6. Chapter Six #3
“You look as though you have had an adventure,” Mrs. Reynolds replied. “That is not always dreadful.”
Lydia beamed at her.
Elizabeth had to look away.
This was all becoming too strange. Lydia, approved by Miss Darcy and Mrs. Reynolds within half an hour. Mr. Darcy speaking with dry humor. Pemberley open and warm around them. She could no longer arrange her opinions of Mr. Darcy into anything comfortable or consistent.
Mrs. Gardiner, meanwhile, had drawn her husband aside. Their voices remained low, but Elizabeth caught fragments: “generous offer,” “Lambton near enough,” “improper if we make it so,” “girls,” “Mr. Darcy’s civility.”
Elizabeth pretended not to listen.
Darcy invited Mrs. Reynolds to show Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner the principal rooms whenever they wished, then addressed Elizabeth. “The library is this way, if you still care to see it.”
As if any sensible creature would refuse.
“I do,” she said.
Mrs. Gardiner’s eyes moved toward her, but she did not object.
Miss Darcy had already captured Lydia’s attention with the promise of showing her the music room later, and Mr. Gardiner was asking Mrs. Reynolds about a carved mantelpiece.
It was all proper enough. Doors stood open.
Servants passed. No one could accuse them of secrecy.
When Elizabeth followed Mr. Darcy down the corridor, every step felt unaccountably significant.
The library doors were tall and dark, set beneath a carved arch. Darcy opened one and stood aside.
Elizabeth entered. For several seconds she forgot him.
The room was not merely large. It was alive with books.
Shelves rose higher than she had expected, interrupted by windows that overlooked the gardens and the falling ground beyond.
A ladder stood near one wall. A globe occupied a table beside a leather chair worn at the arms. Another table was scattered with newspapers, a folded map, and several volumes left open in evidence of actual use.
Sunlight poured across the floor in wide rectangles and touched the gilt lettering on the shelves until names glimmered and vanished as one moved.
This room had not been arranged merely to impress visitors. Someone read here. Many someones, perhaps, over many years.
Elizabeth stepped farther in, her fingers hovering near the back of one chair without touching it. “Oh.”
It was a foolish response. It was the only one available.
Darcy remained near the door. “I hoped it might please you.”
She rotated slowly, taking in another wall of shelves. “This is beyond pleasing.”
His offered a tentative smile before shutting the door partway, leaving it open enough to satisfy propriety.
“My father added greatly to it. My mother had the catalogues reorganized after their marriage. Georgiana has claimed the smaller writing table near the window, though she mostly leaves music there and forgets to retrieve it.”
Elizabeth moved toward the table he indicated. A few sheets of music lay in a neat pile, held down by a small bronze weight shaped like a sleeping dog.
“Horace?” she asked.
Darcy’s expression transformed into amusement. “A predecessor. Equally ill-mannered, by all accounts.”
She laughed, then examined the nearest shelf. Poetry, histories, essays, sermons, novels not hidden but shelved openly enough to suggest no shame in them. Her hand touched the spine of a volume of Shakespeare before she could stop herself.
“You may take it down,” Darcy said.
Elizabeth stared at him with a teasing look on her face. “You trust me among your books?”
“I would sooner trust you among books than Miss Lydia among banisters.”
The answer startled a laugh from her, genuine and ill-timed enough that she covered it with one hand.
Darcy’s expression warmed, then checked itself. There it was again. He remained where he was, neither advancing nor retreating, and made no attempt to turn her laughter into advantage. He simply waited, allowing her to be pleased without claiming the pleasure for himself.
Elizabeth removed the Shakespeare and opened it.
The pages had been read. A few notes appeared in a firm hand along the margin, not many, but enough to show attention. She recognized Darcy’s writing from the letter.
Her fingers stilled.
He must have noticed. “That was impertinent of me when I was nineteen. I believed every printed opinion required correction.”
Elizabeth studied the page. “And now?”
“Now I correct fewer in ink.”
She raised her head, unable to help it. “But not in conversation?”
“When my vanity prevails.”
The admission sat between them without ornament.
Elizabeth closed the volume gently. “Mr. Darcy, I have wished to say… I do not know how to say it without making us both uncomfortable.”
“That has not always stopped you.”
Her attention snapped to his face. For one alarming instant she thought she had offended him. Then she caught the trace of humor there, dry and tentative.
She allowed herself to answer in kind. “No. But I am trying to become more civil.”
“I have no complaint against your civility today.”
“Just today?”
His brows lifted slightly.
Elizabeth nearly smiled, then lost courage and returned her attention to the book. “Your letter deserved a better answer.”
“I did not write it to demand one.”
“I know. That is partly why it deserved one.” She set the Shakespeare back in its place, not quite aligned with its neighbors, and adjusted it until she could speak without looking at him. “I believed Mr. Wickham. I believed him readily because his story suited my opinion of you.”
Darcy said nothing.
Through the open door came the faint sound of Lydia exclaiming over something in the hall, followed by Miss Darcy’s laugh and Mrs. Reynolds’s firm instruction not to touch the Chinese vase.
Elizabeth breathed out, grateful for the ordinary interruption. “I am ashamed of that,” she finished.
Darcy crossed to the table, not near enough to crowd her, and rested one hand on the back of a chair. “I gave you reason to think ill of me before Wickham supplied the particulars.”
“That does not excuse me.” She ought to have judged better.
“No. Nor does Wickham excuse me.”
She met his eyes.
He appeared tired, but not in body. “I have been angry with him for many years. Justly, I think. But anger made his name easier to avoid than his damage. I did not consider how freely he might speak where I had chosen discretion.”
“Your discretion was not unnatural.”
“It was convenient.” He must have found the word challenging and appeared to express disapproval after articulating it.
Elizabeth shut her eyes against a swift, unwelcome ache. Elizabeth no longer knew what to make of him, and that uncertainty grew more uncomfortable by the hour. She did not know which answer comforted her less.
A scrape sounded in the hall.
Lydia’s voice followed. “But if a vase is very large, surely it is meant to be noticed.”
Mrs. Reynolds replied, “Not with one’s fingers, miss.”
Darcy’s attention shifted to the door.
Elizabeth chuckled under her breath. “You may regret inviting us.”
“I already regret the vase’s position.”
They left the library before Lydia could test the durability of porcelain.
The remainder of the tour proceeded with frequent interruptions.
Lydia was awed and determined not to appear so.
She admired a painted ceiling and then declared it must be dreadful to dust. She forgot herself before a long mirror, viewing herself first from one side and then the other before pretending she had merely been examining the frame.
When shown the music room, she whispered to Miss Darcy that one could host a ball there if furniture were removed, whereupon Miss Darcy informed her, with surprising seriousness, that the larger salon was better suited.
Lydia’s eyes shone at that intelligence.