Chapter 15 #3
Elizabeth washed the dust from her hands. “He spoiled it afterward.”
“How?”
“He said I should not do such work.”
Jane considered this. “That may have been concern.”
“It sounded like criticism of Longbourn.”
“Did he say so?”
“Not in those words.”
“Lizzy.”
Elizabeth dried her hands. “He said Longbourn -should provide enough men to spare me the necessity. Then he said his steward would have answered to him for leaving a gate in such a condition.”
Jane’s expression changed. “That was unkind.”
“Thank you.”
“But perhaps still meant as concern.”
“It sounded like superiority to me.”
Jane examined the stocking. “Perhaps he does not know how else to express concern.”
Jane’s tone held no rebuke, which made the point harder to dismiss.
Elizabeth turned from the washstand. “He is impossible to interpret.”
“Perhaps because you have decided what every action means before he does anything.”
“That sounds like something Mary would repeat from a sermon.”
“It may be true.”
Elizabeth looked toward the window. From there she could see part of the lower meadow, though not the gate. Sarah crossed the grass below, heading toward the kitchen yard. Someone had likely offered her scraps.
“His conduct was better than his phrasing,” Elizabeth conceded.
Jane smiled again, though with enough restraint not to provoke her. “That is all I ask.”
“It does not erase what he said at the assembly.”
“No.”
“Or what Mr. Wickham has told us.”
Jane’s hands stilled.
Elizabeth knew she had gone too far. Although Jane had never accepted Wickham’s account without reservation, she refused to condemn him.
“I am not asking you to forget either,” Jane said. “Only to judge what happened today for what it was.”
Elizabeth drew a chair close and sat beside the bed.
Darcy had seen danger before pride. He trusted her knowledge of Sarah, asked what she wanted him to do, and obeyed. Then he looked at the broken gate and all but announced that a better-managed estate would have spared her the task.
Both things were true, and that was the difficulty.
At Netherfield, Darcy handed his horse to the groom and entered by the side door.
Dust marked one shoulder, and a strand of wool clung near his coat button. He removed it before entering the breakfast room, but Caroline saw the rest.
“Good heavens, Mr. Darcy. Were you thrown?”
“No.”
Bingley looked up from a letter. “What happened?”
“My horse took alarm in a narrow lane.”
“Your horse?”
“Yes.”
“And the dust?”
“A sheep.”
Bingley laughed. “Whose sheep?”
Darcy crossed to the sideboard. “Mr. Bennet’s.”
“Was Miss Elizabeth there?”
Darcy looked at him.
“I thought so.”
Caroline set down her cup. “Miss Eliza Bennet was driving sheep through the lanes?”
“She was returning them to a field.”
“How rural.”
Darcy poured coffee.
Bingley’s smile remained. “Did she require help?”
“She had Sarah.”
“And yet you came home marked by the encounter.”
“The gate was defective.”
Caroline laughed. “You have inspected Longbourn’s hedges and now its gates. Soon they will have you managing the estate.”
“I held the gate.”
“Was Miss Elizabeth grateful?” Bingley asked.
“She thanked me.”
The answer ended the conversation, but Darcy continued to consider the encounter. While he meant that Elizabeth should be spared the work, she heard judgment of her home and family.
He could not claim she had misunderstood him.
At Pemberley, his steward would have secured a gate near a public lane before the flock found it. He had measured Longbourn against standards supported by an income many times greater, then spoken as though the comparison required no explanation.
Elizabeth had not denied the fault; she objected to the ease with which he judged it.
Later, in the library, he attempted to read and failed. The scene returned in pieces: Sarah lying flat in the lane, Elizabeth lifting the gate, the smear of earth on her glove, her laughter when he apologized to the dog.
He had caused that laughter without becoming its object. The distinction mattered more than it should.
He closed the book.
That evening, Sarah lay before the drawing-room fire with her paws stretched toward the hearth. Elizabeth sat near her with a book open on her lap, though she had not turned a page.
The dog raised her head at a sound outside.
“It is only the wind,” Elizabeth said.
Sarah settled again.
Elizabeth looked at the printed lines.
Mr. Darcy’s conduct had been better than his words. His words revealed the habits beneath the conduct: disorder belonged to lesser estates, and a gentleman’s daughter had no business doing the work required to sustain one.
She would remember that.
She would also remember that when his horse shied, he thought first of preventing harm. When the sheep scattered, he asked for instruction. When she corrected him, he listened.
She disliked the balance of the account.
It would have been easier had he remained disagreeable.
Elizabeth turned the page without having read it and rested one hand on Sarah’s head. The dog sighed beneath her fingers, content with work completed and the flock secure.
Elizabeth envied her the certainty.