Chapter 30
Mr. Darcy came every morning. He paid Edward’s toll, which was now extravagant and today included rendering several services to the children of the household.
He admired Lord Nelson while the cat sharpened her claws on his clothes.
He sat among the mending, the children’s drawings, the dolls and toy soldiers, and asked Elizabeth questions that she was pleased to answer.
He asked what she was reading, whether she had heard from home, and once, with great seriousness, whether she had always preferred walking to riding, which she thought suspicious.
It was perhaps the most domestic courtship in London, and she enjoyed it more than she knew how to say.
Of course, they did attend some of the evening entertainments, such as they were this time of year.
When they did, Mr. Darcy found her a chair, brought her refreshments, and otherwise remained at her side.
Elizabeth had once thought him reticent in company.
Now she understood that he had simply never known how to be near her without wanting to be nearer.
As far as she was concerned, it was a very agreeable defect, and she had no wish to cure him of it.
Meanwhile, other matches were progressing around them. At the Lenten concerts, Colonel Fitzwilliam and Miss Finch conducted what appeared to be an entire courtship through disagreements about their horses, each correcting the other’s opinion with enormous satisfaction.
Even Lord Milton, who had reportedly never looked at the same young woman twice, had begun looking at Lady Honoria quite often. Elizabeth wondered if this, too, was a Lady Anne match.
“Lizzy,” Jane said one night at such an event, “you are staring at Mr. Darcy again.”
“And you are forever staring at Mr. Aldridge,” Elizabeth replied.
“I suppose I am.” Jane lowered her eyes. “You know, I have been thinking of late that I owe you a great deal.”
“For teaching you to stare?”
“For refusing to marry a man if you knew he was not the one for you.”
Elizabeth’s teasing left her. “Jane?”
“I did love Mr. Bingley. Some part of me will always remember him fondly. He was kind, and warm, and made everyone around him feel welcome. But I was never certain how much of him would truly be mine.”
She looked across the room.
“Mr. Aldridge is different. He has friends, but they do not come before me. He listens when I speak, even when I have said very little. He notices when I am tired. He asks what I think and waits for the answer. He shares his books with me and does not mind if we disagree about them. He is decisive, but he does not mistake my quietness for having no thoughts or wishes of my own, and he regularly seeks out my opinion.” She paused.
“He knows what it means to make room for another person in his life. I shall never have to wonder whether I matter to him.”
She took Lizzy’s hand. “I thought I loved Mr. Bingley. But the third time Mr. Aldridge visited to see me, I felt it, Lizzy.”
“Felt what?”
“The spark.” Her sister paused. “I do believe I am in love with Mr. Aldridge.”
A deep voice spoke behind them. “You are?”
Jane’s eyes widened.
Elizabeth looked from her sister to Mr. Aldridge, who had gone pale but appeared otherwise capable of remaining on his feet.
“I believe,” Elizabeth said, stepping away, “that I have an urgent need to find Mr. Darcy.”
“Lizzy—”
But Elizabeth was already crossing the room. She found Mr. Darcy near the door and took his arm.
“You appear pleased with yourself,” he said.
“I have done nothing.”
“Your expression suggests otherwise.”
Behind them, Mr. Aldridge drew Jane towards the window.
Mr. Darcy glanced past Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Should we leave?”
“Certainly not.”
He nodded. “Then I shall find us somewhere discreet to stand and observe.”
Elizabeth smiled up at him. “Do you know, you are becoming quite essential to me, Mr. Darcy?”
“That is my intention, Miss Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth had not expected courtship to involve so much conversation, but she did not mind it.
Mr. Darcy said he had wasted an entire winter, and he clearly meant to account for every week of it.
He told her about his sister at six, refusing to play the pianoforte until she had a dog to play for, about his father teaching him to fish, and about how during his first lesson he had fallen into the river.
He also described his mother’s habit of winning an argument by leaving the room before anyone could answer her.
“I shall have to adopt her methods,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “They sound unassailable.”
“They are,” Mr. Darcy replied, his tone dry. “Because she is my mother. A son is obliged to let her go. I am under no such obligation to you.”
Elizabeth pretended to consider her chances. “No, I suppose not. And with legs as long as yours, escape would be quite hopeless.” His eyes darkened at that, and she had no idea why.
On Tuesday morning, Mr. Darcy did not come. Instead, his mother did.
Elizabeth walked to the landing when the knocker sounded, for she was expecting Lady Anne’s call.
“You cannot come up,” she heard Edward say stoutly. “Not unless you tell me the secret word.”
There was a pause, and Elizabeth stopped to listen, just to see how Lady Anne would respond.
“I never guess,” Lady Anne said, her voice perfectly audible from Elizabeth’s position. “Guessing is for people with time to spare. Name your price.”
Edward named it. It was, indeed, extortionate.
“Done,” Lady Anne said. “And sixpence over, if you will keep the stair against all comers for the next half hour. I am here on business.”
Elizabeth peered down towards the door, where Edward was pocketing his coins. Then he sat down on the third stair and squared his shoulders while Lord Nelson climbed to his shoulder and batted at his hair.
She turned and fled back towards the drawing room before she laughed aloud and spoiled the whole.
Her aunt met Lady Anne, said everything proper, and was then conveniently summoned to the nursery. Then the door was shut, and Elizabeth was alone with the kindest and most dangerous woman in London.
“Miss Elizabeth,” she said without preamble, “I have come to beg your pardon.”
Elizabeth had not expected an apology, not really. She had settled it weeks ago that Lady Anne would not consider one owing. She had thus resolved to remember the past only as it gave her pleasure. But the lady had now asked for her pardon outright, and Elizabeth was not prepared with an answer.
Lady Anne spared her the trouble of finding one. She sat very straight, her hands unmoving in her lap, and continued speaking.
“I wished to match you as an apology for the way my son had treated you in Hertfordshire. It was easy enough to arrange, as your sister required time with Mr. Bingley to decide whether they were well suited. But I did not ask you if you wished for my help, and I realise now that I ought to have.”
Elizabeth had declined any help, but Lady Anne did not seem to recall that.
“Had I listened to my son and allowed him to go about his own business without interference, your courtship might have proceeded in a more usual fashion. It was a very great mistake, and I must own it.”
The memory of her time in London rose before Elizabeth’s eyes for a moment, the entire crowded, tangled length of it. It would have been easy to say something light and move past what had occurred, but it would not have been the truth.
“Lady Anne,” she said slowly, “I will not pretend there is nothing to forgive. But when I think of this winter, what I shall remember most is how kindly you welcomed my sister, my aunt and uncle, and me, when no one else in your position would have done so.”
She paused. This was the woman who had raised Mr. Darcy, who had helped make him the man that he was—the man that she loved.
“You have my pardon,” Elizabeth said. “And I am glad to give it.”
Lady Anne released a breath before she answered. “Thank you, Miss Elizabeth. You are more generous than I deserve.” She rose. “I shall not presume upon you by overstaying my welcome.”
Elizabeth rose, and Lady Anne strode purposefully to the doorway, where she hesitated and turned back.
“You will do it yourself one day, you know,” she said. “You have the eye for it. I watched you dispose of Miss Grantley in under a minute.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to explain about Mr. Fulford and the harbours of Brazil, and then did not.
Lady Anne nodded once. “My son tells me that the toll is doubled for repeat visitors,” she said. “I shall come prepared next time.” Then she was out of the room before Elizabeth had finished her curtsy.
Mr. Darcy had told her that his mother won her arguments by leaving the room. It appeared she surrendered them the same way.
Elizabeth sat down. In the almost four months she had been in town, she had watched Lady Anne arrange dinners, teas, and other entertainments.
There had been no concealment in any of it.
Nobody accepted a card for one of her evenings without knowing precisely why they had been asked, and feeling honoured by the great matchmaker’s condescension.
This morning that same woman had paid a boy his toll, climbed the stairs of a house in Gracechurch Street, and begged pardon of a country gentleman’s daughter when she was under no obligation to do so.
Elizabeth suspected she had just received the greatest compliment the lady knew how to pay.
She told Mr. Darcy the whole of it when he arrived later, from the small guard on the stairs to his mother’s surrender, expecting to divert him.
He smiled, but only a little. He turned his signet ring once around his finger and for a moment, did not speak.
“She is a great deal of trouble,” he said at last. “But I would not have her a particle less so. I very nearly lost her once, and I have never since been able to stay truly vexed with her for long.”
Elizabeth was all attention.
“It was in the spring, in the year one. I was seventeen, planning to leave for Cambridge in the autumn.”