11. A Question of Regard
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A QUESTION OF REGARD
Elizabeth had never been reluctant to enter the bedchamber she shared with Jane, but tonight, she waited outside in the corridor, wondering if her sister was already asleep.
She could not settle the image of her face brightening with the dancing and laughter.
And she was glad for it—that she had played the pianoforte, thus allowing her sisters to discover the joy of dancing with two fine gentlemen in what felt like a fairyland of Christmas greenery.
She waited, hearing no sounds within, and gently pushed the door open. The fire burned low, but there was a single candle still lit on the nightstand between their beds. Jane was already in her nightgown, gently braiding her hair.
“Lizzy, you disappeared,” she said, her blue eyes regarding Elizabeth with concerned gentleness.
“I stayed downstairs reordering the sheet music,” Elizabeth said.
“Mamma is still rearranging the kissing boughs. She believes the one in the breakfast room doorway is insufficiently positioned and intends to move it a full foot when the gentlemen arrive for breakfast, as if it will make a difference.”
Jane smiled. “They have devised ways of skirting those boughs by crossing when we are already seated.”
Elizabeth proceeded to the washstand and splashed cold water on her face, which did nothing for the heat in her cheeks but gave her hands something sensible to do.
“You played beautifully tonight,” Jane said, drawing the coverlet over her knees. “I had not heard you play those pieces before.”
“I have been practicing in the mornings, before anyone comes down.”
“Ah.” Jane tilted her head, considering this. “That explains the pianoforte lid being warm when I come to breakfast. I had been blaming the cat.”
Elizabeth smiled despite herself. Cleo had indeed been discovered asleep on the keys more than once, producing what Lydia called a concert of alarming originality. “Cleo is many things, but she has yet to master a country reel.”
“Yes, I suppose.” Jane’s fingers twisted the edge of the coverlet. “Lizzy, you did not wish to dance tonight. You are usually the first to jump onto the dance floor.”
“Mary deserved the opportunity to demonstrate her abilities.” Elizabeth tugged the last pin from her hair and let it tumble, feeling the familiar weight of it settle against her shoulders. “Besides, the piano bench offers an excellent vantage for observing the follies of others.”
“And were you satisfied with what you saw?” Jane’s tone was probing, as if she suspected that observation was not Elizabeth’s only motivation.
“Yes. Mary had learned her steps and acquitted herself well. And Kitty—did you see her face, Jane? She looked as though someone had told her she mattered.”
“She did.” Jane’s voice carried warmth. “They all did. Even Lydia, though she would sooner die than admit she was impressed by a much older third cousin.”
“How about you?’ Elizabeth felt her throat constrict. “You seemed happy.”
“I was happy. And I attribute it to two considerate gentlemen who were sufficiently reserved enough to stand in front of us for the dances without raising expectations.”
“Meaning they were not overly effusive? I had thought the colonel was all charm and attention.”
“He was, but not in an overt or meaningful way. He was careful to inform us that he was but a second son, destined for the battlefield, and taking enjoyment and diversion where he could. He did not flatter or flirt, not even with Lydia who would be much too young for him. For that, I respect him.”
“Yes, and Darcy? I believe Mamma holds high hopes.” Elizabeth forced the name from her lips, her voice not quite steady. “I was watching you two. Both tall, handsome, and so well matched.”
Jane paused, her fingers stilled upon her braid. A small, knowing smile touched her lips as she reached out and lightly tapped the back of Elizabeth’s hand—the exact hand Darcy had kissed only an hour before. “Is that why you missed a note in the middle of a slow country air?”
“I am happy for you, of course, if you feel a regard for him. He is not as bad as we imagined.”
“As you supposed, Lizzy. I never disliked Mr. Darcy,” Jane said, the guttering candlelight reflected in her pretty eyes.
“He is proud, yes, but he has reason for his standards. He comes from a completely different social world than us, and…” She held up her hand.
“Yes, he insulted you at Meryton, and I am aware he made many disagreeable comments, but Lizzy, so have you and Mamma and even Papa.”
“Mamma has been loud, hasn’t she? But she is convinced that you and Mr. Darcy will make a match.”
“And I am equally convinced that I am not his primary interest in coming to Longbourn.” Jane finished braiding her flaxen hair and lay on her pillow, looking for all the world like an angel, while Elizabeth tried not to flush or twist her hair or betray any hint of agitation.
The house settled around them—Lydia’s distant laugh from the room she shared with Kitty, the creak of their father’s study door, the faint clatter of Hill banking the fires for the night.
These were the sounds of Longbourn, the rhythms Elizabeth had known since birth, and they ought to have been comforting.
But Darcy being around felt precarious, and Elizabeth could barely catch her breath.
“I wonder, Jane, why Darcy came to Longbourn. Mr. Collins stated his goals quite earnestly. He wished to acquire a bride to heal the breach between our branches of the family. But Mr. Darcy does not need Longbourn. He has Pemberley and opportunities to make a better match. Colonel Fitzwilliam believes he wished to do a good deed out of obligation to a distant connection. And when he has satisfied his conscience, he will return to London and Pemberley, and we shall have been a pleasant diversion.”
“Does it matter, Lizzy? Papa has not been so happy in years. Whatever Mr. Darcy’s reasons, he has given us something valuable.
The masters, yes, but more than that—he has given Papa someone to talk to about the estate, about the future.
I have not seen Papa engage so willingly since—” She paused.
“Well. Since before we understood how precarious our situation truly is.”
“And Darcy’s improvements will make our situation less precarious?” Elizabeth did not like to voice her doubts to her unflappable sister. “I worry, Jane, that Mamma’s hopes will be completely dashed.”
“Our improvements might make us more marriageable—not because of dowries or fortune—but better connections, deportment and knowing how to speak and move within the higher circles, even the French lessons and Mrs. Beaumont’s lessons on pouring tea and being discreet behind fans.”
“But why would Darcy do all this if he doesn’t want to marry one of us?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, Jane. I do not wish to raise any hope, as he may as well depart abruptly like—”
“You do not have to demur, Lizzy. I am not made of glass.” Jane’s lips pressed together.
“He may very well depart as Mr. Bingley and his sisters did. And that would be that. It troubled me when Bingley left because he had acted so in love with me. He praised me to everyone he met, followed me around, called at Longbourn, and listened to my every word. Mr. Bingley is a man of warm impulse, and warm impulses cool. It does not follow that anything was wanting in me. It may simply have been that I was not enough to hold his interest.”
“Do you suppose Darcy knows why Bingley left? They are the best of friends, and he has not mentioned that name so far.”
“And he should not,” Jane said. “It would be highly improper for him to speak about this to either of us or to Mamma or Papa. If Bingley wishes to call, he knows where I am. Let us leave the Bingley question alone, as I believe your concern is with Darcy and whether he has come to marry any of us five sisters.”
“No, I do not believe he has,” Elizabeth said. “Nor does it signify to me in the least.”
“Oh, Lizzy.” Jane shook her head and reached for her hand again. “I can see it is of great concern to you. It is why you observed us dancing with Darcy, and why you are so troubled.”
“I am not—”
“Lizzy, I see no other reason for Darcy to come to Longbourn so soon after leaving Netherfield Park. The reason Caroline gave me was that the two of them, Bingley and Darcy, had social engagements in town. They were to spend the Yuletide with one of Darcy’s relations.
So let me ask you, why is he installing himself in a draughty steward’s cottage with five unmarried cousins and a mother who measures him for wedding clothes every time he enters a room? ”
A reluctant smile tugged at Elizabeth’s lips, quite against her will. “That is true enough.”
“He is not needed here,” Jane continued, her voice thoughtful and a little wondering.
“And yet he stays. He engages masters, walks to the tenant farms with you, saves our cat, and rescues rabbits from snares.” She looked at Elizabeth with an expression that was not teasing but closer—a warmth, a gentle probing, the tender curiosity of a sister who knew her too well.
“I think he cannot stay away, Lizzy. And the reason is the woman sitting at the pianoforte all night—the one he made a point of speaking to before he left tonight.”
Elizabeth’s breath caught. She turned her face toward the window, where the winter moonlight lay in pale slabs across the floorboards, and felt her composure—that careful, practical, hard-won composure she carried like armor through every drawing room and dinner and walking party—tremble at its foundations.
“You are imagining things, Jane.”
“Perhaps, but what I say is the truth. Darcy did not return because he found Papa’s wit entertaining and his library diverting.
Or that Mamma’s dinners are exceedingly tasty, or the mud of Longbourn, which Richard told me he had a very intimate acquaintance with while racing you along the stiles, or even the thorny hedges appealing.
And lest you think he will disappear when the wind changes, Darcy is a different man from Bingley.
He does not praise or flatter. He observes and judges. ”
“He has found me wanting. Barely tolerable. And he looks down at our family.”
“Perhaps he has changed his mind,” Jane said. “Have you never known a man capable of altering his first impressions?”
“Not a Darcy,” Elizabeth replied firmly, though her chest tightened with a sudden, traitorous ache. “He assured me at Netherfield that a man of his disposition never forgets or forgives an injury to his pride.”
“We do not always say what we mean, do we? But do you remember,” Jane said, and her tone shifted, grew quieter, almost tentative, “the day the masters arrived? When we were gathered in the drawing room, and Mamma was in such transports?”
“I remember wanting to commit murder and being restrained only by the inconvenience of witnesses.”
Jane’s laugh was soft. “You were flushed. You and Mr. Darcy had been arguing, or only you had been arguing, at any rate—and he offered you a handkerchief.”
“You saw?”
“I notice these things,” Jane continued, apparently studying the candle flame with the absorbed interest of a woman examining a portrait.
“You were overheated from your walk and from—well, from being yourself, I think. And he noticed. He reached into his pocket and offered you his handkerchief before you even knew you needed it.”
“It means nothing.”
“Maybe by itself, but I have noticed that he is always watching for you, and offering some small comfort, a steadying hand, a glass of wine, or a question that changes the subject—without requiring gratitude or even acknowledgment.”
Elizabeth swallowed, suddenly too warm for the banked fire. “You are reading too much in these polite gestures.”
“He knew you did not wish to dance and deflected Mamma’s demands,” Jane said. “He also lingered at the pianoforte while Mamma was pushing me to say goodbye to him.”
Elizabeth said nothing. She was aware of her own heartbeat, steady and traitorous, and of the phantom warmth on her knuckles where his lips had pressed.
“You do not have to tell me what he said to you,” Jane added. “I am not asking.”
Elizabeth’s lips trembled, but no, she could not admit to Jane what she hoped, against all reason, against what Richard had told her about Darcy’s marriage opportunities.
He was here because he cared about his third cousins who would become his wards should their father depart, and he was doing the work to ensure they would survive with reasonable prospects.
And for that, he was honorable and good, and she could no longer hate or even dislike him.
“You do not hate him, do you?” Jane said, as if reading her mind. “And that frightens you.”
“Because what if I am wrong?” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, impatient with herself.
“What if all of this… kindness or whatever this is… meant nothing more than civility? Then I shall have made a fool of myself, and I cannot bear that, Jane. I cannot bear to have hoped for something and been wrong.”
“Then we are two of a kind.” Jane pressed her cheek against Elizabeth’s hair and said nothing more.
Outside, the wind moved through the bare elms, and somewhere in the house a door closed softly.
Elizabeth felt the ghost of his lips on her knuckles and the weight of her confession in her chest, and she wondered what it would mean to stop being afraid.