CHAPTER 28 #3
“You are wise. It was resentful for many years and may not forgive at once.” She moved farther in, brushing one fingertip along the back of a chair. “But you see? It is no longer determined to depress its company before the soup.”
“No,” he said. “It has been persuaded into hospitality.”
The words were simple, but they settled somewhere in Elizabeth with a weight she had not allowed for. Hospitality. Not display, not duty, not Mrs. Marwood’s preserved order, not the lonely correctness of a large room kept ready for no one. Hospitality.
She looked at the table again.
“I begin to think,” she said, carefully, “the house may be ready for a dinner party with my friends.”
Mr. Darcy did not answer at once.
The pause discomposed her, for his silences had begun to acquire expression.
Then he said, “It will be a very happy occasion.”
Elizabeth looked at him sidelong. “You are generous, sir. I have not yet promised that my friends are amusing.”
“I did not speak of your friends.”
The answer came too quickly.
He seemed to hear it after she did, for his gaze moved at once to the newly polished sideboard, as if mahogany had suddenly become a matter of urgent study.
Elizabeth was left with the provoking sensation of having been warmed and abandoned in the same breath.
Really, Mr. Darcy was becoming too agreeable for any reasonable woman’s peace.
It was one thing to be useful, silent, and severe; she had known how to defend herself against that.
It was quite another to stand in her finished dining room and say unsettling things in the tone of a man commenting upon furniture.
She took pity on him, though she was not certain he deserved it.
“Then you must mean the dining room.”
“Naturally,” he said, recovering himself with admirable gravity. “A room so lately rescued from oppression deserves encouragement.”
“And you think I can make it happy?”
He looked back at her then.
“I believe any event to which you set your mind may become so.”
Elizabeth had no immediate answer.
That was inconvenient. She generally preferred to have one ready before Mr. Darcy finished speaking.
She studied him instead: the stillness of his hands, the careful line of his mouth, the look of a man who had said exactly what he meant and now regretted only that it had been heard so plainly.
It would have been easier if he had flattered her. Flattery could be laughed aside. This had the more troublesome character of belief.
Elizabeth turned toward the windows, though there was nothing to see there but rain and the blurred reflection of candles.
She was spared the necessity of answering by Mrs. Albright, who entered to ask whether the candles should be tried in full that evening or left for a more consequential occasion.
She paused, took in their positions with housekeeperly discretion, and addressed the question to Elizabeth with the perfect composure of a woman who understood that candles mattered more than embarrassment.
“In full,” said Elizabeth, perhaps too quickly. “Let us see what the room can bear.”
“Yes, miss.”
Darcy’s eyes dropped for a moment. When they rose again, his composure had returned, but not entirely. There was a warmth about him still, a quietness that felt less like retreat than restraint.
Dinner that evening was almost ordinary.
Almost. Mrs. Doddridge spoke twice, once to observe that rain was bad for delicate dogs, and once to say that Lord Pomington had eaten well.
Mr. Darcy answered both remarks with seriousness.
Elizabeth teased him for it. He accepted the charge.
The candles in the dining room were tried and found flattering.
Mrs. Albright had only two reservations, which Elizabeth privately considered a triumph.
After Mr. Darcy had gone, Portman Square seemed to settle around the absence of him.
Elizabeth disliked noticing that.
She went first to the dining room, under the pretence of inspecting the candles. The room stood quiet, changed by light. It no longer looked like a place waiting for permission.
Then she went to the breakfast room, where the smaller writing table stood ready, and drew a sheet of paper toward her.
It would be very easy, she told herself, to wait another week.
The candles might be improved. Mrs. Albright could discover some new objection.
The claret silk was not yet made. The grey boots had not yet arrived.
There were always excellent reasons for postponing life, if one was determined to collect them.
But Jane was in town.
The room was ready.
Mr. Darcy had looked at it as if happiness might be allowed there.
Elizabeth dipped her pen.
Mrs. Doddridge, seated near the fire with Lord Pomington asleep beside her and a half-finished wrapper in her lap, did not look up until the first card had been written.
“Invitations, miss?”
“Yes.”
“For dinner?”
“For dinner.”
Mrs. Doddridge considered this, then returned to her sewing. “His lordship will require the green velvet.”
Elizabeth smiled over the page.
“Then we must all prepare ourselves.”
By the time the rain softened against the windows and the candles burned low, the date had been fixed.