Chapter 4
Mr. Darcy was waiting near the steps when the carriage drew up.
The morning had settled into one of those bright, cool August days that seem made for walking out of doors.
A fresh breeze stirred, and the limestone walks shone very white in the sun.
Somewhere overhead a wood pigeon issued a melancholy complaint.
Elizabeth heard it as she heard everything since the carriage had turned in at the gates—through an agreeable, slightly stunned fog of being invited back to a place where one had not even expected to be welcomed.
“Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner,” he said, before turning to Elizabeth and smiling. She might be imagining things, but his voice sounded a little lower when he said, “Miss Bennet.”
Even a week ago, Elizabeth would not have believed such a thing possible.
There was nothing forced in his attentions.
Mr. Darcy spoke to her uncle of the road from Lambton, hoped her aunt had not found the unseasonably cool air too sharp in the open carriage, and expressed his happiness in seeing them again at Pemberley.
“My sister is already upon the lawn,” Mr. Darcy said, “and my cousin with her. They have been impatient for your arrival. Bingley and Mr. Hurst have gone on towards the river, with some notion of discovering whether the fish mean to make themselves agreeable.”
“Then we are not the latest of the party,” said Elizabeth. She knew they were not, but it was something to say.
“No,” said he, and his eyes came to hers for the first time since her descent from the carriage. “You are precisely when you ought to be.”
It was only a polite answer. Yet the manner of it made Elizabeth adjust her glove when there was nothing amiss with it.
“You have ordered the weather very handsomely, Mr. Darcy,” she said. “I suppose this is among the privileges of being master of Pemberley.”
“If it were,” he replied, “we should always have a splendid harvest. I did no more than wish for it.”
“Well, you were quite successful. Are you always?” The question had no sooner escaped her than Elizabeth would gladly have called it back. She knew all too well that Mr. Darcy’s wishes had not always prospered, and from his slight pause she feared he thought her referring to their quarrel in April.
“Not always.” His voice softened, though his smile did not quite leave him. “But I am learning to value success when it comes.”
Her aunt and uncle turned from admiring the sweep of the park.
Uncle Gardiner was all that was polite, but his eyes were already tracing the path that wound away through the heather and towards the river.
Aunt Gardiner observed the direction of his gaze and gave a little laughing breath.
“Mr. Darcy, I believe I must beg you to release my husband to the fish. There will be no living with him if he is kept from them much longer.”
Her uncle feigned injury. “My dear, I was attending very closely.”
“Yes,” she said teasingly. “To the river.”
“Then I should be sorry to detain him,” Mr. Darcy said.
“You are very good, sir,” said her uncle.
“You might try a fly at the lower bend,” Mr. Darcy told him. “The wind is freshening, and there is every indication that the trout will move. There will be rods for anyone who wishes at the river’s edge.”
Uncle Gardiner bent over his wife’s hand, gave Elizabeth a private wink, and moved towards the path. Elizabeth watched him go, thinking that the fish would be better company than certain ladies included in the party today.
Mr. Darcy offered Aunt Gardiner his arm, and she took it, a small, surprised pleasure crossing her face. Elizabeth strolled just behind them.
The limestone walk ended some fifty feet from the front of the house, where the turf began.
Mr. Darcy and her aunt walked while conducting a lively conversation about the road into Lambton, which Mr. Darcy attended to with what seemed to be genuine interest, and Elizabeth, who had survived Lady Catherine’s drawing room and Mr. Collins’s sermons and her mother tossing all restraint aside in pursuit of Mr. Bingley for her sister Jane, discovered that she did not at all mind being permitted a brief period in which nothing was required of her except to follow.
Besides, this afforded her an excellent opportunity to discover that Mr. Darcy’s appearance did not suffer when viewed from behind.
What an absurd observation. It was also, unfortunately, an accurate one. Her cheeks warmed despite the cool breeze.
Elizabeth had already been forced to acknowledge that Mr. Darcy had looked remarkably well when he had come up from the stables on Tuesday.
A gentleman ought not to be permitted to appear so handsome when arriving at his own home after a long, hot ride.
But now she was obliged to confront the additional injustice that his shoulders were broad and his waist trim, and that his height, which had once seemed chiefly useful for looking down upon people, had other benefits when seen in motion.
He had even cut his hair since yesterday.
Elizabeth fixed her eyes very firmly upon the ground. She would not, after all, wish to trip over an uneven stone.
This was what came of revising one’s opinion of a gentleman. First one discovered he was not a villain. Then one had to admit that he was a good brother. And finally, one observed that his back was not at all objectionable.
She could even excuse Mr. Darcy’s interference with Jane now, though the concession had cost her no little pride.
After sitting with his letter until its truths had become impossible to evade, she had been forced to accept two points in his favour.
First, if Charlotte had informed Elizabeth about her plans for Mr. Collins before they were engaged, Elizabeth would not have stood meekly by and trusted providence to arrange matters.
She would have intervened. Second, had Jane fixed her affections upon a man unequal to her goodness, Elizabeth knew very well she would not have remained silent. There too, she would have acted.
She had already admitted all this to herself with very little satisfaction. That was quite enough self-examination for one summer.
But then Mr. Darcy raised his arm to point out some turn of the grounds to her aunt, and his coat drew smoothly across his shoulders in a manner wholly disruptive to her peace.
Goodness, Elizabeth. She fixed her attention upon the pink and white blooms of the yarrow, which seemed to thrive down near the water.
From the lawn ahead a voice carried back—perfectly audible and obviously intended to be.
“—she would do better in her aunt’s bonnet. That woman at least has a modicum of taste.”
Elizabeth heard it, as was no doubt the intention. But the words had rather the opposite effect than Miss Bingley intended. If Miss Bingley disliked her bonnet so much, Elizabeth was even more certain that it was rather becoming on her.
There was no break in the conversation between her aunt and Mr. Darcy, though Elizabeth was certain they had heard.
Her aunt was unbothered, but there had been the smallest movement of Mr. Darcy’s fingers—they had clenched before opening again.
She was beginning to suspect that for him, a small motion such as this was the equivalent of another man waving his arms about, and it was pleasing to consider that not many people noticed this about him.
As they arrived under the oaks, Elizabeth observed it all.
Four rugs formed the centre of the arrangement, with the house and limestone walk behind them and the river down a gentle slope below.
To one side and slightly up the lawn, a long table had been set for the cold collation beneath a marquee topped with a white canvas canopy; to the other, a little closer to the water and in deeper shade, stood a lemonade table, where footmen might serve without crossing through the seated party.
Beyond the lemonade table, an open stretch of grass had been left clear for games, while the path down to the water was already drawing the fishermen away.
It was all so perfectly arranged that it appeared effortless, but Elizabeth knew how much effort was in fact required to achieve such a thing.
Miss Darcy rose upon seeing them. She stood next to Mrs. Annesley, her hands folded in front of her. Colonel Fitzwilliam, as affable as ever, was already at his cousin’s elbow, looking as if he would cheerfully carry the whole conversation himself if required.
Mr. Darcy walked Elizabeth’s aunt to them, glancing over his shoulder to assure himself that she had not been lost between the limestone walk and the chairs. He introduced her aunt to Colonel Fitzwilliam, whom she had not yet met.
“Mrs. Gardiner,” the colonel said, bowing over her hand with easy warmth. “A great pleasure.”
“Colonel.”
“And Miss Bennet,” he added, turning to Elizabeth. “I am happy to meet you again under more auspicious circumstances than Rosings Park usually affords.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Rosings has many virtues, I am sure, but I cannot imagine Lady Catherine approving of a picnic. Though she would undoubtedly be a great proficient had she ever learnt to direct one.”
The colonel laughed, and even Mr. Darcy’s mouth moved, betraying amusement before he could prevent it.
Miss Darcy glanced at her brother, lifted her chin half an inch, and spoke as though she had been rehearsing. “Mrs. Gardiner. Miss Bennet. I am very glad you have come.”
There was something so earnest in the effort, and she was so very young, that Elizabeth’s heart went out to her. “I am very glad to be here, Miss Darcy.”
Apparently this was all that was required to produce a smile from Miss Darcy.
Aunt Gardiner seated herself on the cushion beside the girl as if there had never been any other plan, and was already putting some small question to her.