CHAPTER 31 #2
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the window with work in her lap, as proper and expressionless as a carved respectable object.
Lord Pomington occupied a cushion not far from the fire, wrapped now in something softer and less public than green velvet.
He lifted his head when Darcy entered, considered the matter, and did not object.
Mrs. Doddridge rose.
“Mr. Darcy.”
“Mrs. Doddridge.”
Her presence steadied the room by being exactly what propriety required and nothing more.
Then Miss Bennet entered.
She was not in claret silk. She wore a morning dress of pale grey-blue, with a narrow ribbon at the waist and cuffs that made the movement of her hands too visible.
Her hair was arranged with more simplicity than the night before, though one curl had escaped near her temple and seemed determined to discredit any claim to perfect order.
She looked fresh, composed, and alert.
He wished, absurdly and at once, that she had looked less well. Fatigue would have given him something practical to think of.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said. “Portman Square is at home, though I cannot promise the dining room has recovered from its triumph.”
He bowed. “It has earned its rest.”
“And you have come to tell me whether the room is permanently ruined by success?”
“No.”
The word was too abrupt. He saw her expression change, not with alarm, but attention.
She came farther into the room. Mrs. Doddridge settled again with her work. The faint sound of thread drawn through cloth became very clear.
“Then you have come about the matter which could not wait until Thursday.”
“Yes.”
Miss Bennet did not sit immediately. She looked at him for a moment, then crossed to the chair near the small table and took it, with a composure that invited him to do the same without making the invitation feel like indulgence.
“Then you had better tell me.”
He sat.
For one moment, the practiced habits of formality deserted him. He had spent the night knowing that something must be said; now, before her, everything that might be said appeared either too much or insufficient.
“There is a gentleman in town,” he said, and disliked the inadequacy of the word gentleman as soon as it left him. “He is connected with my family.”
Miss Bennet did not interrupt.
“His name is Mr. Wickham. Mr. George Wickham.”
The name entered the room.
It did not alter the furniture. It did not darken the morning. Mrs. Doddridge continued her stitching. Lord Pomington sighed in his cushion. Miss Bennet remained seated, attentive, and still.
Yet Darcy felt, with a force almost physical, that he had brought something unclean into a place which had done nothing to deserve it.
“Mr. Wickham,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Connected with your family?”
“By old dependence, by my father’s favour, and by a distant connection through his mother.”
“And he does not wish you well.”
“No.”
There was a small silence.
“Is this the gentleman,” she asked, “of whom you were thinking when you asked whether I would believe accusations made against you?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
She accepted that without triumph. It would have been easier, perhaps, had she shown some satisfaction in being right. Instead she waited.
“He knows Derbyshire,” Darcy said. “He knows Pemberley. He knows enough of my family’s names, rooms, affections, and old obligations to make himself appear intimate with matters which are not always his to tell.
He has an enmity against me which I cannot briefly explain, and a very loose relation with truth. ”
Miss Bennet’s brows moved slightly at that; not amusement, though the phrase might have invited it in another hour. She understood too well that he had not come to be witty.
“Do you believe he will approach me?”
“I do not know.”
The admission cost him more than he liked. He would have preferred to bring her a threat measured, described, and limited. Instead he had only Wickham’s malice and Wickham’s curiosity, both too quick to be made into a tidy memorandum.
“I cannot say that he will,” Darcy continued. “I cannot say, with certainty, what purpose he would have if he did.”
“But you think he may.”
“Yes.”
“Because he knows of me?”
“He may know enough to be curious.” The words became harder as they approached the truth. “He has lately shown an interest in those whom he believes connected with me in town.”
“And I am connected with you?”
Her tone was even. The question was not.
Darcy looked down at his hands, then back at her. “Yes.”
It was the simplest answer and the most perilous. It had no profession in it. No papers. No leases. No dining-room samples. No rescued dog.
Only yes.
Miss Bennet’s colour changed, but she did not look away.
After a moment she said, “With what object would he approach me?”
“I do not know.”
“You truly do not?”
“No.” Darcy’s jaw tightened despite his efforts. “He may not know himself until opportunity teaches him.”
“That sounds inconvenient in an enemy.”
“It is.”
“And in an acquaintance?”
“Worse.”
There. A little dry edge. Not enough to lessen the matter, but enough to let them breathe.
Miss Bennet looked toward the window, where the winter light lay thinly over the square. “If he is connected to your family, and if he knows Pemberley, his account would sound credible.”
“Yes.”
“Especially to people who prefer a story already furnished with rooms and relations.”
His eyes went to her sharply.
She had put her finger at once upon the very thing. Wickham’s lies never arrived empty-handed. They came with rooms, names, remembered favours, old obligations, and just enough injured feeling to make contradiction look cruel.
“Yes,” Darcy said. “Precisely.”
“Then what do you ask of me?”
There it was. The place where a lesser man, or a more frightened one, might have tried to instruct her, to make rules for her, to govern her conduct because he could not govern his enemy.
Darcy had no right to such comfort.
“I do not ask you to believe me against him before you have heard him,” he said. “I ask only that you do not believe him against me without inquiry.”
She was very still.
“If he should speak of me,” he continued, “or of my family, or of matters in Derbyshire, I ask that you remember his account may be arranged for his own purpose. Verify what may be verified. Question what seems convenient. And if anything he says concerns me, I will answer any question you choose to put to me.”
Miss Bennet’s gaze did not leave his.
“That is all?”
“All that I have a right to ask.”
“Not all that you might wish?”
No. Not all.
He wished Wickham had never seen her name, never entered London, never been born into the machinery of Pemberley’s indulgence.
He wished to place himself between her and every falsehood that could approach her, though such a wish was both arrogant and useless.
He wished to tell her enough that she would never be taken in, and too little that she would never look at him with pity.
He wished for the impossible luxury of having nothing to warn her against.
“No,” he said. “Not all that I might wish.”
Her fingers rested on the arm of her chair. She looked down at them briefly, as if considering not his words only but the shape of the restraint around them.
“You warned me once,” she said, “that I might hear things spoken of you.”
“I did.”
“And I told you I would judge for myself.”
“Yes.”
“I have not changed my practice.”
He could not answer at once.
Trust, he discovered, did not feel lighter because it was given freely. It felt heavier. It was not the same as vindication, nor even comfort. It required him to deserve it afterward.
Miss Bennet’s mouth softened, but not into pity. “You do not ask me to take your warning as proof.”
“No.”
“That is wise. I am very disobliging when asked to surrender my judgment.”
“I had observed something of the kind.”