CHAPTER 54 #2
Elizabeth heard it before she saw it: the clean check of horses, the small authority of wheels brought to a halt, the polished delay that says the street must notice before the door opens. She went to the window with one glove still in her hand.
One glance was enough.
The horses were excellent; the harness unobjectionable; the servant on the box had the air of long acquaintance with grandeur and no great respect for houses smaller than his master’s. It was not merely a good carriage. It was a carriage intended to be read.
Elizabeth disliked it immediately.
Mrs. Marwood had always said that wealth displayed too eagerly saved rogues the trouble of searching for a weakness.
Looking now at the equipage before her door, Elizabeth found the maxim improved by evidence.
The carriage was handsome enough to be admired and ostentatious enough to instruct an enemy.
“How instructive,” said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Doddridge looked up from Lord Pomington’s wrapper.
A moment later, the servant appeared.
“A gentleman to wait upon you, madam.”
“What gentleman?”
The servant, who had plainly been impressed against his principles, said, “Mr. Darcy, madam.”
Elizabeth turned.
For one instant she thought only of her husband and some impossible doubling of the world.
Then reason supplied the rest. A gentleman calling himself Mr. Darcy in such a carriage, while her own Mr. Darcy was safely at chambers and had no taste whatever for arriving at his own house in theatrical state, could be only one person.
She said, after the briefest pause, “Show him in.”
Mrs. Doddridge set aside the wrapper.
“Shall I remain, madam?”
Elizabeth considered. The visitor had come with rank, grievance, and horses enough to overawe a weaker hall. It would be pleasant to have Mrs. Doddridge present. It would be stronger not to require it.
“No. But stay within call.”
“Yes, madam.”
Elizabeth rang. When the servant returned, she said, “Tell Mrs. Albright we shall require tea.”
She paused.
“And the ordinary biscuits.”
“Yes, madam.”
Mrs. Doddridge’s face did not alter, which was how Elizabeth knew she understood perfectly.
The gentleman who entered a moment later was sufficiently like her husband to make relationship visible at once and sufficiently unlike him to prevent tenderness from following recognition.
He was older, broader perhaps, or made to appear so by habit; grayer, more imposing, and marked in every line by long possession of unquestioned place.
The likeness lay chiefly in the brow and eyes.
Yet where in Mr. Darcy gravity had always seemed the discipline of strong feeling, in his father it looked more like power hardened into assumption.
He bowed. Elizabeth curtsied.
“Mrs. Darcy, I presume.”
“You have the advantage of me, sir, though not, I think, of uncertainty.”
He looked at her a moment as if measuring how much she had already inferred.
“I am Darcy of Pemberley.”
“So I supposed.”
Elizabeth indicated a chair with perfect composure.
He took it. She resumed her own seat, not opposite enough to look defensive and not near enough to suggest welcome.
The little table between them held a vase of early flowers, one book she had not meant to read, and presently, by Mrs. Albright’s efficient direction, tea.
Mr. Darcy Senior looked once around the room before sitting fully back.
It was not an obvious survey. He was too well-bred for that.
But he took the measure of Portman Square all the same: the polish without ostentation, the books in use, the fire laid for comfort rather than display, the servant’s quiet confidence.
Elizabeth saw the faint alteration in his face when the house failed to look like the residence of a foolish young woman surrounded by flatterers.
Tea appeared. She poured it herself. The biscuits, when they came, were entirely respectable and not at all the best in the house.
Mr. Darcy Senior accepted both cup and seat with visible surprise at finding his reception so little disturbed by his name.
“I must apologize,” said he, “for the abruptness of this call.”
“You are very good to name it, sir.”
His brows altered slightly.
“I came because I thought it due, both to you and to myself, not to remain satisfied with report where my son’s marriage was concerned.”
Elizabeth said nothing. She lifted her cup, watched him over the rim, and waited.
“The matter was conveyed to me,” he continued, “in a manner not wholly calculated to inspire confidence. I judged it possible that a young lady of fortune, unacquainted with the full circumstances into which she had entered, might stand in need of advice more disinterested than that immediately about her.”
Elizabeth looked at him for a breath and then laughed.
It was not violent laughter, nor prolonged; but it was unmistakably real, and in a room so perfectly ordered, at such a call, and in answer to such an offer, it had the effect of a window suddenly opened upon the wrong weather.
“Sir,” said Elizabeth, recovering herself, “you must forgive me. I had not expected rescue to call at Portman Square in broad daylight.”
Mr. Darcy Senior drew himself up.
“You may think my interference officious.”
“I think it ignorant.”
His colour altered.
Elizabeth set down her cup, very carefully.
“You speak,” said he, “with confidence at least.”
“Because I have occasion.”
“If you have entered this union under any misapprehension—”
“Misapprehension? My dear sir, why should I wish to be saved from a marriage I took a great deal of trouble to bring about? Your son was not at all an easy man to win, and I am not likely to surrender him now that I have succeeded.”
He looked at her then, really looked; and for the first time the grand paternal air with which he had entered the room seemed to suffer a perceptible check.
“I think,” he said after a moment, “you do not fully understand my meaning.”
“I think I understand it sufficiently. You have been told that your son is a man of damaged character and reduced means, that I am a rich woman of imperfect caution, and that if I have married him, I must either repent of it already or soon begin. Have I done your report injustice?”
Silence was answer enough.
“Then let me save us both time. I am wholly satisfied in my husband’s character.”
“A young wife may be satisfied too soon.”
“A father may be dissatisfied too long.”
His face hardened. “Madam.”
“You must forgive me, sir, if I do not receive instruction in the care of Mr. Darcy from a gentleman who has so long declined the office.”
He rose halfway from his chair and then, perhaps remembering that anger gave a poor advantage in a drawing room not his own, sat again.
“You presume upon a very imperfect knowledge.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “I presume upon marriage.”
“That is a bold distinction.”
“It is an important one. Mr. Darcy is my husband. His comfort, his honour, and his peace are now daily duties of mine. I do not find that you have come with a better title.”
His hand closed on the arm of the chair. Not tightly. He had too much training for that. But enough.
“My son,” he said at last, “has always known how to appear honourable.”
There it was. Not concern only, not paternal alarm, not even pride wounded into interference, but the old accusation dressed in a new coat and brought into her drawing room as if it had paid for admission.
Elizabeth felt something in herself go colder and clearer.
“Then I am fortunate, sir, that I have also seen him under circumstances arranged by my trustees.”
He did not answer.
“Mr. Darcy came into my affairs under examination, not indulgence. He was recommended, tested, watched, restricted, and still behaved better than many men behave when trusted freely. If your charge is extravagance, I have seen none of it. If it is idleness, I have seen less. If it is fortune-hunting, he chose a remarkably inconvenient method of pursuit.”
“You speak of matters you cannot fully comprehend.”
“I speak of conduct I have seen. He works. He lives within his means. He spends no money he has not earned, touches no authority he has not been given, and accepts restrictions which a less honourable man would have resented as insult.”
Mr. Darcy Senior’s mouth tightened.
“If your concern is my fortune,” Elizabeth continued, “my trustees have already been severe enough for both families. If your concern is my happiness, I assure you it is better secured than it was before my marriage. If you have come to recover authority over Mr. Darcy through me, then I am afraid the journey has been wasted.”
“I came out of concern.”
“For whom?”
The question struck too cleanly. She saw it.
“For my family,” he said.
“Then I hope you will begin to consider what family requires before it is useful to name it.”
“You are young,” he said coldly.
“Yes.”
“And very sure.”
“Only where I have reason.”
“You cannot know all.”
“No. But I know enough not to be frightened by the parts I do know.”
His gaze sharpened. “My son has given you his account.”
“He has. And I do not expect my account alone to persuade you. It ought not. You would be very foolish to abandon one certainty merely because a young woman in Portman Square has contradicted it.”
That checked him, though only slightly.
“But you may look again,” she continued. “You may trust your own eyes, examine your own papers, and ask your own witnesses whether the story you have been given has served truth, or only served those who told it.”
His expression hardened, but she saw the words land.
“I do not say you meant him harm, sir. I say only that he was harmed, and that you trusted the wrong hands while withdrawing your own.”
“You imply much.”
“I intend to.”
For a moment the room held itself very still.
Outside, a wheel passed along the square. From the adjoining room Lord Pomington, perhaps resenting the length of proceedings in which he had no visible part, gave one small growl and was hushed by Mrs. Doddridge.
Mr. Darcy Senior heard it. His eyes moved, briefly, toward the sound.