CHAPTER 37 #3
“I begin to think,” she said, “that the tea was moderation itself.”
Mr. Darcy made a sound that was almost laughter and almost pain.
“You must not say so before Mrs. Pratt.”
“I shall say it only before those who require improvement.”
“Then the list may grow large.”
“I have always had a generous nature.”
His eyes met hers, and for a moment the room breathed differently.
Then he looked away.
“You know now,” he said, “why I once told you that I was not free.”
“Yes.”
“Not all.”
The words escaped him before he could govern them. Elizabeth saw the instant he regretted them.
Not all.
There was another meaning beneath the one he had given: not free from disgrace, not free from family, not free from Wickham, not free from the uncertainty of inheritance and sister and name.
But also not free to want. Not free to ask.
Not free to stand before a wealthy, unmarried woman whose household had begun to receive him as if he belonged there, and speak what honour forbade him to press while so much of his life remained shadowed.
Elizabeth felt the knowledge of it in her hands before she trusted it in her mind.
Mr. Darcy’s hand moved slightly on the arm of his chair — not toward her, not quite, but with the beginning of an impulse arrested before it could become liberty.
He saw that she had seen it.
Colour rose darkly beneath his composure.
“I beg your pardon.”
“For what?”
He could not answer honestly. That was clear.
Elizabeth looked at the space between them. Then, with a steadiness that felt like walking onto thin ice and finding it held, she returned to her chair and placed her hand upon the little table between them, palm down, near enough that he might take it if he chose and far enough that he need not.
Mr. Darcy did not move.
For one heartbeat. Two.
Then he took her hand.
No kiss. No flourish. No presumption. His fingers closed around hers as if he had been offered something warm after standing too long in winter, and did not trust himself to hold it tightly.
Elizabeth’s breath altered.
So did his.
They remained so for a moment neither of them measured.
His hand was warm, larger than hers, controlled even in its trembling restraint.
She ought, perhaps, to have thought of propriety.
Instead she thought only that this man had been accused of cruelty in tenderness, and still touched her as if permission were sacred.
At last he released her.
Too soon.
Or precisely soon enough.
He rose.
“I have trespassed too long.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Elizabeth rose also.
“No,” she repeated. “You will sit down.”
His brows drew together. It was not displeasure; rather, the exhausted confusion of a man whose retreat had been intercepted by command.
“Miss Bennet—”
“You look half dead, and I am not letting you go.”
“I assure you—”
“You assure too much. Sit down.”
For a moment he simply looked at her.
Then, because he was Mr. Darcy, because he had endured disaster with less obedience than he now offered a young lady in her own drawing room, and because he was, in truth, near the end of himself, he sat.
But he did not yet look restored.
He looked, rather, as if the story had been told and the danger had only enlarged by being named.
“You see, then,” he said, “why I came.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Wickham is not only a man who has been made ridiculous before company. He belongs to a machine of malice and lies which has served him very well. His father can make falsehood look like record. His mother can make resentment look like injured family feeling. George can make cruelty look like sorrow. I do not yet know how to protect you from all of it.”
Elizabeth was silent a moment.
Then she said, “Mrs. Marwood was prepared for most eventualities.”
Mr. Darcy looked up sharply.
“Prepared?”
“Widows and young women with resources,” said Elizabeth, “are often left vulnerable in ways gentlemen do not always observe until too late. My aunt observed them. She lived a long life, and saw both the best and worst of humanity. She did not expect wickedness everywhere, but she refused to be astonished by it.”
“What sort of preparations?”
“Mrs. Marwood’s school was never very delicate,” said Elizabeth.
“I was taught embroidery, certainly, and flower arranging suffered under my hand for several years; but my aunt did not think either would save a widow from a dishonest steward, an heiress from a designing cousin, or a young woman of property from a gentleman who found slander convenient.”
Mr. Darcy’s expression changed.
“So she taught me accounts, leases, servants, tradesmen, correspondence, and unpleasant possibilities.”
“Unpleasant possibilities?”
“Her phrase. It included theft, coercion, false friendship, bad marriages, forged documents, mercenary relations, and men who mistake a woman’s solitude for permission.”
“That is a formidable education.”
“It was not always agreeable. But it has proved useful.”
“And among these preparations?”
“Names,” said Elizabeth. “Instructions. Circumstances under which peace was to be attempted, and circumstances under which peace had plainly failed.”
His expression sharpened.
“Miss Bennet.”
“She told me there are always men who like money, and always men who like violence, and that a woman alone should know which of the former may command the latter.”
“You cannot mean to employ such men.”
“Not if you can suggest a better method.”
“I can suggest several.”
“Excellent. Then Mrs. Marwood’s preparations may remain theoretical.”
“I would be grateful if they remained permanently theoretical.”
“Then you must be very persuasive, Mr. Darcy.”
He stared at her for one moment longer.
Then, quite unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was brief, startled, and not quite steady. But it was laughter.
Elizabeth felt it pass through the room like the first warmth after a window has been shut against winter.
She rang.
Mrs. Doddridge appeared with gratifying promptness and no visible curiosity.
“Tea,” said Elizabeth. “And something proper with it. Mr. Darcy is not fit to be sent into the street.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And not the musical society’s tea.”
Mrs. Doddridge considered this distinction with the gravity due to household instruction.
“No, miss.”
The door closed again.
Mr. Darcy had covered his eyes with one hand.
Elizabeth softened at once, though she did not repent.
“I am sorry. I ought not to make jokes when you have told me such things.”
He lowered his hand.
“I am glad you can.”
That was worse, somehow, than if he had rebuked her.
“Then I shall continue in moderation.”
“I am beginning to distrust your moderation.”
“Very wise. Mr. Wickham made the same mistake.”
Tea came presently, with bread and butter, cold chicken, and a small dish of preserved ginger which Elizabeth did not remember ordering, but accepted as proof that Mrs. Albright had taken Mr. Darcy’s restoration into serious household consideration.
Mrs. Doddridge set the tray down, arranged the cups, and withdrew again with the same admirable vacancy of expression.
Elizabeth poured.
“You will drink that,” she said.
Mr. Darcy did not answer.
He sat very still, his hands resting where he had placed them, the cup untouched before him, the plate untouched beside it.
He was not looking at her. He was not looking at the tea.
He seemed, rather, to be holding himself in that exact quiet by which a man prevents one more movement from becoming the wrong one.
Elizabeth’s hand remained on the teapot.
She did not speak.
There are moments when management is only another kind of impatience, and Mrs. Marwood had not raised her to confuse command with wisdom.
So Elizabeth waited.