Chapter 29
The boy was on the third stair from the bottom, and he did not mean to move.
“You cannot come up,” said Master Edward Gardiner. “Not without the word.”
Darcy had surrendered his coat to the manservant already.
He stood in the entry hall of the Gardiners’ home with his hat in one hand, a grown man once again stopped by a sentry whose head did not clear the newel post. A grey and white kitten sat on the stair above the boy and stared at him without blinking.
“I was not aware there was a word,” Darcy said.
“There is always a word. Lord Nelson knows it.” Edward gathered the kitten to his chest. “You have to say it or you are a spy.”
It was a female cat, but Darcy thought it impolitic to mention it if he wished to be granted entry.
“And how,” Darcy asked the boy gravely, “is a man to learn the word, if no one will tell it to him?”
Master Edward considered this difficulty. “You may have three guesses.”
“Derbyshire.”
“No.”
“Lambton.”
“No, and that is two.”
A step sounded on the landing above them, and Miss Elizabeth appeared long enough to point at the cat.
Darcy looked at the kitten, who looked back at him. “Lord Nelson,” he said.
The boy’s mouth fell open in outrage and delight. “How did you know?”
“A man who means to take a house must first learn the name of its admiral.”
The boy stepped aside, and Darcy climbed the stairs and entered the small parlour.
There was mending in a basket, a globe with a dent in Africa, and crayon drawings on the wall. It was nothing like his own home, where he had spent so much of the winter, and he suspected he would like it better than any room in London.
Miss Elizabeth stood by the window with a letter in her hand, and she was laughing at him, though she had the courtesy to do it quietly.
“I see you have breached the defences,” she said.
“With your help. He will raise the toll tomorrow.”
“He always does. Yesterday my uncle was made to carry the kitten up himself, and this morning, the toll was a barley sugar.” She folded the letter away. “I begin to think Edward the shrewdest negotiator in the family.”
“Then I shall take care not to let him discover how much I am willing to pay.”
His mother, unlike Master Edward, had been given no opportunity to negotiate at all. Darcy had told his mother to do nothing, and she had not. Though she complained that such restraint was ruinous to her reputation, Darcy thought that his management of his own affairs would do her no lasting harm.
As a result, Darcy had merely knocked at the Gardiners’ door because he wished to see Miss Elizabeth, and a small boy had admitted him in exchange for a correctly guessed password.
After an entire winter of schemes, misunderstandings, and rooms in which he had found himself near Miss Elizabeth without being able to converse with her, the simplicity of it was a blessing.
Mrs. Gardiner entered the parlour with the smallest Gardiner, little Davey, on her hip and greeted Darcy without ceremony. She had apparently decided that a gentleman who had announced his intention to call every morning might as well be treated as one of the family.
Darcy could not be more pleased.
“You will forgive the disorder, Mr. Darcy,” she said, though she plainly expected no forgiveness. “We are a household at war. My husband informs me that the terms of peace are extortionate.”
“By next week,” Miss Elizabeth said with a laugh, “he will be charging admission.”
“I shall make certain to bring coins,” Darcy said.
Mrs. Gardiner’s glance passed between Darcy and her niece. It was quick, warm, and entirely too observant.
“Jane is in the sitting room,” she said. “Mr. Aldridge has brought her the second volume of something even more scandalous than Fielding. You are not to disturb them.”
“I would not dream of it.”
“No. I daresay you would not.” She shifted the child higher. “Sit down, then, and let Lizzy read you her father’s letter. It concerns you, although he does not yet know it.”
Miss Elizabeth looked at her aunt. “Does Papa’s letter concern every gentleman who calls?”
“Only the persistent ones. I shall have Jane’s gentleman read it after yours.”
Darcy sat.
The letter concerned Longbourn, which wanted its daughters back.
Miss Elizabeth read, “‘The house has grown too quiet, and a man cannot be expected to be clever without an understanding audience. I shall send the carriage the week after Easter. You are not to argue, as I have already told your mother you are coming home, and she is happy about it.’”
She lowered the letter.
“After Easter,” Darcy said.
There was no teasing in her expression now. “I have been very fortunate here,” she said. “But Longbourn is our home, and my father has recalled us to it.”
Darcy counted the weeks.
It was Friday, the sixth of March. Lent had put an end to balls and decreased the number of parties. There would be no dances, no at-homes, no dinners where he might sit three places away and watch her make some pompous gentleman laugh against his will.
There would be only calls in the Gardiners’ small parlour, perhaps an occasional play or concert, and a boy at the foot of the stairs demanding tribute.
Four weeks, perhaps less, remained before a carriage came from Hertfordshire.
He had promised to court her properly. He had meant to proceed slowly, but a slow courtship was apparently a luxury reserved for men who had not already wasted an entire winter.
“I did warn you I would be a very industrious caller,” he said.
Miss Elizabeth’s mouth curved. “You are already the tallest caller. Edward has said so, and Edward does not flatter.”
“Master Edward is a mercenary. He flatters whoever pays.” Darcy took her hand. “I should like to settle my position before the week after Easter arrives and finds me still guessing at passwords.”
Something crossed her face, too quickly for him to read.
He was glad of it. He preferred having something left to learn about the woman he hoped to marry. Even a lifetime of discovering new things about her would not be enough for him.
Miss Elizabeth refolded her father’s letter and placed it on the table between them, the direction facing upwards. “I look forward to receiving you, then.”
His mother was still doing nothing, and it was torturing her.
He found her on Monday in her sitting room. She sat at the writing table from which she had directed the winter’s parties, dinners, introductions, and marriages.
There was not a card or guest list before her. She was reading a volume of sermons.
Or, at least, she was holding one.
“Fitzwilliam.” She put it down with indecent haste. “Sit. Tell me something. Anything. I have spent four days improving my mind and discovered that it was quite improved enough already.”
“I came to thank you.”
“For what? I have done nothing.” She placed one hand upon the sermons. “And I have been magnificent at it.”
“You have.”
“I refused three invitations that were plainly attempts to make me useful. Though I did advise Lady Sefton about her second daughter, who was going to marry the wrong man if I did not.”
“You have showed admirable restraint.”
“Do you know what it is to watch a match go wrong and remain silent?”
“No.”
“It is a form of martyrdom the Church has entirely overlooked.”
“I shall write to the bishop.”
“Do not mock me. I am suffering.”
Darcy looked at the untouched sermons. “I can see that.”
“I have two weddings following Easter and four more by June. Two more at least are in the offing, but none of them are yours.” She said it lightly, but her gaze remained upon him. “You need not relate any details, but do tell me you are making progress.”
“I am making progress.”
His mother drew a satisfied breath. “How much?”
“You said you did not need to know.”
“I was speaking under strain.”
He lifted his eyebrows and repeated, “I am making progress.”
“Has she smiled at you?”
“Mother.”
His mother narrowed her eyes. “You are enjoying this.”
He gazed back at her. “A little.”
“That is most ungenerous.”
“You wished me to be happy.”
“I did not expect you to become secretive about it.” She picked up the sermons but did not open them.
“Richard called yesterday,” she told him.
“He has become very attentive to me, which I find suspicious. A man who has avoided my drawing room since he came of age does not suddenly discover a taste for my company unless there is something afoot.”
Darcy said nothing. Silence remained the safest course whenever Richard and his mother were involved. But his mother with nothing to do was undoubtedly more dangerous to her family than his mother fully occupied. Richard had better marry Miss Finch quickly.
Lent allowed them one entertainment that week, and it was a sober one, a charity concert of sacred music at Lady Ansley’s.
Darcy attended for the reason he now attended everything. He found the Gardiners before the music began. They had established themselves near the front.
A month earlier, the sight of Mr. Aldridge crossing a room towards the Bennet sisters had made Darcy nearly desperate. This evening, as he watched the man bring Miss Bennet a glass of orgeat, he felt only gratitude.
Darcy’s mother was also present. She reached Miss Elizabeth before he did, and as he watched, they moved to sit in a window embrasure, their chairs turned slightly away from the room. Their voices were too low for Darcy to hear above the musicians tuning their instruments.
His mother did most of the speaking. That alone made him uneasy. Her art had always been to say very little while arranging everything.
The conversation was brief. His mother asked something. Miss Elizabeth studied her for a moment, then answered. Darcy could make nothing of it beyond the one fact that unsettled him most. His mother did not ask leave to do things. She did them, and the people concerned were informed afterwards.
But there was no audience but him. No strategically placed third person waited to carry the account across London before supper. Whatever his mother wanted of Miss Elizabeth, she had asked for it in private, which she very rarely did.
When they rose, Miss Elizabeth caught his gaze. She looked curious, not distressed, which left him no wiser than he had been before.
His mother joined him near the door.
“Well,” she said, addressing the room in general and Darcy in particular, “I am to call in Gracechurch Street on Tuesday morning. Miss Elizabeth has been good enough to grant me an hour.”
She plucked a glass from a passing tray.
“I call there early every day,” Darcy said.
“Not on Tuesday. On Tuesday you may call after noon but will have business elsewhere earlier.”
“May I know what you intend to say?”
“You may not.” His mother regarded him over the rim of her glass. “I will tell you, Fitzwilliam, that in all my years of matchmaking I have never encountered a more difficult case.”
“She is not a case.”
“That is precisely the difficulty.” His mother took a sip. “Both sisters are impossible. Neither one would permit herself to be arranged. I may have to declare the Bennets beyond my powers.”
“That would be a wise decision, I think.”
Sir John Marchmont interrupted them by appearing at her elbow. Sir John possessed the loud, easy voice common to the hunting field and had never found reason to alter it indoors.
“Lady Anne. The very woman. I hear you have had a capital season. Married off half the ton.”
“You are too kind, Sir John.”
“Not at all. Which brings me to my purpose.” He planted himself before her. “I am in want of a wife, madam, and I have made a hash of finding one these ten years.”
Darcy turned his attention very firmly towards the musicians.
“I am an excellent hand at horseflesh,” Sir John continued, “but I cannot tell one young lady from the next. I require a woman who can ride to the hunt. None of your parlour misses. A woman who will take a fence cleanly and not scream at a wet ditch. A pretty seat. Good hands on the reins. Find me such a woman, Lady Anne, and I am yours to command.”
There was a pause.
Darcy had heard that pause perhaps a thousand times in his life.
“Sir John,” his mother said, every trace of martyrdom gone, “I believe I know exactly the young woman. Her father is Russian and her mother English.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Miss Elizabeth was sitting next to an open chair and watching him, her eyes bright with amusement.
He moved to take the chair beside her, and after the concert, Darcy took her home in his own carriage, his mother sitting beside her.
They discussed the music, Sir John, and whether any woman could be persuaded to marry a man who was searching for a wife so he might have her join him on the hunt.
“He does not mean it unkindly,” Miss Elizabeth said. “That is what makes it so dreadful.”
“He does not mean much of anything,” his mother replied. “That is not the worst quality in a husband.”
“Your mother will have him married by Whitsun,” Miss Elizabeth said.
“Before,” Darcy replied.
His mother looked pleased. “You do have faith in me.”
Miss Elizabeth laughed.
His mother turned to her. “Do not encourage him. He has become very impertinent since I agreed to leave him alone.”
“I had thought him rather impertinent before.” Miss Elizabeth’s eyes met his.
His mother looked out of the window with unusual concentration.
When the carriage stopped at Gracechurch Street, he helped Miss Elizabeth descend and walked her to the stairs. She took the two steps up and turned back with one hand upon the rail, the open doorway casting a warm light behind her.
“You will call tomorrow,” she said. It was not a question, but not quite a command.
Darcy’s heart beat a little harder. He had come every morning this week, and yet she wished to be sure of him. It was more of a glimpse into their future than he had yet had.
“I will be here,” Darcy said.
She smiled, then glanced over her shoulder at the house and back to him. “You had better bring sixpence.”
“Has Master Edward raised his price again? I shall be pockets-to-let if this keeps up.”
“He has heard that I am leaving after Easter. He means to make the most of you while he can.”
“Then I shall bring a shilling.”
He watched the door close behind her. Then he climbed into his carriage sat back against the squabs.
Across from him, his mother looked entirely too satisfied.
“Do not say it,” he warned.
“I am permitted to observe that you are getting on very well.”
Darcy looked out into the street and did not answer.
He would not wait until Longbourn’s carriage arrived to speak.
He would ask Miss Elizabeth before she left.
He would choose the words and the time and do the thing properly.
If Miss Elizabeth wished for a longer engagement, he would write to Bingley and ask whether he might assume the rest of the lease at Netherfield. But he hoped she would not.
Easter would answer for it. There was time enough if he did not waste it, and Darcy did not intend to waste a single day.