Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The clock in the passage had struck two some time ago, and Elizabeth had not yet slept.
She lay still for a while longer, hoping that sleep would come, but it did not. Eventually she sat up, found her wrap, lit a candle, and sat at the writing desk. The flame steadied as she sat down. She looked at it for a moment and then drew out a sheet. She uncapped the ink and picked up her pen.
Aunt Gardiner, if you and Jane are available today, please come.
She sanded and sealed it, left it at the edge of the desk for the maid in the morning, and sat a while longer with the candle.
There were no other letters to write. There was nothing that could be sent through the night post to the sitting room ten feet away that was not better said in daylight, when she was less tired and both of them were less raw.
She had said what needed saying but knew she had not said it perfectly.
There had been a moment, when she spoke about the autumn and Jane, when her voice had gone flat in a way she had not intended, but she had said it plainly, and he had heard it. She was certain of that much.
She was less certain of how she felt about it all. Elizabeth walked back to her bed and blew out the candle.
The chambermaid must have taken the letter when she came to light the fire very early, for her Aunt Gardiner’s response awaited Elizabeth at the breakfast table.
Her husband was already there.
He had the newspaper open and his coffee poured, which was entirely ordinary, except that the newspaper was from the previous day, and she happened to know it because she had read it herself the evening before.
He did not look up when she entered, which was also ordinary, except that the manner of his not-looking-up suggested a significant degree of effort.
Elizabeth sat. She poured her tea. She unfolded her aunt’s note and read it, which gave both of them something to look at that was not each other.
My dear Lizzy,
I thought you might write. Jane and I will call at ten unless you write again to prevent it. I have said nothing to Jane beyond that you may need us. She has, I suspect, drawn her own conclusions.
Your affectionate aunt,
M. Gardiner
“Good morning,” she said, when she had finished.
“Good morning.” He turned a page of the newspaper and kept his eyes on it.
A footman placed the toast rack between them while Tracy supervised. The butler then surveyed the table as though conducting an inspection, adjusted the marmalade a quarter of an inch to the left, and withdrew.
It was too far away to reach, and she did not wish to interrupt whatever it was Fitzwilliam was doing. Elizabeth took a piece of toast.
He turned another page.
Fitzwilliam laid the paper flat and gave every appearance of reading a column she was fairly certain concerned the price of wool in the southern counties. She knew because it had been in the paper yesterday.
Her butter knife clinked against the rim of the dish. “My aunt and my sister Jane will call at ten,” she said. “I have missed them both.”
“Good.” He did not look up from the paper. “I mean that I am glad they will come.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.” A pause that lasted approximately one second too long. “I should have insisted you invite them sooner.”
Elizabeth set down her knife. This was as close to I am sorry as she was likely to receive, and she was honest enough to recognise that she had not offered anything equivalent. She picked up her toast.
“Tracy,” Fitzwilliam called suddenly, raising the paper again.
Tracy appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”
“The marmalade.”
Tracy looked at the marmalade which was, as far as Elizabeth could determine, exactly where it had been since he had adjusted it approximately four minutes ago. “Sir?”
“It is too far from Mrs. Darcy.”
Tracy received this intelligence with great gravity, crossed to the table, and moved the marmalade three inches to Elizabeth’s left. He then stepped back and regarded his work. He nodded once, satisfied, and withdrew.
Elizabeth looked at the marmalade. She looked at her husband.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It was nothing,” he said to the newspaper.
She reached for her toast. He drank his coffee. After a moment she reached for the marmalade, which was now, she had to concede, more conveniently placed.
He turned another page.
A step sounded in the doorway. Tracy had returned, bearing a fresh newspaper. He approached the table without haste.
Fitzwilliam did not look up.
Tracy stopped beside his chair and unfolded the new paper.
There was a brief silence.
Her husband looked at the paper Tracy was holding. “Is that today’s?”
“It is, Mr. Darcy. May I remove yesterday’s?”
Her husband cleared his throat. “Yes.”
Tracy removed the paper from Fitzwilliam’s hands and replaced it with the new one in a single smooth movement. Then he withdrew again.
Elizabeth applied herself very carefully to her toast.
Fitzwilliam looked at the paper for a moment, then folded it and set it beside his plate. “My cousin believes your aunt’s butcher may be a promising avenue.”
“Will it cause difficulties for our plan if it is known that my aunt has a connexion to this house?” she inquired.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But the scheme is well advanced, and in any case, it is more important that you be able to visit with her and your sister.”
Elizabeth’s heart felt immediately lighter. “I handled my disappointment poorly last night,” she told him. “I am still disappointed, but I ought to have made it clearer that I wished to see my sister.”
“I should have known without your direction.” He looked at her directly for the first time since she had sat down. She looked back at him, and they regarded each other across the breakfast table, the moment entirely unromantic and yet more tender than anything that had yet passed between them.
She took another piece of toast. She did not particularly want another, but it gave her something to do. He reached for his coffee, and in doing so nudged the newspaper, which slid off the edge of the table entirely and landed on the floor between them.
They both looked at it.
“I had finished with it,” he said, forgetting, she thought, that he had not yet read it.
“I see,” she said.
Elizabeth had been prepared to remain angry with Fitzwilliam for the whole of the day. She discovered now that the resolve had gone out of her somewhere between the marmalade and the newspaper on the floor, and that her hand, which had been fisted in her lap, had quietly opened.
She had never had such trouble maintaining her anger with someone. She suspected that meant something, but she did not wish to examine it just yet.
Her husband left the paper where it was.
She did not suggest retrieving it. After a moment, she felt the corner of her mouth turn up, almost without her permission, and when she looked at him, she found that something very similar was happening at the corner of his mouth, and that he was making no effort to prevent it.
At a few minutes before ten, Elizabeth heard the carriage in the street and was at the front door before Tracy had finished his announcement.
“Mrs. Gardiner and Miss Bennet,” he said to her.
“Thank you, Tracy,” said Elizabeth, already reaching past him for the door.
If the butler felt his office slightly abridged, he bore it admirably.
She kissed her aunt and then her sister and held Jane’s hands for a moment before letting go.
“How is my uncle this morning?” she asked as she led them into the drawing room and they all sat to the tea and cakes Elizabeth had requested. She dismissed the maid and closed the doors, then served her sister and aunt.
“The Fenchurch business occupies him.” Mrs. Gardiner accepted a slice of cake. “However, I am charged to tell you that you need only ask, and that he will come himself.”
Papa’s admonition to wait until after her first season to contact the Gardiners had seemed reasonable, for she would not wish to entangle them in a potential scandal.
She had not allowed herself to think about it overmuch.
But now she felt how much she had missed them.
“Tell him thank you. And that I am well.”
“Are you?” Jane asked.
She paused. “I think I will be.”
“Did you sleep?”
“A little.”
Jane frowned. “It took me a month before I had fully recovered from the fatigue, and you were the most unwell of all. You must not neglect your health.”
Aunt Gardiner patted Jane’s hand. “Elizabeth will take care.”
Jane was mollified, and Aunt Gardiner lifted her teacup. “What was it you said to him, at the end?”
Elizabeth was quiet a moment. “I told him he had hurt me.”
Her aunt eyed her. “Not in so few words, I think,” she said gently.
Elizabeth shook her head. She was about to say something more when the door opened.
It was a footman, with a letter on a salver. He presented it to her with a frown, and when she took it, she could see why. It was addressed, in a masculine hand she did not recognise, to Mrs. Darcy. Not to Mr. Darcy. Not to the household. To her, by name, at this address.
She took it. She broke the seal and read it once, quickly, and then again, more slowly.
Mrs. Darcy,
I write to you before I write to anyone else, because I believe you to be sensible enough to recognise an act of generosity when it is offered.
You are aware of the circumstances attending Miss Darcy’s time in Ramsgate which would, if they became known, cause considerable suffering to a young woman who deserves none.
I have kept my silence on this matter out of regard for Miss Darcy and would be content to continue keeping it.
Five thousand pounds would allow me to do so indefinitely and remove me from England.
You would never hear from me again. I think you will agree that this is a fair price for peace.