SIXTEEN
Netherfield.
Darcy
“Miss Eliza certainly possesses uncommon stamina,” said Caroline as the door closed behind the Bennet sisters. “I do not believe I have ever known a lady so determined to devote herself entirely to another person’s illness.”
Darcy was about to ring for Marsh, but the edge in Caroline’s tone caused him to remain where he was instead.
Bingley lingered a moment longer near the door before returning distractedly to his seat.
“I thought Miss Bennet appeared considerably improved this evening,” he said warmly.
“Yes,” said Darcy. “She did.”
“I only hope she does not exert herself too soon,” said Caroline. “Though with Miss Eliza attending her so constantly, I dare say she shall never be permitted a moment’s discomfort.”
Mrs. Hurst laughed softly beside her sister.
“Well. Miss Eliza certainly appears determined to distinguish herself,” she said.
“In what respect?” said Darcy.
“Oh, in every respect, I think.” Caroline adjusted one of the bracelets at her wrist. “Walking alone through the country, neglecting appearances, carrying books into every room, abandoning cards for chess...” She smiled delicately.
“One cannot deny she cultivates singularity rather enthusiastically.”
“I have never observed Miss Elizabeth labouring for attention,” said Darcy.
“No?” said Caroline pleasantly. “I confess I have observed little else.”
“That is because you mistake independence for display.”
Mrs. Hurst’s eyes moved rapidly between Darcy and her sister, her surprise too obvious to disguise entirely. Bingley drew breath as though to speak, then thought better of it.
Caroline’s colour deepened slightly, though her smile remained. “You seem remarkably determined to defend Miss Eliza this evening.”
“I was not aware she required defence.”
“Surely you cannot deny there is something studied in her manner. A young lady does not carry books into every room or rush toward chess unless she wishes very much to be considered clever.”
“And if she is clever?”
Caroline blinked. “That is hardly my meaning.”
“No?” said Darcy evenly. “You speak as though intelligence in a woman were some unfortunate deficiency requiring apology.”
“I merely think excessive cleverness occasionally encourages a want of elegance.”
“There are circumstances,” said Darcy, “in which elegance signifies considerably less than understanding.”
No one spoke.
Caroline attempted a laugh, though with less success than before. “You are become exceedingly philosophical tonight, Mr. Darcy.”
“Not particularly.”
Bingley looked dangerously close to smiling again.
Darcy saw no reason to continue the discussion.
He thought instead of Elizabeth seated opposite him at the chessboard, one hand resting beside her book whilst she spoke with intelligence entirely untouched by vanity. Nothing in her manner had sought admiration. Indeed, she often appeared wholly unconscious of producing it.
Caroline, apparently unwilling to abandon the subject entirely, began presently upon the disadvantages of the Bennet girls’ connections, particularly the relations in Meryton and Cheapside. Darcy listened only long enough to reach quietly for the bell and summon Marsh.
* * *
Elizabeth
“You and Mr. Darcy appear considerably better acquainted than your description of yesterday led me to expect,” Jane said as she settled against the pillows.
Elizabeth, who had been removing the pins from her hair before the dressing table, paused only long enough to roll her eyes at her sister’s reflection.
“That is an exceedingly polite manner of saying you observed us speaking.”
Jane smiled faintly. “I observed Mr. Darcy requesting a game of chess before an entire room. One scarcely requires remarkable powers of observation after that.”
“It was merely chess, Jane.”
“Merely chess,” Jane repeated. “And before that merely walking. And before that merely conversation.”
Elizabeth turned toward her with narrowed eyes. “You improve too rapidly at Netherfield. Another day here and you shall become positively dangerous.”
“I have always been dangerous,” Jane chuckled. “I have simply concealed it with greater success than Lydia.”
That earned a genuine laugh from Elizabeth.
Jane watched her quietly for a moment before saying, “He likes you.”
Elizabeth blinked at her reflection in the mirror. “Mr. Darcy?”
“Yes.”
“That is perfectly absurd.”
Jane only smiled.
Elizabeth resumed removing the remaining pins from her hair.
“You forget,” Jane said, “that Mr. Darcy arrived in Hertfordshire seemingly resolved to avoid acquaintance altogether. Yet in the space of two days, you have already spoken with him very agreeably three separate times.”
Elizabeth shrugged lightly. “I think perhaps he sees that I am willing to look beyond his pride and more interested in understanding him than condemning him. That is all.”
Elizabeth set another pin aside.
“Besides, such a calamity must alter a man greatly. To lose his wife and the use of his legs in the same day...” She shook her head faintly. “I think suffering changes people in ways the world is often too eager to condemn.”
Jane regarded her thoughtfully. “You pity him, then?”
“No,” said Elizabeth at once. “He does not strike me as a man who bears pity with any patience at all.”
Jane shifted slightly against the pillows. “You like him, then?”
Elizabeth considered the question with greater seriousness than before.
“I do not dislike him,” she said at last.
Jane’s smile deepened.
Elizabeth noticed immediately. “Do not look so triumphant. I said nothing more than that.”
“I said nothing at all.”
“No, but you were certainly thinking something.”
Jane’s expression was answer enough.
Elizabeth shook her head with amusement, though her features gradually grew thoughtful once more.
“I find Mr. Darcy agreeable company,” said Elizabeth. “Mr. Wickham's account is the only thing I cannot yet account for.”
Jane’s eyes lifted at once.
“I cannot reconcile the two impressions entirely,” Elizabeth continued. “Mr. Darcy does not resemble the man Mr. Wickham described. Indeed, the more I speak to him, the less probable the story appears.”
“But?”
Elizabeth looked down briefly at the ribbon in her hands. “But Mr. Wickham spoke with such confidence that evening, and there were particulars in his account which did not sound wholly invented.”
Jane was quiet for a moment before speaking carefully. “You mentioned as much yesterday. But have you considered how readily he shared the story with you?”
Elizabeth glanced toward her.
“It is not the sort of history most gentlemen would confide to a lady they had only just met, particularly when it concerns a man they once knew intimately.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth admitted slowly. “That troubled me as well.”
“And though I have known Mr. Bingley only a short while,” Jane continued, “he does not appear the sort of man who would form such a close friendship with someone entirely without principle.”
Elizabeth considered this seriously.
“Do you know how long Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy have been acquainted?”
“I do not know precisely,” said Jane. “Several years, I believe.”
Elizabeth was quiet a moment.
“Perhaps you might ask Mr. Bingley whether he knows the history between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham.”
Jane shook her head immediately. “I do not think Mr. Darcy would thank either of us for making his private affairs a subject of inquiry. Besides, I am not certain Mr. Bingley would speak of it even if he knew.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, recognising the futility of the suggestion almost as soon as she had made it. “I do not imagine Mr. Darcy encourages discussion of himself.”
The room fell quiet for several moments.
Elizabeth had finished with her hair by then and crossed to sit beside Jane upon the bed.
“Why do you not ask him yourself?” said Jane, after a pause
Elizabeth stared at her. “What?”
“Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth drew breath to protest, but Jane continued before she could. “Before you say no, consider that you have already begun speaking with him rather openly, and he seems genuinely to value speaking with you as well.”
Elizabeth frowned slightly.
“The worst that can happen,” Jane said mildly, “is that he refuses to discuss the subject.”
Elizabeth was quiet with it for a moment.
“You said yourself this afternoon that he spoke to you of losing faith after the accident. I cannot imagine anything much more personal than that. If he was willing to speak of such matters, perhaps he would answer a question concerning Mr. Wickham as well.”
The argument possessed an uncomfortable degree of sense.
For several moments Elizabeth said nothing.
“I shall think about it,” she said at last.
* * *
Darcy
Darcy lay awake long after the house had fallen quiet.
The fire in the hearth had burned itself to almost nothing. The room was dark and still, the curtains shifting faintly now and then with the movement of wind beyond the windows.
He had defended Elizabeth that evening.
That was the thing he could not set aside, and it was not the first time it had happened.
Had it occurred only once, he might have dismissed it as impulse.
But twice now, and with considerably more force than the occasion had strictly required.
He had told Caroline that elegance signified considerably less than understanding and had meant every word of it.
Worse still, he had not particularly cared, in the moment, what anyone in the room made of him for saying so.
He cared now.
Not because he regretted it.
Because it told him something about himself he had not been prepared to examine.
His thoughts returned, with increasing dissatisfaction, toward Elizabeth Bennet.
It irritated him particularly because he had attempted from the very beginning not to notice her at all.
Yet he remembered distinctly the moment at the assembly when she had looked toward him after his remark. He had found himself observing her afterward despite every intention to the contrary.
Her eyes especially.
Not merely because they were fine, though they were certainly that. But because they always seemed to reveal thought before speech. And now, having spent several days near her, he had begun to notice they revealed amusement before wit and intelligence before intention.
His thoughts drifted to her seated opposite him at the chessboard and how calmly she had played whilst speaking. She had done so without triumph, without performance, before moving on as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
And then there was the garden that morning.
The manner in which she had received what he said regarding church, faith, and his accident itself without flinching from it or attempting immediately to lessen it.
Most people did. They offered consolation or changed the subject or looked at him with the careful brightness of someone politely attempting to manage discomfort.
Elizabeth had simply stood beside him in the cold morning air, offered the most genuine counterargument he had heard regarding faith in years without forcing the opinion upon him, and allowed the silence afterward to remain what it was.
Darcy realised then that he had not spoken of such matters to anyone in two years. Not to Bingley. Not to Fitzwilliam. Not even fully to Marsh or Georgiana.
Yet within two days of their first real conversation, he had spoken of them to her upon a garden path on a Sunday morning with scarcely any consideration beforehand.
Darcy stared upward into the darkness.
With most people, conversation required arrangement. The careful consideration of what might safely be said and what ought better remain unspoken. With most people, he did not particularly wish to speak at all.
With Elizabeth, the words often arrived before he had properly arranged them. That, more than her wit or intelligence unsettled him most.
She spoke honestly herself and somehow rendered honesty in return the more natural course.
There had once been another person with whom conversation possessed that same curious absence of strain.
He allowed the thought this time instead of resisting it immediately.
Clara had spoken to him in much the same manner. Not probing. Not demanding. Simply present in a way that made speech easier than silence and silence easier than it became elsewhere.
She had been brilliant too.
Darcy gave a quiet, humourless laugh at the thought. Without effort, he could recall several occasions of watching Clara dismantle the arguments of exceedingly confident men whilst appearing entirely unconscious of doing anything remarkable at all.
He remembered listening to her even when he had not intended to listen.
Elizabeth reminded him of that.
The thought settled heavily enough that he resisted it almost at once.
No.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet was merely a woman whose company he found unexpectedly agreeable. An intelligent woman who spoke honestly and listened properly. Nothing more.
She was not Clara.
No one could ever be Clara.
The distinction mattered.
Darcy closed his eyes briefly against the darkness.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet would leave Netherfield tomorrow or the next day. Jane was recovering. The sisters would return to Longbourn and everything between them would resume its proper distance and arrangement.
He told himself this carefully.
Then he reminded himself that he was a man who had endured two years of grief, pain, and unwelcome dependence without surrendering either discipline or sense, and that recognising a similarity between a woman he had spoken with only several times and the wife he had lost was not the same thing as betrayal.
Still, the guilt arrived with familiar precision.
It had been an accident.
Yet he had placed Clara in that carriage beside him.
She had died whilst he lived.
The thought remained as merciless now as it had been two years earlier.
An innocent soul, and it should have been me.
Darcy swallowed hard against the memory.
Whatever ease he found in speaking with Elizabeth Bennet, whatever unwelcome comfort accompanied her company, he had no right to allow himself carelessness of feeling again.
That, above all else, was the truth which mattered.
He was simply not entirely certain why convincing himself of it required such effort.
He did not sleep for quite some time.