Chapter 11 #2
Mr Darcy stood beside her in silence for a long moment before answering. “I do not believe you had many acceptable choices available to you.”
Elizabeth gave a short laugh. “Be careful, Mr Darcy, or I shall begin to think you do not entirely disapprove of me.”
Something almost like amusement flickered across his expression. “You conceal distress with wit remarkably often.”
Elizabeth looked at him quickly. The observation landed uncomfortably close to the truth. “And you conceal concern with disapproval,” she returned.
For a moment, Mr Darcy actually looked caught off guard. “That is also probably true.”
The straightforward agreement startled a laugh from her before she could prevent it.
Mr Darcy looked resigned. “I had not intended to make you laugh,” he said dryly. “Do you always find humour in simple honesty?”
“Only when honesty is surprising.”
“And when is it surprising?”
“When it escapes accidentally.”
To her surprise, the corner of his mouth moved again.
Good Heavens. Elizabeth turned away, disliking her own thoughts. This was Mr Darcy, and though he was helping her for his own inscrutable reasons, it would not do to like him.
The stable boy called out that the horses were ready once more.
Edith reappeared, bundled heavily in shawls and carrying entirely unnecessary information regarding perfect strangers inside the inn.
“The gentleman in the blue coat is travelling to Bath for his health,” she informed them.
“And the older lady near the fire has a daughter recently married to a solicitor in Cheapside.”
Darcy blinked once, and Elizabeth pressed her lips together firmly. After all, it was for precisely this lack of discretion that they had chosen her.
“And how fortunate,” Mr Darcy said with grave politeness, “that we should not continue our journey ignorant of either circumstance.”
Edith nodded, apparently missing his dry humour entirely. “I thought so too, sir.”
Elizabeth failed completely to suppress her laughter this time. Edith looked pleased with herself. Mr Darcy, meanwhile, looked momentarily startled again by the sound before a calm settled into his expression.
Elizabeth looked away and climbed back into the carriage before she could think too much about it.
The days had grown short, and though the hour was not late, London was nearly dark by the time they reached Gracechurch Street.
Even such faint sunshine as the day could boast was gone, leaving the city wrapped in damp grey mist and the restless glow of lantern light reflected across wet stone streets.
The noise alone felt overwhelming after the quiet roads of Hertfordshire.
Wheels rattled endlessly over cobblestones while voices, horses, and distant bells blended into one ceaseless movement around them.
Edith watched everything with tireless fascination.
Elizabeth, however, felt exhaustion settling heavily over her at last. The strain of the morning, the journey, the uncertainty still waiting ahead of her, all seemed suddenly to descend together now that the motion of the carriage had finally slowed.
Mr Darcy appeared to notice her lowness, and stranger still, to worry over it. “We are nearly there,” he said quietly.
Elizabeth nodded, and for several moments, neither spoke again.
Then the carriage turned sharply into the familiar street at last, and relief moved through Elizabeth so abruptly she nearly closed her eyes.
Her uncle’s house stood warmly lit against the early dark, the lower windows glowing gold through the mist. Before the carriage had fully stopped, Elizabeth could already imagine the familiar sounds within: children running through the halls, her aunt’s voice, the ordered comfort of ordinary domestic life.
The footman lowered the steps.
Mr Darcy descended first, before turning to assist Edith, then Elizabeth herself. His hand closed firmly around hers for only a moment as she stepped down onto the pavement, yet the contact sent an absurd flicker of awareness through her already exhausted thoughts. She withdrew her hand quickly.
The front door opened almost at once. “Lizzy?” Mrs Gardiner stood framed in the doorway, surprise giving way instantly to concern and then relief, all within the space of a breath. “My dear child!”
Elizabeth scarcely had time to answer before her aunt reached her, taking both her hands warmly. “You should have written ahead! I am afraid your uncle is out this evening, for we had no notion you were coming.”
“I know,” Elizabeth said, suddenly very near tears for the first time all day. “Forgive me.”
Mrs Gardiner’s expression sharpened. “What has happened?”
Elizabeth glanced instinctively toward Mr Darcy. Mrs Gardiner followed the movement. Only then did she seem to fully register the gentleman standing beside the carriage.
“Aunt, this is Mr Darcy, of Derbyshire,” Elizabeth told her. “Mr Darcy learnt that I intended to take the public stage to you, and as he was on the point of coming to London himself, he insisted on taking me. Mr Darcy, allow me to present my aunt, Mrs Gardiner.”
Mr Darcy bowed. “Mrs Gardiner, a pleasure to meet you.”
Surprisingly, recognition dawned on Mrs Gardiner’s face. “Do you know, Mr Darcy, I believe we have met before? If you are Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, then I grew up in Lambton, not five miles from your home, and we were introduced nearly a score of years ago.”
“Then I shall say, rather, a pleasure to see you again, ma’am,” Mr Darcy said. “And indeed it is always a pleasure to meet anyone who knows and loves that bit of country as I do.”
Elizabeth saw the exact moment her aunt’s intelligence assembled the situation into something potentially alarming. Her young, unmarried niece, arriving unexpectedly from Hertfordshire, and Mr Darcy escorting her personally to London.
Before Elizabeth could intervene, Mrs Gardiner smiled warmly and stepped aside. “You must both come in immediately. The evening is freezing.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest. Mr Darcy did the same. But Mrs Gardiner ignored them equally.
“Nonsense,” she said firmly. “You have travelled for hours. Come inside at once.”
Mr Darcy considered before accepting the invitation with solemn courtesy. “Yes, madam. Thank you.”
Elizabeth stared at him in disbelief as they entered the house.
She had fully expected either polite refusal or, worse, the strained civility with which he often endured society he considered beneath him.
Instead, he stepped into the Gardiners’ modest but cheerful home as though nothing whatsoever about it displeased him.
The familiar warmth of the entrance hall wrapped around them. Edith, at first following some steps behind them, quickly seized on an invitation to go into the kitchen with the maid who took their coats.
Elizabeth smiled to herself. Edith was obviously looking forward to sharing the story of their journey with Mrs Gardiner’s servants.
The tale of her well-chaperoned flight would not even need to wait for Edith’s return to Netherfield before it began to spread.
Even as the door to the kitchen swung shut behind them, Elizabeth could hear the first eager words of, “Of course, I am not one to gossip, but I must just tell you of how admirable Miss Elizabeth is, and how kind Mr Darcy was to —”
And then, somewhere upstairs, a child laughed loudly enough to echo through the house.
At the sound, something unexpected happened. Mr Darcy’s entire expression changed. The reserve about him loosened into something calmer and more human than Elizabeth had ever seen at Netherfield.
Mrs Gardiner noticed it too. “Oh dear,” her aunt said suddenly. “The children are still awake. I had hoped they would be settled by now.”
As though summoned by the observation itself, small footsteps thundered overhead. A moment later, a little boy appeared halfway down the staircase before stopping abruptly at the sight of strangers. “Cousin Lizzy!”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself. Edward launched himself down the remaining stairs with complete recklessness and collided directly into her skirts.
“Well,” Mrs Gardiner sighed, though affection softened the words, “there goes any thought of a nap.”
Edward clung happily to Elizabeth for several moments before finally noticing Mr Darcy standing nearby. The child stared up at him with solemn curiosity.
To Elizabeth’s astonishment, Mr Darcy crouched to bring himself nearer the boy’s height instead of towering over him intimidatingly as most gentlemen would have done. “And who,” he asked gravely, “might you be?”
“Edward Gardiner,” the child announced proudly.
“I see. Then you must be the very nephew Miss Bennet travelled all the way to London to see.”
Elizabeth nearly choked. Mrs Gardiner’s eyes flicked sharply toward her.
Edward, however, looked delighted. “Mama says I am troublesome.”
Mr Darcy considered this seriously. “That seems entirely possible.”
The boy laughed. And to Elizabeth’s complete astonishment, Darcy smiled back. For one suspended moment, Elizabeth simply stared. She had never seen Mr Darcy smile at a child before.
Not the restrained politeness he occasionally offered in company. This was entirely unstudied. The expression transformed him alarmingly, making his sternly handsome face only too pleasing to look upon.
Edward appeared equally fascinated. “You are very tall,” he informed Mr Darcy seriously.
“So I have been told.”
“And very serious.”
Mrs Gardiner made a soft sound of mortification. “Edward!”
“No,” Mr Darcy said calmly, “he is perfectly correct.”
The boy seemed delighted by this response. “You do not look like Cousin Lizzy’s other friends.”
Elizabeth recovered herself enough to intervene. “Edward, Mr Darcy has already endured a very long journey. You must not interrogate him at the door.”
“I do not object to interrogation,” Mr Darcy replied. The dry gravity of the statement startled another laugh from her before she could prevent it.
Mrs Gardiner observed both of them with increasing attention.