Chapter 6 #2
They walked in silence for several minutes. The garden was a maze of high hedges and blooming shrubs that cast long, distorted shadows under the moon. Darcy waited for her to speak, sensing that she needed a moment to gather her thoughts.
"I am sorry for that display," Elizabeth said at last. "I did not mean to cause a scene."
"You did no such thing," Darcy said. "Your concern is entirely natural."
"Lydia is only fifteen," Elizabeth said. "She has no idea of the dangers of the world. And my father... my father finds her antics amusing until they become a source of trouble. He will not see the danger until it is too late."
"Brighton is a place of much temptation for a young woman of her disposition," Darcy said.
"You know it?" Elizabeth asked.
"I know the reputation of the camps there," Darcy said. "It is not a place for an unguided girl."
"I have tried to tell him," Elizabeth said. "I wrote to him before we left England, and I have spoken to him here. But he only laughs. He thinks I am being overly serious."
"There is no such thing as being overly serious when it comes to a lady's reputation," Darcy said.
Elizabeth stopped walking and faced him. The moonlight caught the fine lines of her face, making her appear more fragile than he had ever seen her.
"You truly believe that, do you not?" Elizabeth asked.
"I do," Darcy said.
"And yet you are here, thousands of miles from your own home, playing a part that I suspect has very little to do with commerce," Elizabeth said.
He checked himself. He had forgotten, for a moment, that she was as observant as she was charming.
"Miss Bennet," Darcy said.
"Do not deny it," Elizabeth said. "I have seen the way you look at the maps in the Governor's office. I have seen the way you watch the soldiers at the levee. You are not a merchant, Mr. Darcy."
"I never claimed to be a merchant," Darcy said.
"You claimed to be traveling for interest," Elizabeth said. "But your interest is of a very specific kind. My father may be blinded by his books and his irony, but I am not. Why are you here?"
"I cannot tell you that," Darcy said.
"Is it duty, or is it conscience?" Elizabeth asked.
"It is both," Darcy said.
"Then you are a more complicated man than I took you for," Elizabeth said.
"I have never claimed to be a simple one," Darcy said.
They stood in the dark garden, the air heavy with the unspoken tension of their respective secrets. Darcy wanted to reach out to her, to offer some comfort or some explanation, but the boundaries of their acquaintance and the requirements of his mission forbade it.
"If you wish," Darcy said.
They walked back toward the house, but upon reaching the gallery, they saw Cécile standing in the shadows. She looked at them with an expression that was both knowing and cautious.
"The Governor is asking for you, Mr. Darcy," Cécile said. "He wishes to discuss the mail from London."
"I will join him directly," Darcy said.
He bowed to Elizabeth and followed Cécile back into the house. Upon their passage through the doors, Cécile caught his arm.
"Be careful, Monsieur Darcy," Cécile said in a whisper. "The Governor has received letters too. He knows more than he says."
Darcy nodded, his jaw set. He went to find Claiborne, leaving Elizabeth alone with her thoughts.
In the drawing room, Elizabeth found a quiet corner. She was still shaken by the news of Lydia, and her exchange with Darcy had only added to her agitation. She was caught in a current she could not control, swept along by events that were larger and more dangerous than she had ever imagined.
Cécile joined her a few minutes later, sitting down beside her with a quiet sigh.
"It is a difficult night," Cécile said.
"It is a night of many revelations," Elizabeth said.
"Your Mr. Darcy is a man of many secrets," Cécile said.
"He is not my Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said.
Cécile smiled, a small, tired movement of her lips.
"In this city, everyone belongs to someone, if only for a time," Cécile said. "I have seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching. He is a man who is lost, Miss Elizabeth."
"Mr. Darcy? Lost?" Elizabeth asked. "He seems the most composed man I have ever met."
"Composition is a form of armor," Cécile said. "And armor is only worn by those who expect to be attacked. He is afraid of what he must do."
"And what is that?" Elizabeth asked.
"He must choose," Cécile said. "We all must. This city is built on choices that were made long ago, and choices that are being made now. The war is coming, Miss Elizabeth. Even the birds in the trees know it."
"My father does not believe it," Elizabeth said.
"Your father chooses to see the world as a book," Cécile said. "But books can be burned. You see the truth, do you not?"
"I see that everything is changing," Elizabeth said.
"Then you must be ready," Cécile said.
Elizabeth looked at the Frenchwoman, sensing a depth of experience and a hardness of spirit that she herself did not yet possess. Cécile was a mirror to her own situation, a woman navigating a world of men and power with only her wits to protect her.
"How do you do it?" Elizabeth asked. "How do you live in a place where nothing is as it seems?"
"I have learned to listen to the silence," Cécile said. "And I have learned that the only person one can truly trust is oneself."
"Is that not a lonely way to live?" Elizabeth asked.
"It is a safe way to live," Cécile said.
The evening ended shortly thereafter. The ride back to their lodgings was silent, Mr. Bennet being occupied with his own reflections on the letter from home.
Elizabeth sat by the window of the carriage, watching the dark shapes of the city move past. She thought of Lydia in Brighton, and of Darcy in the garden.
She thought of the question she had asked him, and the answer he had given.
The question he had posed occupied her mind—which truth, which allegiance, when the two could not be reconciled.
She realized then that she was no longer a spectator in this strange land. She was involved, joined to the fates of the people around her by ties of affection and suspicion. The Governor's gambit had begun, and she was a piece on the board, whether she wished to be or not.
When they reached their house, Darcy was waiting to help them from the carriage. He offered his hand to Elizabeth, and for a brief moment, their eyes met. There was no irony in his expression now, only a stark, somber recognition of the distance between them and the dangers that lay ahead.
"Goodnight, Miss Bennet," Darcy said.
"Goodnight, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said.
She went inside, the scent of the garden still clinging to her clothes, a reminder of the garden and the secrets it held.
Upstairs, in the privacy of her room, Elizabeth sat at her small writing desk.
She did not light a candle, preferring the soft glow of the moon that filtered through the shutters.
A heavy sense of impending change settled over her.
The letter from England had brought the reality of her old life into sharp conflict with her new one.
Lydia's folly seemed both impossibly distant and terrifyingly relevant.
She thought of Jane, who would be the one to bear the brunt of Mrs. Bennet's reactions and Lydia's uncontrolled spirits. Jane, who always sought the good in everyone, would be uniquely ill-equipped to handle the scandals that Brighton so regularly produced.
Elizabeth picked up a pen, but she did not write.
She thought instead of Darcy's face in the moonlight.
A gentleman of high principles and rigid expectations, yet he was here, in this humid, chaotic city, engaged in some clandestine activity that he would not name.
She wondered if his conscience truly did agree with his duty, or if he had never been forced to choose between them before.
She suspected that New Orleans would force that choice upon him very soon.
And she wondered what her own choice would be, when the time came.
The heat of the night seemed to press closer, a physical manifestation of the pressures that were beginning to close in.
She thought of the Governor's table, the talk of war, and the quiet warning from Cécile.
The world was much larger and much more dangerous than she had ever imagined when she was sitting in the parlor at Longbourn, and her own peace of mind was a small thing to lose in the face of such a storm.
She finally lit a candle and wrote to Jane.
She did not mention Mr. Darcy, or the Governor, or the rumors of war.
She wrote instead of the flowers, and the architecture, and the strange, beautiful light of the Southern moon.
She wrote the words that she knew her sister would want to hear, keeping the truth of her own heart hidden, even from the person she loved most.
This was her own form of concealment. It was her own form of duty.
Elizabeth sealed the letter and felt the first true breath of the coming conflict, a cold wind that had no place in the Louisiana night.
The days that followed the Governor's dinner were marked by a deceptive calm.
The sun beat down upon the city with relentless intensity, and the life of the streets slowed to a crawl during the hours of the greatest heat.
Darcy was often absent, engaged in what he called his "commercial inquiries," while Mr. Bennet retreated into his study with a collection of local histories he had acquired.