Chapter 23 #2
Mama had approved it instantly. Charlotte Lucas had sent word that she had acquired more trim than she required—something pale and fine, suitable for evening wear—and Elizabeth’s gown for the Netherfield ball would benefit from attention.
It was precisely the sort of domestic errand that pleased her mother: economical, social, and entirely uncontroversial.
The weather had repented of that one day of rain, and now the sun made it feel almost as pleasant as a May afternoon. By the time they were shown into the Lucases’ sitting room, she felt more composed and relaxed than she had in days.
Charlotte greeted them warmly and looked from one sister to the other with open curiosity. “You look better, Lizzy,” she said at once. “Much better than you did when we last met.”
Elizabeth paused, the remark catching her unprepared. “Do I?”
“You had quite the headache, if I remember,” Charlotte replied. “You scarcely spoke two sentences together.”
“The remnants of a cold, I believe. Nothing more.”
Jane glanced at her with the sort of quiet attention that suggested she did not accept the explanation quite so readily. Elizabeth pretended not to notice.
They sat, and the lace was produced at once: a length of delicate patterning, carefully folded, finer, even, than Elizabeth had hoped.
Charlotte spread it across the table between them, and the three bent their heads together, comparing it against Elizabeth’s gown with small exclamations of approval.
“It will do very nicely,” Jane said. “Especially here, along the hem.”
Charlotte nodded. “And the bodice, perhaps, if there is enough. I thought of you at once when I saw it. I hope you will not mind that my gown has some of the same.”
“Mind? I should count it an unmerited dignity to be dressed like you,” Elizabeth laughed.
The conversation moved easily then—stitches, colours, the likelihood of rain holding off for the evening of the ball. Tea was poured. Cups were lifted and set down again.
Only then did Elizabeth ask, as though the thought had occurred to her in passing, “Have you had many callers today?”
“Not many. The roads were still damp this morning, and that kept most people close, apart from a few of the more intrepid sort.”
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the lace. “Anyone of interest?”
“That depends upon one’s definition. The officers called earlier—Lieutenant Denny and one or two others. They did not stay long.”
Jane looked up. Elizabeth did not.
“How lively of you,” Elizabeth said mildly. “I hope they were not disappointed.”
“I believe they were on their way elsewhere,” Charlotte replied. “Mr Wickham, in particular, seemed in haste.”
Elizabeth’s fingers paused for a fraction of a second against the cloth. She resumed smoothing it at once. “How unfortunate,” she said. “I should have liked to meet him again. He seems… agreeable.”
Charlotte’s smile turned knowing. “I am surprised you say that.”
Elizabeth lifted her head. “Why?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Oh! Only that last we spoke of gentlemen in general, you claimed utter disinterest. In fact—Jane, am I not right?—You were far more interested in Mr Darcy’s dog than any gentlemen, officers or otherwise.”
Jane chuckled. “Charlotte remembers everything.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I maintain that a large dog is a far more compelling introduction than its owner.”
Charlotte laughed outright. “I shall be sure to remember that when next I see Mr Darcy.”
Elizabeth waved the notion away. “Pray do not. I should hate to be thought ridiculous.”
They returned to the lace then, measuring and folding, making small, sensible plans for its use. Elizabeth found that she had nothing further to ask that could not be made to sound deliberate, and so she asked nothing at all.
When they took their leave, she carried the extra trim carefully wrapped, exactly as intended.
It was the only thing she had come away with.
Darcy returned to Netherfield with the sense of having outridden nothing at all.
The horse was warm beneath him; the exercise should have done its work.
Instead, the impressions of the morning clung—Wickham’s tone, the ease with which he had spoken, the casual confidence of a man who had never been required to prove that a thing was false in order to dismiss it.
Darcy handed off the reins at the steps and mounted them with less deliberation than usual, as though momentum might carry him past the point where thought intruded.
The housekeeper appeared from the morning room. “Oh, welcome back, Mr Darcy. Shall I have luncheon brought in? Mr Bingley waited for you, sir, but when you did not return—”
“He rode out,” Darcy finished, removing his gloves. “Did he leave word?”
“He did, sir. He said you would forgive him, but he could not be still another quarter hour. Something about needing to see if the road toward Chesterton fares after the recent rain. He was in excellent spirits.”
Darcy inclined his head. Bingley’s spirits rarely failed him; it was one of the qualities that had first commended him. “Thank you. I shall take luncheon later.”
He crossed the hall toward the stairs and was intercepted halfway by a familiar rustle.
“Oh! Mr Darcy, there you are.” Miss Bingley swept out of the drawing room with a flush of triumph that suggested a morning very well spent. Mrs Hurst followed at a more stately pace, offering Darcy a brief nod before returning to the papers inside.
“Everything is arranged,” Miss Bingley said.
“I have taken it upon myself to ensure that the guest list is… judicious. One must think not merely of numbers, but of effect. I have spoken personally to the Lucases, the Philipses, and Sir William has been quite obliging about the order of introductions.”
Darcy inclined his head, neither encouraging nor resisting.
“And I have made certain,” she continued, lowering her voice as though confiding something of real consequence, “that no one of questionable consequence will be given undue prominence. A ball reflects its hosts, after all—and its guests. One cannot be too careful.” She smiled at him, clearly expecting approval.
“I am very glad to hear it, Miss Bingley,” he said, stopping short enough that she nearly collided with him. “Forgive me. I am not fit company at present.”
She blinked. “Not fit?”
“I have letters to attend to,” he continued. “And a matter of business that will not improve by delay.”
Her expression sharpened at once, curiosity quickening. “Oh, but surely, that can wait!”
“It cannot. And…” He paused, then forced a smile. “I would not wish to offer you half congratulations where the full measure is warranted.”
That, at least, she seemed to appreciate. She drew back a pace, studying him with renewed interest. “Very well. But perhaps you will come down early before dinner?”
He nodded. “If I am able.”
Miss Bingley smiled, the sort of smile that promised she would hold him to it. “Of course.”
Darcy inclined his head and took the stairs two at a time, conscious of her gaze upon his back until the turn of the landing put it from him. Only then did his pace falter. Not stop—never that—but ease, as though his body had recalled something his mind had not yet named.
It was nothing more than a place on the stair. An ordinary turning. He had passed it a hundred times without thought. And yet, as his foot struck that tread, a chill went through him—quick, involuntary. A remembered moment, unbidden and clear as crystal.
Brutus, planted there like a small, immovable sentinel, forcing him to go around, take another path.
The next day, Elizabeth, standing at the top staring down as though the stair must be haunted—until she had looked further and found him instead.
The recollections struck and passed in the same breath. Darcy frowned faintly at himself and continued upward, irritated by the persistence of it.
At the upper hall, he slowed again at the door that had been hers.
He stopped.
The passage was empty. No servants within sight. No sound but the distant tick of the clock below. After a moment’s hesitation—brief, irrational—he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The room was bare of her.
Too bare.
The bed had been stripped and remade. The chair drawn back into its proper place. The washstand cleared, the fire cold. No shawl forgotten over the rail, no book left awry. Even the faint disorder she had introduced by mere occupation had been erased by the efficiency of the maids.
And yet, the air felt altered. Not crisp, like a room freshly aired.
Not charged or dense, as a place holding its breath before a storm.
Simply expectant, in a way that made his stomach turn with a sudden, inexplicable unease.
The sensation was not dread. It was nearer to anticipation, like the moments before a door is opened upon something long imagined.
Darcy crossed the room without quite knowing that he had decided to do so. He stopped at the foot of the bed and laid his hand upon the post.
The memory came at once. Her weight, slight and searing in his arms, doing unholy things to his conscience. The heat of her skin through linen and wool. The way his arms had tightened without instruction when she stirred in his embrace.
His knees weakened—just enough that he felt it.
Darcy drew his hand back as though he had been burned.
That was enough.
He turned sharply and left the room, closing the door behind him with a decisive click. He did not look back as he strode down the hall, nor pause again at his own door.
By the time he tossed his coat over his own bed, the resolve had settled into him with grim clarity. Hertfordshire was no place for him any longer.
Whatever had been awakened here—by chance, by proximity, by some magic he did not yet understand—it was not something to be endured. And if he lingered, he suspected he would not choose wisely.
He would remain through the ball. Duty required that much. After that, he would leave Hertfordshire.
As fast as his carriage could drive.