CHAPTER 51 #3
Dinner that evening was quiet. Elizabeth spoke of Mrs. Doddridge’s attempt to reconcile Pomington to their absence, of Mrs. Albright’s opinion that one footman had become too pleased with the new hall lamps, of a note from Jane expected tomorrow, of nothing large enough to conceal that she was waiting for him to bring the matter forward.
He did not. Not at dinner.
He waited until they were alone in the sitting room adjoining their bedchamber.
The fire had been lowered; the house beyond the door moved with soft, distant regularity.
The room was private, but not secluded. Somewhere below, servants carried trays, closed shutters, banked fires.
Portman Square did not sleep as The Laurels slept. It kept watch.
Elizabeth sat with a book open on her lap, though she had not turned a page in some time.
“There are new shirts in my press,” he said.
She did not look sufficiently surprised.
“Are there?”
“Elizabeth.”
She set down the book. “As we are married, we shall be expected to attend more dinners, calls, concerts, and social occasions than you have lately found it necessary to prepare for. Expanding your wardrobe to meet those demands is not unreasonable, I believe.”
“My shirts are not visible at dinners.”
“That is no argument for neglecting them.”
“Did you order them?”
“No. I instructed Mrs. Albright that you were to have what was proper for comfort and appearance. Your man spoke to your tailor. The garments are copied from your own.”
“Then I have been managed by committee.”
“A small and competent one.”
“At whose command?”
“Mine, naturally.”
He should not have been amused. He was not only amused.
“I do not wish to be outfitted at your expense.”
“Then do not be. Speak to your man, speak to your tailor, and have the account sent wherever your pride prefers it.”
“My pride is not—”
“Fitzwilliam.”
He stopped.
“I did not command the bill to vanish,” she said. “I commanded the want to be noticed.”
That struck more deeply than the shirts deserved.
She rose, and the book slid closed behind her.
“You have given up your rooms. Your man is housed here. You no longer pay separately for board, fires, candles, laundry, or half the small indignities of bachelor economy. If marriage has left you with too much free money, you may open a savings account against future emergencies.”
Darcy had prepared himself against generosity.
He had not prepared himself against arithmetic.
“A savings account,” he repeated.
“Or invest it. I am told money can be useful in the future, though I admit I am not behaving as if I entirely believe it this week.”
He looked at her.
She had begun with wit because wit was safer. He knew her well enough now to see when safety failed.
“But that is not the point,” she said.
“No?”
“No.” Her voice altered; not softer exactly, but plainer. “The point is that I do not care about the cost. Not as you mean it. It is not large enough to matter beside your comfort.”
He could not answer.
“If we are to attend dinners, you should be properly dressed. If you are to work, you should have linen enough not to be made uncomfortable by it. If you come home tired, there should be a place for your coat, your hat, your cane, and your papers. I do not want you half provided for. I do not want you half at home.”
“Elizabeth—”
“No.” She held his gaze. “I know what shirts cost. I know what gloves cost. I know what a proper coat costs, and what it does not. None of this is ruinous. None of it is even inconvenient. But you being careful in every drawer because you are afraid of owing me comfort—that would distress me very much.”
The room was very quiet.
Darcy thought of Pemberley, which had contained everything except belief.
He thought of rooms where he had been born and then made unwelcome; of his father’s house, which could provide plate, horses, lands, income, servants, consequence, and yet not the simple mercy of being on his side.
He thought of his London rooms, respectable, narrow, maintained with pride because pride had been the only furnishing no one could remove.
And then of this house.
Hooks by the door. His cane in its stand. Coffee as he liked it. Luncheon sent before hunger became discipline. Linen in the press before want became visible.
Elizabeth had not named neglect.
She had ended it.
“I cannot answer for every house that has failed you,” she said. “But I can ensure that this one does not.”
He could not speak at once.
Instead, he held out his hand.
Elizabeth looked at it, then at him. Whatever she saw there altered her face. She put her hand in his.
He drew her to him.
It was not the embrace of The Laurels, urgent with new permission. This was quieter, and in some ways worse. He held her as if she had said something too intimate to be survived at a distance, and bowed his face into her hair.
“Fitzwilliam,” she said softly.
He kissed her hair.
“You have made it very difficult,” he said, his voice low, “to object to linen.”
She was still for one breath.
Then he felt her laugh against him.
“Good linen,” she said, “does not deserve being objected to.”
He held her more closely.
Beyond the door, Portman Square continued its orderly movement: servants, fires, trays, footsteps, all the machinery of a house no longer merely inherited, no longer merely governed, but made alive by the woman in his arms.
In the morning, his coat would have its hook, his cane its stand, his coffee its proper strength, and his wife her place beside him. For once, no comfort required apology.
Darcy lowered his face once more to Elizabeth’s hair and allowed the house to keep him.