Tea, Tarts, & Visitors
Elizabeth inclined her head, returning his greeting with composed civility.
“Mr Darcy.” Then, with a glance towards the gentleman at her side, she added, “You are acquainted, I believe, with Mr Ashton.”
Mr Ashton bowed at once, treating the meeting as entirely ordinary; and Mr Darcy, after the briefest pause, acknowledged him with the same restrained courtesy he offered everyone, though his eyes returned to Elizabeth as though she were the only part of the scene that required his attention.
Mr Darcy’s gaze held hers for a moment longer, then softened by a fraction into something that might almost have been concern.
“I hope you have been well, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, his tone quiet, meant, she thought, for her alone. “And Mrs Bennet—how does she bear the season?”
“She is improved,” Elizabeth replied, and meant it. “Not strong, perhaps, but better than she was.”
“I am glad of it,” he said simply.
A brief pause followed, during which the street seemed suddenly too public. His eyes flicked briefly to the basket at Mr Ashton’s elbow.
“Have you finished your errands?”
“I have,” Elizabeth said, her fingers tightening on the small parcel she held.
“Then—if you are returning directly—I should be happy to offer you a seat in my carriage,” he said, with measured courtesy. “It is not far, but the road is less agreeable when one has been obliged to carry more than one intended.”
Elizabeth’s colour rose, more from being made the centre of attention than from the offer itself.
“You are very kind, sir,” she said, and meant it; but she did not move towards the carriage.
“Yet Mr Ashton has already been so good as to accompany me, and I should be ashamed to dismiss him now merely because your wheels are more comfortable than my feet. It is only a little way, and the morning is tolerable.”
“Then Mr Ashton will, I hope, do us the honour of joining us,” he said quietly.
Before Elizabeth could decide whether to refuse for herself or for them both, the carriage curtain was drawn back, and Miss Darcy’s face appeared, her eyes lifting to Elizabeth with a quick warmth that seemed to surprise even herself.
“Pray do, Miss Elizabeth,” she said. “If you have concluded your errands, I should be very glad of your company. I have been wishing for an opportunity to call upon your sisters, if Mrs Bennet will permit it.”
Elizabeth’s hesitation softened at once. To refuse Mr Darcy had been possible; to refuse his sister, offered with such careful hope, would have been unkind. She glanced towards Mr Ashton, an enquiry in her look as much as an apology, and then inclined her head.
“If Miss Darcy truly wishes it, I shall be honoured,” she said.
Elizabeth stepped towards the carriage. Both gentlemen moved at once, each with a different sort of readiness: Mr Ashton with the familiar ease of a man accustomed to making himself useful, and Mr Darcy with a restraint that did not lessen the certainty of his intention.
For a breath they stood in the same narrow space, and Elizabeth felt, absurdly, that the whole village might have noticed the smallest hesitation.
Mr Darcy spoke first, quiet and perfectly civil. “Allow me, Miss Elizabeth.”
He offered his hand; Mr Ashton drew back half a step at once, yielding without offence, and Elizabeth, because Miss Darcy watched with hopeful composure and because refusal would have made a spectacle of what ought to be ordinary, placed her gloved fingers upon Mr Darcy’s and allowed herself to be assisted into the carriage.
Elizabeth stepped in first and took the seat beside Miss Darcy, as was most natural.
Miss Darcy shifted at once to make room for her, pleased in a quiet, earnest way, and a little too conscious of having asked.
The basket was given up to the footman, and then Mr Ashton followed, taking the opposite seat with an ease that suggested he had never considered awkwardness worth indulging.
Mr Darcy came in last, composed and careful, and sat beside Mr Ashton.
The door shut, the wheels turned, and what had been ordinary in the street now felt, without any of them quite meaning it, distinctly arranged.
Miss Darcy kept her hands folded in her lap, her smile ready but not yet settled, still learning, Elizabeth thought, what sort of ease was permitted.
“I hope I do not put you to inconvenience,” she said at last. “I did not mean to interrupt your morning, Miss Elizabeth. I only—” She stopped, colouring slightly. “I wished very much to see your sisters again.”
“You do not inconvenience me at all,” Elizabeth replied warmly, because it was true. “And you have interrupted nothing worth regretting. My errands were finished.”
Miss Darcy’s face brightened, encouraged by the absence of reproach.
“They are very diverting,” she said, with a little more animation than she had yet allowed herself.
“Miss Lydia spoke to me of her riding lessons, and with such confidence that I began to believe she might manage a side-saddle better than any of us; and Miss Mary was so obliging as to try a piece of music with me, though we had only a few minutes. I have been thinking of it ever since. It would please me exceedingly if she would come to Pemberley one day and attempt it again upon a better pianoforte.”
Elizabeth listened with genuine pleasure, answering with the sort of gentle encouragement that asked nothing of Miss Darcy but sincerity, and yet, as the carriage wheels turned on, she found her eyes drawn—briefly, almost involuntarily—to the gentlemen opposite: Mr Darcy sat in perfect command of himself, every movement weighed and approved by conscience, while Mr Ashton’s usual ease had been replaced by a careful stillness; and between them, Miss Darcy’s cheerful eagerness ran on like a small, bright stream, quite unconscious of the awkward stones it flowed between.
Miss Darcy’s fingers tightened together in her lap, as though she must hold her courage in place, and then she turned, not to Elizabeth, but to her brother.
“Brother,” she said softly, and there was a brightness in her shyness, the sort that came of being pleased with new acquaintance and afraid of spoiling it, “may I ask—if Mrs Bennet would permit it—whether Miss Mary might come to Pemberley one day, to try that piece again. We had so little time, and I should like it exceedingly.”
Mr Darcy’s answer came without hesitation.
“You may,” he said, simply, and in the quiet certainty of it Miss Darcy’s smile settled at last, relieved into something almost happy, while Elizabeth, listening, felt the odd, tender displacement of seeing how naturally Miss Darcy’s wishes were granted, and how much those wishes now included the Bennets.
Mr Darcy’s expression softened, and Elizabeth saw at once that his sister’s eagerness pleased him.
“We will speak of it properly when we are at home,” he said, with a quiet steadiness that restored the matter to good order; then his gaze returned to Elizabeth with composed civility.
“But if Miss Mary is disposed to favour my sister again, I shall be honoured to receive her at Pemberley, with Mrs Bennet’s permission.
A note may settle what is most convenient. ”
Mr Ashton, who had said little since they set out, spoke at last with the air of a man paying his due to good manners.
“Miss Mary has a steady taste,” he said. “She will be gratified to know you remembered the piece, Miss Darcy. If Mrs Bennet permits it, I am certain she will be pleased to attend.”
And with that he yielded the subject at once, turning his attention to the passing cottages, content to leave the matter settled by civility alone.
Elizabeth, answering Miss Darcy with a smile, became aware—without wishing to be—of Mr Darcy’s stiller attention opposite, as though even so small a plan drew his mind forward, to permissions and proprieties and what might be allowed once they were all safely beyond the street.
The carriage drew up before the cottage while Miss Darcy was still speaking, her voice animated in a way Elizabeth would not have believed possible a fortnight ago.
“And if Miss Mary will only try it again, I am certain the second turn will come more cleanly, for it is not difficult once one has the courage to trust the left hand,” she was saying, her eyes bright and earnest, when the wheels crunched to a stop and the coach settled with a gentle sway.
Miss Darcy paused, surprised to find they had arrived so soon, then smiled again at Elizabeth with the same hopeful warmth.
“We are here already,” she murmured, almost with regret, and turned instinctively towards her brother as the footman opened the door.
Mr Darcy stepped down before the man had quite settled himself, turning at once to assist his sister. Miss Darcy accepted his hand with a grateful brief look, and alighted with more confidence than she had entered.
Elizabeth followed, and for a moment found herself met by two offers of help: Mr Ashton, quick and easy, and Mr Darcy, exact with propriety. She took the nearer hand without making it a matter of consequence.
“Thank you,” she said simply; and, once her feet were upon the stones, she turned to them all with a composure that was nearly cheerful.
“You must come in,” she added, as though it were the most natural conclusion to the morning.
“I cannot, in propriety, accept such an escort and such a conveyance and then leave you standing at my door—and Mr Ashton must be included, for he has earned his tea by enduring the miller with excellent patience.”
Elizabeth did not lead them into the little sitting-room, where the morning disorder still lingered; instead, she turned at once towards the parlour, the room they used so seldom that it always smelt faintly of closed curtains and good intentions.