Chapter Eleven #2
They travelled in silence. Mrs. Hobart dozed, or at least contrived to appear to do so, with her head resting against the squabs. Mr. Darcy’s gaze now appeared fixed on the landscape outside his window, yet she had the curious sense that he was aware of every movement within the carriage.
The rhythm of the wheels, the sway of the coach, the occasional creak of the leather straps might, in other circumstances, have lulled Elizabeth into a kind of thoughtful calm. But her mind was too busy.
She thought of Longbourn, of Jane’s face as she had watched the carriage depart.
Of her father’s hand pressed for a moment over hers when he had placed the little parcel of books in her lap.
Of Hertfordshire lying some miles off the Great North Road.
Of Mr. Darcy’s face when he had refused her request the night before: not unkind, exactly, but utterly unmoved.
Mr. Darcy’s proud reserve, his unwillingness to be pleased, his air of criticising all around him—these had combined, upon their first meeting, to form a unpleasant impression. Neither his conduct since, nor his manner since their quarrel, had inclined her to amend that opinion.
And yet.
He had bent when she requested his assistance as a gentleman, even when he did not wish to.
And she could not unsee what she had seen that morning: the quiet way in which he had spoken to his men; the care he had taken for his horses; the absence of any complaint about his own discomfort.
She could not forget that he had gone himself into the snow to help at the scene of the overturned cart while Mrs. Hobart had insisted that they drive on.
He did not boast of these things. He did not even appear to consider them remarkable.
He simply did them, as though they were a natural part of his duty.
The man was at once irritating and capable.
The coach went on, mile after mile. Snow lay thinner here; the fields had a patched appearance that suggested repeated thaws and frosts.
They passed a hamlet, a cluster of low cottages, smoke rising in thin blue threads from their chimneys, and then a small church with a square tower.
A solitary bell tolled as they went by, slow and measured, marking out the hours.
After that, there were only fields again. The hedges grew higher, the road more deeply sunk between them. Here and there, the snow still lay in thicker drifts where the wind had driven it, but the track itself was mostly clear.
Within the carriage, the silence altered its character.
It ceased to be merely awkward and became something almost substantial, like another passenger between them.
Mrs. Hobart, having arranged her shawls about her shoulders with great show, closed her eyes and assumed the resigned expression of a martyr determined to bear her sufferings in silence.
Elizabeth doubted very much that Mrs. Hobart slept.
The faint tightening at the corners of her mouth and the occasional delicate sniff suggested that every jolt of the carriage and every slight sway offended her sense of how a princess ought to travel.
Elizabeth almost smiled, for Mr. Darcy’s coach was, if anything, better sprung than their own had been.
Then she remembered that she was the princess in question, and the smile would not come.
Mr. Darcy sat beside her, his shoulders set straight, his gaze turned towards the window.
The line of his jaw was firm, his mouth grave, his dark lashes casting shadows upon his cheek.
He looked, Elizabeth thought resentfully, like a man well practised in ignoring what did not please him. And just now, that thing was her.
Another mile passed in strained quiet.
At length, Mrs. Hobart stirred, adjusted the ribbon under her chin, and said in a tone of laboured cheerfulness, “I must say, Mr. Darcy, I am relieved that we are once more upon the road. An enforced stay at so inferior an inn is not to be recommended to any person of delicate nerves.”
“I am glad that you feel yourself recovered sufficiently to travel, madam,” he replied, with scrupulous civility. “The delay was unfortunate.”
Mrs. Hobart pressed a hand to her bosom. “If I suffered, I did so willingly, that Her Highness might be preserved from every danger.”
Was the women rewriting what they all knew had happened? Elizabeth coloured. “Mrs. Hobart, I have told you before—”
“Princesses, my dear,” Mrs. Hobart continued, quite undeterred, “have a duty to accept such sacrifices. It is the order of things. Those beneath them must exert themselves, so that they may be kept from harm.”
Mr. Darcy’s gaze shifted from the window to look Elizabeth up and down. She could not be sure, but his expression seemed to convey both aggravation and contempt. Then he turned to Mrs. Hobart.
“Indeed,” he said, in a tone that might have passed for agreement to a less attentive ear. “There are some who are most ready to sacrifice for others.”
Elizabeth’s spine stiffened at his sarcasm. She opened her mouth, but Mrs. Hobart spoke over her with a little laugh.
“We must speak plainly, Mr. Darcy. Had you not offered your carriage, we might be languishing still at that dingy inn or worse, required to hire some farmer’s cart.
Sir Reginald will be most gratified when he learns of your gallantry towards the royal house of Thurnia, even if you could not be persuaded to take us north. ”
Mr. Darcy’s jaw tightened. “Sir Reginald must not be misled. Be under no illusion that my offer was anything more than necessary prudence. To leave two ladies stranded while their own carriage lay disabled would have been . . .” He turned to Elizabeth.
“Ungentlemanly. We are travelling the same road. It was a simple arrangement of convenience.”
Elizabeth could not help it; she said, more sharply than she intended, “You are determined, sir, that no one should mistake you for a man who acts from generosity.”
His eyes were dark and unreadable. “If my conduct appears generous, Miss Bennet, it is only because you choose to forget that I have been pressed into service.”
Mrs. Hobart gave a little cough of disapproval. “‘Pressed,’ Mr. Darcy? Surely you exaggerate. A gentleman is never pressed into serving a princess. He is honoured.”
“I would be honoured,” he said, without looking away from Elizabeth, “to serve a princess.”
The emphasis upon the final word was so slight that Mrs. Hobart did not perceive it. Elizabeth did.
Her fingers curled in her lap. “Then I am sorry that you have been so ill-used.”
For a moment she thought he would answer her with equal heat. His glance dropped instead to her hands, and some of the anger left his face.
“If I have been ill-used, Miss Bennet,” he said as though he begrudged the words, “it is by the weather and the roads, not by you.”
It was as close to an apology as she had heard from him. She did not know what to do with it. Before she could decide, he lifted a hand and rapped twice upon the roof of the carriage.
The coach slowed at once. Elizabeth felt the change in the movement even before Mr. Darcy let down the window nearest him and leaned out a little.
“Anders,” he called, raising his voice above the rumble of wheels, “how far to the next posting house?”
The answer came back upon the chilly air. “Six miles at least, sir.”
Mr. Darcy’s brow furrowed. “Have you seen any other travellers upon the road since we left the last turnpike?”
“Only that farmer with the hay-waggon an hour since,” Anders returned. “No one else at all. The road is uncommon empty.”
“Very well. Go on, but take it slowly when we reach the hollow. I do not like that stretch, and the landlord told me the post comes through there about this time of day. Listen for the horn and be prepared to give way if it does.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Darcy drew the window up again. A thread of colder air lingered in the carriage. Elizabeth studied him.
“You think the road dangerous?” she asked.
“The road is always dangerous,” Mrs. Hobart said, before he could reply. “There are ruts, holes, stones, and God knows what else.”
“I did not speak of ruts, ma’am,” Elizabeth answered.
“I meant—” She hesitated. Highwaymen belonged to the past, relegated to pages of novels and to Mamma’s worst imaginings.
Yet Sir Reginald had spoken gravely of the need for secrecy and insisted that they avoid certain inns, though thanks to the broken wheel and Mrs. Hobart’s unwillingness to remain silent, both plans had gone badly awry.
Mr. Darcy regarded her for a moment, and when he spoke, his tone had lost some of its earlier asperity. “You must know, Miss Bennet, that there are always those upon the roads who live by other men’s purses. Winter is a hungry season. The emptier a road, the more tempting it is to such men.”
It was not a comfort. Elizabeth drew her cloak closer about her. “You believe we may meet such persons?”
“I never have, and it is my hope that I never shall.” His gaze shifted briefly to the leather case above the carriage door where, Elizabeth knew, most gentlemen kept pistols when travelling. “It is, however, my habit to consider the possibility.”
Mrs. Hobart shivered and reached instinctively for the handkerchief in her reticule. “You will frighten Her Highness, Mr. Darcy, with such talk.”
“You will not frighten me,” Elizabeth said, though she was not entirely sure the claim was true.
She looked out the window again to find the landscape had altered.
The hedges on either side of the road had grown higher still, forming a sort of green and white tunnel.
In some places the banks rose almost to the height of the carriage windows, their sides patched with old frost and moss.
Overhead, grateful for the shelter, a few bare-branched trees leaned inward, their twigs like black lace against the low sky.