Chapter 3
Darcy read the same sentence of his steward’s letter three times.
The fourth attempt was as fruitless as the others, though it had the advantage of confirming that the fault lay not in the steward’s prose but in the reader. He gave it up at length and turned his gaze out the window at the sky just beginning to brighten.
He had been at his desk since five.
This might have appeared industrious, an estate’s master tending to its business before his guests gathered.
It was not.
The servants were already up—many had begun their work not long after he woke.
The lawn would soon be prepared, the rugs and side tables laid out, the wine cellar drawn upon with a liberality that would no doubt be noticed by Hurst if by no one else.
He thought ahead to the carriages that would arrive at the appointed hour, one carriage in particular.
Until then there was nothing left to be done that required his particular attention, which would usually have been a consolation but was today a trial. As a result, he had been sitting at his desk for two hours pretending to read the last quarterly summary of the home farm.
He pushed the letter aside. He selected a new sheet of paper, reached for his pen, and then recalled another letter he had written and nearly forced upon Miss Elizabeth.
Darcy was convinced she had reached for it only out of surprise at his insistence—he did not even know whether she had read it, though her willingness to return to Pemberley yesterday made him think that she had.
I must make her think better of me.
He set the pen down.
This day could be the most important one in his life thus far, and he had been doing reasonably well in not dwelling on it.
But he could not help but dwell on her.
She had been surprised and embarrassed to see him the day he had arrived, and he could hardly blame her. A gentleman ought not, as a rule, to appear before the woman whose good opinion he had once forfeited in the same condition as a man dragged through the streets by an ill-tempered cart horse.
Miss Elizabeth had been startled—but she had not seemed displeased.
This was not, he reminded himself sternly, evidence of anything.
A lady might refrain from appearing horrified for any number of reasons, good breeding and a lively sense of the ridiculous among them.
Miss Elizabeth possessed both and would no doubt have found him an object of some amusement.
There was no cause for vanity in having failed to disgust her.
And yet, she had not looked away—at least, not at once.
He had replayed that moment with a perseverance that, applied to any matter of estate business, would have done him credit. She had even smiled slightly, unexpectedly, in a manner that had made him feel, for one treacherous instant, hopeful.
It was absurd, but his mind had been gnawing at that memory like a dog with a stolen boot.
The idea had slipped past his guard. Now there it sat in his head, as plain as a line he had written down, and there was no being rid of it.
Make her think better of me.
A modest ambition, certainly. Nothing in it of arrogance, nothing of presumption—nothing of a man who had already been refused by a woman and was now arranging rugs, lemonade, fishing poles, guests, and an entire neighbourhood of gentry in the faint hope that she might conclude he was not wholly intolerable.
Darcy sighed. He would have to set his feelings aside as he would have set aside any other piece of business that required his attention at the wrong hour. He would be a proper host and perhaps because of that, Miss Elizabeth’s view of him might improve. He could not think beyond that now.
He picked up the steward’s letter and read the sentence for the fifth time.
This time he understood what it said.
Bingley was cheerful at breakfast, evidently anticipating the day with an uncomplicated pleasure. For Bingley, every social occasion was a fresh chance for delight.
He knew from Mr. Gardiner’s luck, he said, that the lower bend of the Derwent had been giving up trout of an extraordinary size.
“Are you certain you cannot slip away after luncheon for an hour with the rods?”
“I had thought,” Darcy said, “to remain with our guests.”
“Yes, of course, of course. Very right. Only a notion.” Bingley applied himself to his ham with good cheer. “Caroline tells me your sister is to play.”
“We will be out of doors, Bingley. No, my sister has not agreed to play.”
“Oh.” Bingley considered this. “Caroline gave me to understand that she had.”
“Then Miss Bingley was misinformed.”
Bingley’s expression was one Darcy had seldom seen upon his face. It was not irritation exactly, but rather that mingled with the understanding of a man who loved his sister and yet was not blind to her faults.
“Yes,” Bingley said. “Let us call it that.”
Mrs. Hurst arrived next, in advance of her sister, fanning herself before she had crossed the threshold. “Already intolerable,” she said, sinking into her chair. “If we are not beneath the oaks, I shall expire upon the lawn, and Caroline may have my garnets.”
She had clearly not been outside or even near an open window, for it was in truth a cool day for summer.
Much of the summer had been wet, which had delayed the harvest for many.
Darcy was not going to spend time worrying about the harvest today, though, any more than he would concern himself with Mrs. Hurst’s ridiculous complaints.
Mr. Hurst followed, grunted something that might have been “good morning,” and took up his cutlery.
Miss Bingley came down last, in green silk, entirely unsuitable for a day by the river. “My dear Mr. Darcy.” She offered him the smile she had perfected over years of offering it. “How perfectly delightful the lawn looks. I have just been watching your servants at work from the terrace.”
Darcy spent most of breakfast contributing the minimum that civility required and no more, while Miss Bingley made enquiries.
“Do we expect the Gardiners early?” Miss Bingley asked.
“At the appointed hour,” Darcy said. If that hour was a little earlier than the others, it was none of her concern. He wanted to be certain to welcome them properly.
Miss Bingley stirred her tea. “And Miss Eliza? Does she ride, or does she still prefer to conquer the country on foot?”
“I presume she will arrive in the same carriage as her relations.”
“I had formed the impression she was quite indefatigable. Her shoes yesterday suggested a lady prepared for every ditch in Derbyshire.”
“Miss Bennet is always well dressed,” Bingley said.
Darcy reached for the butter.
“And yet,” Miss Bingley continued without acknowledging her brother, “one must admire Miss Eliza’s courage. I should never dare so much sun myself. It is so unkind to the complexion.”
Darcy buttered his toast with great care. He was conscious of his own silence and also that Miss Bingley was frustrated by it. It was not very gentlemanly of him, but just now he was unequal to parrying with her. He had done so at Netherfield, and he was ashamed of it now.
His cousin Richard came in at the end, having been out at the stables and smelling faintly of horse. He had arrived without warning only an hour before the others. Darcy thought Richard was concerned for him, for he had not been himself since April.
“Forgive me, Miss Bingley,” he said pleasantly as he took the empty seat beside her. “I have been admiring your brother’s mare.” He poured himself coffee, and breakfast resumed its rhythm. Darcy watched his cousin take in the room over the rim of his cup.
When the occasion demanded, Richard was capable of the most extraordinary discretion. Darcy wished that the occasion demanded it more often, but Richard had thankfully taken one look at Darcy’s face and had elected to ask no questions, which was a clear declaration of alliance.
He excused himself before the toast-rack made its third pass and went out to the lawn.
Mrs. Reynolds and Mr. Leeds were there with the head gardener and three of the maids.
The rugs were down, the cushions placed, the linen spread.
The long table where the food would be placed was being arranged beneath a marquee, and a second table stood ready on the other side of the rugs, in the shade of the oaks, for the great pitchers of lemonade that would come up later from the kitchens.
In the morning light, the lawn under the oaks was arranged exactly as he had wished it. Nothing appeared arranged. The place had simply been transformed into readiness for a summer’s day, with the kind of unobtrusive care that always required a great deal of organisation.
That, he supposed, was the trick of good hospitality, to contrive everything and yet appear to have contrived nothing. Miss Elizabeth would notice, of course, but she would enjoy herself. He certainly wished for her to.
“Mrs. Reynolds. Good morning. Everything appears in readiness.”
“Mr. Darcy.” She adjusted one of the napkins by a quarter inch.
Mrs. Reynolds had not been at Pemberley quite as long as Leeds, but she had seen, in her time, every variety of social arrangement his parents had attempted on this lawn.
Darcy was happy to let her manage the task.
He was not, he reflected, telling Mrs. Reynolds the entire truth about the importance of this picnic. But like Leeds, she had been here when Miss Elizabeth arrived with the Gardiners, had seen Darcy nearly flying up to his chambers to change and back down again to join them.
Mrs. Reynolds knew. He was sure of it. And therefore, he knew that today would be run as efficiently as possible.
There was nothing more to be done here, and remaining under Mrs. Reynolds’s calm, all-seeing eye seemed unwise. Darcy therefore did what any sensible man would do when confronted by a knowing servant and his own exposed feelings—he went in search of something, anything, to inspect.
The footbridge that spanned the river where it narrowed was an old one, built in his great-grandfather’s time, with stone abutments his father had been rather particular about and a timber deck that required more frequent attention.
One of the boards had been noted as needing repair and had been replaced earlier in the summer.
Darcy inspected it as a matter of habit, because while a man might fail in manners, humility, and the management of his own marriage proposal, there was no excuse for failing to identify a loose board.
The water beneath the bridge ran clean and shallow, showing, where the light caught it, the dark moving shapes of perch and grayling.
“You are either in love,” said someone behind him, “or ill.”
Darcy did not turn around. “Richard.”
His cousin took up a position beside Darcy and eyed him carefully. “I have been considering it on the walk across your lawn and cannot quite settle the question.”
“Then I would advise you not to make the attempt.”
Richard looked down at the water for some time before he spoke again. He was holding one of the Pemberley rods Mr. Leeds kept in the gunroom for guests.
Darcy tapped the boards again, then nodded, satisfied.
“What are you doing?”
“Just testing that the bridge is sound.”
“Excellent,” Richard said. “Pemberley is saved from catastrophe.” He shifted the rod to his other hand.
“One prefers to be certain.”
“One does. Particularly when one has exhausted every other possible object of anxiety.” He took out his watch. “Including, I gather, the arrival of a certain carriage, which is due at any moment.”
Darcy glanced up at the house.
“Yes,” said his cousin, already turning. “I thought that information might prove useful.”
He required no further prompting, but he did not rush. The master of Pemberley did not run across his own lawn. He did, however, make good use of his long stride.
They passed Georgiana on their way.
“Will you mind meeting the carriages without me, Brother?” she asked. “I wish to see that everything is ready.”
She was nervous.
“Of course,” he told her, and relieved, she moved towards all the activity.
“I should stay with Georgiana,” Richard said. “But before I do, know that I told Miss Bingley you particularly desire Mrs. Atherton’s good opinion.”
Darcy cast a glance at his cousin. “Why have you told her that?”
“Because then her attention will remain with Mrs. Atherton who, because she is safely married, will not be attending to you. The pair of them were at school together, I believe, and so it will not seem unusual for Miss Bingley to wish to speak with her. I wager she will be firmly attached to Mrs. Atherton within an hour of her arrival, and, as you know, once she has an audience, Mrs. Atherton does not easily relinquish it.”
“Richard.”
“Yes?”
Darcy met his cousin’s eye. “Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
A moment later, they heard wheels on the gravel. Darcy stared at the carriage with the feeling that he was about to enter a battle.
Richard glanced at him and smiled mischievously. “Ill, then.”
Darcy did not answer. Instead, he went to meet Miss Elizabeth.