Chapter 7
Having made up his mind to visit the Gardiners, Darcy was gripped by a sense of urgency. He had already delayed enough. He quickly made his way downstairs to speak to the pastry chef. It would be simpler to explain what he wanted directly, without intermediaries.
The kitchen workers were startled at this unusual visit by the master of the house, curtseying and bowing hastily.
Darcy addressed the French pastry chef. “Moreau, I have come to you with an unusual request, at least for midwinter. I would like you to make some ices.”
If Moreau was surprised, he did not show it. “I can arrange for it, sir,” he said. “What flavor did you have in mind?”
Darcy recalled the game they had played.
“Strawberry.”
Moreau balked. “Strawberries could be difficult this time of the year, Mr. Darcy.”
“But not impossible.”
The chef sighed. “I will certainly do my best, Mr. Darcy. When would you like me to prepare these ices?”
“Preferably today.”
The chef’s brow twitched. “Very well. How many portions did you have in mind?”
Darcy thought about it. It was a great deal of trouble for just one portion for Maggie. Miss Bennet would no doubt enjoy some, and he supposed he should make enough for the Gardiners to enjoy. He did not know if they had other children, so he would count two more. And for him and Georgiana.
“Eight portions will do,” said Darcy. “And it needs to be carefully packed. I will be taking it somewhere else. Send word upstairs when you think it will be ready.”
He left Moreau barking orders at the staff.
There would probably be some grumbling, but, unlike many of his peers, he did not make these kinds of sudden requests very often.
It must seem whimsical for him to demand strawberries at this time of the year, but it was worth it to indulge a child who had been so terrified.
Next, he had the rocking horse brought down from the attic and asked for it to be cleaned and the wood polished until it shined.
Having accomplished what he set out to do, he went upstairs in a much better mood than he had been in the past few days.
He had been wrong to ignore Mr. Gardiner’s letters.
Rebuffing the Gardiners simply because they lived in Cheapside had not sat well with him.
He had several acquaintances who came from trade.
Mr. Charles Bingley was a close friend of his, even though his father’s fortune had been earned exclusively from manufacturing in the north.
He called for his valet to help him with a change of clothing, told Georgiana to be ready, and went to his library to write a note to Mr. Gardiner informing him of his intention to visit later that afternoon.
He then settled down to deal with some correspondence while he waited for word to be sent up by Moreau.
It was quite late in the afternoon when a maid scratched on the library door to tell him the ices were ready.
There was no time to be lost. He hurried to find Georgiana, who was reading a novel in the parlor.
“I have received word from the kitchen that the ices have been prepared and packed in ice. Are you ready to leave?”
Georgiana brightened and put her book down. “I am. I would love to see little Margaret again. And Miss Bennet, as well. I am glad you changed your mind, William. I would like to further our acquaintance.”
“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” said Darcy, determined to limit Georgiana’s expectations. “We are just calling this once, to fulfil a promise I made but I had forgotten.”
Georgiana nodded, but she gave him a quizzing smile. “Very well, Brother. I understand perfectly.”
The arrival of Mr. Darcy’s unexpected note took everyone by surprise.
Mrs. Gardiner sent on the message to Mr. Gardiner at his place of work.
Mr. Gardiner arrived a few minutes later, and the announcement that he would be calling that very afternoon caused a flurry of activity as Mrs. Gardiner prepared to receive him.
She set the servants in a frenzy of cleaning and polishing.
Elizabeth had spent a long time deciding what to wear, changing her mind several times before settling on her favorite green dress.
She reminded herself that it was irrelevant what she wore, that Mr. Darcy had already seen her at her worst, but that only increased her determination to show him what she was like at her best. It was a point of pride, she supposed.
He may have dismissed Elizabeth as not worthy of his acquaintance, but she wanted to prove him wrong.
As she waited with her aunt and cousins in the drawing room, she did her best to concentrate on her needlework, but her mind kept wandering.
Her embroidery skills were average at the best of times, but as she awaited Mr. Darcy’s arrival, feeling on edge, she kept pricking herself accidentally with the needle.
In any case, Mr. Darcy was not here to see her. His note had indicated that Maggie was the object of his visit, and her little cousin and her two older brothers had been dressed in their finest clothes. The boys were growing restless already, and would soon have to be sent upstairs.
“When will Mr. Darcy come?” asked Maggie, for possibly the tenth time.
“I have no idea,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “He could be here any moment.”
Mrs. Gardiner was doing her best to keep the children entertained.
She was sitting on the carpet, playing marbles with them, but the children were complaining that they needed a wooden floor for the marbles to move freely.
They had been playing in the drawing room for some time, but their patience was wearing thin.
The two older boys, Edward and Henry, were already asking if they could go up to the nursery where they could play ‘properly’, as they termed it.
Elizabeth could not help wondering why Mr. Darcy was coming here.
She did not know what to make of it. Why had he suddenly decided to grace them with his presence after a week’s silence?
She had resigned herself to never seeing him again, and she was thrown off guard by this unexpected reversal.
His note had been helpful. It merely stated that he wished to call on Miss Margaret in the afternoon.
Well, she supposed she would find out when he came, even though he seemed determined to make them wait.
Elizabeth had been working on embroidering a cover for a cushion for at least an hour and was already heartily tired of it.
The stitches were horribly uneven, with some of them much too tight and pulling at the cloth.
She hoped Mr. Darcy would not ask to see it.
Then finally, they heard the sharp rap of the knocker. The children looked up from their play, and Mr. Gardiner emerged from the library to join them. Elizabeth took a deep breath to compose herself.
She had barely put aside her embroidery when Mr. Darcy was shown into the drawing room. He stopped at the threshold and took in the scene, his eyes landing on the children playing on the floor before turning towards Elizabeth.
She had thought herself prepared to see him again, but there was something about his gaze that flustered her.
It was difficult to know how to behave with him.
She thought she knew him, yet, now that he stood before her, his hair neatly arranged, his coat perfectly tailored, and his boots so polished she could see her reflection in them, she found herself face to face with a stranger.
Even more disturbing, Mr. Darcy was even more handsome than she remembered. She was rarely at a loss for words, but for once, she felt frozen in place and did not quite know what to do or say.
Fortunately, her uncle stepped forward.
“My niece tells me you have not yet been introduced. Allow me to present Miss Elizabeth Bennet, whom you have already met. And this is my wife, Mrs. Madeline Gardiner.”
“Fitzwilliam Darcy, at your service, and this is my sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy.”
Elizabeth curtseyed to brother and sister, then smiled warmly at Miss Darcy, who smiled shyly back.
“I hope you did not suffer any bad effects from our last encounter?” she asked.
“I did not, but my brother did.”
Elizabeth turned to Darcy, shocked. Somehow, she had never imagined the reason he did not respond was because he was ill. And she had judged him so harshly. She felt contrite and dismayed at the same time.
“Oh, I am very sorry to hear it, Mr. Darcy. No wonder we did not hear from you earlier.”
“It is nothing,” he said. “I am fully recovered now, as you can see.”
Indeed, he did not look as if he had been ill. She considered what might have happened if she had not insisted on taking him up in the carriage. Her instinct had been right. She could only be glad he had listened.
“Well, then, shall we sit down?” said Mr. Gardiner, heartily.
Elizabeth took up her embroidery from the sofa and gestured for the Darcys to occupy that space. Surreptitiously, she dropped the embroidery into a hidden corner. She did not want him glancing at it, even in passing.
Darcy took his time to make his way to the sofa, wondering if he had been wise to call on the Gardiners, and pondering how quickly he could leave without seeming rude.
He had nothing to say to Miss Bennet. He knew nothing about her, nor she about him.
He had not even corrected her belief that he had not answered them until today because he had been ill all this time.
He did not even know why he had decided to come here. Would he have done so if he had not discovered that Miss Bennet was a single young lady and not married as he had thought?
It was all very confusing. On his way here, Darcy had hoped that seeing Miss Bennet again in the plain light of day would prove disappointing.
He would realize that there was nothing remarkable about her either in looks or conduct, and that his image of her sprung either from the feelings generated by the crisis in the park, or from feverish dreams. Mostly, Darcy recalled how she had felt in his arms as he carried her through the water.
He had come to think of her as a kind of wild water sprite, her dress dripping, her hair spread out in wet ringlets.
Now they were in a drawing room, her appearance was much more mundane.
She was wearing a fashionable green silk dress over a muslin petticoat embroidered with green leaves.
The green reminded Darcy of the green spencer that had clung to her when he picked her up from the lake.
However, with her hair done up elegantly in interwoven braids and her face edged with curls, she now presented a very different image: that of a proper young lady.
As silence fell over the drawing room, Darcy wondered with dread if he had been foolish to come. He was too conscious of Miss Bennet’s presence, but he did not want to address her directly. Yet, with no one else speaking, he was left with no plausible direction in which to lead the conversation.
The tension deepened. Darcy wished he had the facility that other people possessed of putting people at ease. He had no idea how to bring back the easy conversation they had exchanged that first day.
Meanwhile, Miss Bennet was avoiding his gaze. She, too, did not have anything to say. The merriment that had captivated him when they were in Hyde Park was nowhere in sight.
What if the bland young lady in front of him was the real Miss Bennet, and the remarkable version he had met in the park was the product of their perilous situation?
“So, Mr. Darcy, have you recovered completely from your illness?” said Mrs. Gardiner.
“Completely,” he said. “And Maggie, is she well?”
“She is. She was very lucky,” said Mr. Gardiner.
The mention of her name must have drawn her attention, because, at that moment, Maggie burst into the scene.
She ran to him and threw her little arms around his waist. Since she could not reach very far, it made him aware of how fragile and small she was, and how vulnerable to the elements.
She had seemed strong at the lake, fighting against him, but it was a strength born of desperation and the urge to survive.
“Mr. Darcy!” she said, her smile revealing her missing tooth. “Did you bring the rocking horse as you promised?”
“Maggie!” intervened her father, dismayed. “You cannot ask Mr. Darcy for things! You must apologize right away!”
“I am sorry, Mr. Darcy,” she said, with a little curtsey.
Darcy nodded in response. Her father was right, of course, and he would not gainsay him.
He was looking forward to seeing her reaction when she discovered what he had brought. “As it so happens, I do have something for you,” he remarked, with a smile.
“What is it?” she replied eagerly.
“You will have to wait and find out once it has been brought up.”
“Can you give me a hint? Please?” she begged.
“Leave Mr. Darcy alone, Maggie,” said Mrs. Gardiner, with an indulgent smile. “You will find out soon enough.”
The little girl looked disappointed. Luckily, she spotted Georgiana and her attention shifted. “Miss Darcy! Will you tell me a story like you did last time?”
“Of course,” said Georgiana.
Maggie squeezed in next to Georgiana, wriggling until she found a comfortable position, her legs swinging as she waited expectantly for Georgiana to begin.
It suddenly struck Darcy that he had saved this little girl. Miss Elizabeth might have been able to bring Margaret out eventually, but it was because of him and his timely intervention that she had not suffered any unpleasant effects. She was here, sitting amongst them, because of him.
His heart swelled with pride. He had done a good deed. He had every right to congratulate himself for his hasty intervention.
This was why he had come here today. Not to see Miss Elizabeth Bennet, but to fulfil a promise made to a little girl who had almost drowned.