Strawberries & Suppositions
Darcy rode back to Pemberley with his temper less composed than his seat.
The lane was drying at the edges, yet the air still smelt of wet earth and crushed leaves, and each turn recalled the cottage parlour, close and damp, with Elizabeth’s colour rising at his own offer.
He had been weak enough to imagine, for a moment, that the flush was nothing but surprise at his attention.
The notion shamed him as soon as it occurred, and he was angrier with himself for having indulged it than with Mr Ashton for having offered his carriage first.
Bingley rode beside him in cheerful ignorance, speaking of Miss Bennet with that unguarded satisfaction he never troubled to conceal, and of the music evening as though it were a simple pleasure, and nothing more.
Darcy answered when he must, and listened when he could not avoid it, but his mind kept returning to the same point, as stubborn as wheels in mud.
Pemberley received him with its usual order: the gravel raked, the steps clean, the hall cool with stone.
They had been gone only a few hours, and yet the house had already resumed its composure, as though it had never been disturbed.
Darcy told himself that was as it should be.
Then he heard the piano. Georgiana was playing in the morning-room, her back straight, her fingers careful over a melody that ought to have soothed.
It did the opposite. The sound carried him at once to another place in the same house, to a different light, a different presence at the edge of the room.
He looked up before he could prevent it, absurdly expecting to find Elizabeth there, listening with that quick, unguarded attention.
There was only Georgiana, and the music went on.
When he walked afterwards in the gardens, it was no better.
The rain had left the leaves heavy and shining, and the gravel yielded faintly beneath his boots.
He took the path he always took, because habit required it, and found that habit had been altered without his consent.
Every turn presented some small remembrance: a place where she had paused to look at a fern unfurling, a stretch of walk where her step had quickened as she spoke, the bend where she had laughed at something he had not intended to be amusing.
He told himself it was nothing but the mind’s weakness, fastening upon what it had lately observed.
Yet the air itself seemed to hold her, and Pemberley, for all its order, offered him no escape from her.
The music evening arrived with all the quiet precision Darcy required.
The drawing room had been arranged to admit sound rather than spectacle; chairs set in smaller groups, candles placed to soften rather than glare, the instruments positioned so that no one need stare directly at the performers.
Georgiana hovered near him with restrained excitement, her pale gown chosen with particular care for the occasion.
Miss Bingley had opinions on every arrangement and expressed them as though she were doing Darcy a service by improving his taste.
He listened, assented when it cost him nothing, and kept his attention fixed upon what might go wrong.
When the Bennets arrived, the contrast struck him before he thought to name it: black among pale gowns, quiet manners among easy ones.
Bingley did not pause to consider propriety; he crossed at once to Miss Bennet and claimed her attention with a warmth so natural it invited no remark.
Georgiana followed with shy eagerness, drawing Mary aside with questions about her reading, her manner animated by the comfort of a familiar companion.
Mr Ashton entered with Elizabeth, giving every appearance that it was already understood he belonged at her side.
His attentions were correct, and therefore difficult to oppose; he spoke to her first, guided her to a seat, and placed himself near enough that no other gentleman might do so without comment.
Darcy, arriving a fraction too late to choose his place without appearing to do so, found himself detained by Miss Bingley, who had opinions upon the performers and expected them heard.
The music began, and he had nowhere else to look.
The room settled, chairs drawn into obedient rows, and Darcy found himself fixed where Caroline chose to place herself, her very presence seeming to give her a claim upon his notice.
She spoke softly of the violinist’s bowing and the singer’s breath, and expected assent, while his attention strayed, against his will, to the other side of the room.
Mr Ashton bent towards Elizabeth with an ease that suggested intimacy, and she turned her head to answer him with composed attention.
Darcy could not cross the space without making himself conspicuous.
He could only remain, and listen, and be made to appear indifferent.
When the music ended, the room seemed to exhale.
Chairs shifted, voices returned in softened tones, and servants moved with trays as quietly as though the last notes still hovered in the air.
Darcy endured a few civil remarks, Caroline’s satisfaction, Georgiana’s pleased gratitude, and did what was expected of him until the company began to thin.
Near the door, as cloaks were fetched and farewells made, Mr Harding beamed upon the evening as though it had been arranged for his particular pleasure. His gaze followed Mr Ashton as he offered his arm to Elizabeth with practised ease.
“A very pretty sight, Mr Darcy,” Mr Harding said, lowering his voice with a confidence that was not, in fact, discreet.
“One likes to see things so steadily conducted. It will be quite settled, I suppose. Everybody expects it. I told my wife the moment he began calling again that it could not end otherwise.”
Mrs Bennet was waiting when they returned, planted so squarely in the parlour that she might almost have been set there to receive intelligence.
The fire had been built up against the evening damp, and the lamp burned with a steadiness that made the room look warmer than it was.
She looked first at Elizabeth, not to ask whether she had been pleased, but to see what she might read in her face.
“Well?” she demanded. “Mr Ashton was properly attentive, I suppose?”
“He was very attentive,” Jane answered gently. “He saw that we reached Pemberley without inconvenience, and he brought us safely home again.”
Mrs Bennet’s face softened at once into satisfaction.
“Just as I expected,” she said. “A young man does not take such pains without meaning something by it. The whole neighbourhood will talk of it, and properly so.” Her eyes lingered upon Elizabeth a moment, trying, perhaps, to fix the picture in place, and then slid at once to Jane with renewed purpose.
“And Mr Bingley was there, of course. Did he sit near you? Did he speak to you a great deal?”
They answered as they could. Elizabeth said that the music had been very pretty, and Jane spoke of Georgiana’s pleasure in it and of the singer’s voice.
Mrs Bennet heard them with impatience that grew the longer they remained upon what she called trifles, and she returned again and again to the only questions they could not satisfy.
At last she caught upon the one certainty she could repeat. “And the picnic,” she said, brightening at once. “There is to be a picnic at Pemberley next week, is there not?”
“Yes,” Jane replied. “Mr Bingley mentioned it. It is to be before his sisters return to London.”
Mrs Bennet’s countenance fell at once at the thought of their going, and then recovered as quickly when Jane continued.
“Mama, Mr Bingley has told me he hopes to take a house in the neighbourhood. He is to go to town with his sisters, and then return to view more properties. He and Mr Darcy have already seen a few.”
“Oh, that is excellent news,” Mrs Bennet cried, as though the matter were already arranged. “When Lizzy is settled at Willowbank as Mrs Ashton, and Mr Bingley has taken a house, I am sure he will be for ever calling, and you will be very well established as Mrs Bingley.”
On the morning of the picnic, Susan came in with quick steps, her face bright with the importance of her errand. “Ma’am,” she said, curtsying, “the Darcy carriage is at the gate.”
For a moment no one spoke. Jane reached for her gloves with quiet composure, as though she had expected it, and Mary rose at once to fetch her bonnet. Lydia darted to the window, eager for horses and livery, while Kitty hovered with the breathless anxiety of being late for anything.
Elizabeth went to the glass without meaning to, and saw the matched greys standing patient in the sun, their harness bright, the coachman upright upon the box as though the lane were a carriage-drive. It looked too grand for so small a gate.
“We must not keep them waiting,” Mary said, and the words had the calm of a rule.
Elizabeth turned back, smoothing her hands once over her gown, and told herself again that it was only a carriage.
The drive was short, and all at once the hedges fell back and the approach opened into that ordered ease which made Pemberley feel inevitable.
At the steps, servants moved with quiet certainty, and Mr Darcy was there to receive them, as though he had only been waiting for the carriage to turn the last curve.
He bowed to Jane first, then to Mary, and lastly to Elizabeth, his attention so exact it might have been nothing but propriety. “You are very welcome,” he said. “I hope you have not been inconvenienced by the road.”