Chapter 10
TEN
HE HAD NOT MEANT TO SLEEP.
He had gone upstairs at half past seven with the intention of sitting on the edge of his bed for a few minutes and thinking through what he was going to do about Mia.
That was all. A few minutes. Somewhere between sitting down and thinking, his body had made a different decision entirely, and when he opened his eyes again the room was dark and the clock on his phone said seven forty-seven.
He lay still for a moment.
Then it came back to him. First, the museum, then the attempted calls that didn’t come through because his phone was on DnD.
An image of Mia in her coat at four o clock waiting for someone who had not come appeared in his head again.
It was soon drowned by Elizabeth's voice, level and quiet, delivering each sentence like something she had already decided he needed to hear properly.
She cried.
He sat up and ran both hands over his face as he thought about those words.
Two words. That was all it had taken. She had not elaborated. She had not needed to.
He stretched, his back giving the complaint of someone who had slept badly on top of sleeping wrong, and sat on the edge of the bed in the dark listening to the house.
Then he heard it, voices downstairs. Two of them. Low and then a laugh, short and real, the kind that arrived without permission.
He stood up, threw a shirt on and headed downstair to investigate.
***
They were in the living room. Mia was on the sofa with her feet tucked under her, hair down, in the oversized sweatshirt she wore when she had decided the day was over.
Elizabeth was at the other end with a mug and the remote and they were looking at something on the television and talking over it the way people talked over things they were not really watching.
They both looked up when he appeared in the doorway.
Elizabeth's expression settled into something neutral.
Mia's did something different. She looked at him.
Then she looked away. Then she looked back, and her face did the thing fifteen-year-old faces did when they were trying to decide between sustained coldness and the inconvenience of actually acting playful with you when you have disappointed them. The coldness was already losing.
"Mia," he said.
"Hmm." She pulled the sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands.
"I owe you an apology."
"Mm."
"I forgot. There is no excuse for it. I told you I would be there and I was not there and I am sorry."
Mia looked at the television. "Leave me alone, Mr. Darcy."
"Mia —"
"You promised." She said it simply, into the middle distance, in the particular tone of someone who was not shouting because they did not need to. "You said you would take me. I cancelled on Priya. I got ready. You didn't show up." She pulled her sleeves further. "Leave me alone, Mr. Darcy."
He stood in the doorway and took it. He did not deflect. He did not explain further. He just let her say it, because it was true and she was entitled to say it and the least he could do was stay in the room while she did.
Elizabeth watched him over her mug.
The television continued talking to itself.
"We are going out," Elizabeth said eventually. "To see a film. The late showing."
"All right," Darcy said, his face lighting up.
In her corner, Mia eyed him with mocking eyes.
"You do not need to wait up," Elizabeth announced.
Darcy shook his head. "I will drive you."
"I will drive."
"It is nearly nine o'clock. Aside that, you hate driving at night."
"I am aware of what time it is.” Elizabeth said almost before he finished “We’ll manage."
“She will manage,” Mia added in a childish, playful tone.
Darcy looked at them both. Elizabeth with her mug. Mia with her sweatshirt sleeves. The two of them arranged on the sofa with the easy alignment of people who had spent enough time together to take up the same space without negotiating it.
"I will come," he said. "I will not say a word. I will sit wherever you put me. I will not comment on the film or the popcorn or the driving. I will be completely silent."
"That would be a first," Elizabeth said.
"I am capable of silence."
"In theory."
He looked at Mia. She was still looking at the television but the corner of her mouth had moved. Slightly. Not a smile. The territory just before a smile, which was close enough.
"You can pay with your card," Mia said.
"Done."
"For everything."
"Everything."
"Popcorn. Drinks. Whatever they have at the counter."
"Whatever they have at the counter," he agreed.
Mia turned her head toward him slowly, with the measured consideration of someone granting an audience. "Anything we want?"
"Anything you want."
She looked at him for a moment longer, weighing this, her expression doing the quiet arithmetic of a fifteen-year-old deciding whether a concession was sufficient.
"Fine," she said, and turned back to the television.
It was the closest thing to forgiveness. Darcy decided he would take just that.
He looked at Elizabeth. She was looking at him with an expression he could not entirely read. There was a smile too, a mocking one that felt like she was being sorry for how gentle he was in apologising to Mia.
"Fifteen minutes," she said. "Then we are leaving."
"Fifteen minutes," he said.
He went back upstairs to get his jacket and his wallet, and he moved quickly because fifteen minutes with Elizabeth Bennet meant twelve, and he had learned that much at least.
***
The film was loud and colourful and entirely Mia, which meant Elizabeth had seen approximately four films like it in the past month and had developed, against her better judgement, a genuine opinion about animated robot sequels.
Darcy sat in the aisle seat, which was where Mia put him, and he did not comment on this.
He bought everything they pointed at without a word — two large popcorns, three drinks, and a pick and mix that Mia spent eight full minutes assembling at the counter with the focused deliberation of someone making a significant decision.
Elizabeth stood beside her. Darcy stood behind them both and looked at the ceiling and said nothing about the eight minutes, which Elizabeth noted and did not mention.
Inside, in the dark, Mia narrated her favourite parts under her breath.
Elizabeth laughed twice at things she had not expected to find funny.
She was aware, without looking, that Darcy was aware of both of these things, and she was also aware that he said nothing about either, and she found this more disarming than if he had said something.
On the way out he bought Mia a second pick and mix without being asked because she had finished the first one during the trailers and had been looking at the counter on the way in with an expression of quiet longing that he had apparently not missed.
He noticed things. He always had.
Elizabeth moved that thought to somewhere else in her head and kept walking.
In the lobby Mia went ahead to look at the posters and Elizabeth found herself walking beside Darcy without having decided to, their steps falling into the same rhythm in the particular way that happened when two people had been sharing a house long enough that their bodies had made a separate peace even when everything else had not.
"Thank you," she said. Quietly. Not looking at him.
"For the popcorn."
"For not making it worse."
He said nothing. She did not need him to.
Ahead of them Mia turned from a poster. "There is a sequel. The robot one. Can we see it when it comes out?"
"When does it come out?"
"March."
Elizabeth looked at Darcy. He looked at her. Something passed between them that was not quite a conversation but was not nothing either.
"Yes," he said. "We can see it in March."
Mia nodded, satisfied, and filed it away in the manner of someone who would be referencing this at the appropriate time. Elizabeth looked at the side of his face. He was watching Mia.
Then he looked at her. Brief. Direct.
"March," he said.
"March," she agreed.
She looked away first.
***
Darcy drove as they went back home. Elizabeth had said she would manage and he had said nothing and simply taken the keys from the hand because it was nearly midnight and Brooklyn at midnight was, in his opinion, not the moment for managing.
She had let him. Which was its own kind of progress.
Mia was in the back seat. She had the remainder of her second pick and mix on her lap and the particular energy of someone who had been to the cinema and was not ready for the evening to be over and was looking for somewhere to put that.
Elizabeth watched the street go by outside her window.
"You know what would be nice," Mia said.
"What," Elizabeth said.
"If you two got married."
The car was very quiet.
Darcy's hands did not move on the wheel. Elizabeth kept her eyes on the street outside.
"Mia," she said.
"I am just saying." Mia's voice was entirely reasonable, which was the most dangerous version of her voice. "Think about it. Mr. Darcy would be my new dad. You would be my new mum. We would be a proper family. The three of us, in the house, permanently. Nobody going anywhere."
"We are not —"
"I know, I know." She ate a jelly sweet. "I am just saying it would be nice. Tidy. I mean, you two have dated before, and Mr Darcy is handsome, and you are very beautiful. It is perfect. A match made in some romance tale. Mum would have found it very funny."
"Charlotte would have found it insufferably satisfying," Elizabeth said, "which is different from funny."
"She would have said I told you so," Mia agreed. "Many times. At volume."
"This is not a conversation we are having."
"We are literally having it right now."
"Mia."
In the front seat, beside her, Darcy had not said a single word. Elizabeth was aware of this the way you were aware of a sound that had stopped.
"Anyway," Elizabeth said, with the specific lightness of someone changing a subject by force of will, "it is not relevant because I am actually seeing someone."
Mia went still in the back seat.
Darcy's jaw moved. Just slightly. Elizabeth could almost see how he was using a lot of effort to keep his eyes on the road.
"You are seeing someone," Mia said.
"I have a date. Next week."
"Through Ember?" Darcy said, finally saying something.
"Through Ember, yes."
The silence that followed had a shape to it.
"Huh," Mia said. "What is Ember?"
"Yes, Elizabeth, what is Ember?" Darcy asked mockingly.
"It is not a big deal," Elizabeth said, ignoring Darcy’s question. "It is one date. Lydia organised the whole thing, and I am going because otherwise she will never stop."
"Right."
"It is not a big deal," Elizabeth said again, which was the second time she had said it, which she was aware of.
"Of course," Mia said. Mildly. The way she said things when she was thinking considerably more than she was saying.
The street outside continued. A traffic light. A late bus. The ordinary texture of the city at midnight.
Darcy said nothing further, but the tense lines in his jaws suggested he had a lot he was keeping to his chest. He changed lanes smoothly, indicated, did everything a person driving a car was required to do, and Elizabeth looked at his profile in the dark and looked away again and looked back at the window.
"Mr. Darcy," Mia said.
"Yes."
"Even if she dates someone else." Mia's voice was different now. Quieter. Genuine in the specific way she was genuine when she had stopped performing the conversation and was just in it. "You will always be my favourite. Regardless of who Aunty Elizabeth brings home."
Something shifted in the car. Elizabeth felt it.
Darcy was quiet for a moment. When he spoke his voice was even, unhurried, the voice he used when something had landed and he was deciding how to carry it.
"Thank you, Mia," he said.
"I mean it."
"I know you do."
Mia settled back in her seat. The pick and mix rustled. Outside, Hicks Street appeared at the end of the block.
Elizabeth looked at her window.
She did not look at Darcy.
She was not going to look at Darcy.
She looked at Darcy.
He was already looking at the road. His expression was the composed, controlled one he wore when he was not going to let anything out, and his hands were perfectly still on the wheel, and Elizabeth turned back to her window and did not say anything for the rest of the drive.