CHAPTER 16 #4
“Nothing yet.” Richard leaned forward. “But honour is not proved merely by stopping short of scandal.”
The words struck more surely than Darcy wished.
He looked toward the window, where the dark glass reflected the room back at him: the quiet fire, the rented furniture, Richard’s scarlet coat, his own face set harder than he had intended.
“You heard what Wickham is already doing,” he said. “A new kindness, a new lady, a new fortune — he would know exactly what to make of it. If Miss Bennet is seen to favour me, he will not need to invent a weapon. I will have supplied him one.”
Richard was silent a moment.
Then he said, “I am not defending Miss Bennet. I am warning you against yourself.”
Darcy did not answer.
“You need not offer for her tomorrow. I am not asking you to be a fool.”
“How moderate of you.”
“I am capable of restraint when the occasion is desperate. But if you care for her, do not punish her for having been kind to you by making every kindness another reason to withdraw.”
Darcy looked down.
Richard’s voice lowered. “Do you like her?”
“That is not the question.”
“It is very much the question if you are in her house twice a week, writing memoranda for her tenants and frightening her upholsterers.”
Darcy’s mouth tightened despite himself. “I have frightened no upholsterers.”
“Not yet. The principle remains.”
Silence returned, less cold than before and harder to bear.
“Yes,” Darcy said at last.
The word was not loud. It was not enough for all it held.
Richard received it without triumph.
“Then give the matter a little honesty.”
“I am honest enough to know what I am.”
“And what is that?”
“A solicitor in lodgings. A man my father has cast off. A man whose name Wickham may soil again whenever it suits him.”
“And also a man Miss Bennet seems willing to trust.”
“That is what I fear.”
Richard’s expression changed.
Darcy heard his own words only after they had left him, and found in them the whole miserable truth. He feared her trust more than another woman’s suspicion might have wounded him. Suspicion he knew how to bear. Trust placed a thing in his hands.
“I will not have her punished for believing me,” he said.
For a moment neither spoke.
The fire settled with a small inward fall of coal.
At last Richard said, more quietly, “I know.”
Darcy looked at him.
“I know,” Richard repeated. “And I do not say the danger is nothing.”
That was better than comfort. Comfort would have been intolerable.
“But do not take too much virtue in deciding for her. Be certain it is not need. Be certain you are not seeking shelter where you should offer attachment. Be certain you would choose her if she had less, and honour her more because she has more. But do not call it honour to take comfort in her trust while privately resolving she shall never know what it costs you.”
The room seemed, after that, to have no air in it.
Darcy turned back to the fire.
Richard let him.
That was why he was useful. Not because he always spoke wisely, though he sometimes did; not because he never inflicted pain, for he had the family gift of doing so with precision; but because he knew when to leave a wound uncovered and not prod it for evidence.
At last Richard rose and took up his gloves.
“I have said too much.”
“You usually do.”
“Yes, but on this occasion I was right.”
Darcy gave him a look.
Richard smiled faintly. “That is the most inconvenient sort of excess.”
At the door he paused.
“Send word if you hear more of Wickham. I will do the same.”
“Yes.”
“And Darcy?”
“What?”
“Do eat your dinner. A man cannot govern his passions on Mrs. Naylor’s tea alone.”
Darcy almost smiled. “Good night, Richard.”
“Good night.”
When he was gone, the room returned to its borrowed quiet. The fire settled. The plate remained untouched. Darcy stood for some time where Richard had left him, then crossed to the table and drew the Cotton Lane papers nearer.
The day had given him too much.
Samuel Terling’s letter. The memory of a Derbyshire clergyman who had not believed every lie. Wickham in London. Richard’s warning. Miss Bennet’s name, spoken too plainly in a room where Darcy had meant to keep it as work.
He sat.
There was safety in ink, if one kept to the matter.
Roofs, drains, leases, repair books, agents: these things could be arranged if one was sufficiently careful.
One could define a yard, record an arrear, require an estimate, forbid a custom from becoming title merely because no one had contradicted it in time.
He would not withdraw from the business. That would be cowardice dressed as propriety, and Miss Bennet deserved better service than that.
But he would not linger where a letter would do. He would not accept warmth as if it were welcome. He would not let her house become, in imagination, a home that had never been offered.
He drew the Cotton Lane papers nearer.
His own heart had begun to resemble Mr. Harding’s yard: claimed by long habit, defended by silence, and in need of a boundary no one else could draw.
He took up his pen.
Service, then. No claim.