CHAPTER 23
Thursday at Four
Thursday at four had looked modest enough when Miss Bennet named it.
On paper it was only an hour: an arrangement for leases, repairs, and such other questions as could be better settled across a table than by tiring out the footmen. In practice, by half past three on the first Thursday after New Year, Darcy found it had taken possession of the whole afternoon.
He had answered her Christmas note properly.
He had thanked her for the basket in terms neither cold nor warm, and had then spent several days discovering that propriety did not prevent memory.
Candied orange peel, he had learned, could be a dangerous article when sent by a woman who had wished the coming year might improve upon the last.
It was absurd.
He arrived five minutes early.
The wind had been sharp all day, and the pavements still held the dull damp of weather undecided between frost and thaw.
Darcy had walked because walking gave restlessness a respectable occupation, and because arriving by carriage for an hour of leases seemed too much like confessing importance.
By the time he reached Portman Square, he had convinced himself of this explanation so thoroughly that he almost believed it.
The servant opened the door.
“Miss Bennet expects you in the library, sir.”
The words were ordinary. Darcy had to remind himself of that.
He surrendered his hat and coat, aware with some irritation that his heart had no respect for proportion.
Being expected at an appointed hour was not happiness.
It was not forgiveness. It was not evidence of anything beyond Miss Bennet’s admirable punctuality and her settled preference for business conducted efficiently.
Still, after the silence he had earned, he found expectation a dangerous luxury.
The library was warm, ordered, and less severe than he remembered it from his first formal visits to the house.
Mrs. Marwood’s presence had not been banished from the room; no one with sense would have attempted so hopeless a campaign.
But Elizabeth had altered the occupation of it.
There were fresh spills of paper across the large table, a low fire, two chairs set for work, and a small tray placed within reach, upon which tea waited with a plate of sandwiches cut so neatly they seemed to have been admitted by appointment.
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the window with her work.
Pom-Pom occupied a cushion by the fire and had apparently returned, after the splendours of Christmas, to a less ceremonial garment, though the monstrous glass brooch lay upon the small table beside him like a retired crown.
He opened one eye upon Darcy, considered him, and closed it again.
Miss Bennet stood by the table.
“Mr. Darcy. You are very punctual.”
“I would not wish to endanger the first Thursday.”
“No,” she said. “It is too young a custom to survive neglect.”
That small turn of humour did more to discompose him than any warmth would have done.
She indicated the chair opposite her, and he took it.
Tea was poured. A sandwich was placed near him without comment.
Not dinner. Not one of Portman Square’s former conspiracies against his self-command. Not abundance disguised as hospitality, nor the old, dangerous sensation of having been drawn into the household before he had earned any place in it.
Tea, and sandwiches.
Mercy under regulation.
“Mrs. Albright insisted you would have walked in the wind,” said Elizabeth, with her attention apparently on a rent abstract.
“Mrs. Albright is often right.”
“She is nearly impossible to discourage in that respect.”
He accepted the cup she offered, and for one moment the ordinary act of taking tea from her hand struck him with such force that he had to set the saucer down before replying.
He had thought, during the past weeks, that he missed her kindness. Within ten minutes of the first Thursday, he discovered he had missed her sentences.
The quickness of them. The way her mind moved from account to absurdity and back again without disorder. The sound of her voice over papers. The little corrections by which she made business less like burden and more like a room in which life might still be carried on.
He had missed hearing her think.
That was a dangerous discovery, and therefore he turned at once to Cotton Lane.
“I have brought Mr. Terling’s latest report.”
“Good. Has Cotton Lane submitted to government?”
“Not submitted,” said Darcy. “But it has begun to understand that government is expected.”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved.
“Progress, then.”
“Some. Most of the new agreements have been accepted. Two required further explanation and will likely require still more. Mrs. Bell’s repairs are underway, and the damp has proved less extensive than feared.
Mr. Greeves has made a partial payment and proposed a schedule for the remainder.
Mr. Harding’s yard claim has been reduced to writing. ”
“That sounds almost miraculous.”
“It is less impressive when read. Once written, the claim became much smaller.”
“Many things do.”
Darcy looked up.
So did she.
The words had not been aimed at him. Or perhaps they had. With Miss Bennet, the difference was not always safely discernible.
He returned to the paper.
“The bills have gone through Mr. Beaker. He has queried two charges and approved the rest. Mr. Hartwood has also sent the completed papers for Numbers Seventeen and Eighteen.”
Elizabeth leaned forward a little.
“They are mine outright now?”
“Yes. The former occupants have removed. The houses are empty, and the necessary repairs are proceeding. The roofs were sounder than Mr. Hartwood feared, the stairs worse. Mr. Terling recommends completing the worst of the internal work before showing them.”
“I agree.”
“He asks what sort of tenants he is to seek.”
Elizabeth’s expression settled into thought.
Darcy had seen that look before and had become, against every intention, fond of it. She did not grow vague in thought. She sharpened. The room seemed to gather itself about her.
“Respectable people,” she said. “Not grand ones. People who want a clean place to live, who can live peaceably with neighbours, and who prefer plain terms because they mean to keep them.”
Darcy made a note.
“No informal privileges,” she added. “No little customs attached to yards, doors, passages, or relations. No promises made by somebody’s uncle in a year nobody can name. If there is to be an allowance, it must be written. If there is not to be an allowance, that must be clear too.”
“I shall instruct Mr. Terling accordingly.”
“Thank you.”
She took up her tea. Darcy noticed that she had barely touched her sandwich. He noticed because he was a fool; and because every small thing about her, once admitted to his attention, conducted itself like evidence.
Cotton Lane occupied them for another quarter of an hour.
There were repairs to be authorised, dates to be checked, and a question of whether Mr. Harding’s written claim, now that it existed, should be answered immediately or allowed to sit in the indignity of its own smallness for a few days. Elizabeth favoured the latter.
“Let him enjoy possession of it,” she said. “He has waited so long to see it on paper.”
Darcy nearly smiled.
“I shall tell Mr. Terling to delay his reply.”
“You must not tell him why.”
“I would not deprive you of secrecy.”
“No, pray do not. I have so few vices suitable for daylight.”
Mrs. Doddridge, by the window, turned a hem with perfect composure.
The hour had almost become easy.
Almost.
Then Elizabeth set aside the Cotton Lane papers and said, “There is another matter.”
Darcy, who had begun to distrust that phrase, looked up.
A japanned box already sat at the far end of the library table.
He had noticed it upon entering, of course, but had not permitted himself to speculate.
Elizabeth now drew it closer with both hands.
It had the small, authoritative weight of a thing which contained more trouble than its dimensions ought to allow.
“The Manchester Square shops,” said Elizabeth.
Darcy looked at the box.
He had known there were Manchester Square shops.
Mr. Beaker had referred to them once; Mr. Hartwood had named them in passing.
He knew, too, of the bank building, of warehouse leases, and of other London properties which made Cotton Lane less an isolated inconvenience than the first visible corner of a larger machine.
Yet knowledge remained manageable while it was named in conversation.
The box made it material.
Elizabeth opened the lid.
Inside lay leases, rent abstracts, copies of correspondence, notes in Mr. Beaker’s hand, and several older papers tied with faded tape. The contents were orderly enough to prove they had been managed, and complicated enough to suggest they had not been recently questioned.
“Cotton Lane was the experiment,” she said. “These are better properties, mostly commercial, but I do not trust better property merely because it has a better address.”
“No,” said Darcy slowly. “That would be unwise.”
“A disorderly lease in Manchester Square is not improved by looking out upon cleaner paving.”
“Nor by producing a larger rent.”
“Especially not then. Larger rents have a way of persuading people that confusion is profitable.”
She lifted one packet and set it before him.
“I want you and Mr. Terling to make the first review. Leases, repairs, old exceptions, any habit that has been mistaken for a right. Speak with Mr. Beaker where the accounts are unclear. If there are small adjoining properties that ought to be purchased to make management cleaner, begin the inquiry with him. Then we shall see what may be standardised.”
Darcy took the packet, though his attention remained upon her.
“You wish the same principles applied here.”
“Yes. With more caution, perhaps. Cotton Lane is accustomed to being troublesome. Manchester Square may object to being discovered so.”
The phrase almost drew a laugh from him.