Disdain, Agony, Hope, and Love #Wattys2020

Chapter 54

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It was Sunday, and as was the norm, Darcy and Fitzwilliam attended church.

"So you are to dine at their house tomorrow?" asked the Colonel as they took their seats.

"Yes, I am. Surely you can do without my company for one evening," said Darcy.

The service began. As he bent his head in prayer, Darcy found his thoughts wandering, a very unusual occupation for him to do during church. His thoughts were, as usual, centered on Elizabeth.

The news of Bingley's engagement to Jane, though it gave him joy, also depressed him. His friend had found someone to share his life with, while he remained alone.

He glanced across the aisle where a young couple shared a hymn book, holding hands. He looked back to his own page, listening to his cousin's voice but not singing himself.

How Darcy wished Elizabeth was there with him, a wife who was not just as a lover but also as a friend, companion, counselor, a partner who would share all aspects of his life.

He sighed. The action caught the attention of the Colonel who looked at him curiously. Darcy gave him a reassuring smile and turned his attention back to the service.

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13)

"This is the word of the Lord. Amen."

Darcy listened to the words with his heart and mind. He felt revived and at peace.