CHAPTER 41 #2
“Nor would I,” said Elizabeth. “You may finish putting it into order. After that, if the ongoing management is better placed elsewhere, we shall move it elsewhere.”
“Gradually,” said Mr. Hartwood.
“Smoothly,” said Mr. Beaker.
“Without allowing Mr. Harding to discover there has been a change,” said Elizabeth.
“That,” said Mr. Darcy, “may be the highest test of the arrangement.”
Mr. Hartwood took up the matter with the gravity it deserved.
Darcy’s work on Cotton Lane and the later property packets was not to continue by presumption, nor as marital authority, nor as private service to Elizabeth.
It would continue, if it continued at all, because Hartwood and Beaker judged the work already begun would suffer by abrupt removal, because Mr. Darcy possessed the necessary knowledge, and because the boundaries could be made plain.
“He reports to the professional arrangement,” said Hartwood, “not above it.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Darcy.
“His memoranda come through my office where law is concerned,” said Hartwood.
“Yes.”
“Figures through Mr. Beaker.”
“Of course.”
“Tenant complaints, repairs, and Mr. Terling’s reports are not to become a private marriage correspondence.”
Elizabeth found this excessive.
“They were never romantic.”
Mr. Darcy looked at her.
“Were they not?”
Unfortunately, he said it so quietly that only she could hear. Even more unfortunately, it made the skin beneath her glove remember his hand.
She looked back at Mr. Hartwood.
“Very well. Not private.”
“Miss Bennet,” said Mr. Hartwood, with the patience of a man who had known her since she was young enough to resent patience, “this is not because I think you incapable of distinction. It is because the world is not always willing to credit a woman with distinctions that inconvenience it.”
“I know.”
“And because Mr. Darcy’s name is not yet safe enough in every room to let an enemy say he gained employment in your affairs and then married his employer.”
Mr. Darcy’s expression did not change, but Elizabeth felt the slight inward blow of the sentence beside her.
She said, before he could retreat into silence, “Then we shall give the enemy less material.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Hartwood. “That is precisely what we shall do.”
Mr. Beaker turned a page.
“The lease work may continue under written instruction and review until the system is unified. The trust does not pass into Mr. Darcy’s reach.
The marriage settlements will secure what must be secured.
Mr. Darcy’s own property and expectations, such as they stand in law, must be stated plainly.
Mr. Bennet must be informed, though he is not the governing legal obstacle.
Mrs. Bennet must not be permitted to become one. ”
“I have long considered that an excellent legal principle,” said Elizabeth.
“It is not legal,” said Mr. Hartwood. “It is survival.”
“Mrs. Marwood would not have separated the two.”
“No,” said he. “She would not.”
For a moment the room held the old woman’s absence.
Not sentimentally; Mrs. Marwood had never encouraged sentiment unless it had first washed its hands and brought a memorandum.
But she was there in the square desk, the careful papers, the men trained to be inconvenient on Elizabeth’s behalf, and the fact that Mr. Darcy, grave and beloved and newly admitted, must first submit to protection before he could be welcomed.
Mr. Hartwood, perhaps feeling the same thing, lowered his eyes to the paper before him.
“Mrs. Marwood,” said he, “would have asked for all precautions.”
“She would have asked for more than all,” said Elizabeth.
“She would have disliked being hurried.”
“Violently.”
“And having examined the matter,” said Mr. Hartwood, “I believe she would have approved your certainty.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened with such sudden force that she was obliged to inspect the inkstand.
Mr. Darcy said nothing. That was one of his virtues. He did not rush at feeling when silence could keep it whole.
Mr. Beaker, who was made of sterner and drier materials, cleared his throat.
“Approvals of the dead, however gratifying, are difficult to file. We shall require particulars.”
This restored everyone.
Mr. Darcy was drawn into questions of name, age, paternal family, present income, expectations, his mother’s fortune, the judge uncle’s assistance, and the unresolved nature of his father’s sentence.
Hartwood asked carefully. Beaker wrote carefully.
Darcy answered without ornament and without self-pity.
Elizabeth listened and disliked George Darcy Senior with increasing precision.
When it was done, Hartwood folded one sheet and set it aside.
“This need not be a long delay,” he said. “If there is no opposition from the proper quarters and if the settlements proceed cleanly, speed is possible.”
“Speed is desirable,” said Elizabeth.
Mr. Hartwood looked at her.
“For several reasons,” she added.
Mr. Darcy’s hand closed once upon the head of his cane.
Elizabeth saw it, and so did Hartwood. Neither of them pursued the matter.
“Then we shall be quick,” said Hartwood, “without being foolish.”
“That,” said Mr. Darcy, “is my wish.”
“And mine,” said Elizabeth.
Mr. Beaker shut his notebook.
“Then we have achieved the rare condition of four people wishing the same thing for four different reasons. It may almost be called progress.”
By the time the papers were gathered, Elizabeth’s engagement had not become less astonishing. It had only acquired witnesses, precautions, and a very respectable quantity of ink.
They left Hartwood’s private room together.
Mrs. Doddridge sat in the outer office with Pom-Pom on the chair beside her, both of them displaying that grave endurance which legal business so often requires of innocent parties.
Mr. Beaker remained behind to murmur something to a clerk.
Mr. Hartwood was called momentarily to another desk.
For one brief moment, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy stood together near the window, not private, but not observed closely enough to be entirely safe.
“Elizabeth,” he said.
The sound of her name, lowered for her only, was still a new disorder.
“Yes?”
“Would you wish me to go to Longbourn?”
She looked up quickly.
“To Longbourn?”
“To speak to your father. If you would prefer it, I will go myself and inform him in person.”
The offer struck her with a force she had not expected. It was so like him: honourable, direct, painful, and entirely ready to walk into discomfort because duty had shown him the road.
“No.”
The word came too quickly.
His face altered, and she softened at once.
“Not because I doubt you.”
“I did not think that.”
“No. But you might have wondered it in an hour, and then been too honourable to accuse me.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“I might.”
“I know them,” she said.
His expression sobered.
“My father must be told. He shall be told. But I will not send you alone to be made material for his wit before he has decided whether to be kind.”
Mr. Darcy was silent.
Elizabeth looked toward the clerks, the brown shelves, the dustless windows, anything that might keep her voice from becoming too revealing.
“I should like him to wish me happy. I do not choose to let him first make a sport of you.”
“You still wish for his good wishes.”
“Yes. Blessings are sometimes made too grand to be useful. Good wishes may be quieter, if they are real.”
“How would you have it done?”
“By letter first. Mine. Plainly. Then, if he chooses to answer as a father rather than a spectator, we may visit.”
Mr. Darcy considered this, and Elizabeth saw him accept not only the arrangement but the wound beneath it.
“I will do as you think best.”
That was nearly too much.
Elizabeth could not take his hand. There were clerks, doors, Mrs. Doddridge, Pom-Pom, Mr. Hartwood’s office, and all the cheerful tyranny of civilisation between them. She settled for looking at him directly.
“You offered very handsomely.”
“I offered what I ought.”
“Yes,” she said. “You often do. It is one of your more difficult habits.”
Mr. Beaker appeared in the doorway with the look of a man who had waited as long as arithmetic permitted.
“Mr. Darcy, if you please. There are particulars which cannot be made less necessary by anyone’s happiness.”
“Of course.”
Mr. Darcy bowed to Elizabeth, and for one moment the formal movement contained everything forbidden to the room: gratitude, reluctance, promise, and the memory of his mouth on hers.
Then he followed Mr. Beaker.
Elizabeth watched the door close.
Mrs. Doddridge looked at her.
“Miss Bennet?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “We are still quite respectable.”
“Very good, miss.”
Pom-Pom, who had apparently formed his own opinion of the matter, turned his face to the wall.
The words restored Elizabeth sufficiently to turn back toward Mr. Hartwood, who had returned to his private room and stood beside the desk with a sealed packet beneath his hand.
Elizabeth went in and closed the door.
She waited one breath longer than necessary.
Then she turned to him.
“Now,” she said. “Mr. Wickham.”
Mr. Hartwood did not sit immediately. That alone told her something.
“Your Saturday note reached me late.”
“I supposed it had.”
“I did not delay from indifference.”
“I did not suppose you had.”
“No. You supposed, very properly, that I had been inconveniently slow.”
“Yes.”
His mouth twitched.
“I was slow because a warning without particulars is only noise. I wished to know what Mr. Wickham owed, to whom he owed it, how long he was usually allowed to delay payment, and by what means his embarrassments had previously been softened.”
Elizabeth sat.
“And did you discover the means?”
“Several.”
“Respectable?”
“No.”
“Useful?”
“To him, yes. To us, perhaps.”
Mr. Hartwood took the chair opposite her and untied the packet.