CHAPTER 75 #4
The house learned the news by degrees: Bingley’s open tears, Richard’s silent grip upon Darcy’s shoulder, his uncle’s formal handclasp, Mary’s solemn conclusion that infancy offered little evidence of settled character, Miss Bingley’s grave concern over caps.
Mrs. Reynolds ordered breakfast for everyone, then stood half a minute alone with her keys before returning to command.
Georgiana and Kitty were admitted later to the outer sitting room, bearing Pom-Pom between them like a recovered official. Kitty’s hair had loosened on one side; his sister looked as if she had aged a little in the night and been proud of herself for it only after the fact.
“May we see her?” Georgiana asked.
“When Mrs. Tate permits it,” Darcy said.
Pom-Pom stared at him.
“And when Pom-Pom permits it,” Kitty added.
The dog was eventually allowed near the bedchamber door in Kitty’s arms. He sniffed the air with deep suspicion. When Mrs. Tate brought Eleanor near enough for inspection, Pom-Pom looked at the bundle, looked at Darcy, and gave a soft huff of disapproval.
“He thinks she is very loud,” Kitty whispered.
Pom-Pom had little ground for complaint, but Darcy did not say so.
His father came late in the morning, after Mrs. Tate had been consulted, Mr. Grant had objected, and Elizabeth had said he might.
He entered slowly, leaning on his cane, Edward behind him and Richard near enough to intervene if pride failed before strength. He had dressed with care, though fatigue had hollowed his face.
Elizabeth was awake again by then, pale and propped against pillows, Eleanor beside her.
Her hair had been made no more respectable; she had refused the attempt with a look Mrs. Doddridge had apparently judged conclusive.
She was tired beyond conversation and nevertheless looked up when his father entered.
“Sir,” she said.
His father stopped beside the bed.
For a moment he looked not at the child, but at Elizabeth.
Something passed over his face then: not apology, not quite.
Recognition, perhaps, of the woman who had come into his house in crisis, taken its keys in all but name, preserved his daughter, restored his son, and now lay exhausted beneath his roof with a child of that son beside her.
“You are safe,” he said.
“So I am told.”
His mouth moved faintly. “Then I will believe it.”
Elizabeth’s fingers rested near Eleanor’s blanket. “You may see her, if you like.”
That was permission. Not debt. Not duty. Permission.
His father bowed his head once.
Darcy lifted Eleanor because Mrs. Tate allowed it and because his hands had begun, after several instructions, to understand the size of her.
She was still impossibly small, but no longer wholly terrifying.
Or rather, she remained terrifying and was also his daughter, which altered nothing and everything.
He brought her nearer.
His father regarded his granddaughter with grave attention.
The room waited.
“The Darcy nose,” he said at last.
Darcy looked down. “Already?”
“It is a very good nose,” his father said.
Elizabeth opened one tired eye. “Is it?”
“It gives a gentleman consequence.”
Darcy glanced at Eleanor’s severe little profile. “And a lady?”
His father considered the child, who had screwed her face into an expression of immense private objection.
“A lady,” he said, “must first acquire the expression to govern it.”
Elizabeth looked down at her daughter. The faintest smile altered her whole exhausted face. “Then she is already in training.”
Richard made a sound into his hand. Edward looked toward the window with judicial restraint. Georgiana, from near the door, laughed softly and then seemed astonished that she had done so.
His father’s gaze remained on the child.
“Eleanor,” he said, as if testing the name.
“Yes,” Darcy answered.
His father nodded slowly. “A good name.”
Elizabeth’s hand rested near the child’s blanket. “It belonged to someone who knew how to keep a house.”
His father looked at her then, and did not ask more.
He stood beside the bed and did not ask to hold more than he had been given.
That was enough for the morning.
After his father had been taken back to his rooms, after Georgiana and Kitty had been allowed another glimpse, after Jane had been persuaded to rest and Bingley had gone with her in grateful bewilderment, the western apartments settled into a quieter order.
Elizabeth slept.
Eleanor slept.
The pearls lay open on the dressing table, catching a little of the pale winter light.
Pom-Pom, restored at last to the centre of government, slept against Darcy’s boot.
Darcy sat in the armchair near the bed, still in the clothes he had worn to dinner, one hand resting where Elizabeth might find it if she woke. He meant to remain awake. He had meant it with all the severity left in him.
But Elizabeth’s breathing was even. Eleanor made one small sound and settled again. Beyond the curtains, the morning after Christmas lay cold over Pemberley; within, the room was warm.
His head lowered against the wing of the chair.
For once, sleep did not overtake him as defeat.
It found him keeping watch, and kept him there.