Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
A GENTLEMAN’S TOPOGRAPHY
Darcy
There are moments in a man’s life where everything he believed about the order of things shatters, and he is left holding his hat like a fool.
I had offered my arm to the wrong woman.
This was not a matter of opinion. Miss Bingley had turned her ankle.
Miss Elizabeth had her chin up and had said, quite clearly, that she required nothing from me.
And yet, I gave her my arm while the injured lady angling for my heroism dispelled any gentlemanly notion I might have held.
Having my younger sister notice was beyond mortifying. Take his arm; he won’t bite.
What had compelled my sweet, innocent sister to tease so? Had she been reading those Gothic romances I disapproved of?
I’d have to have a word with Miss Bennet—and she’d said later, not never. So I retreated to the privacy of Netherfield’s library because the library did not judge, and I did not wish to stand in the corridor listening to the sounds of bath water.
What I had not anticipated was the library’s unfortunate placement directly beneath her bedchamber instead. Still, it was a refuge from the drawing room and the sounds of Caroline Bingley being assisted to a bath while howling for a draught to relieve her pain.
And so, I stared at a diagram depicting various strategies for crop rotations and thought of Elizabeth Bennet, a slip of a lady, barely over five feet tall, bearing the weight of Caroline Bingley across a Hertfordshire field.
That she was stubborn, provincial, and devastatingly competent was undeniable. But what unsettled me was the realization that these very qualities, which I had initially dismissed as unbecoming for a gentlewoman, now stirred something within me that I dared not name.
Miss Bennet managed everything.
My sister’s words. Georgiana, who for two days had barely spoken three consecutive sentences to anyone, had delivered a clean, factual account of the morning’s events with a composure I had not seen from her since before—since Ramsgate.
She had not looked for approval but had spoken with admiration.
My quiet, careful, porcelain-composed sister, who had not teased anyone in my hearing since she was fourteen, had looked at Elizabeth Bennet and told her to take my arm with the casual authority of a girl who had decided that her brother’s dignity was less important than a muddy woman’s exhaustion.
I set the brandy snifter down and crossed to the bookshelves where Cinnamon had vanished behind a collection of sermons.
Bending to replace one of the unread agricultural tracts, I decided to search the wall for a mouse hole or larger—perhaps made by rats.
Several pamphlets bore the telltale signs of nibbling, and as I pushed them aside, I uncovered a collection of Gothic romances, their covers dog-eared and pages mottled with mold.
And I discovered the passageway—large enough for a cat—behind the novels and a complete set of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall.
I was thumbing through the lurid novels when the floorboards above creaked, and I knew it was Elizabeth because at some point I had memorized the patter of her step, firmer than Georgiana’s, quicker and more furtive ones.
This, I decided upon draining the rest of my brandy, was not the activity of a rational man—indeed, one who procured Miss Bennet for the betterment of his sister’s programme.
I opened the closest pamphlet and stared at a diagram of turnip yields without absorbing a single figure, and I was still staring at it twenty minutes later when she walked in through the open doorway—for I was not a man to close doors in other people’s houses.
Elizabeth had bathed, and her hair wasn’t quite dry, although pinned. Her face was clean and flushed from the hot water, and she came into the room with a brisk purpose.
“Mr. Darcy.” Her eyes found the brandy snifter, the crinkled pamphlet, and me—in that order. “I did not expect to find the library occupied at this hour.”
“The desk is at your disposal,” I said, rising, because breeding is a reflex and reflexes do not consult the brain.
“You needn’t rise every time I enter a room, Mr. Darcy. You will develop a very peculiar knee condition.”
“I shall endeavor to suffer it with dignity.”
She almost smiled, turning it into a scowl as she crossed to the desk. “I came to write my father.”
I remained standing, unsure why I would be interested in her correspondence.
“As per the contract drawn up by your uncle Philips, you have full access to the library and may use the quills, inkwell, and papers. Should you require a messenger, you may ring Mrs. Nicholls.”
“How exceedingly generous,” she remarked, opening the inkwell. “For a guest in another man’s house, you have a remarkably thorough knowledge of its provisions. Do you also manage Mr. Bingley’s wine cellar and stable rotations, or only the stationery and the drainage of his western fields?”
“I merely endeavor to assist Bingley should he decide to purchase Netherfield. The former tenant seemed to have neglected the necessary maintenance. Surely, there is no harm in aiding a friend.”
“Do you also consider turnip yields part of Bingley’s improvement programme?” She gestured to the pamphlet that I had left upside down.
“I do believe details matter in all aspects of estate management.”
“Important details like drainage?” Her pen was still poised over the inkwell, undipped.
“Yes, and I have implemented a mitigation plan that is quite in order.” My eyes narrowed at her inquisition. “Surely, this detail is not required for Georgiana’s edification.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Darcy, a mistress of any great estate might find it useful to understand the social consequences of redirecting excess water onto a neighbor’s winter wheat.
The drainage is exemplary engineering, I am sure—but the calls one must pay after flooding a tenant farmer’s livelihood tend to be rather more awkward than a poorly executed quadrille.
” She dipped the pen at last. “Tell me, does your channel direct the water south-southeast, toward the boundary stream?”
“I believe it does.” I tried to picture the plan I had gone over with Bingley’s steward. “It follows the contour into a natural depression.”
“And where does that depression lead to?” She touched the feathered end of the quill to her lower lip, and I couldn’t help but follow the motion.
“The boundary stream, I believe.”
She caught my gaze where it shouldn’t have been and bit her lip, enunciating like a governess of a particularly slow child.
“You believe so, Mr. Darcy, but have you walked the contour? Observed the direction the water would actually flow?”
The question hung between us. I traced the gradient in my mind—the slope of the channel and the fall of the land past the boundary marker, the stream, and beyond it—
My stomach dropped, a sinking feeling of realization washing over me.
“Longbourn’s lower fields.”
“Onto a neighbor’s property, as I was observing.
” She dipped the pen into the inkwell and commenced her letter.
“Specifically, the twelve-acre plot is my father’s tenant, Mr. Hughes.
The same Mr. Hughes whose wife is expecting their fourth child in January, and who has not had a failed crop in nine years, and who was not, I believe, consulted when your steward decided to redirect half a hillside’s worth of rainwater toward his livelihood. ”
The observation landed like a blade slipped between my ribs—painless until one attempted to breathe.
“Miss Bennet.” My gaze returned to her observant eyes. “You are correct, and I was negligent. The drainage should have been surveyed beyond the boundary before the first spade broke ground. I offer my apology without qualification.”
She blinked. It was the smallest disruption of composure I had ever witnessed—a pause in the pen’s trajectory, but I had been studying Elizabeth Bennet’s face with an attention I refused to examine, and the blink told me that a direct apology was not what she had been bracing for.
“I had expected an argument,” she admitted.
“I do not argue with a lady who knows her topography.”
“Protests the gentleman who neglected his.” She dipped the quill and began writing. “I shall inform Papa that the situation is being addressed. He worries, though he conceals it beneath quotations from Cicero and an unconvincing performance of indifference.”
“Your father and I share that method, if not the Cicero.”
“I should not have supposed you and Papa had anything in common, Mr. Darcy, and yet you both neglect what lies beyond your own borders and require a woman to point it out.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again, which was becoming an alarmingly frequent exercise in her company.
A soft scraping drew my attention to the bookshelves.
Behind the collection of sermons and the mouldering Gothic romances, the rat hole I had inspected earlier produced not a rat, but something considerably more self-satisfied.
Cinnamon emerged from the shelf. She surveyed the scene, observing her mistress at the writing desk, and walked directly to me.
Winding her sleek body around my legs, she rubbed her whiskers and purred.
“Traitor,” Elizabeth said, without looking up.
“It appears the cat has formed a preference, Miss Bennet,” I remarked, unable to keep a note of triumph from my voice.
“Her allegiances are fickle and motivated entirely by the warmth of your hearth. Do not flatter yourself.”
I glanced down at Cinnamon, who had now settled upon my boot with the air of a sovereign claiming a minor principality. The sight was both endearing and ridiculous.
“I see she has been thorough,” Elizabeth observed, finally looking up from her writing. Her gaze traveled to the orange hairs now decorating my dark-blue trousers. “You have been wearing evidence of her visits, Mr. Darcy. I have noticed, and I shall repay.”
A delightful pink tinge colored her cheeks as she returned to her letter. She had just dipped her quill when Bingley burst through the open door, his energy filling the room.
“There you are, Darcy! I have been all over the county and back, and I am here to report that the horses have been returned, the gig is in a ditch, and Mrs. Long’s pug is a menace to civil society.
” He stood in the doorway, his gaze shifting to Elizabeth.
“Miss Elizabeth! Are you well? I heard from the groom—is it true, you carried Caroline? Actually carried her?”
“Miss Darcy and I assisted Miss Bingley to the house,” Elizabeth said, with a modesty so precise it bordered on art. “It was entirely a joint effort.”
“Then I owe you considerable gratitude. Mrs. Nicholls tells me Caroline is resting. The ankle is twisted, not sprained, and Mr. Jones recommends elevation and cold compresses for a day or two.”
“I am happy to be of service, Mr. Bingley. Miss Darcy was uncommonly resourceful.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Darcy is a veritable angel. Caroline informs me that Miss Darcy was the first to act—ran for assistance without hesitation and then returned to help carry when the situation required it. Caroline says she has never seen such composure in a young lady of her age, and that Miss Darcy’s character is a credit to her family and her breeding. ”
He delivered this with the earnest warmth of a man repeating his sister’s words without examining their underlying motivations.
“I must confess I had not appreciated how remarkable she is—one forgets, you know, because she is so quiet at dinner, but Caroline says there is a great deal more to Miss Darcy than one might suppose, and that she has a quality—” He gestured, at a loss for the word.
“Courage,” Elizabeth offered, pleasantly.
“Yes, precisely! Courage. That is exactly it.” Bingley beamed, delighted to have the word supplied. Then his gaze dropped to my boot. “Cinnamon has defected again. Miss Elizabeth, does it not wound you?”
“Cinnamon has always had questionable taste,” she replied, “and I have made my peace with it.” She glanced at the cat with an expression that did not quite conceal her amusement. “What I have not made my peace with, Mr. Bingley, is your drainage diverting floodwater onto my father’s fields.”
Bingley’s brow crinkled with the innocence of a babe with no concept of milk’s origin.
“The channel borders Longbourn’s lower fields,” I explained.
“Miss Bennet has identified that our current course will flood Mr. Bennet’s winter wheat.
The works must be halted and the gradient resurveyed to direct the runoff toward the existing boundary stream.
I will ride out with the steward tomorrow morning to oversee the necessary adjustments. ”
“Then I shall inform my father to inspect the diversions.” She dipped the quill and scratched more words on the letter before sanding and sealing it.
“Consider it done, Miss Elizabeth.” Bingley waved a magnanimous hand. “Darcy’s schemes are infallible. Well… nearly. Present drainage excepted.”
“Present drainage very much included,” Elizabeth retorted, rising from the desk with the finished letter in hand.
She bent to retrieve Cinnamon from my boot, and her fingers brushed my ankle as she scooped the cat upward—a contact so brief and incidental that no reasonable person could have assigned it significance, except I ceased to be reasonable while listening to her bath water.
“Mr. Darcy.” She inclined her head—civil, correct, and carrying beneath its surface a warmth that I had not earned. “Thank you for hearing me. I shall ring Mrs. Nicholls about the messenger.”
She departed with her cat draped over her arm, and I watched her graceful movements as her cat watched me, two amber eyes judging the mettle of a man who had failed to categorize the woman who refused to remain within any boundary—and who was the more interesting for it.
The library door closed, and Bingley said nothing for a full five seconds, which was a personal record, and then burst out, eyes beaming with delight.
“Darcy, you like her.”
“I do not,” I protested weakly, opening the turnip pamphlet and tracing my finger over the words in a futile attempt at nonchalance.
With a knowing smile, Bingley picked up the pamphlet, turned it the right way round, and regarded me with an expression of unbridled amusement.