CHAPTER 43
A Date May Be Named
Mr. Hartwood’s note came after breakfast on Thursday morning, at the very hour when Elizabeth had begun to suspect that happiness, like any other disorderly guest, would take up more room if not immediately given occupation.
It was brought in upon a small silver tray by James, whose countenance had long ago been trained not to wonder at notes from gentlemen of business, parcels from upholsterers, errand-boys with fabric samples, or the occasional solemn procession of Pom-Pom’s garments to and from Mrs. Doddridge’s work-basket.
He waited while Elizabeth broke the seal.
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the window, mending a sleeve of Lord Pomington’s morning wrapper. Pom-Pom himself lay upon a cushion by the fire, wearing the wrapper in question with no gratitude whatever, and regarding the world as if it had been invented chiefly to disappoint him.
Elizabeth read Mr. Hartwood’s hand first.
Mr. Hartwood presents his compliments to Miss Bennet, and has the honour of informing her that the marriage articles have advanced without obstruction. Should Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy wish to name a day, there is, at present, no legal impediment to doing so.
Mr. Beaker had added, in a smaller hand:
A named date would simplify several columns now existing in an unnecessarily provisional state.
Elizabeth read the postscript twice and laughed.
Mrs. Doddridge looked up. “Good news, miss?”
“Mr. Beaker has been rendered poetical by inconvenience.”
“That is uncommon, miss.”
“Very.”
She folded the note, unfolded it, and read Mr. Hartwood’s sentence again.
A day to be named. There was something almost absurd in it.
On Saturday afternoon she had not been engaged; on Sunday she had been obliged to behave in church with a degree of propriety that did not at all agree with her pulse; on Monday she had acquired legal precautions; on Wednesday Mr. Darcy had been shown enough arithmetic to make any reasonable man wish for brandy; and now Thursday morning had brought her permission to choose a day upon which her whole life was to be altered by ink, witnesses, promises, and the astonishing fact of Mr. Darcy standing beside her.
She set the letter down and rose.
Pom-Pom opened one eye.
“No,” said Elizabeth. “You are not required yet.”
The eye closed.
Mrs. Doddridge resumed her needle.
Elizabeth went upstairs.
The rooms which had once belonged to Mr. Marwood had not, in their old state, invited any man to consider himself beloved.
They had been respectable, complete, expensive, and entirely without that warmth which suggested that a person might one day wish to stay in them.
Mr. Marwood, being a banker by profession and a banker also in every curtain, chair, and bell-pull of his existence, had not required comfort to declare itself.
A good fire, a good lock, sound drawers, clean linen, and a desk at the correct height had answered all his demands.
Mrs. Marwood had never thought them gloomy. Elizabeth had, but never loudly.
Now the bedchamber stood stripped of its old hangings.
The paper had been half removed, and rolls of the new lay along the wall in a manner which suggested that the house was under occupation by subdued but determined forces.
The dressing room had given up its carpet.
The workroom smelled of paste, wood, and cold air.
A ladder leaned where Mr. Marwood’s portrait had once hung; the portrait itself had been carried down to the back drawing room, where Elizabeth had privately informed it that it might observe the proceedings without interfering.
Mrs. Albright stood in the middle of the bedchamber with a list in her hand and an expression which had intimidated three paperhangers before eleven o’clock.
“Mrs. Albright,” said Elizabeth, “Mr. Hartwood writes that a day may be named.”
Mrs. Albright did not start, exclaim, flutter, or ask whether Miss Bennet was certain she wished to marry the gentleman. She had been told the essential fact on Saturday night and had spent the days since converting astonishment into linen, fires, furniture, and orders.
“Yes, miss.”
“I shall not name it until I have spoken with Mr. Darcy. But we are now to think in weeks, not months.”
Mrs. Albright glanced once about the room. “Yes, miss.”
“Can the rooms be ready in the third week of March?”
There was a pause. It was not a pause of uncertainty. Mrs. Albright’s pauses were more like gates admitting troops.
“They can be ready, miss.”
“Comfortably?”
“No, miss.”
“Respectably?”
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Then respectability must do until comfort has time to improve itself.”
“It will require prompt decisions.”
“That is fortunate. I have always liked a decision best when it has not been allowed to sit about and collect dust.”
Mrs. Albright made a mark upon her list. “The workroom shelves are to be measured again this afternoon. The first measurement was too shallow for law-books.”
“Too shallow for Mr. Darcy’s patience, then.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And the darker blue for the bedchamber?”
“The sample is expected before dinner.”
“Not too cold a blue.”
“No, miss.”
“And not too ornamental.”
“No, miss.”
“And no gilt.”
Mrs. Albright’s mouth acquired the faintest possible severity. “There was never to be gilt, miss.”
“Excellent. I knew I could trust you not to allow any upholsterer to commit a crime merely because marriage has made the household vulnerable.”
Mrs. Albright received this as a domestic instruction and turned back to her list.
Elizabeth went once to the window of the workroom.
It looked over the square, where the morning had settled into the washed grey of late February.
Carriages passed with the damp, steady sound of wheels over stone.
The trees were still bare, their branches drawn thinly against the sky, but there was a difference in the light now, a lengthening that promised spring with all the caution of a solicitor drafting hope.
A day might be named.
She touched the edge of the bare mantelpiece. The room was cold. It would not be cold for him.
That, she reflected, was perhaps one consequence of being engaged to a gentleman who had once been badly treated by every house that ought to have sheltered him.
One found oneself taking offence at draughts, curtains, shelves, and any chair which did not appear ready to receive him with proper seriousness.
A footman came up to say that Mr. Darcy had called.
Elizabeth looked once around the room, as if the walls might betray her. “Mrs. Albright, he is not to be accidentally shown upstairs.”
Mrs. Albright’s look reproved the word accidentally.
“No, miss.”
“And should he ask what is being done—”
“He will be told that household improvements are in progress.”
“That is true enough to be safe.”
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth went down.
Mr. Darcy was in the drawing room when she entered.
Mrs. Doddridge, having resumed her proper office, was established at a respectable distance with Pom-Pom beside her in a basket, both of them lending the meeting such unimpeachable propriety as could be supplied by a silent companion and a dog in a wrapper.
Darcy turned at once.
Elizabeth knew before he had crossed half the room that the previous day had not entirely released him.
He bowed properly; he looked, to any indifferent eye, composed.
His coat was brushed, his cravat arranged with that care which suggested either self-command or war, and his voice, when he greeted her, was steady.
But Elizabeth had developed a very particular interest in his face.
There was too much care about him. Not coldness; not distance; care. As if he had brought himself to her house already instructed not to claim, not to presume, not to be made too happy by what was offered.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took it and bowed over it. His lips touched her glove, lightly, properly; yet he held her hand the smallest moment longer before releasing it.
That, at least, was honest.
“Miss Bennet.”
She looked at him. “Is everything well?”
“Yes.”
It was said too promptly, and with too much care.
Elizabeth let her gaze rest on him until his mouth, which had been arranged for composure, gave the slightest unwilling movement.
“That is not a persuasive answer.”
“It is a true one.”
“Then why do you look so complicated?”
The question escaped more gently than she had intended it. He looked at her fully then, and something in his face gave way—not control, not quite, but the severity with which he had been holding it.
He laughed once, under his breath.
“I was complicated before I came,” he said. His eyes remained on hers, and his voice lowered on the rest. “Seeing you makes me much less so.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened against her skirt. There were several answers available to her, and most of them were safer than looking pleased.
She chose one of the safer answers, but smiled too much over it.
“Then I am glad I am more persuasive than Mr. Beaker’s columns.”
“Infinitely.”
“That is a rash word from a man lately shown so many figures.”
His smile changed. It remained, but lost its protection.
“The figures are not the difficulty.”
“No,” she said, more softly. She moved to the chair beside him instead of the one opposite. “I thought perhaps they were not.”
She rang for tea, because there were some agitations which a household could answer better than conversation.
When the servant had gone, she looked down and saw that Darcy’s hand rested upon the arm of his chair, gloved still, though he had been in the room long enough to remove them had he been thinking of ordinary things.
“You may take those off,” she said.
His brows lifted faintly.
“Am I being managed?”
“Yes. But tenderly.”
That brought the first true curve to his mouth. He removed the gloves, slowly enough that Elizabeth had time to regret noticing his hands so particularly.