Chapter 7
SEVEN
Elizabeth looked out the window, making a show of identifying landmarks to give her disordered sensibilities time to reunite into true sense.
“Yes, Maria,” she said at last. “We are very near Gracechurch Street now. See, there is the Friends’ Meeting House.
The Gardiners live not far from the edge of the court, set back from where the street meets it.
I am certain my aunt will be awaiting our arrival. ”
They drew apace towards a brick house in the old city style, situated near a spreading elm and a garden gate enclosing the gap between itself and its neighbour.
The porticoed door soon opened in observant welcome by the Gardiners’ old housekeeper, Mrs Hatton, and Elizabeth was glad to see from the expectation in the dear woman’s face that she had made the house ready to receive any visitors who were party to their arrival.
Mr Darcy was the first to disembark, and he handed Elizabeth out with a lingering hand, followed by the other ladies.
As the women fussed over their skirts, Mr Darcy dismissed his driver to the nearby coaching inn.
No sooner had he done so than Mrs Gardiner herself appeared at the door, tall and graceful.
She eagerly drew down the steps where Elizabeth introduced her, and she then proceeded to invite all her guests inside.
“Gracious, my dear Lizzy,” said her aunt quietly, making a pretence of helping Elizabeth unbutton her gloves while her elderly servant and Miss Darcy’s maid tidily collected the bonnets off the other young ladies.
“You have taken up with some new chaperonage, I see. Whatever happened to her ladyship? Was Lady Catherine unwell?”
“Oh, Aunt,” Elizabeth whispered back, already resigned to being discovered. “There is so much I should tell you! It has been a day of misunderstandings. I am still attempting to assimilate it all. And where—and how—is Jane? And the children?”
“They are all well recovered, but the children were quite of out sorts while awaiting your return. Jane took them all down with Martha to sail their little boats by the water. They will return soon, certainly in time to dine. I did not wish for Hatton to lay the table until after you returned. You and Maria are both safe and well, I see, although I would feel better if your trunks had come with you. We shall see what I have for you girls to borrow in the meantime if you wish to wash and dress.”
Elizabeth glanced away with a smile for the tall gentleman who now stood hatless, offering his arm to his sister to move into the sitting room. She turned back to her aunt, still grinning. “Our trunks are coming shortly, never fear. Mr Darcy has arranged it all.”
The brightness in her tone drew her aunt up from her task with sharp alertness. “Lizzy, did—?”
“Oh, you have nearly worked it out already! But pray, be your perfect self and do not pry. Not yet. Mr Darcy and I have suffered our worst humiliations this afternoon, and he has been kindness itself. I would not subject him to further scrutiny today.”
Mrs Gardiner nodded and went into the sitting room, where she was once again as gracious, unruffled and welcoming a hostess as she had been at the door, pouring tea and seeing to everyone’s comfort.
With a slyness Elizabeth had considered yet never witnessed within the scope of her aunt’s powers, Mrs Gardiner approached Miss Darcy and introduced the subject of Lambton, her girlhood village, which by happy coincidence was less than five miles from Pemberley and therefore a shared domain of memories for both ladies.
As they chatted and Maria sank tiredly into a cushion, Elizabeth took up her aunt’s teapot and approached Mr Darcy.
His cup needed no refilling, but the pretence pleased them both the same.
She resettled the pot and then sat beside him, closer than she had dared to at first in the carriage, yet not so close as she would wish. Her own fatigue was battling with her excited spirits and the enchantment of their sudden, newfound understanding.
He turned towards her, moving his arm to rest along the back of the sofa, nearly close enough to touch her shoulder. The gesture oddly soothed her because of the way it carried an echo of her unspoken yearning.
“You have travelled nearly forty miles today,” he said softly, his gaze assessing. “And you have suffered more than the usual trials of polite society. You must be very tired.”
“I could never have believed only this morning that today would hold so many surprises,” she mused in agreement, wishing as she nodded her head that she could lay the weight of it upon that sturdy arm he kept stretched so close to her shoulder.
“A thrilling day, truly,” he amended. “When Lady Catherine made her attack, I would never have imagined it could end in anything but disaster—in the worst of mortification and the end of all association between us.”
“Nor would I,” she agreed, “but then, I had not expected you to leap into the fray with me. Nothing forges a necessary alliance quite like facing a common enemy.”
“Indeed, and even enemies will touch toes under the table when they sup at the banquet of a common foe.”
His implication was a little painful. She shook her head. “You were never my enemy, Mr Darcy.”
“Of course not,” he said with chagrin. “I was merely the last man in the world you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.”
She frowned. “Ah, yes, I did say that. I also once told my sister Jane that nothing would induce me into matrimony but the deepest love.” She looked up at him, her eyes a little wide. “I would regret such prognostications more deeply if I did not see their fulfilment now.”
He smiled down at her in amusement. “Oh? Have you made yourself your own oracle?”
“Only in this matter. Your love for me somehow survived great disappointment, and mine for you grew from my own mortification today. Such a thing must have deep roots if it will persist amidst all those misfortunes. I suppose we must deduce, therefore, that with such a love between us, you are, in fact, the last and only man I could ever be induced to marry.”
He laughed, loud enough in his surprise that the others in the room turned to look at them.
He mastered himself under their curiosity, and quickly moved to stand.
He bowed to their hostess and said, “It has been a delight to meet you today, Mrs Gardiner. But I am aware that it is passing five o’clock, and I would not waylay your plans to dine.
” He glanced at his sister, adding, “Would it be convenient if we were to return at another time to call?”
Mrs Gardiner agreed to this readily, and their company all stood to make their polite farewells.
After Darcy had bowed to his hostess and the ladies began to gather towards the door, he turned once more to Elizabeth. “I will return tomorrow whenever you wish. You have only to say.”
Elizabeth handed him his hat, feeling oddly uneasy as she considered matters of discretion and decorum that he, being so well-bred, might wish to observe, and which she was increasingly willing to overthrow.
“My aunt has already deduced some form of understanding between us. You will not be unwelcome, even if you come a little early for a call. The house is always busy with the children here, you understand—”
“So I imagine.”
“—and Jane, Jane will be here, surely, as well. Perhaps my uncle also—”
“I shall be glad to make his acquaintance and see your sister again.”
Elizabeth could not miss the amusement in his voice and look, and the pleasure of seeing him so diverted by her eager chatter chased away her embarrassment. “Then it is settled,” she agreed.
“What is settled?” asked Miss Darcy curiously, coming to take her brother’s arm for their departure.
“You will come again tomorrow whenever you wish,” said Elizabeth. “And then you may meet my elder sister, Jane.”
“I would be delighted to meet another sister,” said Miss Darcy with an earnestness that added peculiar weight to her words.
It was just heavy enough an implication to confirm Elizabeth’s own suppositions about the girl’s powers of observation.
Elizabeth could only smile and press her hand as she extended it in graceful farewell.
The Darcys went away in their carriage only moments later. Elizabeth might have succumbed to the sudden pang of desolation she felt had Jane and Martha and the four Gardiner children not come hurrying home to meet her again with cheer and delight.
She had just kissed each young cousin and swung the littlest of them up in her arms when Jane, herself unburdened from carrying the child, wrapped both arms around Elizabeth.
“Oh, Lizzy! It has been such a long time,” she said in relieved tones. “I am so glad you are come back to me.”
Such familiar comfort wrapped around her in the figure of her sister was more than welcome. It soothed Elizabeth’s tumultuous spirits like nothing else. “And I am glad to have you with me,” she replied, her voice breaking with emotion.
Jane pulled back enough to look into her sister’s face, her concern too evident.
“I am well! I am well!” Elizabeth insisted quickly, dashing at the strange, sudden tears.
“There is nothing the matter with me, but I have so much to tell. So much has changed, and so quickly. My heart is reeling. I have never felt such a disarray of emotions. Indeed, the last few hours could scarcely hold them all.”
“Come upstairs with me, my dearest,” said Jane, reclaiming the child and passing him to back to Martha.
Her tone was firm as she took Elizabeth’s arm with gentle force.
“There is time enough before we dine to unburden yourself, if only a little. Where is my stalwart sister? This is most unlike you.”