did you come to say farewell?” were Anne's next questions. The answer astonished her. It was her cousin Darcy who, on leaving Pemberley that morning, had ridden directly to his friend's home, and told him of Lady Catherine's marriage and Anne's changed circumstances. Darcy knew that Edmund's journey had been twice delayed, but understood that now he was really on the point of leaving; that his passage was taken; that by the following day, or the day after, he would be gone.

Her cousin had made it clear that, for his part, he considered Anne released from every obligation to a parent who had rejected, abandoned, and insulted her. For him, the offer of the Reverend Mr Whiley was the final straw, an insult to a woman of Anne's rank, abilities, and talents. He knew that his friend was a far better match for her. He felt that there was now no bar to their marriage, if Edmund still wished it. He was to feel under no obligation, however; Anne would always have a home at Pemberley; he and his wife regarded her as a beloved sister. Hearing that his departure was not imminent, he had urged him to take the rest of the day, and consider.

“Then he left. I had hardly taken it in, except that they had offered you some ancient clergyman to marry, and you were to copy out his manuscripts, and that you had said no. I should think so indeed! But as soon as he had gone, I found that I did not need a day to think it over, or even an hour. You were no longer the wealthy heiress of Rosings; you were the woman I love, you had been hurt, you were in trouble. There was nothing to think about.” (At this point the relation of the story was somewhat interrupted, as Anne responded to this wonderful declaration.) He resumed: He had called for his horse, and arrived barely half an hour behind Darcy. “Then,” he said, “when I arrived at the house, I found your cousin and Mrs Darcy in a terrible state, for, they told me, Anne would talk of nothing but living on her own in a cottage, and writing books. And I told them that that was nonsense, for you are going to live with me, and write books.”

Oh! thought Anne, I must rescue my package, from Forrest, and she wondered whether she could tell him of her desperate, foolish stratagem, but just at that moment Edmund began saying such very affectionate things to her that she could not do anything, except smile up at him, with tears in her eyes, and assure him that she felt just the same!

Some people might have been surprised at the length of time it took for the two of them to return from what had been, really, quite a short walk; but Elizabeth and Darcy were not of their number. They had too recently been in a similar situation themselves. “You are going to be as happy as we are,” Elizabeth said. “I did not think it possible, but I believe you will manage it.”

But, as she later told her husband, even she had not such reasons for delight as Anne had, in the contrast between her earlier life, and the life that lay ahead of her. “If my mother was sometimes peevish, and my father occasionally morose, I had all the cheerful society of my sisters, especially dear Jane,” she said.

“And the reassurance of your mirror, to tell you how beautiful you were,” said her husband, fondly. “Poor Anne spent so many years as a sickly, plain, lonely girl, that she deserves every day, every hour of the happiness that will be hers.”

“And how good it is to think,” Elizabeth said, “that we shall not lose her, for she will be only five miles away.”

The rest of the day was not enough for the expression of everybody's satisfaction, and happy as Anne was in the delight of her relatives, it required several walks in the gardens, alone with Edmund, to establish her composure of mind, and assure her that she really was, not only going to be married to the man she loved, but totally and completely loved by him.

“And are you really happy that I should write, and write novels?” Anne asked.

“Yes, indeed,” he said, firmly. “to my mind, it is a wicked thing for any person who has talent or ability not to be allowed to develop it. I shall insist on your continuing, I shall read all your drafts, and I shall insist that household cares never prevent you from having all the time you need.”

That evening, she thought, was the happiest of her life, and she would always remember it. In retrospect she could not, in fact, remember anything very clearly. Seated beside Edmund, Minette by her side, surrounded as she was by the dear cousins who rejoiced with her, it seemed to pass in a daze, a glow of joy. The only dissatisfaction Anne felt, as she went to dress for dinner, was that she had really spent so very little time alone with Edmund!

The next day brought another source of pleasure, in the arrival of the Caldwells, who were invited to spend several days with them, and whose joy could barely be expressed. Mrs Caldwell, in the course of a long conversation with Anne, admitted that she had known about the matter for some time. Her son had not intended to burden either of his parents with the knowledge of his situation, but knowing him as she did, it was impossible for her not to be aware of his unhappiness, and to guess at its cause, and on her applying to him to tell her the truth, he had done so. She had mourned, thinking there was nothing to be done. “And now, my dear, I could not be happier, and neither could my husband, for you are exactly the daughter we would have wished for.” Her only cause for concern was that, as she said, they must wait a few months to be married. “For, dearest Anne, you cannot imagine what kind of a state the house is in, for gentlemen, as I am sure you know, have no idea when anything is dirty, or shabby. But we will see all put to rights.”