Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE TRUE PROGRAMME
Elizabeth
The hour drew near when we had to depart, and while I had been away from Longbourn before visiting my uncle and aunt in London, I had never seen my home with the eyes of a visitor.
I felt it more strongly through both Georgiana and Darcy—the noise, the antics of my sisters, and of course, Mama’s aggressive hospitality.
“We expect your return,” Mama said, placing a cloth-wrapped parcel into Georgiana’s herb basket. “Dinner at seven. I shall write to Miss Bingley to formalize the invitation, but I consider it settled.”
“We would be honored, Mrs. Bennet,” Bingley spoke for the party, darting a smile in Jane’s direction.
Darcy appeared like a man who had swallowed a bushel of figs, amusing me to no end.
I’d observed the way he’d swallowed the reprimand he would have directed at his sister when they had a moment of privacy.
“Excellent,” Mama said, presenting a separate parcel wrapped in linen stamped with the Clark crest—Bakers to the King, as Mama would remind anyone who stood still long enough. “For your sisters, Mr. Bingley, who appear to subsist on opinions and weak tea.”
“Mrs. Bennet, you are a treasure.” Bingley tucked the parcel under his arm. “Miss Bennet, Jane, thank you for the rabbit pie. It was the finest I have ever eaten, and I have eaten rabbit pie in five counties.”
Jane smiled from the doorway, and Bingley smiled at Jane. The smiling went on long enough that Darcy cleared his throat.
“We should not impose further.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Darcy. It has been a delight.” Mama’s curtsy was precise enough for protocol and warm enough to exceed it. She accompanied us to the garden gate.
While the rest of the party moved to where the boy held the horses, Mama caught my elbow and whispered, “He chased the Haydn to her, Lizzy. He heard it from the yard and followed the sound before he remembered to be angry.” Her fingers tightened, brief and deliberate.
“A man who follows music is not supervising. He is listening. Do with that what you will.”
Always strategic, Mama should have been a spy for the Home Office.
Releasing me, she smoothed her apron and raised her voice to its public register.
“Safe travels, all of you. Mr. Darcy, do mind the gap in Mr. Jacobs’s fence.
His pigs have been escaping all week, and they are partial to anything that smells of garlic. ”
“Your mother,” Darcy observed as we cleared the garden gate, “is a remarkable woman.”
“She is aware of it. Thank you.”
Bingley’s horse and Darcy’s stood where the boy had tied them, patient and unimpressed, and since I did not ride and Georgiana had neither her sidesaddle nor her riding habit, we decided to return to Netherfield on foot, leading the horses.
As we cleared the gate, Cinnamon streaked toward us and mewed at Darcy. He scooped her up before she could thread between the horses’ legs, and she settled against his shoulder.
The natural sorting happened without discussion.
Bingley fell in with Georgiana, already requesting a full botanical inventory while she explained the medicinal properties of yarrow.
Which left me walking beside Darcy, who led his horse between us like a four-legged chaperone, with Cinnamon draped across his shoulder, her tail curling against the back of his coat and depositing fresh orange fur to complement the existing collection.
I counted forty paces before he spoke.
“You might have sent word.”
His voice was quieter than I expected, lacking the edge I had braced for since his arrival.
“I might have,” I agreed, “had I planned it. The walk produced an impulse, and the impulse produced a visit, and the visit produced rabbit pie, and the sequence did not include a pause for correspondence.”
“Georgiana is my ward, Miss Bennet. Her movements are my responsibility and my concern.”
“Yes, Mr. Darcy, and she is your sister who laughed, climbed a stile, and threw apple cores at ducks.” I slowed my pace, forcing him to stop and glare at me.
“She also ate biscuits with her fingers, taught my sister a passage, and submitted to having her hair plaited by my two youngest sisters, who consider French embroidery the pinnacle of civilization. If you wish to reprimand me for these crimes, I shall accept my punishment with the gravity they deserve.”
The horse snorted, which I interpreted as editorial support. My cat, however, snuggled against Darcy’s chest, eyes closed in contentment. Traitorous feline.
We walked another ten paces before he said, “That is not the point.”
“Pray, what is the point, Mr. Darcy?” I countered, arching an eyebrow.
After a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “The point is that Georgiana’s welfare is my charge. I cannot fulfil that duty if her companion undertakes expeditions without so much as a note left on the breakfast table.”
He was right, which was most inconvenient. I had not sent word, nor had I paused to consider that a man who monitored his sister’s accomplishments by the quarter-hour might object to her vanishing for hours into unknown territory.
“You are correct,” I conceded. “I should have sent word.”
He looked at me sharply, as though my agreement were more suspicious than defiance.
“Going forward,” he continued, his tone shifting from reprimand to negotiation, “I should like to be consulted before any outings beyond Netherfield’s grounds. I am not forbidding them. I am asking to be informed.”
“Informed, or present?” The question slipped out before I could restrain it.
“Both, if the occasion permits,” he said, then looked straight ahead as if the hedgerow required his full attention.
“Very well. I shall present my proposed adventures for your review each morning. You may approve, amend, or join them as you see fit.”
“I appreciate your understanding,” Mr. Darcy replied, his gaze softening. “Your proposed arrangement seems fair.”
I hesitated, then ventured, “If I may inquire, sir, what qualities did you seek in a companion for Miss Darcy?”
His stride faltered, barely perceptible, but I had been watching his boots since we left Longbourn and had established a reliable baseline.
“Qualities,” he repeated, as though the word required translation.
“You had music masters, language tutors, a governess with credentials to satisfy a duchess. What did you imagine a companion would provide that they could not?”
“Conversation,” he said. “Georgiana’s tutors instruct. They do not converse.”
“And you wished her to have practice in the art of conversation with someone of inferior rank and no particular accomplishment?” I kept my tone light, as though the question carried no import. “That must have narrowed the field considerably.”
He shot me a glance. “That is not what I said.”
“It is rather close to what you said, Mr. Darcy. At the assembly, you observed that I possessed a sharp tongue—common enough in country society, I believe, were your words—and then suggested to Sir William that your sister might benefit from such a companion.”
The tips of his ears went bright pink, and Cinnamon, sensing the shift in her chosen human’s composure, opened one eye and resettled against his waistcoat.
“I spoke carelessly that evening.”
“Really? You always speak precisely. It is one of your more alarming qualities.” I bent to pick a sprig of rosemary that had fallen from the herb basket and tucked it into my sleeve, taking my time.
“You assessed my intelligence, found it serviceable, and assigned it a function. I merely wonder whether the function has met your expectations, or whether you are regretting the investment.”
“I do not regret my choices.”
No, I suppose a man like Darcy would never own up to a mistake. Somehow, I enjoyed his discomfort more than a proper lady should.
“Then why did you engage me for your sister’s improvement programme? Surely, Miss Bingley, who has made quite a thorough study of society, fashion plates, and comportment, would have taken Miss Darcy’s programme to heart.”
“Miss Bingley takes nothing to heart.” The words tumbled from his lips before he could catch them. “Pray pardon me. I seem to speak carelessly when under the hot Hertfordshire sun.”
“Yes, I suppose the Derbyshire clouds would provide quite a reservoir of reserve appropriate for any Darcy.”
“You have a talent, Miss Bennet, for turning a man’s county of origin into an indictment of his character.”
“And you have a talent for classifying people within thirty seconds of meeting them. We are both gifted.”
He looked at me with the expression of a man who has stepped on a rake and is deciding whether to blame the rake or the gardener.
Cinnamon stretched luxuriously against his chest, purring loudly enough to be heard over the plodding horse between us, and I derived an unreasonable satisfaction from the fact that my cat was more comfortable with Fitzwilliam Darcy than Fitzwilliam Darcy was with me.
“I did not classify you,” he said.
“You classified me at the assembly, Mr. Darcy. You assessed me, pronounced my wit common, and identified a practical use for it. If that is not classification, then the naturalists have been going about their work very differently than I imagined.”
“I was not at my best that evening.”
“On the contrary, I suspect you were at your most natural. People are always most honest when they believe they are not being overheard.”
His jaw tightened, and I felt the particular thrill of landing a hit that was both fair and slightly cruel, which was not an admirable sensation but was an honest one.
“Miss Bennet, if you are asking whether I regret the manner in which the arrangement came about—”
“I am asking why you chose a woman with a sharp tongue for your sister’s improvement, when a woman with a soft one would have been far less trouble.”
Ahead of us, Bingley’s voice floated back. “And you simply eat wild garlic? Raw? Straight from the earth?”