Chapter 3
Elizabeth
Jane's fever had broken by morning. The improvement was not miraculous.
She remained pale, weak, and inclined to apologise for each cup of tea as though drinking it were an imposition on the household.
But the danger Elizabeth had imagined during the long hours of the night withdrew to a more reasonable distance, and the tight knot below her ribs came undone at last. She had been carrying it since yesterday.
Reason permitted breakfast.
Sarah brought it on a tray and threw open the curtains with a flourish. The rain had stopped at last. Water flashed on the lawn in the new light, and the south terrace lay in a strip of cold, clean sunshine.
Sarah lifted the repaired shawl from a chair, holding it up so the blue silk caught the light. "The mending held. I have knotted the fringe twice, just to be sure."
Elizabeth examined the work. The new thread was visible only to a person who already knew where to look. That was rather the whole point of good mending.
"You have made it stronger than the rest."
"A mend should not pretend nothing happened, miss. It should stop the same tear from coming back."
Elizabeth considered the shawl, turning it in her hands. "Your father again?"
"My mother, miss."
Jane stirred against the pillows, blinking towards the window. "I like Sarah."
"You have been conscious for five minutes."
"Long enough."
Sarah coloured. Actually coloured, pink rising all the way to her ears. She went to fetch fresh water with rather more haste than the errand required.
After breakfast, the apothecary approved a short change of room for Jane.
Bingley ordered a sofa prepared in the small sitting room and supervised its arrangement with an energy that suggested he had been waiting all morning for something useful to do.
Caroline protested that the air was cold.
Darcy, without comment, directed a screen placed between the sofa and the door.
Nobody consulted him. Everybody obeyed him anyway, as though it had not occurred to a single person in the house that they might do otherwise.
Elizabeth saw the habit and disliked it on principle.
She also saw him test the screen's height against Jane's sofa before he let the footman leave it, crouching in a way that must have cost his knees something and his dignity rather more.
That was considerably harder to dislike.
Jane slept again before noon. Elizabeth escaped to the library for more Cowper, meaning to find a second volume as well.
The room stood empty, sunlight pooling on the carpet.
A slip of blue silk marked a shelf that had no business being marked.
She removed it and found a second book waiting behind it.
"This is very clumsy, Sarah," she told the absent maid, half laughing at the audacity of it.
"I beg your pardon?"
Darcy stood inside the doorway.
Elizabeth held up the marker, unrepentant. "Your valet and our housemaid have developed quite a system of literary recommendations."
He crossed to the shelf and studied the knot with real attention. "That is McKeever's work."
"You recognise your valet's knots?"
"A man who ties my cravat every morning may be trusted to leave evidence everywhere he goes."
She laughed. A real laugh, surprised out of her. Darcy looked startled, as though the sound had touched him somewhere.
"The book is yours."
"You have not inspected the title."
"McKeever would not risk my reputation with a poor selection."
"Your reputation depends upon poetry now?"
"At present, it appears to depend upon a blue thread."
The remark was absurd, and easy, and unlike anything she had expected from him. That was perhaps the most disarming part of it.
They spoke of the book. Then of Cowper generally.
Then of whether a writer who observes folly must love people enough to keep observing them, a question that carried them further into the morning than either seemed to notice.
Darcy argued that accuracy did not require affection.
Elizabeth argued that sustained attention usually betrayed it, whatever a person claimed.
"Then you must hold Meryton in great affection."
"I hold its follies in excellent memory."
His expression altered. Something closed in it, then opened again by choice. "I have given you reason to say that."
The assembly stood between them, plain as a wall. He had brought it there himself, and they both knew it.
"Mr. Darcy, I did not mean to invite an apology."
"That does not make one unnecessary. I spoke of you with discourtesy. Worse — I spoke for the purpose of dismissing a friend's invitation, and let you bear the insult of it. I am sorry."
No defence followed. No explanation of boredom, or strangers, or an injured pride he might have hidden behind.
Just the plain admission, offered without decoration.
Elizabeth had prepared herself, somewhere in the back of her mind, to enjoy his discomfort if the moment ever came.
The preparation now embarrassed her considerably.
"Thank you. I accept the apology."
His shoulders eased by some small degree, a loosening she could see happen. "You are generous."
"Do not press your advantage."
That nearly amused him. She watched him decide not to smile, and lose the argument with himself.
Sarah entered carrying a note for Elizabeth. Mrs. Nicholls wished to know whether Jane preferred broth or white soup at dinner.
"Broth," Elizabeth said at once. "She will claim white soup and eat three spoonfuls out of politeness."
Sarah curtsied, and before leaving, glanced towards the window with what Elizabeth would later swear was deliberate timing. "The south terrace is dry, miss. Mrs. Nicholls thought you might take the air while Miss Bennet sleeps."
"Did she?"
"Yes, miss."
Elizabeth could not, for the life of her, imagine Mrs. Nicholls thinking any such thing unprompted. She looked at Darcy.
"Your valet's influence extends to weather reports now?"
"McKeever is cautious about my boots."
"Then we should not disappoint him."
The invitation had left her mouth before she had properly examined it. Darcy examined it for her, and his expression shifted — surprise first, then a cautious warmth he could not quite suppress.
"Would you care to walk on the terrace, Miss Elizabeth?"
"For ten minutes. Jane may wake."
They left through the long window into air that smelled of wet stone and leaf mould, sharp and clean after the sickroom's warmth. Water dropped from the yews in fat, irregular beads, but the terrace itself lay clear and dry underfoot.
They walked within sight of the house. That ought to have satisfied propriety entirely.
It did not satisfy Caroline, who appeared at a drawing-room window and watched them with the rigid attention of a woman counting minutes.
Elizabeth turned her back to it, refusing to give the window the satisfaction of her face.
"Miss Bingley believes the country has no diversions."
"Miss Bingley requires an audience for every diversion she undertakes. The country is innocent of the charge."
He gave the judgement without hesitation, and Elizabeth found herself wondering whether candour became him better than civility ever had.
"You are severe with your friend's sister."
"I am accurate."
The reply should have offended her. Instead its sheer frankness drew a laugh she had not meant to give him at all.
"That was my defence of observation a moment ago. You opposed it."
"I have improved."
"Within six minutes?"
"Your standards are unreasonable."
They reached the end of the terrace, where a gravel path curved away towards a small pavilion set among bare limes. The sun still showed, pale and thin, though clouds had begun gathering behind the house in a manner Elizabeth had not troubled to notice.
Darcy looked towards the sky and went still. "We should turn back."
"Because your valet objects to rain?"
"Because the wind's changed."
Elizabeth felt it then. A colder current slid against her cheek, sudden as a hand. The first drop struck Darcy's sleeve with an audible tap.
They turned.
Rain crossed the lawn in a grey sheet, faster than either of them had thought possible, and reached them before they had gone twenty yards.
Darcy offered his arm as the gravel turned soft and treacherous underfoot.
Elizabeth took it without hesitating. The blue shawl covered her hair but very little else, and rain found the gap at her collar within seconds.
"The pavilion's closer."
"The house is safer."
Thunder answered for him, rolling low across the grounds.
The path below the terrace filled at once, water rushing over the edging stones in a thin brown current.
Darcy led her towards the pavilion, keeping himself between her and the worst of the wind.
It was a circular brick shelter with an open doorway and shuttered windows, and the roof, at least, held. That was its only real virtue.
Elizabeth stumbled in, breathless, rain hammering the tiles above them like something trying to get in. Darcy stood at the doorway, looking back towards the house through the downpour.
"They can see the pavilion."
"They cannot see the flooded path."
"Then they may conclude we are enjoying ourselves."
"Are you?"
She looked at his wet coat, his hair flattened at one temple, and the mud on boots McKeever had defended with wholly inadequate zeal.
"Immoderately."
His laugh was quiet and brief, but it warmed the ugly little shelter more than the situation had any right to allow.
The storm did not pass. Water deepened around the path, cutting the pavilion off from the terrace entirely. They could have crossed it. Elizabeth's half-boots were already ruined beyond saving. Darcy refused outright.
"The ground falls sharply beside the drain. You cannot see the edge under the water."
"I crossed three miles of mud yesterday."
"That does not make an unseen ditch safer today."