Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Darcy paused at the threshold of the drawing room long enough to master his breath.
The room was orderly, chairs set straight, the windows admitting a calm afternoon light that bore no trace of the night before. Mr Bennet stood near the mantel, hands clasped behind his back, his posture easy, his expression composed in the way Darcy had learned to distrust.
“Mr Bennet,” Darcy said. He inclined his head. “You are welcome.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mr Bennet replied. “I hope I do not intrude.”
Before Darcy could answer, footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned and found Wickham already crossing the room with an ease that suggested he had been there all along. The familiarity of his smile struck like a wrong note.
“Darcy,” Wickham said warmly, as though this were a chance meeting rather than an arrival carefully timed. “How fortunate to find you at home today.”
Darcy’s gaze flicked back to Mr Bennet. He had been told of one visitor. Not two.
Wickham went on, untroubled. “Mr. Bennet’s carriage and horses are being settled in your stables. I have given instructions that they be made ready again shortly, should Mr Bennet wish to depart without delay.”
Mr Bennet nodded, satisfied. “Thank you, Mr Wickham. Darcy, your staff is remarkably efficient.”
Darcy felt the questions rise at once—too many, too sharp. He held them back with effort and returned his attention to his guest. “I heard nothing about your intentions to come to London.”
“I judged it necessary,” Mr Bennet said. “After last night.”
Darcy inclined his head slightly. “Indeed.”
Mr Bennet studied him for a moment, then smiled faintly. “You appear surprised.”
“That you came to see your daughters? No. At the timing? Perhaps. And your traveling companion…” Darcy glanced at Wickham. “An officer in the militia does not leave his company without notice.”
Wickham took a step to the side, positioning himself to Bennet’s right. “Colonel Forster was good enough to oblige me,” he said lightly. “Given the disturbances in Hertfordshire, and the… temper of things at present, it seemed prudent that Mr Bennet should have an escort.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “An escort?”
“One of his officers,” Mr Bennet confirmed. “As I am, after all, one of the principal landholders in the district—and with Mr Bingley absent from the county, there is some concern that matters may go unaddressed.”
“Unaddressed,” Darcy repeated.
Mr Bennet’s gaze held his now, keen and searching beneath the mildness. “There is unrest. Rumour. Fear, if you prefer the word. I have come to speak with the proper authorities in London and to see, with my own eyes, what is being said of my daughter’s recovery.”
Mr Bennet’s gaze did not leave Darcy’s face. “You will forgive a father,” he said mildly, “if he asks why his daughter should improve so markedly upon leaving Hertfordshire.”
Darcy kept his expression composed. “London offers advantages. Medical counsel. Rest from familiar pressures.”
“And yet,” Mr Bennet replied, “those same advantages were available to her elsewhere. Why is it here that she improves?”
Darcy did not answer at once. He chose his words with care, not because he doubted them, but because any truth he offered would not stand alone.
“I cannot account for every change in Miss Elizabeth’s health,” he said at last. “Only for what I have observed. She is, at present, quite well.”
Mr Bennet regarded him for a long moment. There was no accusation in his look—only calculation.
“If you wish,” Darcy added, “I would have her come down and speak with you herself. She will assure you of it far better than I can.”
Silence followed. Wickham shifted slightly behind them.
Mr Bennet’s mouth curved. “No. That will not be necessary. For the present, your assurance will suffice.”
“I appreciate your trust, sir.”
Bennet’s smile tightened. “There is something else. Something I should like to ask you.”
Darcy’s attention flicked, unbidden, to Wickham. Certainly, there was nothing Mr Bennet could ask that he would wish to answer in Wickham’s company.
Wickham met the look easily, his expression open, untroubled, as though there were nothing he would rather do than remain precisely where he stood.
Mr Bennet noticed at once. “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “your cook might be prevailed upon to produce some luncheon. We have travelled since early morning.”
Darcy inclined his head. “It is likely already laid for the other guests of the house.”
“Ah.” Mr Bennet turned slightly. “Then I should not wish to delay them.”
Darcy’s gaze returned to Wickham. “You will know where that is.”
“Of course,” Wickham said readily. “I shall see to it.” He moved at once toward the door, already speaking lightly of travel and appetite as he went.
Darcy waited until the door closed behind him. Then he turned back to Mr Bennet. “The broadsheets all report that the quake was felt—indeed, was stronger in Hertfordshire,” he said, pacing around to stand near the mantel. “How do matters stand there?”
Mr Bennet’s brows rose slightly, as though he had expected the question sooner. “Longbourn stands. Mostly undamaged.”
“I am relieved to hear it.”
“There was damage elsewhere,” Mr Bennet continued.
“Not ruin, but enough to unsettle people already inclined to fear it. The tremor was felt more sharply to the north. And Netherfield has sustained significant damage. I do not know the extent, or if it can be repaired. But sufficient that Mr and Mrs Hurst were preparing to remove to London this morning. They would have been here already, had they travelled as swiftly as I.”
Darcy turned toward the door without thinking. “Bingley must be informed at once.”
“No.”
The word was quiet. It stopped him as surely as a hand at his sleeve.
Darcy turned back. Mr Bennet was watching him with a look no longer mild. “I did not come to speak of walls and roofs. And I do not give a fig for London authorities and what they can or cannot do to protect Hertfordshire at present. I came to speak of something more important.”
Darcy held his ground. “You just told me Longbourn still stands. Miss Elizabeth is well, and I have already suggested that you see her yourself, but you would speak of other matters. Sir, I do not understand. She should be your first concern.”
“She is,” Mr Bennet replied. “Which is precisely why we must be plain with one another now.” He stepped nearer, not aggressively, but with purpose. “You have known my Elizabeth some time.”
“I have.”
“You have observed her illness.”
“Many have, yes.”
“And you have observed,” Mr Bennet went on, “that it retreated—quite suddenly—upon her arrival in your company.”
Darcy did not answer.
Mr Bennet’s eyes flicked over him, quick and unflinching. “You will forgive me if I remark that you do not look well yourself.”
Darcy’s jaw set. “Appearances can mislead.”
“So can denials,” Mr Bennet said mildly. “I have watched this for some time, Mr Darcy. I intended to ask you of it before, when there was leisure for speculation. Last night removed that leisure.”
Darcy felt the question forming before it was spoken.
“Why,” Mr Bennet asked, “is my daughter suddenly lucid in London? And why do you look as though you are standing only by stubbornness?”
Darcy drew a careful breath. “I cannot explain every circumstance that touches Miss Elizabeth’s health.”
“Then explain what you can.”
“I can say,” Darcy replied, choosing each word like foundation stones of a building, “that her improvement is real. And that I would not deceive you on a matter of such consequence.”
Mr Bennet studied him. “And what of you?”
“You ask questions that suggest knowledge, sir. What is it that you know?”
Mr Bennet’s mouth tightened. For a moment, he looked older than Darcy had ever seen him.
“I know only this. My daughter was failing. Quietly. Persistently. No physician could name it. No remedy touched it. And then, a militia officer understood something no one else did. He advised distance. Removal. Separation from the land upon which she was raised.” He paused. “Perhaps that advice saved her.”
Darcy’s breath caught. “That is not—”
Mr Bennet lifted a hand. “You asked what I know. That is all. I require an answer, Mr Darcy.”
“What answer do you require, sir?”
“My daughter is well now,” Mr Bennet said. “And I intend that she remain so.” He frowned and drew in a long sigh before finishing, calmly and without heat.
“You will marry her. You must. That is the only way to save her.”
Darcy did not answer at once.
For a moment, he stood as though the words had struck him somewhere deeper than offence—somewhere dangerously close to desire.
The proposal Mr Bennet had set before him was, in another shape, the very thing his mind had reached for again and again since Elizabeth Bennet first entered his house: order restored, obligation satisfied, her presence made permanent and unquestioned.
Marriage.
Safety.
An end to uncertainty.
He drew a careful breath. “You believe,” Darcy said at last, “that such a union would preserve her.”
Mr Bennet’s expression did not change. “I believe it has done so before. But… never in circumstances quite like these.”
“No,” Darcy said quietly. “And it will not serve now.”
He moved a little nearer—not in challenge, but as one compelled to speak plainly where evasion would be a kind of dishonesty. “She showed me the express you sent. You think me dangerous to her.”
Mr Bennet did not deny it. “I think,” he said, “that my daughter began to fail when she met you, and that her failing worsened as your proximity remained… and then for whatever reason, she began finding a sort of relief whenever your name—or your presence—pressed too closely upon her.”
Darcy paced across the room again. “I assure you, sir, it was not done with any intent of—”
“Have you ever known a man with a debilitating affinity for drink, Mr Darcy?”