CHAPTER 50 #3
“Portman Square asks many questions,” she said. “Unfortunately, most of them are written by Mr. Beaker.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“The Laurels was quiet,” he said. “Uncle Edward was not. But the house was.”
“And now?”
“Now?”
“Does it still have the same virtue?”
He looked ahead to where the gravel turned back toward the lawn. “Yes. But it is less empty.”
Elizabeth felt, absurdly, that the laurels had overheard something they would not repeat.
The piano in the little drawing room was not a fine instrument, but it had been tuned recently enough to have intentions. Elizabeth tried it after luncheon and found it tolerable, provided one did not ask it to admire itself.
“It is not Portman Square,” said Mr. Darcy.
“Few instruments are. But it is willing, and in a country house willingness must sometimes stand in for accomplishment.”
She played a little, not for display and not even quite for practice.
There was no Miss Bingley to measure taste, no Mary to suffer improvement, no aunt to listen with kindly severity.
Mr. Darcy sat near the window with one elbow upon the arm of his chair, watching her as if every imperfect note were a private advantage.
“You are too attentive,” she said without turning.
“Am I?”
“Yes. It will make the instrument vain.”
“Then I shall look away.”
“That would be worse. It has very little else to recommend it.”
He laughed, and Elizabeth played on.
Later, when the light had lowered and the fire had become more persuasive than the piano, Mr. Darcy took up a book from Uncle Edward’s shelves and read aloud.
He did not read dramatically. Elizabeth would have objected to that.
He read with the same grave care with which he did many things, but the words seemed warmer for passing through him.
His voice settled the room. It arranged the fire, the rain, the little creaks of the house, and Elizabeth herself into a species of comfort she had not known she required.
She meant to listen.
She did listen.
For perhaps six pages.
When she opened her eyes, Mr. Darcy had stopped reading.
“Why did you stop?” she asked.
“You were asleep.”
“I was considering the argument.”
“With your eyes closed?”
“I consider better when not distracted by print.”
“Then I apologize.”
“You should. Your voice is much too soothing.”
His expression softened in a way she was beginning to find extremely unfair.
“I shall endeavour to read less soothingly.”
“That will not solve the whole difficulty.”
“No?”
“No. Being married makes me very tired.”
For a moment he only looked at her.
Then his smile came, slow and helpless, and Elizabeth decided she had never been more pleased with a complaint.
Their stay at The Laurels lasted three days.
In later memory Elizabeth would not be able to separate the days cleanly, which annoyed the disciplined part of her and pleased every other part.
There were breakfasts taken late; walks taken slowly; the tolerable piano made useful; books read aloud until Elizabeth’s attention failed; fires stirred by Mr. Darcy when no servant had failed in the least; and hours in which no one asked them to be anything but married.
No letters were written.
This, Elizabeth considered, was almost reckless.
It was also excellent.
On the third afternoon, trunks began to appear in corners with accusatory efficiency.
The carriage was ordered for the next morning.
James had written, or rather had sent in by a footman a message so brief that it might have been composed by a horse: roads good, team rested, carriage ready after breakfast. The house began, with quiet efficiency, to return them to London.
Mrs. Albright would expect them by late afternoon. Mrs. Doddridge would be composed. Pom-Pom would be aggrieved. Portman Square would open its door and reveal how carefully she had made him welcome.
This last thought made Elizabeth unreasonably pleased.
Mr. Darcy had not yet seen it. He knew, of course, that he would live there. He knew that Portman Square was to be their home. He did not know, not yet, how carefully that home had been made ready for him.
Elizabeth stood at the drawing-room window while the late-afternoon sun entered at a slant, catching the polished edge of a table and the leaves beyond the glass.
Outside, Mr. Darcy had gone to speak to James about the horses.
The matter required, at most, five minutes.
He took ten, because the path by the laurels was longer, and because no one here required him to be elsewhere.
Elizabeth watched him come back through the pale sun.
The Laurels had done him good.
Not cured him; she disliked the word. But it had given him room.
For three days his affection had not had to disguise itself as service, business, or restraint.
It had gone into her hand, into breakfasts taken beside her, into the quiet pressure at her back when they walked, into laughter no one else needed to hear.
Portman Square was home. She had made it so, and tomorrow he would see how carefully.
But as Mr. Darcy looked up and smiled before he remembered to be grave, Elizabeth began to perceive that a country house might be more than an ornament to fortune.
It might be a very sensible provision for happiness.