Chapter 8 #2
“You see how it is,” she murmured, catching Darcy as he passed. “Half a dozen new families, all strangers to one another, stranded under one roof, and every soul in need of something different. I am particularly anxious for one or two of our new guests. There is a lady among them who—”
“Mrs. Gardiner?” Darcy supplied quietly. “I noted she looked somewhat weary.”
Her eyes warmed with approval. “You have the keenest eye, sir. Yes, that very lady. She bore the journey bravely, but I fear it has cost her more than she allows. I shall see she has tea and a small plate, but I see you do not abide idleness well. Perhaps you might inquire with Mr. Gardiner if there is anything more to be done for his good wife. They will not wish to feel forgotten.”
Darcy inclined his head. Better such tasks than the kind that left him standing helplessly aside.
The Gardiners were not the only new arrivals.
One after another, families were guided into the great ballroom, which had been hastily transformed into a supper room.
Long tables bore the weight of steaming dishes, footmen weaving in and out with trays of tea and broth, while children darted between skirts and boots until a nursemaid corralled them toward the hearth.
What was meant for dancing now resembled the ordered chaos of a coaching inn, only gilded with chandeliers and silver platters.
Amid the bustle, a footman brought the Gardiners down.
Mrs. Gardiner, pale but changed into fresh attire, leaned on her husband’s arm with a determination that looked borrowed from her niece.
Elizabeth followed, poised enough for any drawing room, yet she kept close to her aunt’s chair once it was set by the fire.
Lady Montford welcomed them as if she had invited them months ago.
“We will not tire you with introductions tonight,” she promised Mrs. Gardiner.
“You shall have warmth, and tea, and the knowledge that my house has a passion for quiet when it is needed.” She had a chair drawn up beside her for Mr. Gardiner, sent for a tray before he could demur, and spoke with such command that even his protests sounded like acquiescence.
Richard appeared almost at once. He bowed with a warmth that took no asking. “I am relieved to see you safe, ma’am. We were about to send out a rescue party and bring the road in with us. Sir Edward has turned Kelton into a hostel, and I mean that as the highest compliment.”
Mr. Gardiner smiled, fatigue softened by the joke. “Sir Edward’s miracle is precisely what we needed. My wife will bless him when she has the strength to do so.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flicked toward Richard and then, as if against her will, toward Darcy.
He blinked, but he could not fail to acknowledge her, so he bowed—short, exact.
She returned the courtesy with the same crispness.
It was nothing more than any two polite strangers might exchange in a crowded room, and it burned all the more for it.
Mrs. Barlow drifted into their circle with a smile that asked more than it gave. “Mr. Gardiner, your arrival has made us all feel fortunate not to have endured the same. There is nothing so enlivening as a story of peril concluded. Did you meet many adventures?”
“Our adventures were chiefly of the sort that make poor entertainment,” Mr. Gardiner said, steady and good-humoured. “Slippery hills and full inns.”
“Which are precisely the ingredients for excellent stories,” Mrs. Barlow returned. “Why, I daresay London is already repeating them by the fire.”
Elizabeth folded her hands too tightly in her lap. Darcy heard the edge beneath the woman’s words and longed to cut them off. The silence that followed was thin and dangerous—until a maid with a tray arrived, borne in with clinking china and the scent of tea.
Miss Kendrick, who had placed herself nearby without seeming to, leaned toward Mrs. Gardiner. “I would have surrendered at the first drift,” she said warmly. “That you pressed on is heroic. Was the road from London as poor as we heard?”
He saw Elizabeth’s shoulders ease a fraction. Gratitude flickered across her face—guarded, fleeting, yet enough for Darcy to feel it like a touch. “Poorer, I think, though every carriage on it refused to admit as much.”
Sir Edward’s voice carried from across the room. “Colonel, have you told Mr. Gardiner how you persuaded me to put half my staff into the courtyard? The man arrived coatless, and now my footmen dare not put theirs back on.”
Richard called back, “If they catch cold, I shall prescribe mulled wine and humility.”
Laughter rippled outward. Elizabeth adjusted her aunt’s shawl with careful fingers; she refused tea twice, accepted it the third time only because Lady Montford contrived to make it feel a favour to the house.
Mrs. Barlow, not content with calm, turned a bright look upon Elizabeth.
“Now, now, we shall have our story. You came from London, Miss Bennet? We are told the town is thin of company this month, though rumour still travels briskly. I suppose the storm will keep even gossip to its hearth for a day or two.”
Elizabeth summoned a small smile. “Rumour has never minded a storm, madam. I do not expect it will start now.”
Mrs. Barlow’s expression sharpened a degree, but Mr. Kendrick, arriving with a genial anecdote about a coachman who measured safety by the sturdiness of hedges, displaced the moment. Sir Edward declared such honesty should earn the man a place on his staff, and the room let the joke carry it away.
Lady Montford turned back to Mrs. Gardiner. “Is the fire quite warm enough for you? And do not feel compelled to sit for our entertainment, Mrs. Gardiner. Please, retire whenever you wish. We value gaiety here, but not every hour.”
“You are more than kind,” Mrs. Gardiner said simply. “I will be your debtor until I can think how to repay it.”
“You will repay me by making free with your room until you are quite rested,” Lady Montford replied. “And by permitting me to scold my husband when he would fill the house past its seams. He would make Kelton into a coaching inn if I did not restrain him.”
“Not yet,” Sir Edward called, catching only the last words. “Give me another hour and we shall rival the Swan at Stony Stratford.”
Elizabeth’s lips curved reluctantly. She risked a glance toward Darcy. For a heartbeat, their eyes met, and in hers he saw sudden panic at the instinct to seek his face, as though the ground itself had opened. She looked away at once.
Richard, sensing the fracture, drew Elizabeth into safer ground.
“Miss Bennet, Kelton boasts a library that does not hide its best volumes on the highest shelves. If you are condemned to idleness, may I be permitted to show you Lady Montford’s favourites?
She has a genius for separating books that do one good from books that only make one feel improved. ”
Elizabeth rallied. “That is a talent superior to most clergymen,” she answered.
Miss Kendrick, not to be left behind, mentioned certain volumes she had admired in London shops and offered a willingness to exchange opinions upon them later. Darcy was sure he glimpsed a flicker of knowing derision in Elizabeth’s nod, but she was subtle enough to hide it from others.
The room swelled and contracted with new currents: a clergyman described barns opened along the turnpike; children, revived by broth, were carried off to sleep; a farmer’s wife pressed her pie upon Lady Montford and glowed when it was accepted.
In every corner, conversation turned to weather, roads, supplies.
All the while, Darcy and Elizabeth remained almost strangers. He asked after Mrs. Gardiner’s comfort; she thanked him. She inquired after his sister’s health; he assured her. Neither spoke of Kent. Neither spoke of Hertfordshire. Neither spoke each other’s names.
When Mrs. Gardiner flagged, Lady Montford called for the stair. Footmen swept in with uncanny timing. Elizabeth gathered her aunt’s shawl and followed the little procession. At the threshold she turned back.
“You have been more gracious than we deserve,” she said. “I shall remember it always.”
Lady Montford touched her hand. “You are my guest, Miss Bennet. That is claim enough.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flitted past Darcy, as if the space between them could not be crossed. She curtsied—perfect, impersonal—and was gone.
Darcy stood rooted, longing to speak, to shatter the role of polite stranger, yet managed nothing. At last, he forced his body into motion, crossed to Sir Edward, and asked about the back stair. Any task, however petty, was better than betraying himself before them all.
The corridor was warm, the sconces burning steadily against the draughts that prowled from the windows. A footman set down a tray of hot bricks and bowed himself out. Mrs. Gardiner sank into the nearest chair with visible relief while Elizabeth took the bricks to warm the bed.
“Your colour is returning,” Mr. Gardiner said, bending to kiss his wife’s brow. “That is all I ask. Another day in that inn would have finished us both.”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled faintly. “We have been delivered. I am too weary to do more than be thankful for it.” She looked toward Elizabeth. “And you, my dear, are too pale. You must rest.”
Elizabeth busied herself with the cloak she had folded across the bed, unwilling to meet her aunt’s eye. Rest was the last thing likely.
Mr. Gardiner, pulling off his gloves, said with his usual cheer, “Sir Edward is a man of hearty kindness. His lady manages him with grace. As for the cousin who is our host’s kinsman—Colonel Fitzwilliam, I think—he is the very soul of good company.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Gardiner agreed, “he has warmth in him. His cousin, Mr. Darcy—” She hesitated delicately. “Well, Lizzy, he is much as you described from Hertfordshire. Very proud, very grave. A man who seems to look always at the world from a great height.”
Elizabeth set the cloak down with care. “Yes,” she said at last, her tone hollow.
Her uncle chuckled. “Not every man is fashioned to be easy. There is room in the world for solemn figures. But I confess, I prefer the colonel’s manner.”
Mrs. Gardiner nodded, her eyes already half-closed. “Indeed. Yet we are not here to be entertained. Comfort is more than enough.”
Elizabeth murmured agreement, but her thoughts whirled.
Prideful, solemn, unbending—those were the words she herself had once used, flung like weapons in a parsonage at Hunsford.
Yet hearing them spoken now, as simple observation, unsettled her.
She could not correct them without betraying herself.
Nor could she assent without a twist of unease.
She bade her uncle and aunt good night and withdrew to her adjoining chamber.
The fire was cheerful, the sheets warmed, yet she stood long at the window before undressing.
Snow thickened still, filling the world with silence.
Somewhere under the same roof Darcy moved, as bound to Kelton by the storm as she.
Her aunt’s words echoed in her mind: prideful, solemn. Elizabeth closed her eyes. She had thought the same once—and still her heart had not been at peace seeing him bow to her like a stranger.