Chapter 9 #2
“A noble object,” said Richard. “Though I warn you, Bingley, civilisation is a delicate thing in close quarters. It depends upon dry feet, sufficient elbow room, and the ability to leave the field when one has said too much. We are at present deprived of all three.”
Bingley, to his credit, understood enough to help Richard continue. “Then we must make do with elbow room,” he said, though there was precious little of that to be had either.
While they spoke, Miss Pelham bent her head to murmur to her sister, and Mrs. Hurst kept her eyes on the water creeping over the floor.
Bingley and Richard carried the conversation between them.
Elizabeth had not stirred from the bench, nor Darcy from the arch, and pressed as they all were, neither could have gone a step further from the other had they wished it.
But no one was looking at them now. In a folly so small, with the storm at the door, it was the nearest thing to privacy the place could offer.
For a moment he said nothing. The rain came hard through the arch beside him, and the stone at his feet shone black with it.
Then she spoke, very low.
“I hope Miss Elinor is not hurt.”
“No,” said Darcy, keeping his voice equally low. “Frightened only, I believe.”
“She was very frightened.”
Miss Elizabeth’s hands tightened once in the folds of her skirt. They were still gloved, but the gloves were wet through. A drop of rain had caught at the edge of her bonnet and trembled there, refusing to fall.
“You came very quickly,” she said.
He looked out at the rain rather than at her. “Not quickly enough.”
“That is not true. You said you were heading to the stables, and I presume you reached them before heading back.”
“Nearly. The storm gathered suddenly. It does happen from time to time, but I usually have more warning.”
“You came very quickly,” she repeated.
The words were quiet, but they struck him more sharply than more voluble praise would have done. She did not say them as flattery. She truly meant them.
Darcy had no ready answer.
Across the chamber, Richard was now explaining, with great solemnity, the military importance of dry feet, and Bingley was assisting him by asking questions that were not nearly so foolish as they sounded.
It was one of the things Darcy liked best in his friend.
Bingley could look young, careless, even a little lost, and all the while be doing precisely what kindness and good sense required.
Miss Bingley was not listening. Darcy could feel her attention moving about like a draught, searching for a way in.
He ought to step away. He knew it. He could make some business of the rain, or the path, or the comfort of his guests.
A shape darkened the western arch, and Darcy straightened. For one sharp instant he saw only a man where no man ought to be, high on the rise in a lightning storm, with the ladies crowded in a stone chamber at his back. He moved half a step forward.
Then the wind brought him the unmistakable smell of river water and trout.
The figure stepped in under the dripping stone and strode over to stand next to Miss Elizabeth, forcing everyone to shuffle again. Water ran from the brim of his hat and the hem of his coat, and he held a string of fish.
“Mr. Gardiner,” said Darcy, perplexed.
“Darcy!” cried Mr. Gardiner, greeting him as warmly as he might a friend at the door of his club. “And half the party here before me. Excellent. I had begun to fear my niece had got the better of you all and climbed still higher.”
He said it lightly. His eyes were on Miss Elizabeth as he said it, and Darcy understood him at once. His respect for the man increased, if that was possible.
Mr. Gardiner had come because his niece was here, high above the house, on a rise in a folly with three unmarried gentlemen and several ladies who, however respectable, were unwed and could in no way be considered chaperones.
Mrs. Hurst might have done, had she and her sister not slighted Miss Jane Bennet while she was staying in the Gardiners’ home.
He never said that he felt Miss Elizabeth required his protection, but everything in his presence did.
Miss Elizabeth understood it too. Her colour rose a little, but her eyes softened. “I am perfectly well, Uncle.”
“So I see,” said Mr. Gardiner. “Wet through, but composed, which is precisely what I expected of you. Do you know, Lizzy, I have had the most extraordinary day. Three more trout hooked before the storm broke, and then, at the very instant I began to think myself a sportsman, the heavens opened. Providence, sir, has a sense of comic timing I had not before credited it with.”
Miss Elinor gave a startled burst of laughter and clapped a hand over her mouth in horror at herself.
Mr. Gardiner looked down at himself and then beamed at her. “Just so, Miss Elinor. It is very funny. I am reliably informed by my wife that I have no notion when to come in out of the rain, and today has proven the charge a just one.”
Miss Bingley scuttled back with a look of revulsion as the string of trout passed within a yard of her gown.
The trout were laid out in state upon the cold stone, under the water that was spilling off the domed roof.
There really was no resisting them. They lay there, silver, speckled, and absurdly large, though still not as enormous as the fish of Master Henry’s imagination.
Bingley pronounced the largest the finest he had ever seen out of the Derwent. Mr. Gardiner corrected him, with relish, as to its probable weight. Richard offered a soldier’s estimate and was instantly disputed.
Miss Bingley said nothing. Her expression suggested that no fish, however large, could justify being present, let alone dead, in her company.
Mrs. Hurst, who did not care for fish and announced as much, examined them anyway. “Well,” she said at last, with great reluctance, “they are, for fish, tolerably handsome ones.”
Miss Elizabeth’s eyes met Darcy’s then, and there was such sudden mirth in them that he knew she had remembered the same thing.
Tolerable, but not handsome enough.
He had not supposed the words could ever be restored to him as a pleasure.
Her mouth trembled. His answered. It was the smallest possible laugh, and neither of them made a sound.
Bingley saw it. He instantly looked down at the fish, which had apparently just revealed itself to be the cleverest creature in Derbyshire.
Mr. Gardiner saw it too and spared them both by bowing solemnly to Mrs. Hurst. “My dear madam,” he said, “from one who does not care for fish, that is praise of the most disinterested kind. I shall value it accordingly.”
Mrs. Hurst blinked, uncertain whether she had been complimented.
Miss Bingley’s mouth tightened. “You have been very fortunate in your sport, Mr. Gardiner.”
“Very,” said he. “Though I have found Derbyshire fortunate in more than its rivers. Its company has been unexpectedly obliging.” He glanced from Darcy to Bingley, and then added, with perfect mildness, “There is a great deal to be said for civility that does not exhaust itself in the first enthusiasm of an acquaintance.”
It was said genially. But Darcy saw Miss Bingley understand enough of it to lift her chin in defiance.
The folly, which a breath before had been a small round chamber of dangerous silences, became merely a crowd of damp people sheltering from a storm with three fish on display.
Mr. Gardiner had altered the whole air of the place without even trying.
He picked up the string and took it out of the folly, tying it to a tree branch before returning to their snug sanctuary.
The storm passed over in about three quarters of an hour. The rain thinned, the dome left off sounding like a drum, and the clouds rolled away off east.
“My dear Lizzy,” said Mr. Gardiner, “your aunt will be wanting proof that you have not been carried off by the weather. Shall we let these gentlemen determine the safest order of march, and in the meantime, you may help me decide whether the cook will call that largest fellow three pounds?”
Elizabeth glanced once towards Darcy, the gaze holding enough gratitude, amusement, and understanding to undo him.
Then she turned to her uncle. “She will call it whatever you instruct her to call it, if only to be rid of you.”
Mr. Gardiner laughed. “There speaks family loyalty.”
Across the chamber, Richard caught Darcy’s eye. He did not smile. The look was practical, not unkind, but it said that Darcy had been looking at Miss Elizabeth too long, and it was time to return the party to the house.
Then Richard turned back to Miss Bingley and asked her, with enormous solicitude, whether she was quite warm enough.
Darcy looked past Miss Elizabeth at the wet stone of the wall, suddenly aware that every ridiculous disaster of the day had only increased his desire that she stay at Pemberley. And yet every passing minute brought them closer to Monday.