The Secret at Silvemere House (Elizabeth & Darcy Regency Mystery #5)

Chapter One — An Invitation Too Well Arranged

Bath had corrected itself with admirable speed.

This, Elizabeth Bennet reflected, was one of the city’s more remarkable talents.

It could accommodate alarm, scandal, contradiction, even the exposure of a falsehood long permitted to pass as fact, and yet within a very short time resume its accustomed air of delicate consequence, as if nothing more serious had occurred than an unfortunate alteration in the weather.

A story might be unmade, a reputation restored, a woman delivered from the half-life into which society had so conveniently placed her; and still Bath would contrive, by the next assembly or morning call, to behave as though its own part in the mischief had been confined to having heard of it with regret.

The affair at Ravenscroft had unsettled many people while it lasted, and inconvenienced still more once it had been understood.

For some weeks a lady had been spoken of as a ghost because it had suited a great many living persons to keep her indistinct.

She had walked at dusk, they said; she had appeared at windows; she had been seen and not seen, pitied and avoided, believed in just sufficiently to excuse the neglect of enquiry.

Then, with the most disagreeable want of consideration, the ghost had proved to be a woman, and the woman had proved to possess a history.

Histories, Elizabeth had often noticed, were far more troublesome than apparitions.

A ghost required only repetition. A woman required justice, or at least explanation; and explanation, when long delayed, was apt to demand names.

Bath did not like names when they were inconvenient.

It preferred phrases. It preferred, above all, those mild and useful expressions by which responsibility might be softened until it could no longer be grasped.

One heard now, wherever one went, that the Ravenscroft business had been “very sad,” “very peculiar,” “much misrepresented,” and, from the more daring, “a lesson to us all.” Yet Elizabeth observed that no one seemed particularly anxious to identify the lesson, nor to admit having needed it.

Those who had repeated the tale of the lady at dusk now spoke as though they had always distrusted it; those who had avoided the street declared that they had done so only because the stones were uneven or the air there unwholesome; those who had pitied the unseen woman most loudly now congratulated themselves upon feeling vindicated by her recovery, as though pity, when expressed at a safe distance, were a species of assistance.

Elizabeth found this at once amusing and disquieting.

She had never expected society to repent dramatically, for such displays were usually less moral than theatrical; yet she could not help thinking there was something particularly accomplished in Bath’s manner of stepping around its own mistakes.

The city had not denied that wrong had occurred.

It had merely arranged the wrong so that no one in particular was left standing too near it.

“It is a very convenient form of regret,” she said one morning, as she and Jane sat with Mrs Gardiner in the drawing room of their aunt’s lodgings. “It permits every person to feel improved by an event, without the fatigue of having been altered by it.”

Mrs Gardiner, who was folding a letter with her usual careful economy of movement, looked up with amusement. “You are severe upon Bath this morning.”

“I am never severe without provocation.”

“You are often severe before breakfast.”

“Then Bath should take care not to provoke me early.”

Jane, seated near the window with her work lying neglected in her lap, smiled, though her gaze remained thoughtful.

The spring light rested gently upon her face, softening a countenance that had always required little assistance from light or season.

She had looked happier of late, Elizabeth thought; not loudly so, not with the restless brightness that invited remark, but with a quiet inward ease which appeared most plainly when she believed herself unobserved.

It was there now in the curve of her mouth, in the calmness of her hands, in the absence of that slight guardedness which had once followed any mention of Mr Bingley’s name.

Elizabeth was relieved by it, and therefore more watchful than ever.

Happiness, when it came to Jane, always seemed to Elizabeth a thing which ought to be protected from weather, from gossip, from expectation, and especially from the well-meant interference of those who mistook hope for public property.

“It may be,” Jane said, with her usual gentleness, “that people are ashamed, Lizzy, and do not quite know how to show it.”

Elizabeth turned to her. “My dear Jane, you would find modesty in a peacock and contrition in a looking-glass.”

Jane laughed softly. “And you would interrogate both until they confessed.”

“I would ask only such questions as any reasonable person ought to ask. The difficulty is that reasonable questions are seldom welcome when everyone has agreed to be comfortable.”

Mrs Gardiner smiled, but there was reflection in her expression. “There is truth in that. Comfort, I fear, is often society’s preferred substitute for justice.”

Elizabeth looked at her aunt with approving affection. “There, Jane. You see I am not severe. I am merely correct in advance of general agreement.”

Jane shook her head, though she was smiling. “You always prefer the most charitable interpretation of yourself.”

“I have so few opportunities to receive it from others that I must be my own advocate.”

Mrs Gardiner set the folded letter down upon the table beside her, but did not yet speak of its contents.

Elizabeth noticed the motion because her aunt was not a woman who handled correspondence idly.

Mrs Gardiner read letters with attention, folded them with intention, and placed them aside only when their importance had been weighed.

This letter had been weighed more than once.

The crease along the centre had deepened from repeated opening, and though her aunt’s expression remained composed, there was in it that particular stillness Elizabeth associated with news not yet made harmless by speech.

Elizabeth’s attention sharpened.

Before she could ask, however, the door opened and a servant announced Mr Bingley.

The effect upon Jane was so slight that no inattentive person would have observed it; and as inattentive persons were plentiful in society, it was likely that many believed Jane’s manner unchanged whenever Bingley entered a room.

Elizabeth, having spent a lifetime learning the language of her sister’s smallest alterations, saw everything.

Jane’s hand settled upon her work; her colour rose by no more than a breath; her eyes, when she lifted them, had in them such quiet gladness that Elizabeth, who was occasionally accused of being hard-hearted by those who mistook wit for want of feeling, was obliged to look away for fear of betraying too much satisfaction.

Bingley entered with all his accustomed warmth, but not quite all his former heedlessness.

This, too, Elizabeth had noticed. The young man who had once moved through feeling with the cheerful confidence of one who expected the world to arrange itself kindly had become, by degrees, more deliberate.

His happiness in Jane’s presence was still unmistakable, and perhaps could never be made otherwise; yet it no longer spent itself in mere animation.

He looked at her now not only with admiration, but with attention.

He perceived when she was pressed by conversation; he understood when a compliment required rescue; he had learned, or was learning, that gentleness in another person did not relieve one of the obligation to be strong on her behalf.

It improved him considerably.

“Mrs Gardiner, Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth,” he said, bowing with a pleasure that could not be called general when it settled, almost at once, where it most wished to rest. “I hope I do not intrude.”

“You never intrude, Mr Bingley,” said Mrs Gardiner kindly.

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “That is a generous statement, Aunt. We have not yet heard his errand.”

Bingley laughed. “If my errand is unwelcome, I shall have the comfort of knowing I arrived innocently.”

“Innocence is an excellent beginning,” said Elizabeth. “Though seldom a complete defence.”

Jane looked at her sister with fond reproach. “Lizzy.”

“I am only preparing Mr Bingley for society. He has been indulged too long.”

“I begin to think,” Bingley said, taking the chair Mrs Gardiner indicated, “that society is far safer than being prepared for it by Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Then you have learned something useful already.”

He smiled, but his glance returned quickly to Jane. “I called in the hope that you might all be at home. The morning is fine enough for walking, though I confess I should be equally satisfied if the weather prevented it.”

“That is a very adaptable form of pleasure,” Elizabeth observed.

“When one is in agreeable company, adaptability becomes easy.”

Jane lowered her eyes to her work, though the faintest smile touched her mouth.

Elizabeth saw it and was content. There had been a time when such a remark from Mr Bingley would have filled her with both hope and concern: hope for Jane’s happiness, concern for the weakness of a man too easily guided away from it.

But he had returned not merely with affection renewed, but with something more valuable—an intention that had learned steadiness through remorse.

Elizabeth did not forgive easily where Jane had suffered, but she had begun, with some reluctance and much private satisfaction, to approve him.