Chapter Six — Paper, Ink and Politeness
Lady Ashbourne had always believed, or had at least conducted her life upon the principle, that movement was an admirable remedy for disturbance.
A household troubled by too much thought might be improved by air; a company made uneasy by silence might be guided into walking; a subject which had begun to occupy a room too heavily might, if carried out beneath trees and beside water, be persuaded to diffuse itself among birdsong, gravel, blossom and the mild demands of uneven paths.
Whether this belief arose from wisdom, habit, or the practical necessity of managing people who might otherwise sit still and become dangerous, Elizabeth Bennet could not determine.
She understood only that, after the letter in the music book and the morning of sharpened sympathy which had followed it, Lady Ashbourne had resolved that Silvermere’s guests should walk.
The plan was arranged so beautifully that one might almost have believed it the natural desire of the party.
The morning was clear, the lake path dry, the air soft without being warm enough for indolence, and the gardens in that brief period of late spring when everything appeared to promise more than it had yet delivered.
Lady Ashbourne proposed the old boathouse, the rose walk, the chapel ruin and, if strength and spirits allowed, the east lawn before luncheon.
Nothing in the scheme could reasonably be opposed.
Exercise was healthful, landscape improving, and the company too well bred to confess that its chief occupation was no longer admiration of Silvermere, but speculation upon what Silvermere concealed.
Elizabeth, who had learned to distrust restorations of ease offered too promptly, accepted her bonnet from Jane with a smile and prepared herself to observe the outdoors with the same suspicion she had lately applied to breakfast, music and forced locks.
The house party gathered on the terrace in that state of polite readiness peculiar to people who are about to walk without any intention of being alone with their own thoughts.
Mrs Lyndhurst was dressed for the occasion as though nature, properly approached, were a sort of drawing room with worse flooring.
Miss Trent stood beside her, pale beneath her bonnet, with her hands clasped so tightly about her reticule that the knuckles showed white through the thin gloves.
Colonel Avery had come prepared with a stick more suitable to military advance than genteel strolling.
Portia Vale wore no expression of enjoyment whatsoever, which Elizabeth considered a promising sign.
Mrs Gardiner looked composed, Jane quiet, Mr Bingley attentive, and Mr Darcy grave in that particular way which suggested he was already asking questions no one had yet permitted aloud.
Mrs Harrow came last.
She had dressed simply, as she always did, in grey touched by lavender, the colour neither inviting nor refusing notice.
She stepped onto the terrace with a composure so exact that Elizabeth, watching from a little distance, thought again how much practice lay beneath it.
No woman learns such stillness in a single day.
It must be acquired by repeated occasions upon which any visible feeling may be turned against her.
Lady Ashbourne greeted her civilly; Mrs Lyndhurst murmured something soft and indistinct; Felix Vale approached with an expression of sympathetic ease.
“Mrs Harrow,” he said, bowing, “may I have the honour? The lake path is a little uneven in places.”
Mrs Harrow’s eyes rested upon him for the briefest moment. “You are very kind, Mr Vale, but I prefer to walk unassisted.”
His smile did not falter. “Of course. I meant only to prevent fatigue.”
“I am not fatigued.”
“No. I am glad of it.”
The exchange was perfectly polite. No one could have objected to any part of it.
Yet Elizabeth saw what the words concealed.
Felix had offered public protection. Mrs Harrow had refused public possession.
His smile remained exactly as it had been, but something beneath it tightened.
It was not anger in any open form. It was the faint displeasure of a man whose usefulness had been declined before witnesses.
Jane saw Mrs Harrow begin the walk a little apart from the rest and, after a glance at Elizabeth, moved gently toward her.
She did not make the action conspicuous.
She did not call attention to Mrs Harrow’s solitude by announcing her intention to remedy it.
She merely adjusted her pace so that, after the party descended from the terrace and took the path along the lake, she found herself beside the young widow.
Mrs Lyndhurst saw it. Her face arranged itself into concern sharpened by appetite.
“How very good Miss Bennet is,” she murmured to Mrs Gardiner, in a tone not quite low enough to avoid being heard. “There is such sweetness in refusing to be cautious.”
Mrs Gardiner turned upon her a look of mild enquiry. “Do you think kindness and caution always opposed, Mrs Lyndhurst?”
“Oh, not always. Only in delicate circumstances one hopes the young are guided by those who have seen more of the world.”
“Indeed,” Mrs Gardiner replied. “Though I have sometimes found the world improves when seen by those who have not yet agreed to all its habits.”
Mrs Lyndhurst smiled, but less comfortably than before.
The path curved near the lake, where reeds stood in green clusters at the edge and the water held the morning sky in pale, broken patches.
Silvermere House, seen from below, looked less dominant than from the drive, though no warmer.
Its reflection trembled now with the faint movement of air, the perfect image of yesterday unsettled into fragments.
Elizabeth found herself pleased by the disruption.
A reflection too exact might flatter the house; a broken one, at least, admitted that surfaces were vulnerable to change.
Lady Ashbourne walked near the centre of the group, attended by Felix and Mrs Lyndhurst, with Mrs Gardiner occasionally drawn into conversation.
Jane and Mrs Harrow remained ahead by several paces, speaking little at first. Bingley watched them, then forced himself not to follow too closely.
Elizabeth saw the effort, and was touched by it.
He had begun, in these days at Silvermere, to understand that love was not merely the desire to approach.
Sometimes it was the grace to remain at the right distance.
Darcy had fallen into step with Colonel Avery.
This, Elizabeth suspected, was no accident.
The colonel, when properly handled, was likely to yield more truth through impatience than another man might give under oath.
Darcy’s manner with him was respectful but not flattering, direct enough to engage him, restrained enough to avoid provoking contradiction for its own sake.
Elizabeth watched them move along the lake path, Darcy listening, Colonel Avery striking the gravel with his stick as though each stone represented some form of social nonsense he was determined to crush.
“You knew Sir Edmund Vale,” Darcy said, when they had fallen sufficiently behind the main party to speak without being overheard by anyone except perhaps a very determined blackbird.
“Knew him? Yes. Liked him? On occasion. Trusted him? Never past Tuesday.”
Darcy inclined his head. “That is a precise limit.”
“Wednesday was usually when the note came due.”
Darcy did not smile, though the corner of his mouth suggested he might have done under easier circumstances. “He was indebted?”
Colonel Avery gave a rough sound. “Indebted, charming, weak. Dangerous combination in a man born to expect forgiveness. A poor scoundrel is watched. A gentlemanly one is excused until he has ruined someone more disposable than himself.”
“Was he a scoundrel?”
The colonel glanced at him. “You ask like a lawyer.”
“I ask like a man trying not to condemn the dead without evidence.”
“Then you are more generous than most of the dead deserve.”
They walked several steps in silence.
“Sir Edmund was not a villain of melodrama,” Colonel Avery said at last. “No cloak, no dagger, no black-hearted speeches over cards. He was worse, in the ordinary way. Weak men with expensive tastes and handsome manners may do a great deal of harm by never intending consequences to last longer than the evening.”
“You believe he acted dishonestly?”
The colonel stopped. Ahead of them, the rest of the party continued toward the boathouse. Lady Ashbourne’s black silk caught briefly on a flowering shrub; Felix released it with graceful care.
“I believe,” Colonel Avery said, more quietly, “that Lady Ashbourne once asked me not to speak ill of the dead beneath her roof.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the reason you will not get a better one from me while I am standing on her land.”
Darcy looked toward the lake. “Then let me ask differently. Did Sir Edmund’s son inherit debts?”
Colonel Avery’s mouth hardened. “Felix inherited the habit of escaping them.”
The words were blunt enough to be useful and guarded enough to be legal. Darcy stored them accordingly.
A little ahead, Elizabeth had contrived to walk near Miss Trent.
This required some patience. Miss Trent did not invite approach.
She moved as those long dependent upon others often move: not precisely submissively, but with an instinct for placing herself where she would cause least inconvenience.
Her attention went frequently to Mrs Lyndhurst, as though the older lady’s comfort were a weather vane by which her own safety might be judged.
Elizabeth did not begin with Margaret Ellery.
A direct question would have sent Miss Trent at once into silence, and silence, in that lady, seemed less a chosen refuge than a room into which she had been locked and taught to call home.