Chapter III
Elizabeth started slightly.
“You met him?”
“We did, indeed,” said her uncle. “Quite unexpectedly. He came into the house while we were there and addressed his housekeeper and then us with the greatest civility.”
“More than civility,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “He would not hear of Mrs. Reynolds abandoning us in the middle of the tour. There was a degree of ease in his manner which surprised us exceedingly. Nothing of that reserve which we had been prepared to expect.”
Elizabeth could not conceal her astonishment.
“That is very unlike what I have known of him – or thought I knew.”
“So we thought,” her aunt replied. “You had not led us to expect such manners.” She shook her head. “I must do him justice. I have rarely met with a gentleman more desirous of making himself agreeable. He showed us every attention and appeared perfectly at ease in doing so.”
Elizabeth was silent.
“His conduct towards Mr. Wickham is now placed in a very different light. Perhaps, Lizzy, he had other motives than jealousy in denying him the living. After what we learnt about him from the housekeeper, I would not be surprised. We were too hasty in our judgement.”
Elizabeth felt all the force of her previous righteousness. She regretted the quickness of her tongue.
But what struck her most was that Mr. Darcy could behave with such civility towards strangers.
She could not easily reconcile this account with her former impressions, and yet she could not doubt the testimony of those who had witnessed it.
“And he remained with you long?” she asked, after a moment.
“For some time,” said Mr. Gardiner. “Long enough to show us that we had formed a very imperfect judgement of him… There was something else I liked in him,” said Mr. Gardiner thoughtfully.
“He did not seem a man trying to impress us. Indeed, I believe he forgot entirely that there was anything to be gained by doing so.”
Elizabeth lowered her eyes. She had no answer to make.
Nor was silence any refuge; for in that silence every word she had heard seemed to arrange itself against her former certainty.
She had refused to see Pemberley, and yet Pemberley had found its way to her all the same – not in stone, timber, or prospect, but in the testimony of those whose judgement she trusted.
Mrs. Gardiner took up her glass, set it down again, and then said, with an air of recollection, “There was one circumstance more, Lizzy, though I am not certain whether I ought to mention it.”
Elizabeth looked up quickly. “What circumstance?”
Her aunt hesitated only a moment.
“Your uncle mentioned that we had a niece with us in Lambton.”
Elizabeth’s colour changed.
“Yes,” said Mr. Gardiner. “It seemed natural enough. He had asked whether we were long in the neighbourhood, and whether we had come far. I was on the point of saying that our niece was Miss Elizabeth Bennet…”
Elizabeth bent her attention suddenly to the table before her. She felt her heart give one painful, foolish bound.
“And did you say so?”
“No,” said Mrs. Gardiner gently. “At that instant, Mrs. Reynolds reminded us that we had still the library to see, and Mr. Darcy took his leave of us with great politeness.”
Elizabeth’s eyes lifted before she could prevent them. “And he seemed in haste to go?”
“Not in haste,” said Mrs. Gardiner thoughtfully. “Only recalled, perhaps, to what was proper. He appeared attentive to the last.”
For one uncomfortable moment, Elizabeth wondered whether such ease was only possible because she no longer occupied any place in his thoughts.
Elizabeth lowered her gaze again. This was worse. Had he been cold, indifferent, or even impatient, she might have known what to think. However, his consideration left too much room for imagination.
Elizabeth looked down at her plate, though she could not have said what was upon it.
The room seemed, for a moment, to have grown both louder and more distant.
Voices from a neighbouring table reached her without meaning; the scrape of a chair, the opening of a door, the clink of glass – all were strangely distinct, and yet none seemed to belong to the present moment.
“So, he does not know,” she said at last.
“No,” replied her uncle. “My dear wife, afterwards, reminded me that it would have been very impolitic to mention your name, when you had so plainly wished to avoid being named.”
“I thought it better if I did not speak,” Mrs. Gardiner added. “You had not wished to go, my dear, and I could not tell whether you would thank us for carrying your name where you had refused to carry yourself. I hope we did not disappoint you.”
Elizabeth attempted to smile. “No, not at all.”
Mrs. Gardiner regarded her for a moment with a gentler expression than before. “I am not certain of that,” she said. “From what we saw of him, I should not suppose he would have been much discomposed.”
Elizabeth fidgeted with her glass.
“Indeed,” her aunt added, “he appeared particularly desirous of being agreeable. I cannot think he would have been otherwise than pleased to see you again.”
Elizabeth lowered her gaze, and for a moment, made no reply. The idea, once suggested, struck her with more force than she cared to admit.
“Yes,” she said at last, with a faint effort at composure, “it is just as well.”
It was what she had chosen.
Yet the relief which should have followed did not come.
Instead, there arose a sense of something forfeited – something she had not known she valued until it was no longer within her reach.
He did not know, she repeated inwardly.
He had been near. He had spoken to her aunt and uncle. He had shown them civility – more than civility. He had been easy in his manner, attentive, even desirous of pleasing.
And she, who had once thought such effort impossible to him, was now left to wonder for whom such effort had been made.
The thought was mortifying. Or in reality, it was worse than that. It was simply painful.
Mrs. Gardiner, observing her silence, said kindly, “I hope we did right in not naming you afterwards. Since you had expressly wished to avoid the visit, I thought you might not thank us for introducing your name without permission.”
“You did quite right,” Elizabeth answered at once. “Perfectly right.”
Her voice was steady. “I would not have had you do otherwise.”
Mr. Gardiner regarded her with mild curiosity but said nothing.
Then, after a pause:
“Though I confess I still regret not asking more about the fishing.”
“Edward!” said Mrs. Gardiner.
“My dear, I am perfectly serious.”
Mrs. Gardiner turned back to her niece and rested her eyes on her a moment longer.
Elizabeth forced herself to take up her fork, though she had no appetite.
“Indeed,” she added, with a faint attempt at liveliness, “I should have been very much obliged to Mrs. Reynolds had I known how well she served me.”
The jest was poor. Her aunt smiled, but not as though deceived.
“Then we are forgiven,” said Mr. Gardiner, willing to accept the lighter tone.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
And yet there was something to regret.
Not in them. Not in their discretion. But in the moment itself.
A chance interrupted by a housekeeper’s innocent zeal for duty.
It was absurd that so small an accident should matter. Had her uncle spoken, what then? Mr. Darcy might have thought no more of it. He might even have suspected her of contrivance, which was precisely what she had dreaded.
Yet another possibility continued to trouble her.
He might have wished to know. He might – perhaps – have come.
She checked herself at once, almost with indignation.
That way lay vanity, folly, and mortification enough for any woman of sense. Had she not refused him? Had she not given him every reason to avoid her? What right had she to imagine that her presence in Lambton could be anything to him now?
Still, the thought remained with her.
He had been altered – at least in the eyes of those who had seen him. And she, who had chosen absence as the safest course, was now condemned to learn of that alteration only by report.
She could not really escape the suspicion that prudence had looked very much like cowardice.
Mrs. Gardiner began again upon the beauty of the grounds, and Mr. Gardiner added some description of the stream, the woods, and the approach to the house; but Elizabeth heard them imperfectly.
She answered when addressed, smiled when it was proper, and looked composed enough to satisfy any observer less affectionate than her aunt.
But her thoughts had gone where she had refused to go.
To Pemberley.
To a gallery she had not entered.
To a gentleman who had not been told she was near.
And to one word – her own name – which had almost been spoken.