14. Old Acquaintances
fourteen
Old Acquaintances
Darcy did not sleep well after the assembly.
This was absurd, since the evening had gone better than any reasonable man had a right to expect.
Elizabeth had received him with pleasure.
She had danced with him twice. She had agreed that he might call at Longbourn.
Bingley had spoken of Miss Bennet all the way back to Netherfield until Hurst fell asleep in the carriage and Miss Bingley’s silence became a physical presence.
Still, when morning came, Darcy rose before his valet drew back the curtains and found himself standing at the window, looking over Bingley’s newly leased grounds with very little appreciation for them.
Bingley entered the breakfast room half an hour later in excellent spirits.
“You are going to Longbourn this morning,” he said, before accepting coffee.
“I am.”
“Alone?”
Darcy looked up. “Did you wish to accompany me?”
“I did,” Bingley admitted, taking his seat. “Then I thought better of it. I have just met the Bennets. To appear upon their doorstep the morning after an assembly may seem too eager.”
Darcy considered replying that Bingley had never before feared appearing eager in his life, but there was sense in the decision.
“You may come next time.”
“I hoped you would say so.” Bingley buttered his toast with unusual attention. “If there is a next time, of course.”
“There will be.”
“How confident you are.”
“I was invited.”
“Were you? By Miss Elizabeth or by Mrs. Bennet?”
Darcy gave him a look over his coffee.
Bingley grinned. “Ah. Miss Elizabeth. Very good. Then I shall remain here today and prove to my sisters that I am capable of occupying myself for a morning without your supervision.”
“That will astonish them.”
“It may astonish me.”
Miss Bingley entered just in time to hear the last remark and looked from one gentleman to the other with suspicion. “What is to astonish you, Charles?”
“My independence.”
“How novel.”
Darcy rose before the conversation could become a family exercise. “If you will excuse me.”
Miss Bingley’s eyes sharpened. “You are going out, Mr. Darcy?”
“Yes.”
“Riding?”
“Calling.”
Her fan, which had no possible use at breakfast, opened with remarkable force. “How very attentive of you to the neighborhood.”
Bingley coughed into his cup.
Darcy bowed and left.
The ride to Longbourn was not long enough to arrange his thoughts to his satisfaction.
He had met Mrs. Bennet briefly the previous evening, but even that had been enough to make him suspect her welcome would be enthusiastic.
He did not dislike enthusiasm in the abstract.
Bingley had forced him into tolerance of it over many years.
Maternal enthusiasm, however, particularly when directed toward unmarried daughters and gentlemen of fortune, required a constitution better prepared than his own.
Longbourn came into view with less grandeur than many houses he knew and more consequence than most. Elizabeth belonged here.
That alone recommended every irregular hedge, every sun-warmed brick, every sign of comfortable neglect about the place.
The house stood without pretension, its windows open to the mild morning, a dog sleeping in a patch of sunlight near the steps, and a basket of cut flowers abandoned upon a bench as if someone had been called away mid-task.
A servant admitted him with proper surprise and ushered him into a drawing room bright with late-summer light.
“Mr. Darcy, ma’am.”
Mrs. Bennet rose so swiftly that her work fell to the carpet.
“Mr. Darcy! How very obliging of you to call. We are honored, most honored. Hill, tea. No, perhaps chocolate. Jane, my dear, did we not say the seed cake was very good? Mr. Darcy, you must sit. Lizzy, here is Mr. Darcy. Though you know that, of course, for he asked you twice last night, which was very particular, though I am sure we are all delighted by particularity when it is so well directed.”
Darcy bowed, first to Mrs. Bennet and then to the ladies assembled.
Miss Bennet stood near the window, as lovely in morning simplicity as she had been beneath assembly candles.
Miss Elizabeth was beside a small table with a basket of sewing, her eyes bright with amusement and something warmer that eased the last of his uneasiness.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“Mrs. Bennet.” He addressed her elder sister. “Miss Bennet. I hope I do not intrude.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Bennet cried. “Never. That is, not when a gentleman has danced twice with my daughter and comes so early to inquire after us. Such attentions are always welcome. Are they not, Jane?”
Jane moved forward with calm grace and retrieved her mother’s fallen work. “Mama means that we are pleased to receive any friend of Elizabeth’s. Please do sit, Mr. Darcy.”
Mrs. Bennet blinked, appeared to realize she had been redirected, and accepted the work from Jane with a little offense. “Yes. Exactly. A friend of Lizzy’s.”
Darcy took the chair indicated, privately grateful for Miss Bennet’s intervention. Elizabeth resumed her seat opposite him, though she did not take up her sewing directly.
“I hope Netherfield has not disappointed you after Pemberley,” she said.
“It would be unreasonable to expect any house to rival Pemberley within its first week of acquaintance.”
“Then you are allowing Netherfield time to recommend itself.”
“I am. Bingley is already in love with it.”
“That must be convenient for Netherfield.”
“Very. He is easily pleased where he has decided to be happy.”
Jane smiled. “That is an enviable disposition.”
“It is one of his best qualities.”
Mrs. Bennet looked from Jane to Darcy and back again with mounting satisfaction.
“Mr. Bingley is a most charming gentleman. So pleasant, so lively, and such excellent manners. I told Mr. Bennet last night that he could not have chosen a better tenant for Netherfield if he had ordered one from London.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I do not believe Papa has ever ordered a tenant from London.”
“He might have done if he had any consideration for me.”
Darcy, to his own surprise, nearly smiled. “Bingley would be gratified by your approval, ma’am.”
“He shall have it whenever he likes,” Mrs. Bennet said promptly.
Jane bent over her sewing. Elizabeth pressed her lips together.
The conversation proceeded with more ease than Darcy had expected.
Mrs. Bennet’s enthusiasm, though somewhat alarming, held no malice; Jane Bennet’s serenity tempered her mother’s flights; and Elizabeth’s presence made the room seem familiar before it had any right to do so.
She asked after Georgiana, and Darcy replied in general terms that his sister remained in London with Mrs. Annesley and Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Elizabeth’s eyes searched his face for a moment, remembering, he knew, his answer at the assembly. She did not press him.
He was grateful.
He was more than grateful.
He was considering whether Longbourn’s morning light suited her better than candlelight when noise sounded in the hall. A younger girl’s laugh, quick and bright. A gentleman’s lower answer. Mrs. Bennet looked toward the door with pleasure.
“Oh, that will be Lydia. And Mr. Wickham, I dare say. He is often here of a morning when Mr. Philips can spare him, and such a comfort as he is to us all.”
Darcy’s hand gripped the arm of his chair.
The door opened.
Lydia Bennet entered first, flushed from walking and carrying her bonnet by its ribbons. Beside her came a young man in a dark coat, handsome, easy in posture, with one hand extended to return a folded paper to her.
George Wickham.
For an instant the room contracted to the space between them.
The sound went wrong. Mrs. Bennet continued speaking, perhaps introducing the young lady with Wickham, perhaps naming Lydia, perhaps saying something of Mr. Philips and the office.
Elizabeth’s voice followed, but Darcy could not distinguish the words.
Blood beat in his ears, hot and violent, while his whole body grew cold.
Wickham stopped just inside the room.
Surprise crossed his face first. Then caution. Then something darker, guarded and assessing, gone as soon as it appeared.
Elizabeth’s hand touched Darcy’s sleeve.
“Mr. Darcy?”
The pressure was light. Enough to recall him to the room. Enough to remind him that they were in Longbourn, before ladies, beneath the eye of the woman he hoped to court and the family who received Wickham as a friend.
Darcy rose.
Every conversation died.
Lydia looked between the two men, puzzled. Mrs. Bennet’s mouth remained partly open. Jane set her sewing aside.
Wickham bowed first. “Mr. Darcy.”
“Mr. Wickham.”
The name tasted like iron.
Elizabeth’s hand had fallen from his arm, but he felt the absence of it with unwelcome clarity.
“You are acquainted?” she asked, astonishment plain in every syllable.
“Our acquaintance is of some duration,” Darcy said.
Wickham’s mouth moved, though not quite into a smile. “Yes. Of some duration.”
The silence that followed was too long for civility and too short for accusation.
Darcy could not expose him here. Not before Elizabeth.
Not before a girl whose bright color had drained from her cheeks at the sudden alteration in the room.
Lydia. The thought landed with belated horror.
Lydia Bennet, who had looked at Wickham last night as if he were the whole of her future.
Darcy spoke again to Wickham. “Will you accompany me to the door?”
Wickham’s eyes narrowed by the smallest degree. Then he bowed. “Of course.”
Mrs. Bennet made a faint, bewildered sound. Elizabeth stood.
Darcy did not look at her. If he did, he might say too much.
He crossed the room, aware of Wickham following, aware of every eye fixed upon them, and stepped into the hall with the rigid self-command of a man walking out of a room before the walls closed in.