CHAPTER 43 #2
Mrs. Doddridge did not look up from her needle. Pom-Pom sighed as if he had seen many such proceedings and expected none of them to improve his wrapper.
When Darcy’s hand returned to the chair, Elizabeth set her own over it.
He went still.
Not away from her. Only still.
The stillness was answer enough.
“Mr. Hartwood and Mr. Beaker were hard yesterday,” she said.
His gaze dropped to their hands. “They were correct.”
“Yes. But there are kinds of correctness which should be softened before they are allowed into a marriage.”
He looked back at her then.
“I knew, before they drew a single paper, that you would not wish to be supported by me. After knowing you even a little, I was quite sure you would be offended by the idea.”
The line of his mouth tightened. Not in resentment; in recognition.
“I would not wish to take what is yours.”
“No.” Her thumb moved once, lightly, over his knuckles. “And I would not wish you to feel kept. That is why the papers say what they say.”
He did not answer, but his hand had turned warmer beneath hers.
“But the papers are not the whole marriage,” she said.
“They are there to prevent the world from making an ugly story of us. They are there to satisfy Mr. Hartwood, Mr. Beaker, and every suspicious person who thinks affection cannot survive arithmetic. But I do not mean to marry you and then pretend my fortune belongs to some locked room at the end of the passage.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No. You must hear me.” Her hand tightened over his, not much, only enough that he might know she meant him to stay.
“I know you did not choose me for my money. If I did not know it, I should not marry you. And because I know it, I will not have my heart keep books against you whenever that money makes our life easier.”
His expression changed as if the words had reached some place argument could not follow.
“There will be a household,” she said. “Rooms, servants, journeys, obligations, sisters, perhaps one day children. Some of that will be met from my fortune because my fortune is already arranged to meet it. That is not your dependence. It is our life.”
For several seconds he did not answer.
Then he turned his hand beneath hers until their fingers lay together more naturally.
“I do not know how to receive so much.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, covering his hand more firmly. “But you are improving.”
The breath he released was so quiet that anyone without a particular interest in him might have missed it.
Elizabeth did not.
Tea arrived. She let go only when obliged to pour, and even then he watched her with an expression that made the ordinary handling of cups and saucers feel less innocent than it had any right to be under Mrs. Doddridge’s supervision.
“Mr. Hartwood has written,” she said, giving him his cup.
“Has he?”
“Apparently the law has become resigned to us.”
Darcy’s eyes lifted from the cup to her face.
“So far as to permit a date to be named,” she added.
His hand stilled upon the saucer.
“Then you must name it.”
“No, sir. We must discuss it.”
She gave him the cup, but did not release it at once, so that for one second both their hands held the saucer.
“I am not marrying a blank signature.”
His eyes dropped to their hands and then returned to her face.
“I hope you know me incapable of offering nothing but my signature.”
“On the contrary.” She released the cup at last. “I believe you capable of offering a great many inconvenient silences along with it.”
His smile came slowly, and all the more dangerously for being restrained. “Then I shall attempt an opinion.”
“That would oblige me very much.”
He looked down into his tea, though she suspected he did not see it. “Before March is out.”
Elizabeth, who had expected him to say whenever you choose again, felt a rush of pleasure all out of proportion to the words.
“That is almost decisive.”
“It is the boldest answer I can make while wishing to appear patient.”
“You do not appear patient.”
His gaze came back to hers, and the look in it was too intent for the harmlessness of the words.
“Then I have failed in my chief object.”
“Not entirely.” She raised her voice a little, not enough for Mrs. Doddridge to hear the sense of it, but enough to rescue them both from the silence that threatened. “You appear determined to pretend at it.”
His mouth curved.
“Does that satisfy you?”
“It satisfies me more than perfect submission. I do not wish to marry a man who agrees with me only because he thinks it safer.”
“I have never thought disagreement with you safe.”
“Wise.”
A dull blow sounded overhead.
Darcy looked up.
A second sound followed: the scrape of furniture being moved by men who had evidently met resistance and intended to overcome it.
“Your house is very industrious today,” he said.
“It has excellent motives.”
“May I know them?”
“Not yet.”
His eyes returned to her face. He studied her for a moment, suspicion and tenderness warring in him with quite unequal success.
“Not yet,” he repeated.
“No.”
“Then I shall wait.”
He said it quietly enough that the words seemed to answer more than the workmen overhead.
The afternoon could not be allowed to stretch indefinitely.
There were letters to write, visits to make, dates to settle, and rooms upstairs which were even now being urged toward a respectability on which her future peace depended.
But Elizabeth did not hurry him. She let the tea be drunk, let one small silence pass into another, let his hand find hers again when they spoke of Hartwood, of March, of what might be completed and what must be endured until completion became possible.
When he rose to leave, Elizabeth rose too. Mrs. Doddridge’s needle slowed. Pom-Pom observed them with sudden interest, perhaps because departures often carried a risk of draught.
Elizabeth walked with Darcy as far as the drawing-room door. Mrs. Doddridge, with a tact which no one had ever taught her and which she would have denied possessing, bent over Pom-Pom’s wrapper as if its seam had become a matter of national urgency.
Darcy paused with his hand upon the door.
“Seeing you did make it simpler,” he said.
Elizabeth had meant to answer lightly. The look in his eyes prevented her.
“Then you must come often.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. It was not long enough to be improper, but long enough to make speech less reliable.
“I had intended to.”
“For simplicity?”
“For necessity.”
He kissed her then—not long, not carelessly, but with enough decision that her hand closed upon his sleeve before she could pretend indifference.
When he drew back, he did not immediately let go of her.
“The third week of March,” he said, almost under his breath.
“If we survive until then.”
His thumb moved once against her fingers.
“We shall have to.”
“How severe.”
“No.” His voice was lower now. “Hopeful.”
Then he left, and Elizabeth remained by the drawing-room door for one unnecessary moment before recollecting that doors, unlike hearts, did not require supervision after a gentleman had passed through them.
The improvement, however, had to be put into motion.
Elizabeth went to Mrs. Marwood’s old writing table and wrote first to Longbourn.
She hesitated less than she had expected. There were subjects which became worse when softened and worse still when left to be announced by those who would enjoy the noise of them.
My dear Papa,
I write to tell you, before the intelligence reaches Longbourn by a less obedient road, that I am engaged to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
The engagement has the approval of those gentlemen entrusted with my affairs after Mrs. Marwood’s death. The settlements are already in progress, and we expect to marry in March.
I do not write to ask permission in the common way, for you know my circumstances have long stood differently from those of my sisters; but I do write to ask for what I should value more — your good wishes, if you can give them without delay and without jesting me out of the comfort of them.
I hope you will write to me as my father before Mama is required to be happy in all her strength.
Your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth
She sanded the letter before she could weaken it.
Mrs. Doddridge, who had entered with Pom-Pom tucked beneath one arm and her bonnet already tied, looked at the sealed sheet.
“Longbourn, miss?”
“Yes.”
“It will make some noise.”
“Not immediately. I have addressed it to Papa.”
Mrs. Doddridge accepted this distinction with admirable caution.
“Shall James take it?”
“Yes. And then we shall go to Brook Street.”
Pom-Pom sneezed.
“You are coming,” Elizabeth informed him. “It concerns you in part.”
Pom-Pom gave no sign of conscience.
Brook Street was not far enough for reflection to become useful, but it was far enough for Elizabeth to discover that she cared very much how Jane would look at her.
She was not uneasy about Mr. Bingley. Good nature, once married to Jane, could be trusted to choose the proper side of any happiness. Miss Bingley’s opinion had never been a house in which Elizabeth meant to live.
But Jane was different.
Elizabeth did not require her sister’s permission.
She had not asked it. She would not have known what to do with it had Jane offered it.
But she found, as the carriage turned into Brook Street, that she wished Jane to see her and know, before any explanation became necessary, that she had chosen joyfully.
Jane received her in the drawing room, and Elizabeth discovered at once that Providence had arranged for a larger audience than sisterly comfort required.
Mary was there, having arrived from Longbourn the previous afternoon, and sitting very upright near the pianoforte with several sheets of music arranged beside her.
Jane explained, with a look half-apology and half-amusement, that the ordinary confusion of trunks, music, and Caroline’s efforts to discover what might be done with Mary’s gowns had prevented any note from being sent to Portman Square.
“And Mrs. Pratt called this morning,” Jane added.
“Did she?”