Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE CORRIDOR ENCOUNTER
Elizabeth
The candle trembled in my hand as I pulled the library door shut behind me, and the trembling had nothing to do with the draught.
My lips were warm. Not from a kiss—there had been no kiss but only a deliberate, agonizing absence of a kiss, which was worse, because a kiss at least would have been a fact I could examine at my leisure, whereas the space where a kiss should have been held a world of meaning we had left unspoken.
Meeting Mr. Darcy in a dark library most certainly qualified for either the most foolish or romantic moment in my heretofore unremarkable life, but he was correct to end it, and I should never speak about it.
I pressed Belinda against my ribs, the ribbon safe inside its pages.
The corridor stretched ahead, dark save for my small flame, and I walked with the careful tread, like one who had taken an irrevocable step, neither wishing to undo it nor fully comprehending its implications, only that it involved a Christian name and a dance and a step backward that had cost him visibly.
“Why, Miss Eliza. What a surprise.”
Caroline Bingley stood at the corridor’s end, resplendent in a silk dressing gown the color of bruised fruit. She held no candle—she had been walking in the dark, or waiting in it.
As she approached, the hairs on the nape of my neck stood with silent alarm.
She was not limping.
The ankle that had necessitated a footstool, compresses, and draughts had miraculously healed.
“Miss Bingley.” I steadied the candle. “You are awake.”
“As are you.” Her gaze travelled from my face to the book pressed against my chest to my slippers and back, performing an inventory that missed nothing and forgave less. “How industrious. A midnight visit to the library. I did not take you for a woman of such… scholarly appetite.”
“I found sleep elusive,” I explained, “and thought a novel might be the remedy.”
“A novel.” She repeated the word as though tasting it for quality and finding it wanting. “And did the library offer you satisfactory… companionship?”
“The library offered me Maria Edgeworth,” I said, presenting Belinda as evidence. “She is excellent companionship for anyone who prefers wit to gossip.”
Her nostrils flared. “How charming. I myself have been restless this evening. I thought I might find something to read—a romance, perhaps. One never knows what or who one might discover there at this hour.”
The implication arrived like a blade wrapped in lace, and I felt it land because I had, only minutes ago, been standing in that library in my nightclothes exchanging intimate items with the very man Caroline wished to compromise herself with.
“I cannot recommend a romance tonight,” I said pleasantly. “I appear to have taken the last one. Though I believe there is a collection of sermons beside a rather waterlogged Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. I see your ankle has improved remarkably.”
Cinnamon chose this moment to plant herself between my ankles and Caroline’s advancing slippers. She arched her spine, flattened her ears, and produced a hiss of such concentrated hostility that it echoed off the panelled walls.
Caroline recoiled. The sneeze that erupted was violent, involuntary, and magnificently undignified.
“That creature—” she spluttered, pressing a hand to her nose, eyes watering. “Miss Bennet, your animal is a menace to civilized society.”
“She is merely protective of her territory,” I explained, scooping Cinnamon into my arms. The cat now served as both shield and barrier between Caroline’s suspicions and whatever betrayal my face might unwittingly commit.
“I believe she considers the corridor after midnight to be her personal domain. I do hope your ankle was not troubled by that sudden movement, Miss Bingley. That recoil seemed rather vigorous for a recovering injury.”
“My ankle improves in the evenings,” she said, with the smooth recovery of a woman who has practiced her excuses. “Since you have located your novel, perhaps I shall visit the library myself. I find I am restless, and a romance might be just the thing.”
She swept past me without so much as a “good night,” walking with long, smooth strides toward the library, and my chest constricted.
I had left Darcy there, wearing only a dressing gown and a shirt, with the fire still glowing and the ghost of our conversation still hanging.
If Caroline were to open that door and find him thus—in nightclothes, in the dark, in the very room I had just vacated—
I could not go back. I dared not call out a warning. My only recourse was to ascend the stairs and pray that Fitzwilliam Darcy possessed the wit and presence of mind to shield himself from scandal.
Cinnamon, however, was under no such compunction. She twisted out of my arms and dropped silently to the floor. And then, she bolted at the retreating figure, inserting herself between Caroline’s ankles, mewing and yowling like she begged for a fish head.
Caroline stumbled, not badly, and the sound she made was more rage than pain. But the delay was real, and Cinnamon had already vanished down the corridor, hopefully to the library to warn Darcy of impending doom.
I did not wait to see what happened next. I could not. If I stood in that corridor one moment longer, Caroline would turn back and read the alarm on my face, and the alarm would tell her everything the library had not.
I retreated to my room and closed the door with the care of a woman handling a delicate piece of Meissen porcelain, and then I stood with my back against it, breathing, holding Belinda, the ribbon, and the entire weight of the evening against my chest: You fool.
You absurd fool—not in love, no, but nevertheless… still a fool.
I could not think about Darcy. Nor could I dwell on anything that involved green ribbons or brown eyes or the way a man’s voice dropped half a register when he said my Christian name for the first time.
Pressing my palms to my forehead, my gaze fell on my writing desk, where I had neglected my correspondence.
I broke the seal on Mama’s letter first because Mama’s remarks required action, and reading Mama’s handwriting required the concentration that left no room for midnight distractions.
My dearest Lizzy,
You have communicated nothing of substance about your primary purpose concerning Netherfield.
Does Mr. Bingley seek Jane’s company of his own volition, or must he be placed in her path like a hedgerow before a horse?
A man who requires steering is not worth catching.
A man who steers himself toward what he wants is worth everything.
I require observations, Lizzy. Detailed ones.
Your father sends his regards, by which I mean he grunted from behind his newspaper when I informed him I was writing to you.
I set the reprimand down. I had been at my post for five days without putting Bingley to any real test. I had quite forgotten about Jane’s predicament—stuck at Longbourn in between assemblies—and unable to call unless Miss Bingley invited her, which I could be assured she would not.
The Bingley sisters were the type of fashionable women who, although bedecked in finery, were rather plain—their jewelry glittered more than their features, and women who prided themselves on fashion plates and cosmetic improvement did not appreciate the presence of a natural beauty like Jane.
I broke Jane’s seal next, handling her letter with the tenderness one reserves for correspondence from those too good to harbor suspicion and too kind to make demands.
Her writing was warm, as always. She reported that Mama was in excellent spirits over the dinner invitation.
Papa had approved the menu with his customary detachment, whatever Mama wishes, provided there is port and I am not seated beside Mr. Collins’s ghost. Kitty and Lydia were lobbying to be included and had been told they might sit at the table if they did not mention officers.
Mary had volunteered to perform after dinner and had been diplomatically redirected to turning pages for Miss Darcy, if requested.
And then, tucked between a description of the linen napkins Mama had ordered from Meryton and an account of the new sauce Cook was attempting for the rabbit pie, a sentence that I read twice:
Mr. Bingley’s sisters—have they spoken of plans to leave the neighborhood? I ask only because Mrs. Long mentioned that short leases often produce short attachments, and I wished to reassure Mama.
It was not an interest in Caroline’s traveling plans, but whether the man who smiled at her, praised her embroidery, and danced with her twice at the assembly was staying or leaving, and she was asking through the safe medium of Mrs. Long’s gossip because Jane Bennet could not bring herself to ask directly whether a man she was beginning to care for cared for her in return.
This is Jane’s affliction: she feels everything and reveals nothing, on the grounds that to reveal feeling is to impose it, and to impose it might inconvenience someone, and Jane would rather be quietly heartbroken than cause anyone a moment of inconvenience.
I folded both letters and set them beside the novel.
A soft, familiar scratch at the door broke my reverie.
I opened it to find Cinnamon padding in.
She leaped onto my bed without fanfare and stretched over my pillow, unleashing an enormous, pink-tongued, whisker-stretching yawn of such profound nonchalance that it communicated, in the universal language of cats, that nothing of consequence had occurred.
I gathered her against my chest and buried my face in her warm fur. She permitted my affections with the tolerant grace of a creature who understood that humans required reassurance and was willing to provide it, so long as it did not interfere with her sleep.
“Is he safe?” I whispered into her fur.
Her only response was a contented purr.
It was not an answer. But it was the only one I was going to get, and for tonight, it was sufficient.