Ten
The last week of April brought warmth, and Elizabeth took it where she could find it.
She lasted three.
Yesterday had been her half day. She had missed the previous week because Anne had caught a head cold—nothing alarming, a runny nose and a cough that produced more outrage than phlegm.
Elizabeth had wanted to stay close, and Mr Darcy had not pressed her to go.
He had, in fact, brought Anne’s supper to the nursery himself that evening.
So yesterday she had gone to Somers Town for the first time in a fortnight, and what she had found there made no sense.
The house was different. It was altered in a dozen small ways that added up to something larger.
The front step had been repaired. The cracked flagstone that had caught Kitty’s heel in February was gone, replaced by a smooth new one.
The window in the kitchen, which had been draughty and stuffed with rags, had been reglazed.
The damp patch on the parlour wall, a spreading stain that Mrs Bennet had covered with a chair and pretended did not exist, had been plastered and whitewashed.
“We have a new landlord,” Mrs Bennet had announced, pouring tea that was, Elizabeth noticed, considerably stronger than the watered brew they had been rationing for months.
“The old one sold up. The new one sent a man round to inspect the property, and three days later workmen appeared. They mended the step and fixed the window. They did something to the chimney and it has stopped smoking in the parlour.”
“Did they raise the rent?”
“Reduced!” Mrs Bennet set the teapot down.
“Ten pounds per annum. Eight pounds less than before. The man said it was a correction, whatever that means. I did not ask him to explain. And that is not all.” She reached behind the bread crock and produced a card.
Elizabeth took it. It was printed on cream stock, simple and tasteful: The Amity Foundation—Assistance for Families of Reduced Gentlewomen.
Below it, an address in Cheapside that Elizabeth did not recognise.
“They arrived last week. A woman, very respectable, with a cart. Flour, sugar, tea, soap, candles, a ham.” Mrs Bennet ticked the items off her fingers with precision.
She had counted every mouthful for seven years and could recite the contents of her larder the way other women recited poetry.
“She said the Foundation had been made aware of our circumstances through a parish referral. I asked which parish. She said she was not at liberty to say.”
Elizabeth turned the card over. The back was blank.
“Have you heard of this foundation, Mamma?”
“I have not. Nor has your uncle Gardiner, and he knows every charitable society in London.” Mrs Bennet picked up her tea. “I do not care, Lizzy. I do not care if it is the King himself. The ham was excellent, and Lydia ate two slices, which is more than she has eaten in a sitting for months.”
She had said this last part quietly, without drama, and the weight of it had pressed on Elizabeth’s chest for the rest of the visit.
She had not believed in coincidence since the day Lydia came home ruined and the world proved that bad things did not happen randomly. They happened in sequences, each one connected to the last by a thread of cause and consequence that could be traced if you were willing to follow it far enough.
Good things, she suspected, operated the same way. They did not fall from the sky. They had architects.
She had been employed by Mr Darcy for six weeks.
The timing was either a staggering coincidence or it was not a coincidence at all.
Elizabeth Bennet, who had learned through years of poverty that there was always a catch, always a cost, always a hand behind the curtain, could not bring herself to believe in staggering coincidences.
She opened her eyes and turned her head, slowly, towards the house.
Mr Darcy’s study was on the first floor, the windows overlooking the garden.
She had sat on this bench many times and she knew the angle, knew which window was his.
She knew the curtains were green, and that he left them half-drawn in the afternoon because the western sun hit his desk.
He was there, standing at the window, in full view, his hands clasped behind his back, his face angled down to the garden. Towards her.
Their eyes met and he startled. The movement was small but unmistakable—a stiffening of his shoulders, a fractional step backward. He recovered quickly and gave a nod, brief and formal. Then he turned into the room and disappeared behind the curtain.
Elizabeth closed her eyes and turned her face back to the sun.
She started counting to one hundred and twenty and breathed.
She felt the warmth on her eyelids, the stone bench beneath her, and the air on her skin.
She had reached ninety-three when she heard the back door open and close, and footsteps on the gravel path, measured and deliberate, approaching.
She did not open her eyes. She waited. The footsteps stopped beside the bench.
Two minutes. He had lasted two minutes.
“May I join you, Miss Bennet?”
She opened her eyes. He was standing beside the bench, his coat buttoned, his cravat perfect, his hands clasped behind his back.
He had an expression that suggested he was taking the air in his own garden because he felt like it, not because he had been watching her from his study window two minutes ago and rushed to come down.
“Of course, Mr Darcy. It is your garden.”
He sat, leaving a careful distance between them, enough to satisfy propriety. Certainly enough to satisfy Barton if he happened to be cleaning a window with unobstructed view of the bench.
“A fine afternoon,” he said.
“It is.”
“Anne is napping?”
“She is. Alice is with her.”
“Good. Good.”
The silence that followed was of the variety that occurred when two people had a great deal to say and neither was prepared to begin.
Elizabeth let it stretch. She had learned patience from standing in queues, waiting in offices, and sitting in rooms where her fate was being decided by people who were not in a hurry.
She could outwait anyone. She could certainly outwait Mr Darcy, who was already shifting his weight on the bench and studying the gravel path as though it contained vital intelligence.
She did not intend to outwait him. She intended to ambush him.
“The most curious thing has happened to my family, Mr Darcy.”
He turned his head, his expression politely attentive. “Oh?”
“Their house has been purchased by a new landlord. The rent has been reduced and repairs were made. “Also, a charitable foundation”—she paused to let the word settle— “has begun delivering provisions.”
“How fortunate.” His voice did not waver. His face did not change a jot. He was good, she had to give him that. He was very, very good.
“It is remarkable, is it not? After years of nothing, suddenly everything arrives at once. My uncle Gardiner, who knows every charitable society in London, cannot place the foundation. The address on their card leads to Cheapside, which is convenient, and to an office my mother has not been able to locate, which is less so.”
“Perhaps the foundation is newly established.”
“Perhaps.” She watched a sparrow hop along the garden wall. “Or perhaps it does not exist.”
The silence that followed was different from the first.
“Miss Bennet, I am not certain what you are suggesting.”
She turned to face him. The movement brought them closer than she had calculated—the bench was not wide, and the careful distance he had established dissolved when she angled her body towards his.
Their knees were inches apart. She could see the grain of his coat, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the pulse at his throat.
She held his gaze. “Tell me the truth, Mr Darcy. Are you behind all this?”
He did not blink. “I am not.”
“The house. The rent. The foundation.”
“I know nothing about any of it.”
“You are a poor liar, Mr Darcy.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He held her gaze for three full seconds, then his eyes moved to the garden wall, to the sparrow, to anything that was not her face demanding the truth from a close distance.
“I offered you an honest, well-paid contract, Miss Bennet. Nothing more. Your family’s good fortune is their own.”
She did not believe a syllable of it. But she could not prove he was behind all this, and he was not going to confess. Pressing further would cross a line she was not prepared to cross.
She let the silence hold for a moment longer and then she released him.
“Very well, Mr Darcy. I shall take you at your word.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction. He had been bracing for more, and the reprieve caught him off guard.
“I should, however, like to thank you for the gowns.”
He turned back to her, the relief on his face replaced by wariness. “The gowns are a requirement of the household.”
“Of course. I understand that I must present a certain appearance when representing the family. Miss Darcy was very kind to arrange the fittings. The day dress is lovely, and the evening gown is finer than anything I have owned.” She paused. “The stockings were also very fine.”
The colour rose from his collar to his ears. She watched it climb and felt a small, private satisfaction that was not entirely charitable.
“I am glad they are satisfactory, Miss Bennet.”
“They are more than satisfactory. Please extend my gratitude to Miss Darcy for her thoughtfulness.” She kept her voice perfectly even. “And for her thoroughness.”
He stood abruptly, as though the bench had caught fire.
“I should return to my study. I have correspondence that requires attention.” He was already stepping back onto the gravel path. “Enjoy the afternoon, Miss Bennet.”
“Thank you, Mr Darcy. I shall.”
He walked away, his stride brisk, his back straight, his ears still crimson. He disappeared through the garden door without turning around.