“Tomorrow,” an Elizabeth and Darcy short story

Happy April! Today, I offer a sweet and silly short story based on this month’s theme, “Arts and Allurements.” That phrase comes from Lady Catherine’s speech to Elizabeth outside of Longbourn (the same speech in which she calls Elizabeth an “obstinate, headstrong girl”):

 

“This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?”

“Your Ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”

“It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.” 

— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Volume III, Chapter XIV or Chapter 56 on Project Gutenberg)

 

I thought I’d put Elizabeth outside Longbourn again, this time on the evening before her wedding.

As writers and readers, we all have our favorite tropes or scenarios; mine is clearly placing Elizabeth and Darcy in some lonely space out of doors so they can banter without interruption! I hope this latest variation on that theme brings you a bit of joy…

Tomorrow

They leaned against the garden wall, its stones warm and rough against their backs. Elizabeth turned to look at him: hatless, eyes closed, face tilted upward, as if to catch the last rays of the setting sun. Tomorrow, she mused. Tomorrow, I will…

She could not quite bring herself to finish that thought, so when he asked, voice low, “Of what are you thinking?” she was startled to hear herself respond, “Kissing you, Mr. Darcy.”

His eyes flew open, and she might have laughed at his evident shock, had she not been a little shocked herself.

Then a smile stole across his lips, there and gone, a gift only for the most observant. “You never cease to astonish me, Elizabeth.”

“Indeed?” She tried for a tone of nonchalance, but her voice cracked on the word. “Given that we are to be married tomorrow, I do not believe it is that astonishing an idea. I have heard it is an activity married people—and unmarried people—undertake, on occasion.”

“On occasion,” he murmured, sidling closer—but not close enough. There remained a good foot of space between them.

What a distracting man! He had been the one to suggest they meet behind the garden wall.

“I wish to say a proper farewell,” he had whispered to her, a few minutes before he and Bingley were to depart Longbourn for the last time as single men.

A proper farewell? Surely that meant a kiss. There had been so few of them during their courtship—a brush of lips against her forehead once; lengthier shows of affection, pressed to the palm of her hand, whenever he could manage it. Rarely, though, were they alone. Walks might have been their refuge, had it not been so rainy an autumn. Only now, as December dawned, did the sun emerge.

Still, Jane and Bingley had not allowed the rain to dampen their ardor—at least, not on that day when Elizabeth had been sent upstairs to find her mother’s shawl, only to discover Bingley with his back pressed against the wall, Jane kissing him so enthusiastically that neither of them seemed to notice Elizabeth, who turned and hurried back down the stairs, laughing as she called out, “No, Mama, I cannot find your shawl anywhere!”

Never had Darcy attempted to lure her to an upstairs corridor during a rainstorm. (Of course, neither had she tried to lure him.) Even on the few walks they had taken alone together, they had spent all their time talking, planning, debating, and laughing. As much as she had enjoyed these conversations, Elizabeth could not help but wonder why they had not practiced a more varied means of communication.

“Do you not wish to know how you astonished me?” he asked her now, moving another inch closer—but just an inch.

“Not particularly. It is unjust of you, taking up the task of teasing me, when that is meant to be my duty. If you recall, soon after you proposed—”

“The second time.”

“Soon after you proposed properly, I informed you that you were to exaggerate all of my good qualities—and I do not think the power to astonish is one of them.”

“On the contrary,” he said, smiling, “it is one of your very best qualities. Well, if you do not wish to hear how precisely you have astonished me, I will say nothing more on the matter.”

“Oh, I can guess what you would have said: you are astonished by my brazen manner.”

“Your definition of brazen is not the same as mine,” he said, and in such a way that she wanted, very much, to know what he considered brazen. “I was not, in fact, astonished by your thoughts on kissing, but by—”

She interrupted him with her laughter. When he furrowed his brow, clearly bemused, she tried to explain, but several seconds passed before she could catch her breath.

“I can hardly believe this state of affairs,” she said at last. “The proud Mr. Darcy, addressing a tolerable woman on the subject of kissing!”

“Ah, there it is again.

“Kissing—or tolerable? I will not allow you to forget your first words about me, Mr. Darcy.”

“No,” he said, and now he laughed, though she detected a note of exasperation in the sound. “I refer to how you continue to address me: Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy.” He shook his head. “Are we not to be married tomorrow, Elizabeth? Can you not say my first name?”

“Well, it is a rather long name.”

“Mis-ter Dar-cy.” He held up a hand, raising a finger for each syllable. “Fitz-will-iam. Four syllables to three.”

“But there is a ‘z’ in your name; it is very uncomfortable to speak names with the letter ‘z’.”

“Such as Elizabeth? Lizzy? Eliza?”

“Oh, please do not call me Eliza! Besides, I do not speak of myself in the third person.”

At this evasion, he gave her a look which she now understood to be disapproval. A year ago, she had confused his stare of intensity, that unrelenting gaze, with disapprobation. Now, she knew better: intensity meant wanting with him; this fleeting, ricochet of a glance—that was disapproval.

She almost said his name then, just to draw his gaze back to hers. But he spoke before she could give in to this impulse.

“I suppose you do not like my name.”

This was another lesson she had learned of late: that arrogant tone, that haughty mien—these foibles, which appeared whenever he felt hurt or defensive, were not going to disappear, simply because he loved her.

“And what if I do not like your name, sir?” she teased. “What shall you do about it? You have only a few remaining hours to make amends.”

She had hoped to provoke a smile out of him, but he did not smile. He laughed.

“Are you asking me to change my name?”

“And why not? I am soon to change mine. But no, I will not ask so much of you.” She paused, then added, more gently, “And I do like your name, very much.”

He closed the distance between them, taking her hand in his. “And I should like to hear you say it, very much.”

“I will say it, only—” She glanced down at their interlaced fingers. Though both the weather and propriety demanded gloves, she had not worn them—and neither had he. They had met here for a particular reason, after all.

Or so she had thought.

“Only what?” he prompted softly.

“I had devised a very specific plan for when to say your name,” she admitted, offering an uncertain smile.

He reached out with his free hand, tracing the line of her jaw. “You wished to wait until our marriage vows.”

“Oh!” She did not know whether it was his words or his touch that so disconcerted her. “Well yes, I suppose I will have to say your name at the wedding.”

“Indeed. I believe that is one of the requirements of the ceremony. If you did not mean to save my name for the marriage vows, then what is this ‘very specific plan’ of yours?”

She made a face. “Tomorrow…that is to say, tomorrow night, I thought perhaps when you opened the door to my rooms, or when I opened the door to yours…Oh, I hardly know how it is all to unfold!” She spoke more quickly with each word, as if the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks was chasing the thoughts from her. “I thought that I might say your name for the first time tomorrow night, but of course I was not thinking of the wedding itself.”

She could not bring herself to look at him after such a speech. But then he said “Elizabeth” in just that way, and she could not help but look at him. His eyes were bright, even in the darkening twilight.

Touching his arm, she once again thought of saying his name, but she stopped herself. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will…

“It was to be your gift to me,” he said quietly.

“A ridiculous one, now that I have spoken it aloud,” she acknowledged, laughing a little.

“No, not at all.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do not start flattering me now, sir. I have skipped over our wedding and gone directly to the wedding night.”

“I cannot find it in myself to regret your quickness of mind. Besides, that you sought to please me—” He stopped abruptly, his expression becoming grave.

“What is it?” she asked. When he said nothing, she added, “I suppose it is odd that I should try to please instead of provoke you.”

“No, it is not that. I should be grieved if you thought…Elizabeth, tomorrow night—not simply tomorrow night, but always—you must never feel an obligation…you need not do anything particular…that is…”

He sighed, and she wondered if he had given up on completing sentences. But then he met her gaze and said, with some urgency, “You need not do anything against your wishes. You need only be Elizabeth, and I will consider myself the most fortunate of men.”

Now it was she who had no power to speak, in single words much less full sentences, so she settled for squeezing his hand.

“Are you…” He cleared his throat. “Are you anxious?”

She sighed and watched the fog of her breath dissipate into the twilight. “Well, I am the one who raised the topic of kissing, so I must not be.”

“I do not think your logic is sound,” he said, a smile in his voice.

“Perhaps I should put the question to you.” She tilted her head at him. “Are you anxious, Mr. Darcy? After all, you have not once tried to kiss me this evening.”

“Once again, I find your logic questionable.” He raised her hand and pressed his lips to her palm.

“As lovely as that gesture was”—and it had been lovely; her entire hand was tingling—“it was not the kind of kiss I meant.”

His laugh was more breath than sound. When he said nothing for a long moment, she took pity on him.

“You are behaving with consideration and chivalry. I understand.”

“Do you?” he asked, stepping closer. For a moment, she thought he would slip an arm about her waist and prove her wrong—or right—but he only stared down at her with that intensity she had come to love.

“You,” she said, smiling up at him, “are a gentleman, whereas I am only a gentleman’s daughter. You are guided by gallantry, whereas I must rely solely on—oh, how did your aunt put it—my arts and allurements to make you forget yourself.”

With a strangled laugh, he dropped her hand and fell back against the garden wall. They had returned to their starting places: he, with his head tipped back against the stone, she watching him, still hoping for that elusive kiss.

“I beg you,” he said, “not to mention my aunt, not when I have been more pleasantly occupied with thoughts of—prepare to laugh at me again, Elizabeth—kissing you.”

“But are such thoughts pleasant to you, truly?” she asked, and was surprised at how her voice wobbled on that last word. “I hardly think a kiss from me will be adequate recompense for the discord I have caused between you and—”

“Ah, Elizabeth.” He looked over at her, his expression softening. “You are anxious.”

“Yes,” she said, done with wit and prevarication. “I am.”

“Surely you cannot doubt your power over me.”

“Power?” She shook her head. “I do not like that word, for it makes me feel as if I have tricked you into marriage.”

These were thoughts she had never articulated, even to herself. Only now that she had spoken the words aloud did she understand the insidious nature of Lady Catherine’s insults. Had she used her “arts and allurements” to make him forget his reason and succumb to mere infatuation?

The idea was, on the face of it, laughable—and yet Lady Catherine’s words had remained lodged inside her these many weeks, a splinter she could not quite remove.

“Elizabeth,” he said, tipping her chin up so their eyes met, “for too long, I wondered if this”—he gestured between them—“would ever come to pass, not only on those days following my first proposal, but on all the days before I met you, before I even knew your name. I doubted there could be a person for whom I felt so much—and who, I hoped, would feel even half as much for me.”

She drew in a breath, but only because she required air to live; had the choice been hers, she would have made not a sound, moved not an inch. She would have lived in this moment until—well, at least until tomorrow, when she guessed other such moments would be waiting for her.

But the moment passed, as all moments do, and he gave her a quirk of a smile before looking away. “That speech sounded more eloquent in my head.”

Arts and allurements be damned. She took his face in her hands and said, “It was perfectly eloquent to me.”

He lowered his forehead to touch hers, and she thought, At last! Except, no: he decided to prove his eloquence once more.

“If I have been reticent during our courtship, it is because I did not wish to compel or entice you into behavior you would not have chosen of your own free will. Recall,” he murmured, as he traced a lock of her hair, “my feelings for you have been of a longer duration than yours for me.”

“True,” she said, brushing a thumb along his jawline, “and yet it does not follow that my present feelings are any less ardent than yours.”

“True,” he said, sliding one of his hands down the nape of her neck, the ridge of her shoulder, the long line of her arm, “but I have been known, in the past, to make certain assumptions regarding your feelings. I would be a fool to make the same mistake twice.”

She grabbed his roving hand and placed it firmly on her waist. “Do I seem at all hesitant or uncertain on this matter?”

He offered a careless shrug. “My arrogance, my conceit, and my selfish disdain for the feelings of others make it difficult for me to be sure.”¹

She did not know whether to laugh or scream, so she did the sensible thing and kissed him.

Almost. Her lips were just brushing his when the inevitable interruption came.

“Well, Darcy! Are you finally prepared to—Oh! Er, pardon me!”

Later, Elizabeth decided she could not truly blame Bingley: she and Darcy had been left alone for almost half an hour, and why would Bingley (he of the upstairs corridor) believe more time was required to offer one’s betrothed a parting kiss?

But in that moment, when she rounded on her future brother-in-law, her anger must have been palpable, for Bingley took several quick steps backward, as if afraid she might come at him. In truth, she had no plans to accost him, but she was very tempted to ban him from Pemberley for life.

Fortunately, one of the grooms from Netherfield stood behind Bingley, shifting from foot to foot, looking this way and that, pretending not to notice the improprieties unfolding before him. His discomfort reminded Elizabeth of her duty, and so she offered Darcy a quick curtsy before hurrying back toward the house. Only when she was disappearing through the garden gate did she think to call over her shoulder, “Until tomorrow!”

Tomorrow. Approaching Longbourn, she slowed her pace, staring up at the house she had always called home, her breath catching at the sight of the moon rising over the rooftop. Tomorrow, I will…

She did not hear his footsteps until he was almost upon her, and when she turned to meet him, Darcy’s hands were already at her waist.

“You must allow me to tell you—”

“Oh, just show me,” she said, and so he did, with an ardor only the greatest admiration and love could induce.

© 2024 Christina Morland

Author’s Notes:  1. Yes, yes, the quote (Vol. II, Ch. XI or Chapter 34, depending on which edition you’re using) should actually be “selfish disdain of the feelings of others” (not for, which I’ve used above), but maybe Darcy doesn’t have an absolutely perfect memory of Elizabeth’s past preposition use! 2. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading! Feel free to leave suggestions or thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks!