Chapter 4
Chapter Four
He came on Saturday, with Bingley, as the visits had been going — as though the two of them had agreed, without discussing it, that Netherfield belonged in that direction on weekend mornings.
Bingley went immediately to Jane's corner, with the single-mindedness that Elizabeth found entirely charming in him and which Jane received with the composed delight of a woman who has prayed for something and is still slightly astonished by the answer.
Mrs. Bennet supervised from the best chair.
Mr. Bennet appeared, assessed the room, and extracted Darcy toward the library with the look of a fisherman who has just checked his line.
Elizabeth waited, with her embroidery and her patience, until her father eventually released him.
This took longer than usual. She could hear, at intervals, the low exchange of two people conducting a genuine argument about something — Cowper, she suspected, or possibly Johnson; her father had opinions about both that required time to deploy fully.
When Darcy finally emerged, Mr. Bennet appeared in the doorway behind him with the satisfied air of a man who has had his money's worth.
"He disputes the retirement poems," her father announced to the room at large.
"On grounds I find wrong but interesting.
I have lent him the fourth volume. We shall see if he survives it.
" He considered Darcy with something close to approval.
"You may have him back, Lizzy. He is not finished, but he is promising. "
Elizabeth kept her eyes on her embroidery. "Thank you, Papa."
"Don't thank me. Thank Cowper." He paused in the doorway with the air of a man who has thought of something he intends to enjoy.
"He also holds, by the way, that the retirement poems are melancholy.
I told him that was rather the point. He said he had not read them that way until recently.
" He looked at her with his most oblique expression.
"Interesting thing, a new reading. Sometimes it takes the right annotator.
" He withdrew before she could answer, which was, she suspected, entirely intentional.
Darcy crossed the parlour toward her in that particular way he had — not hurried, not stiff, but deliberate, as though he had thought about where he was going before he went. He sat in the chair across from hers and looked for a moment at the embroidery before he said:
"The book arrived safely."
"It did." She set down her frame. "I have a question about the question mark."
"I expected you would."
"The poem about the dog. You left only a question mark beside my note. I said the dog's honesty made the poem unworthy of it. You disagreed, I infer. I should like to know on what grounds, because I believe I was correct."
The thing happened at the corner of his mouth — brief, restrained, familiar to her now. "You were not incorrect," he said. "The question mark was not disagreement. It was — the note invited a question that I did not think I could put into his margin."
"What question?"
"Whether you found his honesty insufficient, or merely rare."
The fire ticked. From Jane's corner there was some soft exchange and a low laugh that was entirely Bingley's. Elizabeth considered the question with the seriousness it deserved.
"Rare," she said at last. "The poem is perfectly worthy of the dog. I was impatient with Cowper, not with the subject."
"I thought it might be that. Your impatience with Cowper is — " he stopped.
"Is what?"
"Consistent," he said.
"I found your correction about solitude just," she said, "which I mention only because I imagine you do not often hear it."
"Less often than would be improving." A pause. "Your margin on the retirement poem was the best-argued. I had read the poem a dozen times. I had not read it as you did."
Before Elizabeth could decide what to do with that, the parlour received a reinforcement.
Mrs. Bennet, rotating through with seedcake and the full force of a woman who considers herself the architect of the present happiness, addressed herself to Darcy with the thoroughness of someone who has been waiting for an audience.
"Mr. Darcy, I hope you find us comfortable — I always say there is nothing like a warm parlour in November; Netherfield is a fine house but these country houses can be so draughty, I am sure, though Longbourn has always been — and the seedcake, you must take a piece, Hill made it fresh this morning, I said to her particularly — Mr. Darcy, do you know, I was saying to Mr. Bennet only yesterday that a man who reads as much as you do must find a great deal of time solitary, and that cannot be good for the constitution, can it?
Jane is never solitary. Jane is the most sociable of my girls, though Lizzy has her moments, when she chooses?—"
"The seedcake is very good, Mrs. Bennet," said Darcy, accepting a slice with the composure of a man who has survived worse. "You are right about solitude. It wants managing."
Mrs. Bennet looked at him with the slightly dazzled expression she wore when people agreed with her in ways she had not anticipated.
"Well! Yes. Yes, exactly. I always say so.
" She pressed a second piece upon him, gratified, and moved on to Lydia, who needed correcting about the officers' precedence at supper.
Elizabeth looked at the fire.
"Mr. Darcy," she said, quietly enough for the parlour's general noise to absorb it. "The long poem. The one about enclosed spaces."
He was quiet for a moment. "Yes."
"You left no mark."
"No."
"I thought you might argue. You have argued with everything else."
"There are margins," said Darcy, "where argument is not what is called for." He looked at her directly, for the space of a breath. "I should like to read whatever you lend me next, Miss Bennet. If you are so disposed."
From across the parlour, Bingley said something enthusiastic about the ball, and Darcy broke the look; and Elizabeth turned back to her embroidery with the fine deliberate composure of a woman who has just been asked something she is not quite ready to answer.