CHAPTER 57 #2
She looked back. “With as much civility as his behaviour permits.”
“And if his behaviour permits none?”
“Then I shall rely upon Mr. Hartwood to choose men who do not require civility to make themselves understood.”
Darcy’s expression did not soften. “Good.”
The word came from him with more force than he had intended.
Elizabeth did not startle. “I thought you would approve.”
“A man who watches this house has already made himself my enemy.”
“Then we shall hope he is intelligent enough to learn it from a distance.”
He thought of Georgiana asleep above them.
Of Elizabeth’s hand upon the shawl. Of Mrs. Younge’s errand failing at the threshold.
No, he had no objection to force. He objected only to foolishness, noise, and anything which might bring Georgiana’s name into a street before her fear had even left the room.
Elizabeth seemed to understand all of that without his saying it. She wrote swiftly. Her hand was steady. The note to Beaker was much shorter; money, unlike law, did not require a lengthy justification when Elizabeth had already decided it was to be spent.
By evening, Darcy had read almost nothing, written almost less, and understood more about protection than all his years of being denied the practice of it had taught him.
Mrs. Doddridge and James returned near dusk with Kitty.
Miss Kitty Bennet entered Portman Square with rain upon her bonnet ribbons, two parcels clutched in her hands though there were servants enough to carry ten, and an expression divided between importance and alarm.
Mrs. Doddridge followed with her usual composure, looking as if she had survived Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet, and several miles of road without expecting particular credit for any of them.
Elizabeth received Kitty in the hall with real affection and no fuss.
“My dear Kitty, you have come very promptly.”
“Mama said I might, though she asked a great many questions, and Papa said if I was to be useful I had better discover how before I returned. Mrs. Doddridge said I should not repeat everything that was said in the carriage.”
“A severe but excellent beginning.”
Mrs. Doddridge gave Kitty’s shoulder a quiet touch, half correction and half approval.
“Mrs. Bennet seemed pleased, madam,” she said, “that Miss Kitty could be of service.”
Kitty’s face brightened at that, though she tried to hide it.
Elizabeth saw it and smiled. “Then we must make certain she is.”
Kitty looked past her, saw Darcy, and curtseyed with such sudden solemnity that Darcy bowed with equal gravity.
“Mr. Darcy.”
“Miss Kitty.”
Her eyes widened a little at the return of ceremony, as if no one had ever taken her dignity quite seriously enough to make it inconvenient.
Elizabeth drew her aside before introducing her to Georgiana. Darcy did not mean to listen. He heard because Elizabeth did not lower her voice as if she were arranging a conspiracy; she spoke as mistress of a house giving honest charge.
“You are not here to discover anything,” she said. “You are not here to ask questions, or to repeat what you hear, or to write to Lydia with interesting hints.”
Kitty coloured. “I would not.”
“I believe you. But belief is improved by plain directions. You are here to make a young lady’s day less long. That is all.”
Kitty’s face altered. The alarm did not leave it, but something steadier came in.
“I can do that.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, more gently. “I think you can.”
Darcy looked away.
It was not that Elizabeth had summoned Kitty as a convenience.
She had done that too; Elizabeth rarely wasted a practical consequence.
But she had also given Kitty a service she might perform without being cleverer than she was, older than she was, or burdened with knowledge too heavy for her.
In the same act, she had protected Georgiana from solitude and Kitty from being merely used.
Georgiana came down before dinner, and the two young ladies met with all the awkwardness of two girls instructed not to alarm each other.
Kitty was talkative by nature and silent by effort, which made her look as if she were holding her breath.
Georgiana was formal, grateful, and shy.
Elizabeth supplied the first topics and then allowed them to fail without concern.
Lord Pomington did better. He advanced upon Kitty, sniffed her hem, sneezed, and went to Georgiana’s chair as if to show he had already made his selection.
Kitty looked at him in his faded blue wrapper. “Does he always dress better than people?”
Georgiana looked startled, and then laughed before she could prevent it.
It was not much of a laugh. A breath almost; a small sound that might have been lost in a larger room.
Darcy heard it as if the whole house had altered.
Elizabeth, standing by the tea table, did not look at him directly. She merely moved the plate of biscuits nearer the two girls, as if laughter, too, required something sensible to accompany it.
The next morning carried the same principle into linen, leather, and muslin.
Darcy had intended to go to chambers after breakfast, and had been persuaded by Elizabeth that if he did not, Georgiana might begin to think his presence at home a proof of continuing danger rather than affection.
Before he left, however, he heard Elizabeth giving Mrs. Doddridge and Evans their instructions for the day.
They were going out under the harmless tyranny of Kitty’s needs.
Miss Kitty Bennet, having been summoned to town with very little warning, required what any young lady might require when a household chose to discover deficiencies: stockings, gloves, ribbons, underlinen, hairpins, fichus, drawing paper, pencils, slippers, walking shoes, and whatever else Evans judged necessary with the severity of professional disappointment.
There were, Elizabeth said, always gowns half made in London, plain muslins and morning gowns which could be altered quickly if Evans looked forbidding enough; a simple walking dress might be found, perhaps a shawl or spencer, and shoes must not be forgotten.
“Especially for Georgiana,” Elizabeth said, and there the lightness shifted. “She came to us in rain and mud. I will not have her reminded of that walk every time she crosses a room.”
Darcy, standing near the door with his gloves in his hand, did not speak.
Kitty was sitting very upright beside Georgiana, trying to look as if ribbons were a solemn responsibility. Georgiana’s gaze had fallen to the borrowed slippers beneath her hem.
“I do not wish to be troublesome,” she said.
Elizabeth turned to her. “Then you must allow us to prevent trouble. Nothing disorders a household faster than a young lady pretending she does not require feet.”
Kitty gave a small, unwilling giggle. Georgiana’s mouth trembled toward a smile.
“And Kitty,” Elizabeth continued, “has come because I asked it of her. A duty performed by a young lady should not be rewarded only by solemn thanks. That is how families make virtue disagreeable.”
Kitty’s face brightened before she managed to restrain it. “I do not need ribbons.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “But you may have them.”
Kitty’s restraint suffered a visible defeat.
“For the sake of appearances,” Elizabeth added.
“Oh,” said Kitty, with recovering gravity. “Then appearances must be supported.”
“Precisely.”
Darcy understood then that the errand was not indulgence, though it would look like it to any tradesman who saw the parcels.
Georgiana had come with nothing that did not belong to flight, and Elizabeth would not have safety feel like dependence.
Kitty had come because she was asked, and Elizabeth would not have usefulness made bleak.
Even concealment, in her hands, acquired stockings, slippers, and a little justice.
He went to chambers because he must, and because Elizabeth had said, with infuriating good sense, that a man might protect a house without staring at its door until everyone inside became afraid of the threshold.
“If anything happens,” she told him in the hall, “you will know it before the person at the door has finished being disappointed.”
He took her hand. Not long. Not as he wished. Long enough that the line between leaving and being sent away did not cut quite so sharply.
“Send at once,” he said.
“I shall send before once, if possible.”
That nearly made him smile. Her fingers tightened over his.
“Go, Fitzwilliam.”
He went.
Chambers received him with their usual smell of paper, dust, ink, and restraint.
Mr. Jenkins had arranged the waiting matters in order of nuisance, which was his preferred method of mercy.
A client had left a note twice as long as the problem described within it.
Hartwood had sent over a settlement question which required care; Brentwood’s agreement still wanted revision; a merchant’s contract contained two phrases no honest man should have inserted by accident.
There was also a short note from Terling, but for once the Marwood properties were not the only nuisance awaiting him.
For two hours he worked because work was a discipline, and discipline had carried him through worse mornings than this.
He had just finished correcting a clause when Mr. Jenkins appeared in the doorway with a face too blank to be innocent.
“Mr. Wickham, sir.”
Darcy’s hand stilled.