EIGHTEEN #2
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. The explanation was not without merit.
She herself read lips, and Kitty had, on more occasions than Elizabeth cared to remember, contrived to overhear conversations she was never meant to hear, including one between their mother and Mr Collins.
Though eavesdropping was a habit Elizabeth did not approve of, it was hardly a rare failing.
It could indeed account for Miss Bingley's knowledge without Darcy having revealed anything to her.
"You should have told me,” She said.
"I know."
"From the beginning. You should have told me."
"Yes. And I am more sorry than I can adequately express for every wrong I have done you."
"It would have changed things considerably.
" She looked at her hands. "To know that someone saw it and was not — that it did not—" She stopped.
She was not accustomed to talking about her hearing difficulty rather than managing it.
"I was not born like this, sir. When I was five, after an afternoon spent wading with Jane, I developed a severe infection in my right ear.
My father engaged what physicians he could, but the hearing on my right diminished slowly and never recovered.
My parents did not wish me to feel different from my sisters, particularly as only the one side was affected.
My father encouraged me to manage with what remained.
It served me well enough in most circumstances, but quiet voices and whispers, particularly to my right, became inaudible to me. "
Darcy listened without speaking. His expression held no pity that she could object to. Only attention.
"I taught myself to watch mouths and to repeat the words I saw being spoken.
I soon realised that I possessed a natural aptitude for it.
With sufficient practice over the years, I have very nearly perfected the art.
" She smiled briefly at the memory of certain early failures.
"Mr Darcy, I have spent a very long time ensuring that no one discovered it.
People can be remarkably uncharitable towards any perceived deficiency.
And you saw it from the very first evening and yet you never once made me feel—" She stopped again.
"I hope I never made you feel less," he said quietly.
"You did not," she said. "That is rather the point."
He looked at her.
"You were very careful about it," she said. "You never enquired directly. You never made it a subject for remark. You simply adjusted. Without drawing attention to it. Without making me feel as though I owed you any explanation." She looked up at him. "Do you know how uncommon that is?"
"I had a very good teacher," he said.
Elizabeth's thoughts turned to Lady Anne Darcy.
To a woman who had managed her world with precision and patience and that particular quality of fortitude which has no name for it.
She thought of how long Darcy, as a boy, must have watched his mother and learned — without knowing he was learning — everything that had mattered most.
Elizabeth sat straighter and finally allowed herself a smile. "I am still displeased with you," she said.
"I know."
"I may remain so for some time yet."
"I expected nothing less."
The corner of her mouth moved. She did not entirely mean it to.
"Mr Darcy." She looked at him directly, understanding that they had said almost everything there was to say.
"If you intend to court me — and I believe that is what this visit amounts to — then you will conduct yourself with complete honesty.
No more watching without speaking. No more managing at a distance.
If you observe something, or know something, or think something, you will say it. "
"Yes," he said, without hesitation, his countenance brightening as he understood that she had, in her own fashion, swept the matter aside.
"And you will thank Georgiana for saving you in this matter. If she had not come to me, I am not certain you would have found the occasion to do so yourself."
"I have already thanked her," a faint smile touched Darcy's lips. "And I daresay I shall thank her again."
"She ought not to have been obliged to come to me herself," Elizabeth said. "That was your responsibility."
"It was," he agreed. "She is considerably braver than I am."
"She is," Elizabeth said. "You ought to tell her so."
Something shifted in his expression — something warm and unguarded that she had glimpsed only in passing before now, and which suited him, she thought, very well indeed.
"Miss Elizabeth." He looked at her steadily. "I am asking your permission to call at Longbourn. Regularly. With honest intentions and no further concealment of anything whatsoever."
Elizabeth considered this for a moment.
"You may call at Longbourn," she said. "Though I ought to warn you that my mother will draw her own conclusions within the day and communicate them to the neighbourhood before the week is out."
"I find I have no objection to that."
She looked at him. He looked back at her with that same steady, unguarded attention, and for once she did not feel the need to adjust or pretend she had not noticed.
She let him look.
"You may also," she said, "come to Oakham Mount. Should you happen to be riding that way."
"I happen to ride that way most mornings," he said.
"I know," Elizabeth rose. "I had observed that you seemed to have forgotten the path of late."
Darcy rose as well. For a moment neither spoke. The fire burned quietly in the room, whilst beyond the open door came the faint sounds of the household going about its business.
"Then all is forgiven, Mr Darcy," she said.
"Thank you, Miss Elizabeth."
Mr Bennet was informed shortly thereafter that the conversation had concluded, and with evident satisfaction invited Mr Darcy to his study for the long-delayed game of chess, an invitation which was accepted without hesitation. Elizabeth left the gentlemen to it and went in search of Jane.
She was smiling before she reached the stairs, and she could not remember when last the world had seemed so much in its proper place.