CHAPTER 50 #2
The change in him was so small that no one who did not love him would have seen it.
His breath released. His fingers opened under hers.
A line at his mouth eased, and the severe gentleman who could withstand gossip, poverty, estrangement, Wickham, and Mrs. Bennet looked almost undone by being touched without argument.
There it was.
Words made him answer. Touch made him return.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said, more gently, “you may trust me to say no.”
His fingers closed around hers.
“I do.”
“Then you must also trust me when I do not.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“I have spent months,” he said at last, “trying not to presume upon you.”
“I know.”
“And now—”
“Now you are my husband.”
The word did something to him. She felt it in his hand before she saw it in his face.
“Yes,” he said, very low.
“And moderation,” said Elizabeth, though her own courage made her warmer than the fire, “is admirable in company.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“In private,” she continued, “I think we may allow ourselves the extravagance of not behaving like strangers.”
For a moment he did not move.
Then his free hand came to her cheek, and this time, when he kissed her, he did not retreat as if affection were an offence for which he must apologize.
On the following morning, Elizabeth woke with her hair in mutiny, one shoulder bare of its shawl, and a new respect for moderation which lasted only until Mr. Darcy opened his eyes.
For one moment he looked at her without armour. Then memory came into his face, and with it such quiet, unguarded happiness that every complaint she had been preparing lost all courage.
“Good morning,” he said.
It was not a remarkable speech. It was only the manner of it: as if morning itself had improved by finding her there.
Elizabeth, who had intended to be very wise upon the subject of moderation, found wisdom unequal to being smiled at in bed.
“Good morning,” she said.
He smiled again.
This was becoming a serious problem.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“I am perfectly well.”
His eyes searched hers with too much care.
“Truly?”
She put her hand over his mouth.
The effect was gratifying and immediate.
“Truly,” she said. “Only reflecting that a lady should be cautious in establishing principles after supper.”
His eyes, above her hand, warmed.
She removed it before warmth could become another argument.
“You regret your principles?” he asked.
“No. But I begin to see that they may require practical management.”
“I shall assist you.”
“I feared you might say so.”
He laughed.
Not loudly. Mr. Darcy was not a man to be noisy merely because happiness had become legal. But he laughed, and the sound was so private that Elizabeth felt, for one foolish moment, as if The Laurels had been built only to contain it.
They came down late enough to offend Mrs. Marwood’s memory and early enough to reassure Elizabeth that the household had not collapsed.
She had dressed without Evans and felt the loss principally in her hair, which had been made respectable rather than obedient.
Mr. Darcy had fared better in coat and linen, but his neckcloth lacked its usual severe perfection.
Elizabeth regarded this as one of the first advantages of marriage.
“You are looking at my cravat,” he said.
“I am admiring your independence.”
“It is not well tied.”
“No. But it is courageously attempted.”
“That is not praise.”
“It is married praise. You must grow used to the species.”
The breakfast parlour looked east. Rain had passed in the night, leaving the grass bright and dark, the gravel damp, the laurels shining as if each leaf had been polished for inspection.
A pot of coffee stood beside chocolate, rolls under a napkin, eggs, ham, preserves, and a dish of something Elizabeth suspected had been added because Uncle Edward’s cook had formed a legal opinion on newly married appetites.
Mr. Darcy pulled out her chair.
Then, instead of taking the opposite one, he sat beside her.
Elizabeth looked at him.
He looked back, steady but not solemn.
“You are not sitting opposite me,” she observed.
“I am improving.”
“With confidence.”
“With instruction.”
“Then I am a creditable teacher.”
“You are a determined one.”
“Determination is often misunderstood by persons who benefit from it.”
“I shall endeavour to be grateful rather than alarmed.”
“That would be an improvement upon last night.”
His hand paused over the bread.
Elizabeth looked at him over the coffee pot, and after one second he understood that she was teasing him. Not avoiding the matter, not denying its tenderness, but placing it somewhere safe enough for laughter.
His hand continued.
“Yes,” he said. “It would.”
They ate with good appetite. This also pleased her.
There was something particularly satisfactory in seeing Mr. Darcy eat in a house where he was not a guest to be tested, a suitor to be measured, or a gentleman obliged to leave before his own comfort became too visible.
He did not eat greedily, or speak much, or become in any way less himself; but the air around him had altered.
The old watchfulness had not vanished. It had merely found, for the first time, a room in which it need not stand guard.
“You are looking at me,” he said.
“I am married. I understand it is one of the privileges.”
“In that case I shall not object.”
“No. You must not. We settled last night that excessive moderation is for company.”
“So we did.”
“And breakfast has not yet become company.”
“Certainly not.”
“Excellent.”
She returned to her roll.
After breakfast Elizabeth saw a writing table near the window and experienced, from old habit, a brief attack of duty.
Jane should be told that they were safe. Mrs. Gardiner would be pleased by a line. Mrs. Albright would know everything necessary without being told, and consider any addition an interference. Mrs. Bennet would undoubtedly like to be anxious in possession of facts.
Elizabeth looked at the inkstand.
Mr. Darcy followed her gaze. “Shall you write?”
“No.”
His brows rose.
“They may wait three days,” she said. “If Mama is uneasy, she will have the consolation of telling everyone so. Jane will suppose me happy unless I inform her otherwise. Mrs. Gardiner will understand. Mrs. Albright will manage London better without my assistance.”
“And you?”
Elizabeth turned from the writing table.
“I am on my wedding journey. I mean to spend it with my husband.”
His expression changed so completely that she felt rewarded for every neglected correspondent in England.
“Then I shall endeavour to be worth the neglect.”
“Do not be too modest. I am neglecting a considerable number of people.”
“I am honoured.”
“So you ought to be.”
They walked before noon.
The air had the washed freshness of early spring, too cold to be idle in and too bright to ignore. Elizabeth wore a pelisse of dark blue wool and a bonnet tied with more speed than elegance. Mr. Darcy looked at the knot once and wisely made no comment.
The Laurels stood a little back from the road, with a sweep of gravel before it, a narrow lawn sloping toward a belt of trees, and a garden laid out less for display than for dry feet and pleasant turns.
Laurels gave the house its name with a confidence Elizabeth approved.
There were also primroses near the wall, damp earth under the shrubs, and the beginnings of green in places where winter had evidently made its retreat without consulting the gardener.
Mr. Darcy offered his arm.
Elizabeth took it.
At first they walked as any husband and wife might walk within sight of windows, gardeners, and every proper expectation of Surrey.
His arm was firm beneath her hand; his stride slowed to hers; his attention, though not obtrusive, remained entirely fixed upon her.
When they reached the turn where the gravel narrowed between two laurels, Elizabeth observed that the path was not nearly narrow enough to require assistance.
She used it anyway.
She stepped closer.
Her skirt brushed his boot; her shoulder came nearer his side; and after the smallest hesitation, Mr. Darcy’s hand came to rest at her back.
It remained there.
The change in him was not the one she had half expected. He did not grow more urgent. He grew easier. The line of his shoulder loosened; his silence lost its effort; his thumb, resting lightly against the back of her pelisse, became less a claim than a place of rest.
Elizabeth walked on with great attention to the gravel.
“The path is very narrow,” she said.
“It is not.”
“Then you must admire my economy. I make use of difficulties before they exist.”
His hand settled more surely at her back.
“A talent I have already had cause to value.”
They continued in this improper but defensible arrangement for several minutes. No servant appeared to object. No shrubbery recoiled. The laurels, being either discreet or indifferent, shone on in the pale sun.
“You have known this house long?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not long. But well enough to like it.”
“Uncle Edward’s summer house?”
“Yes. He comes when London grows hot, when the courts are not sitting, and he has persuaded himself that a man may leave town without abandoning justice.”
“And not to Pemberley?”
Mr. Darcy was silent a moment. His hand did not leave her back, but she felt the old stillness return to him.
“Not often,” he said. “He and my father are brothers, but they were never of one mind long enough to make Pemberley easy. My uncle says it is a poor arrangement, to be a guest in the house where one was once a boy.”
Elizabeth looked across the wet laurels.
“That sounds like a sentence he would pretend was only wit.”
“Yes.”
“And was not.”
“No.”
Elizabeth did not press it. The hand at her back had grown still, and that was answer enough.
Instead she shifted closer by a fraction, as if the turn of the path required it.
His hand moved against her pelisse. Not much. Enough.
“And does The Laurels behave better?” she asked.
He looked down at her.
“It does not ask questions.”
“A rare virtue in houses.”
“Yes.”