Chapter 14 Covent Garden
Darcy approached the two young women.
“We shall leave for Covent Garden at a quarter past six. That allows us half an hour of leisure before we must depart. Georgiana, would you like to show Miss Elizabeth your sketches?”
He turned to Elizabeth.
“My sister has studied with an art master as long as she has studied with her music master, and she has become quite proficient.”
Georgiana brightened at once.
“Lizzy, my sketches are in my rooms. Will you come with me?”
“Of course.” Elizabeth set down the sheet music she had been perusing. Passing a side table, she paused to take up a volume that lay there, running her hand lightly over the cover before returning it to its place.
Mr. Darcy regarded her with interest.
“Do you read Plutarch, Miss Elizabeth?”
“Yes, sir. It is among my father’s favorites and has therefore become one of mine.”
“And what else does your father favor, if I may inquire?”
“Virgil, Ovid, Homer, among others.”
“And do you likewise take pleasure in those authors?”
She laughed. “Yes, sir. I have spent many hours seated in my favorite tree with one or another of those works.”
Georgiana, in her eagerness to go, said, “Come, Lizzy,” and drew her toward the door.
Elizabeth was nearly pulled from the room and up the stairs. By the time they reached Georgiana’s sitting room, both were laughing.
“Sit here, Lizzy, and I shall bring out my best work.”
Georgiana soon displayed a watercolor of the gardens behind the London house, a sketch of her mother and father, and at last, a watercolor of Pemberley.
Elizabeth could not help but be impressed by the young girl’s skill.
When Elizabeth considered her own accomplishments, she felt untrained and uncouth in comparison. Georgiana was explaining the finer points of the Pemberley painting when there was a tap upon the door.
When she raised her eyes, Mr. Darcy stood there, a faint smile upon his lips.
“Is it time for our great adventure?” Georgiana asked.
“It is,” he replied, his expression brightening.
Georgiana carefully returned the painting to the easel from which she had taken it, and then they followed Mr. Darcy into the corridor. Before they descended the stairs, he spoke.
“Miss Elizabeth, I understand that Caroline insulted you just now in the drawing room.”
Both women looked at him with surprise.
“Mrs. Hurst overheard it, and she took me aside to repeat what was said. She feared for Georgiana’s well-being.”
He glanced at his sister.
“It is not true that I have sought Miss Elizabeth’s acquaintance merely that she might serve as your companion. I introduced you because I believed there would be an affinity between you, a meeting of minds, and I find I was not mistaken.”
Then he addressed Elizabeth.
“I beg your pardon for Miss Bingley’s remark. She does not know our sentiments and cannot presume to speak for either of us. I regret that she attempted to corrupt an amiable association with a cruel remark.”
Both his voice and expression were earnest when he added, “I ask only that, when Miss Bingley speaks injuriously, you remember that she does so with malice, and not with truth. I shall have to inform Charles that I will no longer include Miss Bingley in any invitation that involves either myself or my sister, for this is now the second time she has behaved so improperly.”
Elizabeth acknowledged his apology, then said, “Let us put Miss Bingley from our minds, shall we? It is time for our adventure.”
Miss Bingley was handed into the Hursts’ carriage, and from the expression on her face, it was clear to Elizabeth that she was furious.
After Mr. Bingley handed Jane into the Darcy carriage and took his seat beside her, Mr. Darcy assisted his sister and then Elizabeth before settling himself between them.
As they moved through the lamplit streets, Mr. Bingley leaned forward and, laughing, said, “You must not allow yourselves to be alarmed about the play. Though it is a tragedy, the story is not so melancholy as to leave us miserable.”
Georgiana asked, “And who is Adelgitha?”
Darcy replied, “She is a lady of uncommon virtue, placed in circumstances of the greatest distress. There is a struggle between duty and passion, as there always must be in such cases.”
Elizabeth teased. “How very shocking, sir. I begin to fear I shall not survive the experience.”
Bingley laughed, saying, “Oh, you will survive, I promise you. Adelgitha is pursued, misunderstood, and yet she bears everything with admirable fortitude. There is a villain, of course, and a noble hero, and much lamentation.”
“A great deal of lamentation,” Darcy observed dryly.
“I am confused,” Georgiana said. “It is not meant to be laughed at, is it, Fitzwilliam? It is a tragedy, is it not?”
“Yes, it is,” Elizabeth answered. “But we shall endure it, while the gentlemen secretly find entertainment in the spectacle.”
The carriage turned into a broad street, and the noise of the city rose about them. Elizabeth looked out and saw the theater illuminated in the distance, its lights shining against the darkness of the evening.
Georgiana grew very excited. “I have never seen Covent Garden at night.”
“It is always magnificent,” Mr. Bingley replied, “but when a successful play is running, it becomes a world unto itself.”
Elizabeth found that she shared their anticipation. She felt almost restless within the carriage, eager to breathe the night air and be among the life of the city.
When at last they descended and moved into the press of theatergoers, Elizabeth upon Mr. Darcy’s arm, she began to understand how well known he was.
Conversation seemed to pause as he passed, and heads inclined together in quiet discussion once he had gone by.
He appeared untouched by it all, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
His height carried his gaze above most of the crowd, and he proceeded with purpose.
Where others stopped to speak in little knots, he pressed forward with a single aim: to reach his box and be seated.
Greetings were offered to him as he moved forward, and attempts were made to engage him in conversation, but he returned them with a nod and brief civility, never breaking his course.
They entered a narrow passage and at last arrived at his box. Mr. Darcy gestured for Elizabeth to enter through the small doorway that opened into it.
“Miss Elizabeth, take the seat upon the bench as far to the left as possible, that there may be room for the other ladies. I shall sit directly behind you in one of the chairs.”
Elizabeth complied. She seated herself upon the bench, richly upholstered in green baize, and looked about her. The gilded moldings, the painted paneling, and the crimson drapes were all illuminated by the warm glow of chandeliers and candles.
Mr. Darcy settled behind her, watching as she absorbed every detail. He leaned forward.
“What do you think, Miss Elizabeth? Is the theater sufficiently grand?”
“It is very grand, sir. I read all about it when it burned down, and the plan was to rebuild it in a more lavish style.”
“Are you properly impressed, ma’am?”
“I am, sir. I am unlikely ever to forget this experience, just as I told you after our excursion to Vauxhall Gardens. This evening, too, will remain in my memory, something to take out and examine when I am old and gray, passing my last years alone in some quiet garden.”
His brows drew together at her words, and he wondered why she would pass her old age alone.
At that moment, the Hursts arrived, and with them Caroline Bingley. She moved at once toward the chair beside Mr. Darcy and settled next to him, but Mr. Bingley spoke.
“Caroline, the bench is reserved for the ladies. There are only three chairs. One is mine, and the other is for Hurst.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she rose and crossed to the bench. Mrs. Hurst had already taken her place beside Jane, which left the end furthest away from Mr. Darcy for Caroline. She dropped into it with ill grace.
It was then that Georgiana exclaimed, “Brother, I see Uncle Henry in the box directly across from ours.”
Darcy turned from Elizabeth and surveyed the boxes across the theater. There, upon the same level as his own, sat Uncle Henry, the Earl of Matlock. He had returned to London to discover, if he could, who had been responsible for the injury to his heir.
Darcy drew out his watch.
“There is time for me to speak with your uncle. I shall return in a few minutes. Charles, I leave Georgiana in your care.”
Charles lifted his eyes and nodded, then bent his head again to listen to what Jane was saying.
Elizabeth occupied herself by observing the crowd.
She took in the lavish gowns, the rich jewels, the elaborate hairstyles, and the turbans worn by the fashionable ladies around her.
She watched as Mr. Darcy reached his uncle, a man of strong and dignified appearance.
When the Earl saw him, he rose at once, and after a brief exchange, followed his nephew out of the box.
The play began on schedule, and soon all her attention was drawn to the stage.
She heard when Mr. Darcy returned some twenty minutes after the performance had commenced. She did not realize that her presence had created a small sensation. Ladies seated in the nearby boxes studied her closely and whispered together, attempting to determine her importance to Mr. Darcy.
She was the newest on dit, the young woman Mr. Darcy brought to the theater, something he had never done before. And who was the golden-haired child? Was she the sister everyone knew of, yet never saw? Perhaps, then, the lady upon his arm was only his sister’s companion.
At the thought, the unmarried ladies of the room breathed easier, yet they continued to watch, and they observed each time he leaned forward to speak to her, which was often.
They had never seen him so communicative, nor had they ever seen his lips quirk in that half smile. It lent him a rakish air.
A rakish Mr. Darcy. The notion alone was enough to stir curiosity, for this version of the usually reticent gentleman was a decided improvement.
Thus, the gossip swirled about them, entirely without their awareness, and they remained undisturbed by it.
When the tragedy and the farce had concluded, he took her hand and helped her rise. He looked into her eyes.
“And was it everything you hoped for, Miss Elizabeth?”
A slow smile came into her own.
“It was altogether lovely, sir. Not only the play, and the actors, and the richness of the costumes, but the chandeliers, this beautiful box, and being here with you and Georgiana have made it an evening I shall never forget.”
He smiled at her, not the restrained expression she had seen before, but a full smile, and she caught sight of his even white teeth and the dimples that appeared in his cheeks.
A dark lock of hair had fallen across his brow in a manner she found most attractive, and she felt an impulse to lift her hand and smooth it back.
They were looking at one another, and neither seemed aware of anything beyond that moment, but Miss Bingley observed it all.
The tender look, the smile, the way his hand hovered over the lady’s back. He did not touch her, but his wish to do so was plainly written upon his face. Caroline’s eyes narrowed, her hands fisted in the folds of her gown, and had Elizabeth observed her then, she might indeed have trembled.