CHAPTER 71 #4
If Sir Edmund has seized Rosings, he has also, for the present, removed Anne from my aunt's government. I do not know whether that will prove her misfortune or her first taste of peace. I dislike writing that sentence. I dislike still more that it may be true.
Fitzwilliam closed his eyes briefly.
Elizabeth did not hurry him.
The last lines were shorter.
My father means to remain near enough to observe, inquire, and be inconvenient.
My aunt means to remain because Rosings is Rosings and she has not yet forgiven the house for obeying another voice.
Lady Matlock is with Anne whenever she is permitted.
I will write again when there is anything more than anger to report.
Tell Georgiana only what you judge best. Tell Mrs. Darcy that my aunt did not win the first engagement, which may be the best proof that the enemy is not contemptible.
Yours,
R.
The letter lowered into Elizabeth's lap.
Under it lay the plan of the western apartments: bedchamber, dressing rooms, sitting room, passage, nursery, nurse's room, bell restored. A small table by the window. A chair for unreasonable hours. A cradle, written carefully in Fitzwilliam's hand.
The two papers did not belong together, and yet there they were.
At last Fitzwilliam said, "It is what they meant for Georgiana."
"Yes."
"Only successful."
Elizabeth looked down at Richard's letter. Anne married. Sir Edmund established at Rosings. Mrs. Wickham still installed. It was successful enough to be dreadful; but Anne's reported ease made the injury harder, not lighter.
"Not wholly," she said.
He looked at her.
"If she is easier, then something has changed which we cannot yet name honestly."
"A prison with a gentler keeper remains a prison."
"Yes. But if the old room had no air, she may not know yet what she has exchanged."
She looked down at the plan of the nursery bell and thought of Anne at Rosings, mistress of a house she had never been taught to command.
Elizabeth knew, better than most, what money could and could not do. It could buy distance. It could hire lawyers. It could keep doors shut against people who had not been invited. But it could not make a woman use those doors if every lesson of her life had taught her to leave them open.
Anne de Bourgh had been given Rosings. Elizabeth began to see that no one had given her the education required to hold it.
Elizabeth touched the marked bell on the plan.
"I understand it," she said quietly. "That is what I dislike."
Fitzwilliam looked at her.
"Sir Edmund may have understood that better than anyone."
The thought sat between them, cold and precise.
Elizabeth took Fitzwilliam's hand properly then, not hidden, not accidental, not merely the light touch of a wife steadying a husband before others could see.
There were no others in the room. She held him because words were beginning to make him solitary, and she had learned that sometimes the surest kindness was not another arrangement.
His fingers closed around hers at once.
"I should have known how it would move," he said.
"You did know. That is why Georgiana is here."
"Anne is not."
"Anne had Lady Catherine, Lord Matlock, Lady Matlock, Richard, and all Rosings about her, and the thing was done before they reached it. You cannot make guilt travel faster than post horses."
He breathed out once, almost a laugh and not a laugh at all. "That is a severe consolation."
"I was not offering comfort. I was correcting an error."
His mouth softened despite himself.
"What shall we tell Georgiana?" he asked.
"The truth enough not to frighten her with shadows. Anne is married. Sir Edmund is connected with Wickham. Richard is watching. Not the rest yet."
"And my father?"
"You should tell him," Elizabeth said. "But not alone."
His expression changed.
She folded Richard's letter carefully. "This is Rosings. Anne. Lady Catherine. Sir Edmund. Wickham. It belongs to more than one wound."
He looked down at their joined hands.
"No," he said. "Not alone."
That answer settled her more than agreement would have done.
The rain thickened over the glass. Somewhere below, Pemberley went on answering orders: Mrs. Reynolds opening rooms, maids beating dust from curtains, a carpenter waiting to be shown the nursery cupboard, a chimney-sweep to be summoned, bells to be restored, guest rooms to be prepared before Jane could worry she was inconvenient.
Elizabeth looked again at the plan beneath Richard's letter.
"We shall still prepare the rooms," she said.
"Yes."
"Sir Edmund does not get to make every house in England dreadful. Mrs. Bennet does not get to make every child an heir before it is born. Lady Catherine does not get to make every lost command a defeat."
His hand tightened around hers. "The last may require evidence."
"Then we shall provide it."
Outside, rain washed the heat from Pemberley's stones. Inside, on Elizabeth's lap, two papers lay together: one ordering rooms toward life, the other carrying news of a house altered beyond recall.
She put her hand over both.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we begin with the nursery bell."
Fitzwilliam looked at her face for a long moment.
"Tomorrow," he said.
And for that evening, with rain at the windows and his hand in hers, it was enough.