Chapter 22 #2
So that was it. His coming to Elizabeth’s side had felt like him singling her out, but it was not. He was only a good son handing round his mother’s tea, and she had made a great deal too much of it.
The last cup went to Miss Finch. Elizabeth did not hear what he said, but she watched as Miss Finch answered, and whatever it was made him smile. Not much, for he was Mr. Darcy, but enough that Elizabeth noticed it.
She looked down into her cup. The leaves had nothing to tell her about the sudden turn of her stomach.
“Lizzy,” said Jane softly, “you are not drinking your tea.”
Elizabeth looked up. Jane had come to sit beside her, with Aunt Gardiner just behind.
“I was waiting for it to cool.”
“It is already cool,” said Aunt Gardiner, taking the chair on Elizabeth’s other side. “You have perhaps been too patient.”
“That must be it,” Elizabeth said. “I have often been accused of excessive patience.”
Uncle Gardiner joined them with a plate in hand. “I am sorry to intrude upon a discussion of Lizzy’s virtues. Shall we begin on mine next?”
“Uncle,” Elizabeth said, grateful for his familiar nonsense.
“Only in moderation, of course. Your aunt insists upon moderation.”
“In biscuits,” said Aunt Gardiner, nodding at the three on her husband’s plate. “Not in teasing my nieces. There we may have rather a freer hand.”
Lord Milton, passing near enough to hear the last, turned back with a smile. “Then I have arrived at a fortunate moment. I am very fond of family teasing so long as it is being administered to someone else.”
“You had better sit down, my lord,” said Uncle Gardiner. “We are about to hear my niece defend her stores of patience.”
“That will be a brief defence,” Jane said.
“Jane,” Elizabeth protested with a little laugh.
“I only say what is true.”
Lord Milton accepted the chair Uncle Gardiner indicated. “Miss Bennet, I begin to understand why you are so highly valued. Truth, gently delivered, is the rarest form of cruelty.”
Jane coloured a little. “I did not mean it cruelly.”
“Jane could never be cruel,” said Elizabeth. “Which leads me to ask why we are not discussing her virtues. There would certainly be ample material.” She then applied herself to drinking her tea.
Miss Finch laughed across the room at something Mr. Darcy had said. Lady Anne, watching from beside the tea table, wore a satisfied expression.
Lord Milton saw it and gave a quiet laugh. “My aunt is in fine form tonight.”
“Lady Anne?” said Jane.
“Oh, yes. She has been in fine form all season. As you are all well aware, she cannot see two people in the same room without wondering whether they might be a match.”
Aunt Gardiner smiled. “She possesses a formidable degree of hospitality.”
“That is exactly what she says,” said Lord Milton, “and we agree it is best not to contradict her.”
There was a general laugh.
A lady’s voice carried from the far end of the room, clear and unhurried, explaining something at length. Lord Milton turned his head towards it and was slow to turn back.
“Lady Honoria Lansdowne,” he said. “She is always certain of her opinion, though she will also admit where she is less informed. It is rather admirable.”
Elizabeth’s eyes sought Mr. Darcy. He was half turned, ready to be gone, but made it no further. Lady Anne arrived at his elbow, and his sister came up on the other side. The two of them settled in about Miss Finch in a knot no one could politely quit.
“So,” Uncle Gardiner said, holding out the last biscuit on his plate, “who will rescue me from eating the last of these?”
Everyone else declined, so Elizabeth accepted it. She had no appetite, but it was easier to nibble on a biscuit than to watch what was happening across the room.
It was nearly eleven when Elizabeth went to fetch her aunt’s shawl, which had been left in the little parlour across the hall.
The parlour door stood ajar. So did the library’s. Voices came from within, Lady Anne’s and Lord Matlock’s, low and comfortable, the voices of family speaking privately at the end of an evening.
Elizabeth found the shawl where her aunt had left it. As she stepped back into the hall, a few words reached her through the open library door before she could pass—Lord Matlock’s voice, dry and unhurried.
“. . . a fine girl. Thirty thousand pounds, and no nonsense about her. . .”
Lady Anne answered too low to catch. Then the earl again, easy and pleased. “. . . the place near the Peak will answer very well. Darcy—”
Whatever Lady Anne said in reply was lost, but it made her brother laugh. A glass touched wood. When her voice rose again, it was warm.
“Miss Finch is exactly the sort of girl he wants. I have not been so easy about a thing all season.”
Elizabeth stood still in the empty hall. The shawl slipped on her arm, and she caught it before it fell. Of course.
Mr. Darcy had sat beside her while his sister played, remembered how she took her tea, and asked how long she meant to stay in town. These things had felt important, but they did not have to mean anything. A man might be kind and still be promised elsewhere.
She drew one breath, then another, and made herself return to the drawing room.
Mr. Darcy came to her as she entered. “You have been gone a quarter of an hour,” he said. “I was on the point of sending Georgiana out with a search party.”
Earlier this evening, she would have laughed.
“The shawl was elusive. There are too many rooms in this house, Mr. Darcy. My aunt will be wanting hers. Good evening.”
His face changed—only a little, but she saw it land. His hand, which had been reaching for something inside his coat, dropped. He glanced once past her towards the passage, and then the old formality came down over him.
She farewelled Miss Darcy, making sure to praise her performance once more. Then she made her curtsey to Lady Anne, who had returned with her brother. The lady’s gaze rested on her, warm, certain, pleased. Elizabeth lowered her eyes and offered only the most perfunctory farewell to Mr. Darcy.
In the carriage her aunt said only, “You are quiet, Lizzy.”
“I am thinking about the music.”
Aunt Gardiner did not appear satisfied with this answer, but she did not press further, and Elizabeth was grateful for it.
She could not have explained, not without confessing to feelings that she would rather keep to herself.
She had been pleased by Mr. Darcy’s nearness and gratified by his concern for his sister, by his careful questions, by the cup of tea.
She had allowed each small kindness to mean something more than the act itself.
She was being foolish.
Mr. Darcy had not promised her anything. He had not even hinted at anything. He had been civil, attentive, sorry for the pain he had once caused her. That was all. Lady Anne had seen her son more clearly than Elizabeth, and she had chosen Miss Finch.
Elizabeth turned her face towards the dark window.
It did not matter what she felt, and she told herself as much. Lady Anne had chosen a bride for Mr. Darcy.
But it was not Elizabeth.