CHAPTER 66
The Increase
For six days after Mrs. Doddridge’s dreadfully quiet observation about the blue gown, Darcy kept his promise imperfectly, which was to say, he kept it as well as any man might who had inherited an estate in disorder, a father in illness, a sister in recovery, a household under watch, and a wife who could not pass a closed ledger without wanting to know whether it had been closed honestly.
He came to breakfast.
That, at least, was the first reform.
It sounded a small thing until Pemberley tried to prevent it.
On the first morning there had been a packet from Mr. Latham beside the coffee-pot, a note from Bell beneath Darcy’s plate, and a message from Mr. Grant before the tea had been poured.
On the second, a tenant from Kympton had arrived before nine with a question which his grandfather had apparently postponed, with perfect serenity, since Michaelmas.
On the third, Mrs. Reynolds had sent to say that the new under-housemaid was cousin to a man who had formerly served Mr. Wickham, though not, she added, in a manner that required alarm before toast.
Elizabeth had laughed at that, which had made him nearly reckless with gratitude.
But still he came to breakfast.
That was not only for Elizabeth, though he told himself so at first. It was also because Pemberley had found him at last, and some old, starved part of him was too ready to answer every summons.
The house which had spent years doing without him now wanted him in every passage at once.
It wanted his signature, his judgment, his indignation, his blood, his patience, his name.
It had been easier to resist when it had offered nothing but exclusion.
Now it offered necessity.
That was why breakfast mattered. Not because coffee had acquired any special importance, but because Elizabeth sat at the table, pale with secrets and stubbornness, and he had promised that Pemberley would not have all of him.
He learned the shape of her mornings. She was not ill.
She had been very firm upon that point, and every person who attempted too much softness around her was punished by a look of such lively indignation that even Mrs. Reynolds had retreated behind plainer dishes and cooler rooms. Warm rooms troubled her sooner.
Rich food offended her without warning. She disliked beef broth with a persistence that suggested personal injury.
She preferred dry toast before conversation.
She could be moved to eat an egg if it arrived before she had begun ordering anything.
She also noticed everything.
That was both his comfort and his difficulty.
Georgiana and Kitty noticed little beyond the ordinary alteration of household weather.
Pemberley had grown less frantic. The breakfast room had acquired a saner order.
His father’s sickroom no longer sent its alarms freely down every passage.
Mrs. Reynolds came and went with more authority.
Bell’s notes arrived in bundles rather than panics.
Kitty, who had at first treated Pemberley with the awe due to a cathedral crossed with a magistrate’s office, had discovered that the library had excellent light for drawing.
Georgiana had begun, very timidly, to object when her music was interrupted.
This was progress.
If either girl observed that Elizabeth was given the seat with least draught, or that a plate of plain biscuits appeared wherever she sat for more than half an hour, neither thought it worthy of remark.
Mrs. Doddridge thought everything worthy of remark and remarked upon almost nothing.
Mrs. Reynolds, after being told enough and no more, had taken the intelligence into the household with such dull discretion that it seemed to Darcy a new proof of her genius.
Mrs. Darcy preferred cooler rooms. Mrs. Darcy did not care for rich sauces at present.
Mrs. Darcy was not to be troubled by unnecessary household consultations before breakfast. No fire was to be made in any room she used unless she requested it.
No one was entertained.
No one was alarmed.
And Elizabeth, who could resist comfort if it arrived under the name of fuss, could not object to a house that had merely become more conveniently arranged.
On the seventh morning, Mr. Latham’s packet was larger than usual.
Darcy saw it before Elizabeth did. It lay near his place, tied in red tape, with Bell’s folded memorandum beneath it and two smaller slips from the clerks. He also saw Elizabeth see it. Her eyes moved once from the packet to him, then down to the toast she had not yet touched.
He did not reach for the packet.
Elizabeth’s mouth almost curved.
“You are becoming very disciplined,” she said.
“I have always been disciplined.”
“Yes. That is what makes the alteration so interesting.”
Georgiana looked up from buttering her roll. “Has Fitzwilliam altered?”
“Greatly,” said Elizabeth.
Kitty said, “Is it an improvement?”
Darcy said, “That remains under review.”
Elizabeth took a bite of toast before answering, which he considered a private victory.
“It is certainly useful,” she said. “Though I do not yet know whether it may be relied upon in all climates.”
“Then I must hope Derbyshire will prove favourable.”
“You had better,” she said, and reached for her tea.
He waited until she had eaten more than enough to prevent Mrs. Reynolds from taking up armed residence beside her chair, then opened Bell’s memorandum.
The first lines were ordinary enough. More false labourers.
More repairs charged at one sum and paid out at another.
More materials ordered in greater quantities than had been used.
Another widow’s allowance marked as delivered when the woman had received only half and had been made too ashamed of supposed charity to complain.
Then Darcy reached the third page and stopped.
Elizabeth saw it. Of course she did.
“What is it?”
“Not now.”
“That is an unpromising beginning.”
“It is not urgent before breakfast.”
“Few things are, according to your newest philosophy.”
“Many things are not,” he said.
The girls were present; Mrs. Doddridge was present; a footman stood near the sideboard. Elizabeth accepted the boundary, though her eyes lingered on the paper.
After breakfast, Georgiana and Kitty went to the music room with Pom-Pom and a quantity of drawing paper.
Mrs. Doddridge followed at a distance appropriate to both propriety and a dog who had lately shown hostility toward a new pencil-case.
Elizabeth, with all the innocence of a woman who had been told nothing and therefore meant to learn everything, walked with Darcy toward the estate office.
“You need not come,” he said.
“No, I need not.”
“That was not agreement.”
“It was grammar.”
He looked down at her.
She looked back, composed and impossible.
“Elizabeth.”
“Fitzwilliam.”
“You said yesterday the office was too warm.”
“It was too warm because four men and three ledgers had conspired against the air.”
“The distinction is not as useful as you suppose.”
“It is very useful. It places blame where it belongs.”
He stopped at the turn of the passage. Her hand rested lightly on his arm, steady and warm, and the temptation to carry her bodily back to their rooms was strong enough to be absurd.
She must have read something in his face, for her expression softened before she spoke again.
“I will sit,” she said. “I will read only what is put before me. I will not intimidate any clerk before luncheon unless he deserves it.”
“That is not a complete reassurance.”
“It is the most honest one available.”
He ought not to have smiled.
He did.
She touched his sleeve once, so briefly that it would have meant nothing to anyone watching. It steadied him at once.
That, too, was new. Or not new, perhaps. Only permitted.
The estate office had become a changed room in the last fortnight.
It had once belonged wholly to John Wickham’s habits: high stools, deep pigeonholes, ledgers locked behind order, old dust where no dust should have been, and a large desk set at such an angle that any petitioner must stand under the steward’s eye.
Darcy had ordered the desk moved. Bell had not commented, but the next morning the room had seemed to breathe more easily.
Now three tables stood in the centre. At one, Mr. Latham arranged papers by date. At another, two clerks worked through receipts, rent rolls, and tenant confirmations. Bell stood beside the long estate map with his hat in his hand and the expression of a man prepared to distrust ink on principle.
The younger clerk rose too quickly when Elizabeth entered, upsetting a sand-shaker. The elder one looked at the spill with the resignation of a man for whom no disorder could now compete with Pemberley’s accounts.
Mr. Latham bowed. “Mrs. Darcy.”
“Mr. Latham.”
Darcy drew a chair for Elizabeth. She accepted it without argument, which made him instantly suspicious.
Mr. Latham waited until she was settled before he began. That was another of Elizabeth’s alterations to Pemberley: men who had previously addressed rooms now noticed chairs.
“I believe,” said Mr. Latham, “we have reached the point at which separate irregularities become a scheme.”
Bell made a sound in his throat.
“A quiet sort of villainy?” Elizabeth said.
Bell’s mouth moved as if he had been unwillingly reminded of a previous indiscretion. “Quieter than I like, ma’am.”
Darcy took the first ledger.
It was from four years earlier. Then one from six. Then one from ten. Each was marked by the clerks with narrow paper slips, and each slip named a charge, a receipt, or a tenant’s contradiction.
At first glance, none was large enough to explain the unease the room had developed.
Three pounds, twelve shillings for cartage from Lambton.
One pound, eight shillings additional ale for harvest labourers.
Seven pounds for lime beyond the first estimate.
Four pounds, ten shillings for timber spoilage.
Two pounds paid to a man no tenant knew.