Chapter Fifteen The Art of Pouring Tea and Swallowing Pride
IT WAS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY acknowledged—at least within the walls of the Hunsford parsonage—that the absence of Mr Collins was a gift from the Almighty.
Elizabeth sat in the parlour, staring at the longcase clock ticking in the corner.
It was half-past eleven in the morning. Mr Collins had departed two hours prior for Rosings Park, ostensibly to help Lady Catherine with her imaginative regulations for the proper folding of napkins, while secretly hoping to present her with a newly drafted sermon on the spiritual dangers of brightly coloured shoe rosettes.
He had not yet returned. Given his usual propensity to bound back into the house to recount every syllable the grand lady had uttered, his continued absence was nothing short of a balm to the heart.
Had Elizabeth known that, at this exact moment, her cousin was trapped beneath the unconscious, lavender-scented bulk of the Gorgon of Kent, she would not have rejoiced at the uncommonly breathable air in the parsonage.
He was her cousin and host after all, and while a doorknob had more grace and sense, he was not a bad man.
Charlotte sat in the armchair opposite, the click-clack of her knitting needles providing a soothing counterpoint to Elizabeth's racing heart.
She had attempted to read a book, but she had spent the last forty minutes staring at the same paragraph about the mountains of Wales without absorbing a single word.
She was all anticipation. I shall find a way, he had said.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was coming. She knew it with the same bone-deep certainty that she knew the sun would rise or her mother would complain about her nerves. He was a man of his word, and they had unfinished business of the most monumental variety.
"You are going to wear a hole in the carpet with your eyes, Lizzy," Charlotte observed, not looking up from her grey wool. "And it is not our carpet. It belongs to the parish."
Elizabeth blinked, realising she had been glaring at a particularly hideous woven rose near the hearth. "I am merely contemplating the... the stitching, Charlotte. It is very unnatural."
"It is," Charlotte agreed placidly. "Just as it is a very unnatural day. And you are expecting either a firing squad or a proposal of marriage, I think. Knowing your luck, it shall be a combination of the two."
Before Elizabeth could defend herself against her friend's accurate perceptions, the sound of boots on the front gravel came. Then, a firm, decisive double rap sounded on the knocker.
Elizabeth's book slipped from her lap, hitting the floor with a thud.
She scrambled to retrieve it, her cheeks flushing.
By the time the parsonage maid, a young girl named Betty whose primary skill was dropping spoons, opened the parlour door, Elizabeth was sitting rigidly upright, holding the book concerning Welsh topography upside down.
"Mr Darcy, ma'am," Betty announced, her voice squeaking slightly, as though she were introducing a visiting monarch to a modest country inn.
He stepped inside, and the parlour instantly shrank.
It was a phenomenon Elizabeth had noticed before, but today it was acute.
Mr Darcy was simply too large, too tall, and too overwhelmingly present for the modest dimensions of Mr Collins's domain.
He wore a dark blue morning coat tailored with such precision that it ought to have been outlawed, and his dark hair was slightly windblown, curling appealingly around his ears.
He looked imposing, unaccountably heroic, and nervous.
"Mr Darcy," Charlotte welcomed him, setting her knitting aside and rising. "What a pleasant surprise. Please, come in. Do mind the low ceiling beam near the doorway."
"Mrs Collins." Darcy executed a flawless bow that narrowly avoided the beam. His eyes, however, bypassed the hostess and locked onto Elizabeth. The intensity of his dark brown gaze was staggering. "Miss Elizabeth. I hope I do not intrude."
"Not at all, sir," Elizabeth managed, her voice steady considering that her ribs felt too tight for her lungs. She placed the upside-down book onto the side table. "We were just... enjoying the quiet."
"Indeed," Charlotte added, her eyes darting between the two of them. "Mr Collins is at Rosings, you see. So the quiet is quite... quiet."
Darcy stepped farther inside, hovering awkwardly near a chintz-covered armchair as though he suspected it might collapse under his consequence.
"I am aware of his absence. I... that is to say, my cousin Richard is currently calling upon my aunt, who is occupied with Mr Collins.
I believed it an opportune moment to enquire after your health. "
"We are in excellent health, sir." Charlotte moved to the bell pull. "And you must stay for tea. Betty was just about to bring the tray. Lizzy, you will pour, will you not? My hands are quite cramped from the knitting."
Elizabeth shot her friend a glance that promised swift retribution, but Charlotte merely smiled—the serene smile of a friend who knew exactly what she was doing.
Betty arrived moments later, rattling the tea service onto the low wooden table between the sofas with the grace of a startled horse. She retreated, leaving the three of them in a silence so dense it could have been carved with a butter knife.
Darcy took a seat on the sofa opposite Elizabeth. He sat forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped together. Elizabeth found her gaze drawn to his hands, remembering the way they had caught the burning candelabra the night before. They were strong hands. Capable hands.
She swallowed hard and reached for the silver teapot.
The act of pouring tea, normally an unconscious domestic reflex, felt like a high-stakes diplomatic negotiation. The china cups were fragile, the tea was scalding, and the man sitting three feet away from her had the power to shatter her heart or make it whole.
"Do you take milk, Mr Darcy?" Elizabeth asked. The words sounded absurdly mundane, a triviality floating on the surface of a fathomless ocean.
"A little, thank you," he replied.
She poured the milk and handed him the delicate cup and saucer, his long fingers brushing against hers during the transfer.
The contact lasted perhaps a fraction of a second, but it sent a shock of heat up her arm that made her breath hitch.
Darcy's gaze flicked up, catching hers, and the dark depths confirmed that he had felt it too.
Charlotte cleared her throat. It was a delicate, artificial sound.
"Good heavens." She stood up, brushing invisible dust from her skirts. "I have just realised a matter of the utmost urgency. The... the root cellar."
Elizabeth blinked, tearing her eyes away from Darcy. "The root cellar, Charlotte?"
"Yes," Charlotte said with grave gravity. "I have reason to suspect the turnips have been improperly rotated. If left unchecked, it could lead to a disaster of unprecedented proportions. I must inspect them immediately."
Elizabeth stared at her friend. "You are abandoning us to inspect the rotation of turnips?"
"A clergyman's wife must be vigilant, Lizzy," Charlotte replied, unashamed of her own ridiculousness.
She moved to the door with the speed of a fleeing smuggler.
"I shall be twenty minutes at least. Perhaps thirty, if the potatoes have joined the rebellion.
Mr Collins finds them exemplary, so I need to pay special attention. Please, enjoy your tea."
Charlotte stepped out into the hallway, and then, with a blatant disregard for Mr Collins's strict rules regarding draughts, she left the door open three inches. It was a declaration: You are chaperoned by the bounds of propriety, but no one can hear a word you say.
The quiet in the room shifted. It was no longer the awkward silence of an interrupted morning; it was the charged, crackling stillness before a thunderstorm.
"I believe," Elizabeth began with a smile, "that is the most transparent excuse involving a turnip I have ever witnessed."
Darcy's gaze settled on her. He set his untouched teacup onto the table, the china clinking with a finality that signalled the end of all pretences.
"She is a very perceptive woman, your friend," he murmured, his posture straightening. "Miss Elizabeth, let us not stall. You said you owed me an answer."
Elizabeth took a deep breath, anchoring herself.
She had spent the night rehearsing this moment, pacing the short length of her bedchamber until she knew every word she wished to say by heart.
Yet now, faced with him, the rehearsed speeches were inadequate, and she decided to rely on the one thing he had given her: the unvarnished truth.
"I did." Elizabeth set her own cup down and folded her hands in her lap, meeting his gaze fully. "And I shall give it to you now. Mr Darcy, I must thank you. I must thank you from the very bottom of my heart for the trust you placed in me."
Darcy's shoulders tensed. "Miss Elizabeth, I told you I required no gratitude."
"But I must give it," she insisted gently but firmly, refusing to let him retreat into stoicism.
"You exposed your secret to clear your honour in my eyes.
You offered me the truth of your sister's near-ruin, knowing the devastation it would cause if I were to speak of it.
I need you to know, sir, that I would rather cut out my own tongue than betray the girl's secret.
Her reputation is as safe with me as it is with you. "
Darcy exhaled, closed his eyes for a brief moment, and when he opened them, the relief in his expression was so palpable that it made Elizabeth's chest ache. "I never doubted your integrity," he answered. "Even when you despised me, I knew your character was beyond reproach."
Elizabeth flinched at the word despised, the shame of her past behaviour rising hot in her throat. She leaned forward, closing the distance between them as much as the small table would allow.