Chapter 15
Darcy had walked around the block and re-entered the house. He was now standing in the hall outside the drawing room awaiting his mother’s cue.
He met the butler’s gaze. Hewitt remained perfectly composed, but then, his years in the family’s service had given him a genius for expressing a stoic sort of sympathy.
From within, he heard the clink of his mother setting down her cup. Hewitt nodded at him, and Darcy began to walk further into his own house.
“Ah, Fitzwilliam,” his mother called as he passed the drawing room ten feet away. “How fortunate. Miss Finch has raised a point on which your opinion may be useful.”
Darcy stepped into the room just far enough that Lady and Miss Finch, who had their backs to the door, could see that he was still holding his hat and gloves.
His mother wished for him to appear as though he had only just arrived home. Which he had, he supposed.
His mother indicated the chair nearest Miss Finch, so Darcy took it. He knew who the master of this chessboard was, and it was not him.
“Miss Finch has been asking about the portraits at Pemberley,” his mother said, refilling Lady Finch’s cup.
“It was a rather specific question, Mr. Darcy,” said Miss Finch, turning to him. She appeared a little embarrassed. “I simply wondered whether your family portraits still hang together.”
“They do.”
“I am glad of it.” She smiled a little at his surprise. “You see, my father re-hung his collection a few years ago—Italian pictures together, Dutch pictures together, English pictures together. I understand the principle, but we lost my grandmother in the process.”
“Lost her?”
“She used to hang between two Italian sea pieces my grandfather loved,” she said, with a rueful turn of her mouth. “He had her placed with the other English paintings, but then she was almost never visited.”
“A more ordered arrangement, but a worse result,” Darcy said.
“Precisely. I told my father that order is all well and good until it starts replacing things people love with what they hope will be admired.”
His mother looked from one of them to the other but did not speak.
“My great-grandfather hung ours,” Darcy said. “We have kept his arrangement.”
“So that all the family is together?”
“In the order that they presided at Pemberley.”
“I think that is a wonderful thing. I should say that once I complained, my father moved my grandmother back to her original place. The others he has maintained in their new ones.”
“Do you plan to remain long in town?” Darcy asked, because it was expected of him.
“Through the season. My father has accompanied us at great sacrifice to himself, for he does not like to leave home.”
His mother’s teaspoon touched the saucer once, very lightly.
“You are a Derbyshire man, Mr. Darcy,” Miss Finch continued. “Papa swears by Yorkshire and calls everything south of the Aire ‘the gardens.’ Tell me honestly. Derbyshire—gardens or country?”
“Country,” said Darcy. “Though we are not so uncivil as to object to gardens. My mother is very fond of hers.”
Miss Finch’s laugh was easy and did not require anything of him. “I shall tell my father what you have said.”
“Will you be attending the concert on Thursday next, Lady Anne?” Lady Finch asked. “They promise us Madame Catalani.”
“They promise her fee is settled,” said Miss Finch. “And I believe it is substantial. I do hope it is true and that she will sing. Her voice is quite beautiful. I heard her at the Argyll Rooms two winters ago, and although my expectations were high, she exceeded them.”
“You must sit with us, Lady Anne,” Lady Finch said. “My husband refuses to attend anything sung in Italian.”
Miss Finch smiled. “Papa says a man cannot properly admire what he does not understand. I told him this principle would empty half the clubs in London, but I fear this did not persuade him.”
His mother laughed, and even Darcy found himself smiling.
Miss Finch was exactly as had been promised. She was handsome, sensible, well-connected, and genuinely pleasing. By every measure his mother valued, she was the best candidate she had yet selected. Darcy knew it. He liked Miss Finch.
And still, nothing in him moved.
The failure was not hers. It was his, for his stubborn heart was fixed on a woman who would never return his feelings.
Lady Finch, who until now had said very little, mentioned to his mother that they were refurbishing the house in Berkeley Square. New chairs were to be delivered in February. The sharp look his mother sent him told him clearly not to gloat.
“The spaniel is a mystery,” Miss Finch was saying, and Darcy forced himself to pay attention. “Nobody in the family has ever owned one. Papa says it must have belonged to the painter, for it appears in half the portraits of the county.”
He nodded. “It is an interesting supposition.” But his thoughts were elsewhere—on that gravel walk beside the Serpentine, where Miss Elizabeth Bennet had spoken kindly of his sister, and he had answered with more feeling than he had intended.
Mrs. Gardiner and her nieces walked in the park on Tuesdays. Only five more days.
“Do not you think so, Mr. Darcy?”
“In the main,” he said.
Miss Finch paused, then smiled. “I shall take that for the answer of a gentleman who has been asked the wrong question.”
His mother’s eyes lifted.
Darcy was obliged to smile. “I beg your pardon. I was inattentive.”
“Yes,” said Miss Finch, without offence. “But not unkindly so. We did draw you away from your purpose when you arrived home.” She turned the subject herself, neatly and without making him pay for the lapse. That only made things worse, for she deserved a polite audience.
The Finches rose at the proper time, Darcy and his mother did as well. Lady Finch and his mother settled the concert between them while Miss Finch gave Darcy her hand.
“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Darcy,” she said.
He bowed over her hand and thought that in some other winter he might have been grateful to meet her. But not this one.
Not two minutes after the Finch ladies had gone, his sister’s head appeared around the drawing room door. “Is it over?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“It is over,” his mother said, and Darcy was uncertain whether her words were meant in more than one way. He could hope.
“Did you like her?” Georgiana asked.
“I did,” Darcy replied.
“Is it not time for you to practise your music?” his mother inquired.
Georgiana shot him a sympathetic glance and was gone.
His mother took up her work basket and found her needle. She sat, and for a while she worked. She did not dismiss him, and so he remained standing, the better to escape when she did.
“Well,” she said. “I shall say it before you do. There is nothing wrong with Miss Finch.”
“Nothing whatever,” Darcy agreed.
“She is handsome.”
“She is.”
“Intelligent. Well-read. Kind.”
“Yes.”
The needle stopped. “You are agreeing with every word I say,” his mother said, “but you do not mean it.”
“I mean all of it. Miss Finch will make some man an excellent wife.”
“Some man.” His mother took up her thread again. “Did she say anything to displease you?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you say anything to displease her?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Yes, ‘in the main,’” his mother said. She drew the thread through twice.
“I have matched dozens of couples, Fitzwilliam. Almost fifty, in fact, over the years. And yet I cannot interest my own son even in a wonderful young lady such as Miss Finch.” She was quiet a moment.
“If she will not do, then there is some difficulty. Either it lies with you—”
She paused, but Darcy did not respond.
“—or some piece of information I have is deficient, and I must search further afield.” The needle went in and came out again.
Darcy kept his eyes on the fire. Her information was deficient. He had not meant to lead her so far astray, but what he felt for Miss Elizabeth was private. His mother would point out that he had already ruined his chances, and she would encourage him—tirelessly—to move on.
But he did not wish to move on. He wished to meet Miss Elizabeth again in the park.
He wanted to speak with her, perhaps improve himself in her eyes.
To what end he could not say, or at least, could not admit.
But seeing her in his house so often meant she was never far from his thoughts, and just now, his thoughts told him he was not ready to give her up.
“You are very quiet,” his mother said.
“I am considering how to agree again without giving further offence.”
“I am not offended, Fitzwilliam. I am puzzled.” She evidently meant to keep him here for a time, and so he sat again.
She drew her thread through the cloth and appeared to address her embroidery rather than him. “Almost fifty couples . . . I once found a wife for a man who kept snakes, for heaven’s sake.”
Darcy knew the man. “Mr. Poole keeps a single snake. He has an interest in zoology.”
“That is one more snake than most brides will tolerate.” She paused. “And yet.”
He waited for her to complete her thought, but she did not. Instead, she folded her work and set it back in the basket. Darcy had hoped to see defeat in her expression.
He did not.
“Well,” she said. “I have no one else to produce for you at present.”
At present. Which meant there would be a temporary cessation of activity, but not a surrender.
He would accept the reprieve. “Thank you, Mother,” he said. They both listened to the faint strains of Georgiana’s music for a moment before his mother spoke again.
“She hid from the Finches,” his mother said.
“She timed her escape well.”
“And her reappearance. She takes after her brother.” She placed her hands in her lap.
She was canvassing nothing new. “You will want me for Madame Catalani, I expect.”
“I want you wherever you are willing to be seen, for now. We need not attend.”
This was unusual, but Darcy would not deny he was relieved. He rose and was stepping over the threshold when his mother called to him.
“Fitzwilliam.”
He turned.
“I have watched you at my evenings. With the Bennet sisters.” She took up the scissors and trimmed her thread.
Darcy’s heart raced. Had she discovered his secret?
“You removed her from Mr. Reed before his second story about the children could become a third and walked her to Georgiana who was very nervous. You thought I had not noticed.” She smiled at him. “You are making amends with great civility. It does you credit.”
“Thank you,” he said, his heartbeat slowing.
He might have told her. But he was not ready, and he did not know that he ever would be.
“Go on, then,” she said. “You have earned your library.”
In the hall, Hewitt took his hat and gloves.
Darcy walked down the hall to the library, where he meant to write a few letters. If his mother wished to call it amends, he would not correct her.