CHAPTER 42 #3
He had intended to ask whether Elizabeth knew the full violence being done to him by her accounts.
He did not. The question was absurd. Elizabeth knew the figures.
She knew rents, reserves, repairs, estimates, income, expenditure.
She knew what columns said. She did not know, perhaps, what columns could do to a man who had believed himself cautious and discovered he had been only ignorant.
Mr. Hartwood offered his hand.
Darcy took it.
“Mr. Darcy,” he said, “this morning has not altered our approval of the engagement.”
Darcy looked at him steadily. “I am glad of it.”
“It has strengthened it.”
There was nothing to say to that which did not risk exposing too much. Darcy bowed.
Mr. Beaker gave him one last paper, a copy of summary particulars less detailed than the originals, though still capable, Darcy thought, of injuring the unwary.
“For your reference.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not lose it.”
“I shall not.”
“Very good.”
Outside, the air struck cold against Darcy’s face.
He had known Elizabeth was wealthy. He had known Portman Square was not a mere lodging.
He had seen servants, carriages, leases, plate, controlled fires, good bread, proper tea, the quiet ease with which rooms opened and men of business answered.
He had known enough to fear the appearance of advantage.
He had not known enough.
With such a fortune, properly displayed, Elizabeth might have been courted by men whose names opened doors his own could no longer approach.
She might have chosen rank, security, consequence, some grand alliance which would have made Mrs. Bennet speechless for the first time in her life.
There were dukes poorer in ready money and far more eager to repair themselves by marriage.
And she had chosen him.
The fact did not comfort him as it ought.
It made the world feel newly improbable.
He walked back instead of calling a hackney.
The cold was useful. So was movement. His mind, when left still, returned to numbers.
Ninety thousand. Eighty thousand. Ten thousand a year if taken.
Three thousand in rents alone. Expenditure so low Mr. Beaker considered renovation nearly adventurous.
Capital not spent, but relocated. Money not displayed, but trained.
By the time he reached his rooms, he had recovered enough composure to hand his hat to Jenkins without alarming him.
He had not recovered enough to be pleased when Jenkins said, “Colonel Fitzwilliam has called, sir.”
Darcy stopped.
“He is waiting in the sitting room.”
Of course he was.
Richard, possessing the instincts of a fox and the delicacy of a cannon, had arrived at precisely the hour when Darcy least wished to be seen and most required not to be alone.
“Thank you.”
Darcy entered.
Richard stood at the window, gloves in one hand, the look of a man who had already amused himself for ten minutes with the furniture and found it wanting. He turned at once.
“My dear Darcy,” he said, coming forward, “I have come to congratulate you before I am forbidden to do it in company.”
Darcy took his hand.
“Thank you.”
Richard’s expression, bright with ready mischief, altered almost immediately.
“What has happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That is plainly false.”
Darcy crossed to the sideboard.
“Will you take brandy?”
Richard looked at him. “Before dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Good God. Has she refused you after all?”
“No.”
“Has Wickham been shot?”
“No.”
“Have you been shot?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look as if matrimony has been explained by artillery?”
Darcy poured two glasses.
“Settlements.”
Richard accepted one. “Ah. The bloodiest branch of romance.”
Darcy almost smiled. It was not much, but Richard saw it and relaxed by half an inch.
“I thought,” Richard said, “that settlements were meant to reassure a man.”
“They do, if the man is not the object against which they are chiefly constructed.”
“Were you insulted?”
“No.”
“Mistrusted?”
“Properly.”
Richard studied him over the rim of his glass. “Then what is the difficulty?”
Darcy drank. It helped less than he had hoped.
“The negotiations have left me uneasy.”
“Darcy.”
He said nothing.
Richard’s amusement faded altogether. “She is richer than you knew.”
Darcy looked at him.
Richard’s brows rose. “That much richer?”
Darcy let out a short laugh. It had very little amusement in it.
“I find myself unexpectedly grateful that Miss Bennet has been bred to display only modest wealth.”
Richard sat down slowly. “That is a sentence with a disaster behind it.”
“From all I have heard of Mrs. Marwood, she had a habit of crying poor while sitting upon enough capital to frighten a banker. Miss Bennet has not inherited the phrase directly, perhaps; but the spirit of it has survived.”
Richard’s mouth twitched.
“She does not display it?”
“She displays it constantly. I was too much a fool to understand the language. Quality, not splendour. Repairs, not jewels. Men of business, not titled parade. A household which never asks whether comfort may be afforded because it has already decided what comfort ought to be. She has not hidden anything. She has merely never shouted.”
Richard leaned back.
Darcy looked into his glass. “Had she chosen to make a campaign of it, half London would have discovered her before I had learnt whether she objected to walnut.”
“And you are sorry she did not?”
“No.” Darcy’s mouth twisted. “I am grateful. Had she displayed the thing properly, I should never have had the courage to love her aloud.”
Richard was silent for a moment.
Then he said, more gently, “Then be grateful for Mrs. Marwood’s economy. It has done what all your principles could not.”
“What is that?”
“Allowed you to be happy before you found a reason to forbid it.”
Darcy looked away.
Richard watched him with the frustrating patience of a man who knew when a jest had done its work and when silence must follow.
At last he said, “If she had none of it?”
Darcy turned.
“None of what?”
“The money. Portman Square. Mr. Beaker’s columns, whatever they have done to your complexion. Suppose she were only Miss Bennet of Longbourn, with no aunt’s fortune, no properties, no settlements large enough to injure a man’s digestion. Would you still marry her?”
Darcy almost laughed.
“Yes.”
“So quickly?”
“More easily.”
Richard’s brows rose.
Darcy set down his glass and stood with one hand upon the back of the chair.
“Life would be more modest. There would be difficulties enough, I do not doubt it. But my duty would at least be clear. I should have something to offer her, something to secure, something to improve. No one could say I had pursued her for what she possessed.”
“Except herself.”
Darcy’s expression changed.
The words went through him with the quiet force of truth stated too simply to resist.
“Yes,” he said. “Except herself.”