The Way Back #3
“And the cottage?” Mrs Harding asked. The subject sounded natural enough, yet her eyes were intent upon Elizabeth’s.
“It improves,” Elizabeth answered. “Slowly, but it improves.”
“Slowly is often the surest way,” Mrs Harding said. “Matthew has been there twice this week.”
Elizabeth turned, surprised. “He has?”
Mr Ashton coloured a little. “Only to carry and fetch, ma’am. Your men will accept help more readily if it is offered before they must ask for it.”
Mrs Harding’s tone stayed mild. “Just so. And you need not pretend you do it for the men alone. Nor your trip into Bakewell to fetch the sack of bleaching powder my housekeeper swears by. She says it will help draw the smoke from the wood, if it is used properly.”
Mr Ashton’s colour deepened. “It was nothing,” he said, keeping his eyes upon the gravel. “A sack may be carried without ceremony.”
“Nothing,” Mrs Harding repeated, weighing the word and finding it wanting. “Yet you remembered, you went, and you returned in time for the men to make use of it. That is not nothing.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on her reticule. “I am obliged to you,” she said, because she would not let gratitude be swallowed by discomfort.
He lifted his gaze at last. “I only wished you to have your own rooms again,” he replied quietly.
A warmth rose into Elizabeth’s face, swift and unwelcome, born less of his words than of Mrs Harding’s look and the quiet notice of anyone who might be listening. She lowered her eyes, pretending to adjust her glove.
“You are very good,” she said, and tried to make it no more than common civility.
Mrs Harding, apparently satisfied, released Elizabeth’s arm. “Come, Mrs Bennet is about to make herself remarkable,” she murmured, and moved away with calm decision.
Elizabeth remained a moment where she was. Mr Ashton shifted beside her and said something low, meant only for her; but at that instant her eyes went, unbidden, to Mr Darcy.
He had been watching them. When Elizabeth met his gaze, he looked away at once and began to walk towards the carriage with that quiet decisiveness which always seemed to bring order with it.
Elizabeth drew a breath and followed, the gravel crisp beneath her shoes. Behind her, Mr Ashton fell back with a tact that did him credit, leaving her to rejoin her family without the appearance of having been detained.
Near the carriage, Jane stood a little apart, her expression composed, though the colour in her cheeks betrayed her.
Mrs Bennet had stationed herself beside her with determined intimacy, speaking in a low, urgent stream.
Mr Bingley listened with an attention that was all good humour and patience, finding, it seemed, even Mrs Bennet’s eagerness something to be borne with kindness.
In the carriage, Miss Bingley arranged herself with particular care, making comfort almost a point of principle. “How charming your church is,” she said, turning her smile upon Jane first, then allowing it to include Elizabeth. “So very proper. One feels quite improved merely by having sat in it.”
Mrs Hurst gave a small sound that might have been assent.
Jane answered with quiet civility. “We are fortunate in our rector.”
“Indeed,” Miss Bingley returned. “And fortunate too in such neighbours. Mrs Harding seems an excellent woman.”
“She is very good,” Elizabeth said, and could not help the warmth in her tone.
Miss Bingley’s eyes rested on her for the briefest moment. “How reassuring,” she observed lightly, “to have such support when one is placed so unexpectedly.”
Jane’s fingers tightened on her reticule, but she only said, “We have been treated with great kindness.”
“And you repay it,” Miss Bingley replied, smooth as ever. “Not everyone remembers that gratitude is a duty.”
That evening fell into its usual order. Tea was served, the work-basket brought out, and the lamps lit before the last of the light had left the windows.
Georgiana drew Mary to the pianoforte with an eagerness that was shy only at the beginning; Mary, once seated, forgot herself in the music and played with a steadiness that surprised even Elizabeth.
Jane sat near the table with her sewing, Mr Bingley close enough to be useful without appearing to hover, offering her silk when it slipped and speaking in a low tone that made her smile without effort.
Mr Hurst, having submitted to tea with the air of a man enduring necessity, complained languidly of the want of cards.
When no one hurried to supply them, he sank back in his chair with all the weariness of a man denied justice, and before Georgiana had finished her second piece he was asleep, his chin sunk upon his cravat and his breathing as steady as though he had been at home.
By Thursday it was more than a week since their arrival, and Elizabeth went to the cottage with a steadiness she had not possessed at first. Mr Wilks met her at the door and told her what remained: a final length of skirting to be fixed, the last door to be rehung, and the paint in the back passage to be given the morning to harden.
“But it will be done by dinner, ma’am,” he added, giving the certainty with something of the air of a gift. “If the weather holds, you may begin moving back this afternoon, and sleep here tomorrow night.”
Elizabeth stood quite still for a moment, as though her mind required time to believe him. Then she nodded once and found her voice.
“Thank you, Mr Wilks.”
He touched his forelock, pleased. “You will find it smells like paint, not smoke,” he said, and went back to his work.
Elizabeth walked through the rooms again, slower than she had meant to, letting her eyes rest where they had once avoided.
The parlour looked bare, but clean. The kitchen floor had been scrubbed until it was almost pale.
She opened the pantry door and breathed in; there was damp still, but it was the ordinary damp of stone, not the sour weight that had made the place feel ruined.
For the first time since the fire, she thought that it might be home again.