Chapter 7
The door opened again to admit a gust of cold and a fresh parcel of travellers, stamping and blowing and crying out at the state of their toes.
The room adjusted to include them, as such rooms always did, with a good deal of shuffling and a little good-natured deception about whose chair had been whose.
Elizabeth drew her aunt’s shawl closer about her and watched the new arrivals without interest. She felt the tiredness that comes not merely from motion but from many small demands upon attention and care.
Mr. Gardiner returned at last with the landlord in tow, his expression carrying more apology than triumph.
“There is a little parlour off the back passage,” he said.
“No chamber free—our failed attempt at Towcester has brought us back too late—but the parlour has a fire that will behave if coaxed and a door that shuts. They will bring us tea and whatever passes for pie in this house. We may sit there until a room can be contrived.”
Mrs. Gardiner rose with visible relief. Elizabeth gathered their gloves and workbasket, and together they threaded the crowded room once more.
As they went, a gentleman near the door rose to let them pass and made a stiff approximation of a bow.
It was a small courtesy, but Elizabeth felt it acutely.
On a day that had given them so little choice, the space he yielded seemed a kindness out of all proportion.
The back parlour proved as promised—narrow, with walls that had once been papered in roses and now displayed only the memory of them—but the fire burned steadily and the door shut with a solid click.
Elizabeth seated her aunt and drew the chair nearer, pleased to feel the room gather itself around them.
The noise of the common room dropped to a manageable murmur.
“We shall do very well,” she said. “I intend to be charmed by the pie, whatever its nature. And if the tea is even lukewarm, I shall write sonnets in its praise.”
Mr. Gardiner’s mouth softened. “If it is very warm indeed, I shall contribute a couplet.” He hesitated, then added, “I have sent a note to Louisa with our direction, in case a reply should make its way by any route at all. We cannot return to London until the roads allow it, and we cannot go forward. But we need not be miserable while we wait.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, and felt the truth of it. Misery did not improve any situation she had ever known. This room, poor as it was, offered a pause. She would make what she could of it.
A knock came; the maid entered with a battered tray, steam curling from the spout of the pot.
Elizabeth thanked her as if it had been a gift of state.
When the door closed again, she poured for her aunt and then for her uncle, and only then for herself.
The tea tasted faintly of smoke and strongly of comfort.
Outside, the storm continued its thorough work. Inside, the three of them sat with their cups and, for a little while, let the warmth stand in for certainty. The letter had shut one door; the roads had shut two more; but they were together and, for the moment, still.
The little parlour did its best, but by the time they left it for their chamber, the air had grown stifling with smoke from the coaxed fire.
Elizabeth led her aunt upstairs with relief.
Mrs. Gardiner confessed herself equal only to bed and a cup of broth.
Elizabeth helped her settle, saw her comfortably beneath the blankets, and left her uncle with a promise that she would fetch whatever might be needed from below.
The common room had not grown less crowded in their absence. If anything, the storm outside had driven still more travellers within. Elizabeth gathered her cloak about her and edged her way toward the hearth, hoping for a corner where she might wait while the chamber was made more tolerable.
The door opened with a loud gust, and half a dozen officers strode in, stamping snow from their boots, calling for ale with the confidence of men who expected it brought before they had asked twice.
Their laughter rang out above the clatter of crockery.
One or two glanced about for diversion, and one stopped altogether, staring.
“Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth turned, startled. The speaker was a man she remembered from Meryton—a lieutenant whose name had often been spoken with approval.
She had even danced with him once. Saunders, that was it.
He had been civil, attentive without presumption, the sort of officer her neighbours had held up as proof that not all regiments were composed of rakes and idlers.
She inclined her head. “Lieutenant Saunders. I did not expect to meet anyone from Hertfordshire in such a place.”
“Nor I you,” he returned, stepping nearer. His gaze swept her quickly, as if noting the absence of chaperone. “I did not know you travelled the roads in such weather. Rather cold, is it not?”
“My uncle is just over there, and my aunt rests upstairs in her room,” Elizabeth said, bristling a little at the implication.
He smiled, but the smile had a twist to it she had not seen before. “Ah. Of course. Though I suppose even the most careful guardians cannot always be at hand, and a bit of warmth could do us both good.”
Elizabeth stiffened. “Sir?”
He leaned in, lowering his voice though not enough to be private in such a room.
“It is only—I had thought, after all that passed with your sister and Wickham—that your family had learnt a harsher trade with the world. One must do what one must, eh? A clever girl like you, shifting for herself—why, I daresay you could find protectors enough.”
The words struck with the shock of a blow. For a moment Elizabeth could not answer. She could hardly believe this man, once thought respectable, capable of such grossness.
“I think you forget yourself, sir!” she managed, her cheeks burning.
He laughed softly. “Come now, no need for such airs. I meant only—”
“Enough, sir.”
The words came from just behind her. Mr. Gardiner had returned without her noticing and now stood squarely between them.
His expression was not loud or threatening; it was cool, rich with contempt, and all the more damning for it.
“Lieutenant, I believe? You speak to my niece, a lady. I recommend you remember it.”
Saunders faltered. His smile wavered into something sheepish. “No offense meant, sir. A jest only.”
“Then learn to jest with your equals,” Mr. Gardiner said, taking Elizabeth’s arm and turning her away. “Not with ladies who have never given you encouragement.”
They moved through the crowd, which obligingly shifted aside for a gentleman in earnest. Elizabeth’s heart hammered in her chest. She scarcely felt the floor beneath her feet.
Her uncle did not speak until they had reached the stair. Then he looked down at her with gentleness. “Pay him no further thought, my dear. Such men are unworthy of it.”
Elizabeth managed a nod. She could not yet summon words.
Later, when her aunt was sleeping and the inn lay quieter, Elizabeth sat by the window of their chamber and turned the moment over in her mind.
She had misjudged Lieutenant Saunders once, as she had misjudged Wickham.
Smooth manners and a pleasing countenance had hidden nothing more than vanity and coarseness.
And in her folly, she had thrown back the warnings of the one man who had spoken truth, the man whose silence tonight she might almost have welcomed above all things.
The disgrace of Lydia’s folly had opened a door she had never imagined: a door through which men felt free to speak to her as if she were fallen, too, as if her sister’s stain were hers to wear. It chilled her more than the storm outside.
Elizabeth pressed her hand to the glass.
Snow still fell, steady and unrelenting, blotting out the road in both directions.
Where is safety, when judgment follows wherever one goes?
The thought rose before she could bar it: perhaps with him…
but that road was barred, and she knew it.
She turned away at last, extinguished the candle, and lay awake for a long time listening to the storm’s ceaseless voice.
The dining hall glowed as if it had gathered every candle in the house to make a stand against the storm.
Flame caught on crystal and silver until the long table became a bright river running between banks of evergreen.
Holly berries shone among the polished epergnes; the air carried a mingled promise of roasted meats and winter spices.
Footmen moved with that quiet certainty which makes an army of service seem to vanish and reappear exactly where wanted.
Sir Edward led Lady Montford to her seat with a flourish that would have seemed theatrical had it not been so entirely his nature.
Chairs scraped lightly; places sorted themselves by a choreography no guest had needed to learn.
Darcy had the brief impression of a pattern settling into order while he himself stood just beyond it—then a footman touched his elbow and indicated his seat with discreet exactitude.
He found himself between Mrs. Barlow and Miss Kendrick.
Across the table, Colonel Fitzwilliam had been planted neatly beside Miss Clara Montford: a choice that could not have been accidental, since the young lady brightened at his first word and seemed unlikely to dim again.
Mr. Kendrick took a place two down from Darcy on the opposite side, already exchanging remarks with Sir Edward that drew laughter along the near end.
Mrs. Barlow greeted Darcy with a smile that suggested she had rehearsed several topics for him and meant to try them all.
Her jewels flashed like small, amused eyes whenever she turned her head.
“Mr. Darcy, you have rescued our table from melancholy. We were on the verge of lamenting the weather in earnest, and nothing is so tedious as an honest lament.”