20. Chapter Twenty #2
Maddox accompanied him toward the carriage.
“The matter should hold until you are back.”
“It will.”
Maddox hesitated.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
A faint smile appeared at the corner of the steward’s mouth.
“You seem eager to reach Pemberley.”
Darcy paused.
Then, to his own surprise, answered honestly.
“I am.”
Maddox’s expression cheered slightly and something understanding entered it.
The steward had served the family long enough to draw conclusions.
Darcy pretended not to notice.
The carriage departed.
Darkness gathered gradually around the road.
Fields softened into shadow.
The first stars appeared overhead.
Darcy leaned back against the squabs and attempted to review several estate reports.
The effort lasted perhaps ten minutes.
Elizabeth intruded upon every paragraph.
A mention of tenant improvements reminded him of a conversation beside the lake.
A note regarding repairs recalled her observations about village cottages.
One report mentioned geese.
That was all Lydia’s fault.
Darcy abandoned the papers.
Outside, the countryside rolled past beneath a sky deepening toward night.
He thought of Elizabeth standing in the entrance hall that morning.
Then we shall expect you.
Simple words.
Nothing improper or remarkable, yet he had carried them through the entire day.
Tonight.The promise resounded once more.
This time it produced something dangerously close to anticipation.
For the first time in years, he found himself looking forward rather than backward.
Forward to conversation, companionship, and to seeing one particular woman lift her eyes and smile when he entered a room.
The realization ought to have embarrassed him; rather, it left him unexpectedly content.
The boundary dispute would be resolved and legal correspondence would be handled. The estate would continue. All of it mattered. And none of it occupied the foremost place in his thoughts.
That place belonged fully to Elizabeth Bennet.
If fortune proved kind, he would be back at Pemberley before the night was over.
Elizabeth discovered, within an hour of Mr. Darcy’s departure, that missing a gentleman was not a dignified occupation.
It had no useful employment attached to it. One could not sew it into a neat hem, copy it into a letter, or press it between the pages of a book and pretend it had been managed. It simply remained where it pleased, interfering with ordinary thought and giving every room an air of expectation.
She was annoyed with herself.
Then she remembered the way Mr. Darcy had looked at her in the hall before leaving, and the annoyance became far less persuasive.
Mrs. Gardiner noticed, of course.
Her aunt had the alarming gift of appearing occupied with needlework while absorbing every movement within a room. Elizabeth had scarcely turned a page of her book before Mrs. Gardiner laid aside her thread and regarded her over the top of her work basket.
“My dear, I believe the author would be gratified by such devotion.”
Elizabeth’s eyes lowered. The book lay open in her lap. She had not read a single sentence since sitting down.
“Very profound,” she said. “I am taking time to digest it.”
“You have been upon the same page since luncheon.”
“That is how one knows it is profound.”
Mrs. Gardiner’s mouth twitched.
Across the drawing room, Lydia had abandoned her embroidery and now sat cross-legged on the carpet beside Georgiana, despite Mrs. Gardiner having told her twice that young ladies did not sit cross-legged anywhere outside a nursery.
“Lizzy is pining,” Lydia announced.
Elizabeth closed the book. “I am reading.”
“You are holding a book. Those are distinct actions.”
Georgiana bent over her sewing with suspicious attention.
Elizabeth pointed the closed volume at her sister. “If I am pining, it is for peace.”
“Then you came to the wrong house,” Lydia said. “Horace has eaten part of Mr. Hurst’s newspaper.”
From near the fire Mr. Hurst lifted his head. “Which part?”
“The dull part.”
“That does not narrow it much,” Mr. Gardiner observed.
Bingley, who had spent the last quarter hour attempting to write a letter and producing little beyond ink stains and sighs, laughed into his sleeve.
The room was pleasant. Too pleasant, perhaps, because Mr. Darcy’s absence marked it with the sharpness of a chair pulled from its accustomed place.
Elizabeth did not doubt him. That was the troublesome truth.
Miss Bingley might glare from every corner and Lady Catherine might descend from Kent with a regiment of objections, but Elizabeth had heard Mr. Darcy speak.
She had felt the tremor in his hands when he held hers.
She had seen, in his face, a hope too earnest to be feigned.
No, she did not doubt him.
She doubted herself, which was vastly less convenient.
A woman who had once believed Mr. Wickham honest and Mr. Darcy proud beyond redemption had little right to trust her own conclusions without inspection.
That thought had followed her since the gig ride. It did not lessen her happiness, but it sat beside it, an unwelcome aunt at a wedding breakfast, reminding her that delight was not proof.
By midafternoon the household had dispersed in pieces.
Mr. Gardiner walked toward the stables with Bingley to inspect some fishing tackle the latter insisted was superior to any in Hertfordshire.
Mrs. Gardiner retired to write letters. Lydia and Georgiana took Horace into the garden with solemn assurances that no shrubbery would be disturbed, which proved that shrubbery was certainly doomed.
Elizabeth, left alone in the gallery, was examining a small portrait of a Darcy ancestor with an unfortunate chin when Miss Bingley approached.
“Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth turned.
Miss Bingley stood at the far end of the gallery, one hand resting upon the back of a chair. Her gown was faultless. Her expression was less so. The triumph she had once carried so easily had thinned into something harder to maintain.
“Miss Bingley.”
“I wonder if you might grant me a few minutes.”
Elizabeth would rather have granted Horace custody of her bonnet.
“Certainly.”
The morning room was nearest, and Miss Bingley led the way without asking whether Elizabeth preferred it.
That, too, was very like her. She entered a room and assumed it must arrange itself to her purpose.
Sunlight fell across the carpet in long rectangles.
A tray from some earlier refreshment had been removed, leaving behind the faint scent of tea and lemon.
Miss Bingley closed the door, though not fully. Enough for privacy. Not enough to invite comment.
“I hope you will not think me intrusive,” she began, taking the chair nearest the window.
“That will depend upon what follows.”
The reply was perhaps too direct.
Miss Bingley’s fingers flexed in her lap before she smoothed them again.
“I deserve that, I suppose.”
Elizabeth had not expected humility. She distrusted it.
Miss Bingley turned her face toward the window. Beyond the glass, Lydia was attempting to make Horace sit while Georgiana held what appeared to be a biscuit. Horace preferred leaping. Lydia spoke with great authority. Georgiana laughed and then tried to hide it behind one gloved hand.
“You are fortunate, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth remained standing for a moment, then sat across from her. “In my sisters? Yes, though I do not always remember it when Lydia has possession of a biscuit and a plan.”
Miss Bingley did not smile.
“I did not mean your sisters.”
“No?”
“I meant in your freedom.”
Elizabeth’s brows drew together. “My freedom?”
“You have the astonishing habit of entering society as if it must accept you because you have decided to be yourself.”
There was a time when Elizabeth would have laughed at such a remark. She did not now. Miss Bingley’s voice held something raw beneath the polish, and Elizabeth, despite every reason for caution, could not quite dismiss it.
“I assure you, I have spent a considerable portion of my life being corrected for precisely that habit.”
“By family. By neighbors. Not by the world that matters.”
“The world that matters is usually the one nearest at hand.”
“How very pretty,” Miss Bingley said, with a bitterness that spoiled the compliment. “And how very country.”
Elizabeth rose halfway from her chair.
Miss Bingley lifted one hand. “Forgive me. That was unkind.”
It was the apology that stopped Elizabeth. Miss Bingley’s face had colored, and not with triumph.
Elizabeth sat again, more wary than before.
Miss Bingley drew in a breath through her nose, a small, controlled movement. “My grandfather was in trade.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do. Everyone knows. That is the point.” She looked out the window again, where Lydia had given up on commanding Horace and was now bribing him shamelessly.
“My father increased the fortune. My brother may purchase an estate and marry well if he chooses. Louisa married respectably. We have carriages, gowns, jewels, masters, acquaintances. There is not a comfort we cannot afford.”
“That sounds enviable.”
“It is.” Miss Bingley said imperiously. “Until one discovers comfort is not acceptance.”
Elizabeth’s answer did not come.
“I have been in rooms where no one insulted me,” Miss Bingley continued.
“No one needed to. A pause is enough. A glance between two women whose grandmothers dined together before my family had a crest to engrave upon a spoon. An invitation that arrives too late to be convenient. A compliment too carefully phrased. A gentleman who dances and never calls. A lady who praises your gown while making certain you know the modiste served her first.”
“That is cruel.”
“It is ordinary.”
The word struck Elizabeth harder than the sentiment itself.
Miss Bingley shifted in her chair, the lace at her cuff catching against the polished arm. She freed it with a quick, impatient movement. “You imagine me proud.”
“I have occasionally suspected it.”
A faint sound escaped Miss Bingley. Almost amusement. Almost pain.
“I am proud. I cultivated pride because humility would have been devoured in a week.”