Chapter Twelve
Following The Spark
The clock on her mantelpiece chimed one. Most nights, Elizabeth would have blown out her candles two hours earlier and taken to her bed but she had not undressed, sitting in her thin evening dress and wrapped in a shawl against the cool night air.
She had a shelf full of books, old favourites rescued from her father’s library before the Collinses could lay their hands on them, but they could not distract her.
She reached out to touch the one architectural portfolio she had been able to save, her father’s favourite, filled with drawings and plans of Hardwick Hall.
She let her hand drop. Not even the portfolio caught her fancy, an image of Hugh’s reddened angry face interposing between her and the book’s spine.
Mr Darcy and Hugh having words would do nothing but increase the conflict in this house.
Elizabeth was not such a ninny that she did not realise their disagreement involved Jane.
Hugh’s admiration for Jane had long been obvious, and, of course, Mr Darcy had escorted her into the drawing room the day of their visit, to the accompaniment of Hugh’s ill-hidden jealousy.
Could Hugh lose his temper over something so trivial?
Her poor Jane! She would be mortified to be the subject of such unseemly strife.
And between two brothers, too! They both ought to be ashamed of themselves. Men were such fools.
“I had better go after Hugh,” George had said after Hugh stormed out, imitating a particularly petulant thundercloud.
George had glanced at Mr Darcy, who had returned to a seat near Aunt Darcy to await the call to go into dine, and then turned his attention back to Elizabeth.
“In a passion like that— Well, he looked dangerous.”
That was doing it rather too brown. Hugh in a passion was indeed a gadfly, lacking in sense and moderation, but Elizabeth could not think him a danger.
Hugh must be brought back, and the misunderstanding resolved, or the house would never have any peace.
Of course, she and poor George must be the ones to push for resolution, and when she said as much, he had nodded and agreed, although he had said, “Too late, if Fitzwilliam saw it too.”
If there had been anything to see, Mr Darcy would have seen it. He was not a fool, and his work for the government had made him observant and watchful. He would not have missed Hugh’s expression and temper.
No one could have missed it.
She plucked at the shawl, and pulled it tighter around her shoulders, her mind full of the short conversation she had overheard when George had returned to the drawing room alone. Hugh was nowhere to be seen and had not returned for dinner.
“He probably went to see Tom Lackenby over at the general’s estate at Hucklow—the general’s grandson.
They have been friends since before they were breeched,” George had said quietly, drawing Mr Darcy away from Aunt Darcy and closer to where Elizabeth doggedly played through yet another sonata, though her fingers complained and her shoulders were stiff enough to make her neck ache.
“Fitzwilliam, be more careful, I beg you. Hugh’s temper is ungovernable, and he will not listen to reason or moderate his dislike.
I do believe that had he the means, he would have done you harm. ”
She carried on playing, straining to hear them.
“I think you refine too much upon a boy’s unrestrained temper, George.”
“Do I? Did you not mark his expression? Such fury there. Almost hatred.”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“What have you been about to incite such passion in him? I had thought you were striving to…” George hesitated, and finished, “Well, you know what I mean! I had hoped everything was calmer.”
“I live and breathe, and Pemberley is mine. That has not changed. His current grievance, though, if I understand his outburst aright, is that he believes I intend to try dazzle a lady in whom he has an interest.”
“Jane Bennet? She is quite the loveliest girl in the county.”
“You too, George?”
“No. Not Jane.”
“Ah,” was all Mr Darcy had said.
“Well,” George had said again. “You must take care.”
And then they had moved away, out of hearing, and she, perforce, returned her attention to the pianoforte.
Now, though, she had no such distraction.
Why would Mr Darcy only say “Ah”?
She could not quite forget his disparagement the night of his arrival, though he had apologised, and since then, she had considered they were on friendlier terms. She looked forward to those mornings when she heard swift footsteps on the path behind her, and a voice calling her name…
his bow as he swept off his hat and sought her company, and his smile when she accepted…
the evenings when they debated books or plays or histories—she would say argued, but she had been brought up to always display a gentlewoman’s grace and civility…
Had he not enjoyed the cut and thrust of argument as much as she did?
But did he still rate her attractions so low that all she merited was “Ah”? How dispiriting. She had to tell herself, quite fiercely, to stop sighing because every handsome man in Derbyshire ranked her second to Jane. Jane could have the others, all of them, but surely—
She caught herself up at once. Papa's laughing voice in her head called her missish, and quite right, too.
It was nonsensical to believe anyone thought of her beyond appreciating a good argument in a debate or tolerably entertaining companionship on a walk.
Every great house should have a useful poor relation hanging on its sleeve.
To seek more, to look for a deeper meaning…
well, better to guard her heart and her sensibilities, and continue to be stalwart, reliable Elizabeth Bennet, spinster of this parish and likely to remain so.
Anything more beckoned in heartache and disappointment to make her miserable, when her uncertain future was quite enough to do that.
Besides, why did she think she was the lady under discussion? She had no reason to assume George had meant he liked her, of course. Not in that way. George was a friend. Her brother. That was all. He could not have been speaking of her with such lover-like significance.
No matter what George had said the day her mother and sisters had descended on Pemberley, or hinted now and again since.
It was nonsense. He had said it in fun. Or she had misunderstood, or assumed too much.
He could not possibly have meant more than the friendship he had offered her and all the Bennets since Papa had died.
He was friendly with her sisters: admired Jane no more than was proper, tried to make serious Mary laugh, jollied Kitty out of her sulks and understood Lydia better than almost anyone else. He was brother to them all.
Over the last few weeks she had seen him as often as she ever had.
Perhaps not quite daily, depending upon his schedule of inspections of the tenant farms, and the mills and mines farther out on the edge of Pemberley land, but still, she saw him often.
She had had ample opportunity to watch him, to weigh up every word and every deed against those odd words spoken at the foot of Pemberley’s stairs, or the looks he gave her when they met that spoke of more than friendship.
Could he truly admire her as a man admired the woman he wished to wed?
He knew her to be watching him. Ofttimes he would glance up to meet her gaze, and he would smile, or say something in fun to amuse her, or simply be there, staunch and stalwart.
In all those meetings, in all those exchanged glances, he was George still: kind, amusing, gentle, and full of good humour, good sense and intelligent advice.
The brother of her heart.
He was as he had always been. She had misunderstood when he talked of shared hope.
She must have. All he had meant was that he wished to see her content in life, as if he were indeed a brother in blood.
And if when they spoke together in the drawing room of an evening, or met while she was carrying out some errand for Aunt Darcy, the expression in his eyes showed a warmth and tenderness only there for her, then she told herself it must be because he was her dear friend.
Nothing more. She could not allow it to be anything more.
He had only the stewardship of Pemberley and she could bring nothing with her into a marriage but a paltry thousand pounds that would not be hers while Mamma lived.
Such a union would be imprudent, even with a great love to bolster it, but no matter how much she considered and reflected, she could not make her love for George anything more than sisterly.
Her heart beat no faster when he was near, and if she dreamt of tall, dark-haired men they were not George.
No. Just… no. She must be careful of herself, for more reasons than George could know, and she must be careful of him. She would not hurt George for the world.
She huddled the shawl around her shoulders, pulling it tighter, and tried to turn her thoughts away from the handsome young men in Pemberley. There were far too many of them for her peace of mind.
Another chime from the clock. A quarter past the hour.
She sighed, and glowered at the books sitting serenely on their shelf, their bland, innocent, leather spines proof against even the most incendiary of scowls. Nothing there to lull her into sleep, but she needed something to distract her. Anything.
She rose, tied the shawl in a rough knot to hold it in place, and lifted up the candelabrum.
She might be the poor relation, but Aunt Darcy stinted on nothing for her comfort.
The three wax candles glowed in the dark to light her way to the library where she might find something more soporific than any of Papa’s books.
The house was silent and dark. She took care going down the staircase, lifting her skirts a few inches with her free hand, holding the candles high with the other—a foolish, shadowy ghost wandering the house, risking her neck in the dark for a book.
The foot of the stairs at last. She could walk faster in the Great Hall, and did, the candelabrum raised high enough to light her way.
Across the wide hall with its marble floor, walls indented with niches, each holding a statue brought back from his Grand Tour by some Darcy of the last century.
The candles lit the place dimly. Elizabeth walked on at a deliberate pace, each sidelong glance seeing the candlelight glint on the majesty of Jove’s head, or the tension of the curved lion claws reaching for Hercules, or gleam in the flowing hair of a naiad.
A lovely place in daylight, but a trifle unnerving in the dark of night to see a god’s face look back at her out of the gloom.
The library was in the oldest part of the house. She pushed open the door from the Great Hall that led to it. Stopped. Sniffed.
Smoke?
She sniffed again, and walked on. Faster now.
Past the doors to small parlours and sitting rooms, past larger, more formal saloons, past the state dining room door, and deep into the old Elizabethan halls beyond.
The smell grew stronger, and… there! A light curl of greyish-white smoke coiled around the helmeted head of a suit of armour.
She walked past the library now, intent on discovering what was afoot. The smoke was thicker, roiling its way from under a door in the hall beyond. The master’s study. The door did not fit very well after three centuries on its hinges, and she caught a gleam of flickering light around its edges.
In the distance, another door closed softly. The door to the servants’ hall.
She opened her mouth to call back whichever servant it was, when another flurry of smoke caught at the back of her throat, enough to make her cough.
Fire! Pemberley was on fire!