CHAPTER 59 #3
That was one of the reasons Elizabeth valued her.
In the library, Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam wrote side by side.
Fitzwilliam wrote to Jenkins first, with exact instructions for chambers.
He wrote to Mr. Brentwood next, then to his uncle Edward, and last of all to Richard.
No notice went to Matlock House. No notice went to Lady Catherine.
The Fitzwilliam relations had once received Mrs. Wickham’s version of him and left him to bear the consequence.
Until he knew which family channels were clean, he would not send Pemberley’s disorder, Georgiana’s name, or his father’s illness through them.
Elizabeth wrote to Hartwood and Beaker, to Mrs. Gardiner, to Jane, to Miss Hall, and last of all to Mrs. Bennet.
That letter cost more thought than it deserved.
She could not say too much. She would not say too little.
Mrs. Bennet could not be allowed to imagine Kitty stolen into northern danger, but neither could she be admitted into the whole truth of Georgiana’s flight, Wickham’s pressure, Pemberley’s disorder, and the elder Mr. Darcy’s collapse.
Mrs. Bennet had many talents, but receiving alarming information quietly was not among them.
At last Elizabeth wrote:
Dear Mama,
An urgent family matter requires Mr. Darcy and me to travel into Derbyshire.
Kitty has chosen to accompany us under my care and Mrs. Doddridge’s.
She is well, properly attended, and in good spirits.
I will write again from the road, and should she at any time wish to return, a carriage shall be arranged for her.
Pray do not distress yourself. She is not travelling as a burden, nor as an inconvenience, but as one of our own party.
Your affectionate daughter,
Elizabeth Darcy
She sanded it, read it again, and decided that Pray do not distress yourself was both impossible advice and the proper form of daughters.
A letter went ahead to Mrs. Reynolds by express, written in Elizabeth’s hand and corrected once or twice by Fitzwilliam’s knowledge of Pemberley.
They would travel at first light and arrive as soon as the roads allowed.
Chambers were to be prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, Miss Darcy, Miss Kitty Bennet, and Mrs. Doddridge, with servants’ rooms as required.
Miss Darcy was to be placed near her brother and Elizabeth.
No wider notice of the party was to be given until they arrived.
Fitzwilliam looked at the growing pile of letters.
“You have written to everyone.”
“Not everyone. Only those who might otherwise arrive at Portman Square and find Mrs. Albright armed with silence.”
“That may be deterrent enough.”
“It is deterrent, but not affectionate.”
His eyes softened.
For a moment, despite everything, Elizabeth saw the man who had come home to her, not only the son summoned by illness into the ruins of an old injury.
She reached across the table and touched his hand.
The change in him was immediate and small: the faint release of breath, the easing of a line beside his mouth, the return of himself from wherever fear had tried to send him alone.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said.
He turned his hand and held hers.
“I am afraid,” he said.
It was so plain, and so unlike the old armour of him, that Elizabeth felt her own throat tighten.
“I know.”
“If he dies before I reach him—”
“Then you will still have gone.”
“That is not enough.”
“No,” she said. “But it is true.”
He looked down at their joined hands.
“I thought I had finished wanting him to ask for me.”
Elizabeth’s fingers closed over his.
“No. You only learnt to live without it.”
He shut his eyes.
She did not ask him to speak. He had already said enough, and the house around them was saying the rest: trunks moving, doors opening, servants crossing the hall, Kitty’s lighter voice above stairs, Georgiana’s softer one answering, and somewhere nearby Lord Pomington’s offended bark at a blanket.
Life, when properly organized, could be very noisy in defence of the heart.
At length Fitzwilliam opened his eyes.
“I should finish.”
“Yes.”
Neither of them moved.
Then he lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her knuckles, swiftly, like a man taking courage rather than offering courtesy.
Elizabeth let him.
After that, he returned to his letters.
The evening passed in order because no one was allowed to ask whether order could shorten the road. It could not. But it could put every person who must go into the right carriage, every letter into the right hand, and every frightened girl under the protection she had chosen.
Elizabeth slept little.
Fitzwilliam slept less.
At dawn, Portman Square stood grey and composed beneath a pale London sky.
The travelling carriage waited before the door, with the second carriage behind it.
Horses stamped in the chill. James stood ready.
Mrs. Albright came down the steps with the last packet of letters and gave Elizabeth her final report in a voice that might have been used for an ordinary journey to Hertfordshire.
“All is settled, madam. Letters to be forwarded as directed. No callers admitted beyond instruction. Willis has eaten and is asleep. Cook has sent the basket.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Albright.”
Mrs. Albright’s eyes moved once over Elizabeth’s face, then to Fitzwilliam, then back again.
“The house will be kept, madam.”
“I know.”
It was the nearest Mrs. Albright came to affection in public, and the nearest Elizabeth could come to receiving it without losing composure.
Kitty came out next, holding the drawing portfolio against her chest. Georgiana followed beside her, pale from early rising and too much feeling, but steady. At the top of the steps she paused.
Fitzwilliam offered his arm.
She took it.
Elizabeth saw what it cost him not to close his hand too tightly over hers.
Mrs. Doddridge came after them, quiet, gloved, and prepared, carrying nothing that had not already been considered. Lord Pomington was borne down in his basket with the expression of a creature betrayed by civilisation.
Fitzwilliam paused before entering the carriage and looked back at the house.
Elizabeth knew what he saw: not merely Portman Square, but the place that had believed him, received his sister, and taught him that departure need not mean abandonment.
“It will be here when we return,” she said.
He looked at her then.
“And you?”
“In the carriage, if you do not delay us.”
It almost made him smile.
Then he handed Elizabeth in and helped Georgiana after her. Kitty followed with the drawing portfolio held fast in her lap. Mrs. Doddridge took her place in the second carriage with Evans and the lighter luggage, where Lord Pomington’s basket had been arranged with more ceremony than he deserved.
The carriage moved.
Portman Square fell back into the pale London morning, orderly, guarded, and left in Mrs. Albright’s keeping.
They had been summoned by fear, but they did not go as fugitives.
They went as a household.