Chapter Sixteen #2
There were lowlier kindnesses he never thought she observed.
One morning, as they passed a draper’s window, Mrs. Gardiner paused to admire a length of fine muslin, remarking only that it was a luxury too idle for her use.
She would never have purchased it for herself, though her eye returned to it twice.
The next day a parcel arrived at their lodging containing the very piece, folded with another of equal beauty.
Mrs. Gardiner was puzzled, for Mr. Gardiner was not with them at the time and she knew his thoughtful habits too well to accuse him unjustly.
She said only that she must have been overheard and forgotten the circumstance, yet Elizabeth saw her look at the fabric more than once with quiet pleasure.
Aunt and niece were much alike in that; neither of them indulged easily.
Mr. Gardiner once told Elizabeth that a good man spoils the ones he loves, and though he had said it after buying her some trifle she had protested, she thought the same sentiment might have guided another hand.
When a journeyman at the yard fell ill, Mr. Gardiner went to call upon the physician but found the account already settled and the visit arranged.
He spoke of it to them afterwards, suspecting Mr. Darcy though he would not name him.
“It is the manner of his doing things,” Mr. Gardiner said, “that persuades one of his hand, even when it is hidden.” Mr. Darcy never acknowledged the act; others were content to take the credit; he seemed to prefer it so.
Only once did Elizabeth venture a playful censure.
“Sir,” she told him, “if you will persist in being the cause of so many improvements, you must be careful to keep a very solemn face, or people will suspect you of pleasure.” He bowed with all imaginable gravity.
“I am grateful for your counsel, Miss Bennet. I am determined to look severe whenever good is done.” They laughed, and Mrs. Gardiner looked between them with such quiet happiness that Elizabeth wished, for her sake, to be worthy of every hope she might dare.
There are feelings one cannot set aside in six weeks, however kind the company or bright the air.
At times Elizabeth felt a strange hesitation, as though happiness were a country whose customs she had never learned.
She could not account for it. Some part of her still stood back from joy, even while longing for it.
Her uncle and aunt could not be more indulgent, yet a voice within her still whispered that she ought to earn what was already given.
When Mr. Darcy praised a thought or a remark, she often grew uneasy, fearing she had spoken too much; when he was silent, she feared she had disappointed him.
She did not know why she should be so foolish, for he had never once made her feel inferior.
It was rather her own heart that betrayed her.
There were moments when she seemed to carry some invisible boundary with her, a habit of standing back even when invited forward.
Mr. Darcy perceived it, she thought, though he never named it.
He only listened when her spirits sank, then turned the subject so gently that her cheer returned before she had marked its loss.
Once, after she had repeated something her mother once said of her manner of reading, he smiled and said, “Your voice is the kind that remembers meanings,” and asked whether the sea was rougher on a neap tide.
She laughed at the oddness of the change, yet walked the rest of the way with a lighter step.
She could not explain such comfort; it was as if he had learned how to steady what she did not understand in herself.
In these weeks of courtship she had learned as much of him as a woman ought to know before she knows the rest. He was exact where judgment is required, indulgent where it is not.
He would not praise poor work, yet he honoured quiet excellence.
He had a temper; he governed it. He had pride; he examined it.
Accustomed to command, he preferred to persuade.
He consulted her uncle as if it were an old practice, and attended to her aunt as if she were authority itself.
With Elizabeth he was sometimes playful, often serious; and she was no longer afraid of their silence, for it was the ease that follows understanding.
Yet sometimes, when night was still and the house had gone quiet, she began to tremble at how easily joy may slip away.
A strange dread stole upon her, a feeling that even if he were to ask what she most longed for, something would arise to forbid it.
When they were together she knew no such fear; his presence banished every doubt.
But when she was alone, she thought of how brief these days had been, how swiftly they must end.
Mr. Gardiner’s business in Brinmouth was nearly complete; only the labour of the shipbuilders remained, and that would take many months.
He could not stay for it, and they were soon to return to London, and then to Longbourn.
Each day felt both given and held on loan.
She told herself that she was foolish to anticipate loss where she had known only kindness, yet the thought persisted.