CHAPTER 9 #3
“Mrs. Albright, you are the very ruin of discipline.”
“No, miss.”
Pom-Pom gave one small sneeze, possibly in gratitude and more probably in expectation.
“The basket is not for you,” Elizabeth told him.
He looked at her with contempt for all distinctions that did not end in his advantage.
Elizabeth sat at the writing table.
The note should have been simple. Gratitude, proper phrasing, no more than necessary. Mrs. Marwood had always said that notes were like hems: a careless one showed at once, and an over-trimmed one made the whole garment ridiculous.
Elizabeth dipped her pen.
Then paused.
She had no intention of asking him to call.
Not yet.
A basket was gratitude. An inquiry had been made. A profession had been approved. These were separate facts, each reasonable in itself. There was no need to crowd them together in a note like an overeager girl tying every ribbon she owned to the same bonnet.
Besides, proud creatures were best approached gently and with caution.
One did not put out a hand too quickly, however much one wished to know whether the creature might suffer itself to be touched.
One offered food, withdrew a little, and observed whether it accepted nourishment, took offence, or attempted to draw blood.
Mr. Darcy, being a gentleman, was unlikely to do the last.
Though Elizabeth would not have been astonished to learn that he had considered it.
She wrote:
Miss Bennet has been informed upon excellent authority that gentlemen are always hungry, particularly after exertions on behalf of the undeserving. Lord Pomington remains alive, warm, unrepentant, and under instructions not to pursue rats again for at least a fortnight.
She considered it.
It was not too much. It was not too little. It did not ask, invite, hint, confess, or advance. It thanked him. It amused itself. It acknowledged the dog. It gave him nothing that could trouble him.
Except, perhaps, the knowledge that he had not been forgotten.
That could not be helped.
She sanded the note, folded it, and sealed it before she could improve it into indiscretion.
Mrs. Doddridge watched this with all the expression of folded linen.
“You do not think it improper?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, miss.”
“Too familiar?”
“Not for a basket, miss.”
Elizabeth looked up.
That was more opinion than Mrs. Doddridge commonly spent at once.
“A basket has its own rules, then?”
“Yes, miss.”
“I am relieved to hear it. Are they written down?”
“No, miss.”
“Of course not. The most tyrannical laws never are.”
Mrs. Doddridge received this without disturbance and tucked the folded note beneath the upper cloth where it would be seen but not crushed.
The basket was sent not to Darcy’s rooms, but to his chambers.
This choice pleased Elizabeth. It was proper and practical.
A gentleman might evade thanks at home as an inconvenience; at work, he must receive them under professional gravity.
She sent one of the footmen with it, together with the note and strict instruction that it was to be delivered into proper hands and not abandoned in some outer darkness among clerks.
When the servant had gone, she stood for a moment in the drawing-room with the sense of something now pleasantly set in motion.
The trustees had approved him. The house had thanked him. The note had gone. Mr. Darcy would receive it in the middle of his legal day, very likely with that sober face startled just enough to be handsome.
Elizabeth turned toward the window.
Outside, Portman Square was engaged in its usual occupations: wheels, callers, servants, a crossing sweeper darting too near a horse, two ladies walking with the earnestness of women carrying news, and London continuing to be London without the least gratitude for anyone’s private arrangements.
Behind her, Pom-Pom gave a low whine.
“No,” said Elizabeth, without turning round. “You may not regret the cheese. It was never yours.”
Mrs. Doddridge’s needle moved through some small scrap of cloth with quiet persistence.
“Mrs. Doddridge,” Elizabeth said, “I have behaved with perfect propriety.”
“Yes, miss.”
“I consulted my trustees, sent thanks where thanks were owed, and made no improper advance.”
“No, miss.”
The agreement was so complete that Elizabeth disliked it at once.
“You sound unconvinced.”
“No, miss.”
“That is not the same as convinced.”
Mrs. Doddridge folded the cloth edge between two fingers.
“No, miss.”
It was impossible to defeat such a woman.
Elizabeth looked down at the square of white pavement beyond the window, still damp from last night’s rain.
The basket had gone. Mr. Hartwood had approved. Mr. Beaker had not objected. Mr. Darcy had been thanked, investigated, judged suitable, and supplied with cheese.
It was all perfectly proper.
That was what made it so satisfying.
She did not yet call it strategy.
Strategy implied an object, and she had not admitted to one.
But she had taken care that, should a next movement become necessary, nothing stood in the way of it.
It was, at the very least, administration with unusual promise.