CHAPTER 22 #2
She smiled, because he had intended that she should, and because accepting the small kindness of his humour seemed better than exposing the larger ache beneath it.
“Then I hope,” she said, “that quiet may at least be kind.”
“Thank you.”
There was a little silence after that.
It was not uncomfortable. It was, if anything, worse: too companionable to be neglected and too restrained to be mended.
They had reached Portman Square before Elizabeth, who had thought all morning of how Christmas was ordinarily supposed to look and very little of how it would actually feel, was ready to part with him.
The house stood before them, self-contained as ever, all its windows giving no sign that anything within was festive beyond good fires and proper linen.
At the steps they stopped.
For one perilous instant, the words almost came: a cup of mulled wine, perhaps, or a few minutes by the fire before he returned to the cold.
It would be no great impropriety, with Mrs. Doddridge present and the day what it was.
It would be kind. It would be natural. It would also be precisely the sort of harmless civility which had lately proved less harmless than it looked.
Elizabeth kept her hand upon her muff and did not open the door wider than she ought.
“I am much obliged to you,” said she, “for your escort.”
“The obligation is mine.”
He bowed to Mrs. Doddridge, then to Elizabeth.
There was nothing more to be said. That, perhaps, was the reason the moment lingered for one instant longer than it should.
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth at last.
His expression changed, though very slightly.
“And to you, Miss Bennet.”
Then he was gone.
Elizabeth stood for a moment after entering the house, her hand still on the inside of the door, listening to the diminishing sound of his steps. She had not invited him, and would not. He had not presumed, and she was glad of it.
Yet the quiet knowledge remained: he had nowhere much to go, and neither had she.
It made Christmas feel at once less singular and less cheerful than before.
Dinner was excellent, because Mrs. Albright would not permit grief, solitude, or uncertain acquaintance with gentlemen to excuse inferior cookery.
Mrs. Doddridge praised the pudding by accepting a second portion.
Pom-Pom, restored to good humour by his own importance and a strictly regulated improvement in his supper, stretched before the fire with his glass ruby blazing at his throat.
Elizabeth read a little after dinner, wrote two lines of a letter and crossed them out, then set the pen aside.
She had meant to be satisfied with the day.
In many respects, she was. Nothing had gone wrong.
No one had been forgotten. No impropriety had occurred.
The house was warm, the servants content, Mrs. Doddridge comfortable, Pom-Pom magnificent.
Still, when she went upstairs, she found herself thinking of a dark coat against pale winter light, and of Mr. Darcy saying, without complaint, that his day would pass quietly.
On Boxing Day morning the connection baskets stood ready in the servants’ hall, each labelled, covered, and respectable.
They had been planned before Christmas, when all feeling could still be disguised as foresight. Elizabeth went down only to inspect them.
This was a mistake.
Mr. Hartwood’s was proper: a cake, preserves, and a note of thanks for his continuing care.
Mr. Beaker’s was generous in a different direction, containing tea of such strength that Elizabeth thought it might assist even arithmetic.
Mr. Terling’s was modest but encouraging.
Miss Hall’s was pretty. Gracechurch Street was careful.
Longbourn had letters, which was safer for everyone concerned.
Mr. Darcy’s was—
Elizabeth stopped.
“That is Mr. Darcy’s?” she said.
“Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Albright.
“It is very full.”
“Yes, miss.”
“There is no reason it should be fuller than the others.”
“No, miss.”
Elizabeth looked at the basket. Mrs. Albright looked at the basket. Pom-Pom, who had followed them downstairs in his cloak, looked at both of them with the weary contempt of one long accustomed to human dishonesty.
“The mince pies are ordinary,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, miss.”
“The cake is ordinary.”
“Yes, miss.”
“The preserves are not extraordinary. Mr. Beaker has preserves.”
“Yes, miss.”
“The candied orange peel is perhaps unnecessary.”
Mrs. Albright waited.
Elizabeth removed the little paper parcel and set it aside.
For one moment the basket looked more reasonable.
Then she remembered Mr. Darcy standing outside the church, grave and quiet in the Christmas cold, with no house full of relations waiting to absorb him, no sister at his side, no family claim he had admitted aloud.
She put the orange peel back.
“Mr. Beaker has arithmetic,” she said. “He does not require orange peel.”
“No, miss.”
Elizabeth examined the basket again.
“And the quince.”
Mrs. Albright paused only long enough to prove she had noticed nothing.
“Yes, miss.”
The quince was added.
“That is enough,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, miss.”
“Quite enough.”
“Yes, miss.”
Pom-Pom gave a quiet bark.
“You,” said Elizabeth, looking down at him, “are in no position to criticise excess.”
The notes were sealed. Mr. Darcy’s read only:
Miss Bennet sends Mr. Darcy the compliments of the season, with every wish that the coming year may improve upon the last.
It was not a warm note.
It was not a cold one.
It was, Elizabeth decided, very nearly safe.
The baskets went out before noon, arranged in a respectable order that proved nothing whatever. Mr. Darcy’s was neither first nor last. It was only, by some unfortunate accident of household abundance, the heaviest.
When the last footman had gone and the house settled into its post-Christmas quiet, Elizabeth stood for a moment in the hall and listened.
Nothing very merry answered her.
Yet neither did the house seem so empty as it had before.
She went up to the music room.
Pom-Pom followed with the solemnity of a creature accustomed to ceremony and was placed in the chair near the window, where the winter light could admire his brooch. The monstrous red glass caught the pale afternoon and conducted itself with all the arrogance of a ruby.
“You may preside,” said Elizabeth. “But you may not sing.”
Pom-Pom stretched one narrow paw, considered the terms, and gave a small bark.
“I am glad we understand one another.”
She sat at the pianoforte and opened the old book of Christmas airs. At first her fingers were uncertain, for the room had not yet fully forgiven neglect. Then the tune found itself beneath her hands, simple and familiar, and went out softly into the pale afternoon.
It was not a party. It was not Longbourn, nor Gracechurch Street, nor any happy crowded room.
It was only Portman Square, a small dog in outrageous splendour, and one woman playing carols to a house that was beginning, by degrees, to answer.