Pride and Prejudice and Kitties, стр. 34
The two toms had been there only a short time when Bingley, who wanted to escape with Jane, proposed a walk. Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and Kitty joined them. Bingley and Jane soon lagged behind and Kitty ran down the lane to join Maria Lucas in a squirrel chase. Elizabeth then found herself alone with Mr. Darcy. She took the opportunity to express her gratitude for his help in restoring Lydia’s reputation and respectability.
“If you will thank me,” he replied, “let it be for yourself alone. Much as I respect your family, I believe I thought only of you.” After a short pause, he added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence my meows on this subject for ever.”
Elizabeth then gave him to understand with chirps and trills that she welcomed his assurances of love and constancy with great pleasure. Mr. Darcy responded by rolling excitedly on his back— something Elizabeth had never known him to do before.
As they walked on, Darcy related that Lady Cat had visited him in London to complain bitterly about Elizabeth’s obstinacy in refusing to refuse to marry him.
“It taught me to hope as I never had before,” Darcy confessed.
Other than dictating, Lady Cat liked nothing more than being useful, Elizabeth reflected with amusement. And her usefulness in teaching her nephew to hope had never been better appreciated by Elizabeth than it was now.
He exposed himself as sensibly as a cat violently in love can be supposed to do.
“If you will thank me,” [Darcy] replied, “let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you, might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe, I thought only of you.”
Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.”
Elizabeth feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.
ELIZABETH AND DARCY wandered so long and happily down one lane and another that everyone was asking for them when they got back. Elizabeth worried that, in spite of his being such a handsome and prosperous tom, her family would not approve of her match with him, so disliked was Mr. Darcy for his proud, haughty manner and cuddling deficiencies.
At the first opportunity, Elizabeth acquainted Jane with her news.
“You are joking, Lizzy,” said Jane. “This cannot be! Engaged to Mr. Darcy?!”
After a few playful frisks, Elizabeth settled down and assured her sister it was true. Mr. Darcy still loved her and they were indeed engaged.
* * *
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning. “If that disagreeable Darcy-cat is not visiting again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here?”
Elizabeth and Darcy took to the lanes again and during their walk it was decided that the next cat to be made acquainted with their wishes was Mr. Bennet. To this end, Mr. Darcy slipped into Mr. Bennet’s library after dinner. A short while later, her father called Elizabeth into the library. He was pacing back and forth across the room. “Lizzy,” said he, “what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this cat? Have not you always hated him?”
How earnestly did Elizabeth then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her meows more moderate! It would have spared her from professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary and she assured her father, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy.
“Or, in other words,” Mr. Bennet replied, “you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have finer toys and more sumptuous satin pillows than Jane. But will they make you happy?”
“Have you any other objection,” asked Elizabeth, “than your belief of my indifference?”
“None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of cat; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”
“I do, I do like him,” she replied. “I love him.”
Elizabeth went on to tell her father what a truly fine feline Mr. Darcy was, and to complete the favorable impression, she related what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. Mr. Bennet heard her with astonishment.
“Had it been your uncle’s doing,” he assured her, “I must and would have paid him; but these violent young toms carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him tomorrow; he will yowl and carry on about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter.”
Now Elizabeth had only to break the news to her mother. Its effect was most extraordinary; for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, unable to utter a syllable. She began at length to recover,