CHAPTER 57
A Question of Standing
Darcy had meant to work from home, and had arranged the papers before breakfast with all the appearance of a man who believed paper could command his attention merely by being placed in order.
It was not an experiment likely to succeed.
The breakfast room had been warmed early.
The morning was grey, with a thin rain still touching the glass, and the square beyond the windows had the washed, watchful look of London after a disturbed night.
A packet from chambers lay unopened beside his plate: a draft agreement from Brentwood, a copy of a conveyance abstract, and a note from Jenkins regarding a client who appeared to believe that urgency could be produced by underlining the same sentence four times.
At any other time, each would have commanded him.
This morning, they had been arranged, opened, and very little understood.
He had written the date upon a memorandum and then discovered that he had written it wrong.
Above him, somewhere in the ordered quiet of Portman Square, Georgiana was waking in a room not chosen by their father, not governed by Mrs. Younge, not approached by Wickham, and not yet known to half the persons who might wish to know it.
That should have been enough to steady him.
It did not.
He rose at the first sound upon the stair, then sat again almost immediately, because Elizabeth, coming in behind the tea tray, looked at him with one quick glance which said as plainly as speech that a girl who had fled in rain did not need to be received by a brother springing up like a judge at sentence.
Georgiana entered a moment later.
She had slept, or at least had been still long enough for sleep to have some claim upon her.
Her face was pale, but not quite so drained as the night before.
The borrowed gown had been pressed again; a shawl of Elizabeth’s lay about her shoulders; her hair was smooth in that careful way which showed Evans had understood that neatness might be a mercy.
She paused at the threshold and looked first at Darcy, then at Elizabeth, then at the table as if breakfast were an examination in a language she had not been taught.
Elizabeth did not go to her with pity. She did not ask whether she had slept, which would have required either truth or concealment. She merely turned a cup.
“Chocolate, tea, or coffee?” she asked. “You are at liberty to refuse coffee. It is a very advanced opinion and not required before noon.”
Georgiana blinked.
“Chocolate, I think.”
“An excellent beginning. Toast is next. Eggs may wait until you have made peace with the morning.”
Darcy looked down before the force of it showed too much in his face. His sister was not being questioned. She was not being made to explain fear before bread. She was being given chocolate, a chair near the fire, and permission to begin with the smallest possible decision.
He had not known until then how much mercy there could be in such things.
Georgiana sat. Lord Pomington, who had been occupying the rug in a garment of pale wool and private consequence, opened one eye, considered her, and returned to sleep with the air of a dog who had already admitted her into the household and saw no reason to repeat the ceremony.
Elizabeth placed toast near Georgiana’s hand.
“You will find Lord Pomington less solemn after breakfast,” she said.
“Does he eat breakfast?”
“He believes so.”
The faintest smile moved over Georgiana’s mouth.
Darcy took up his coffee, though he had no recollection of pouring it. Elizabeth saw that too, he was certain, but she did not remark on it.
Georgiana’s eyes went to the papers beside his plate, then to his coat, which was not his walking coat.
Elizabeth noticed the glance. “Your brother has brought chambers home this morning. The house is bearing the insult with fortitude.”
Darcy looked up. “The house has made no complaint.”
“That is because Mrs. Albright has not yet seen how many papers you intend to spread in the library.”
Georgiana looked down into her chocolate. Some small tension in her hand eased.
Elizabeth’s glance met his over the chocolate pot. It was not triumph. It was not even reassurance. It was merely the calm fact of a woman who had found the narrow path between promise and spectacle, and walked it without disturbing anyone’s breakfast.
He remained at home.
It was, outwardly, a simple arrangement.
After breakfast, the papers were carried to the library, where they looked no more convincing upon a larger table.
Mr. Jenkins was sent a note that any matter not requiring his immediate hand might wait until tomorrow, and any matter pretending to require it should be examined for dishonesty.
Mrs. Albright altered the day without visible effort: calls refused, fires kept steady, servants warned by rules rather than rumours, the blue room not approached except by those directed to approach it.
Inwardly, Darcy found the morning almost impossible.
Georgiana did not cling to him. That was better, and worse.
She sat for a little while with Elizabeth in the small drawing room, then looked at a music book without turning more than three pages, then went upstairs with Mrs. Doddridge and came down again because Elizabeth had said no one was obliged to remain anywhere merely because they had begun there.
Every time her step sounded in the passage, Darcy heard it.
Every time a carriage slowed in the square, he ceased to read.
Every time the house door opened, something in him prepared for violence.
The first he knew of Mrs. Younge’s call was not her voice, but the closing of the front door.
It was not slammed. Mrs. Albright would not have permitted so vulgar a conclusion. It was closed with such measured finality that Darcy looked up from the same line he had failed to read for five minutes and knew someone had been refused.
A moment later Mrs. Albright appeared.
“Mrs. Younge has called, sir.”
He was on his feet then.
“She has gone,” Mrs. Albright added.
Elizabeth, seated near the window with her note half-written, did not look surprised. “What did she ask?”
“Whether Miss Darcy had called here, madam.”
Darcy’s hand closed upon the back of his chair.
“And you answered?”
“That Mrs. Darcy was not receiving callers, madam, and that no young lady in this house was receiving callers either.”
“Very good.”
“She wished to insist.”
“I expected she might.”
“She was given no encouragement.”
Darcy looked at the housekeeper then, and for the first time that morning felt something almost like grim amusement. “Did she accept that instruction?”
“No, sir. But she obeyed it.”
That was all. No raised voice, no contest at the threshold, no triumph. Mrs. Younge had come to Portman Square and been made into an errand that failed.
When Mrs. Albright had gone, the room seemed to hold the echo of the closed door.
“She will go elsewhere,” Darcy said.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied. “And she will have less to say than she hoped.”
Georgiana was not told at once. Darcy understood why.
There were only so many shocks a girl might be expected to digest before luncheon.
Elizabeth waited until Georgiana had been settled with a small pile of music and a pencil, while Lord Pomington slept near her chair with the air of having accepted responsibility for the whole arrangement.
“Mrs. Younge came this morning,” Elizabeth said. “She was not admitted.”
Georgiana’s fingers stopped upon the paper.
“She came here?”
“Only as far as the door.”
“Was she very angry?”
“I cannot say. Mrs. Albright did not invite her in to demonstrate it.”
Georgiana looked at her then; and Darcy, watching from the hearth, saw the slow beginning of a new idea: that a person might come with anger and still be left outside.
“She asked for me?”
“She asked whether you had called here.”
“And Mrs. Albright said—”
“That Mrs. Darcy was not receiving, and that no young lady in this house was receiving callers.”
Georgiana bent her head. Her hand still rested on the music paper, but it no longer trembled.
“Will she come again?”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said. “In which case she may enjoy the same answer twice. Some people require repetition.”
It was not courage yet. But it was obedience turned in a better direction when Georgiana picked up the pencil again.
The rest of the day was not quiet; it was governed.
Elizabeth wrote after luncheon. Darcy sat opposite her with his papers and watched the machinery of her care unfold in ink.
There were notes to Mrs. Gardiner and to Jane, each different in warmth and degree of confidence, neither giving anything away.
Mrs. Gardiner was told enough not to be frightened by silence; Jane enough not to imagine illness; Miss Hall enough, Darcy suspected, not to arrive in Portman Square armed with good sense and severity before the week was out.
Elizabeth was engaged at home for several days.
She was not ill. Darcy was not ill. No anxiety was required.
Calls would be inconvenient. Letters, if urgent, would be answered.
Then she took another sheet.
“For Hartwood?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And Beaker?”
“After Hartwood. Hartwood must find the eyes. Beaker must pay for them without lecturing me on the extravagance of sight.”
He almost smiled. “What do you ask of Hartwood?”
“Nothing the law can do,” she said. “The law is very poor company until someone has made himself foolish beyond repair.”
That, at least, was true.
Elizabeth dipped her pen. “I want men who can watch the square without looking as if they have been placed there to watch it. A man who can remember faces, liveries, direction. Another who can follow without announcing the fact. If servants are questioned, I want to know by whom and what was asked. If a carriage waits too often, I want its arms or its driver known. If a man lingers near the railings, I want him made to understand that there are better pavements in London.”
Darcy looked at her.