22. Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“My dearest girls! At last! We have been all anxiety. Mr. Bennet, they are here! Hill, where is the tea? Lydia, how you have grown brown. Lizzy, you look tired. Did you travel comfortably? Of course you did not—travel is always ruinous. Kitty, do not stand there, take your sister’s bonnet.”
For the next hour, Longbourn surrendered itself entirely to reunion.
Questions were asked faster than they could be answered.
Lydia attempted to tell Kitty three stories at once.
Jane embraced Elizabeth long enough to make conversation unnecessary, and Mrs. Gardiner listened patiently while her children supplied an account of everything that had occurred during her absence, including several events Elizabeth suspected had grown considerably in importance through repetition.
Mr. Gardiner’s business, however, would not permit them to remain even for the night.
Their trunks were sorted from those belonging to Elizabeth and Lydia, the horses were given what rest could be spared, and all too soon Mrs. Gardiner began gathering her children for the remainder of the journey to London.
She extracted several promises from Lydia regarding her conduct and correspondence before embracing her one final time.
“You are behaving as though we shall be separated for years,” Lydia complained.
“With you, a week may contain enough mischief for several years,” Mrs. Gardiner replied.
Mr. Gardiner laughed, promised to write as soon as business allowed, and, after farewells had been exchanged all around, helped his family into the carriage.
Elizabeth and Lydia stood in the drive with the others and watched them disappear down the lane toward London.
Kitty seized Lydia instead.
“You must tell me everything.”
“I shall,” Lydia declared, embracing her. “But not in front of Mama, for she will interrupt, and not in front of Mary, for she will moralize, and not in front of Papa, for he will laugh.”
Mr. Bennet appeared at the library door with a book in one hand. “Then I am excluded unjustly, for I had hoped to do all three.”
“Papa!” Lydia darted toward him and kissed his cheek. “You shall hear a little.”
“I am honored beyond expectation.”
His attention settled upon Elizabeth.
“So, Lizzy, you survived the north.”
“Derbyshire, Papa.”
“North enough for my purposes. Did you come back improved, humbled, frozen, or engaged?”
“Mr. Bennet!” Mrs. Bennet cried. “Do not say such things. Unless she is, of course. Lizzy? Are you?”
Elizabeth summoned a weak laugh. “No, Mama.”
Not yet.
The thought arrived without permission and stole the breath from her amusement.
Mr. Bennet’s brows raised a fraction. He noticed more than he admitted, and perhaps more than she wished. “Then we must be grateful for your safe return in any condition.”
Lydia had already seized Kitty by both hands. “Come upstairs. I must tell you about Miss Darcy and Horace and Miss Bingley’s face when—oh, no, that part must be done properly. Lizzy, may I tell Kitty about the mud?”
“Which mud?”
“All of it.”
Elizabeth removed her gloves. “I cannot stop you.”
“Excellent.”
Lydia and Kitty raced upstairs together, their voices already overlapping. As they went, Kitty wondered aloud whether Mrs. Forster had written of Mr. Wickham.
Lydia answered before anyone else could. “She has not, and I am grateful for it.”
Kitty stared.
“I once thought him the handsomest gentleman in England.” Lydia formed her words more carefully than necessary. “Now I think appearances are the least reliable recommendation imaginable.”
Kitty nodded slowly, then slipped her arm through Lydia’s.
“I am glad you came home.”
Lydia smiled.
“So am I.”
She had missed Kitty far more than she would ever have admitted before Derbyshire.
Kitty said nothing more.
Mary followed with an air of reluctant curiosity, saying something about the moral implications of travel upon female character. Mrs. Bennet sent Hill for tea, asked Elizabeth six questions without waiting for answers, and then hurried after Lydia to learn whether any officers had been encountered.
Elizabeth remained in the hall.
Mr. Bennet watched her.
“You are very quiet.”
“I am tired.”
“Travel often produces that effect. So does disappointment.”
Her fingers fiddled with the seams of her gloves.
He closed his book. “Come into the library, Lizzy.”
She obeyed.
The library smelled of leather, paper, dust, and her father’s pipe. It should have comforted her. Rather, it emphasized how far she had come from Pemberley’s great library, where Mr. Darcy had reached a book from a high shelf and touched her hand over it.
Mr. Bennet shut the door. The volume Elizabeth had purchased in Lambton now rested open upon his desk, having been pressed into his hands scarcely an hour after her return to Longbourn.
He had accepted it with an enthusiasm that delighted her, retreating to his library almost at once, and nearly half its pages already bore penciled observations in his familiar hand.
“The previous owner possessed respectable taste,” Mr. Bennet remarked without looking up. “His notes, however, have been considerably improved by mine.”
“Now,” he said, settling into his chair, “shall I ask questions or pretend not to have any?”
“Pretend, please.”
“A difficult request. My curiosity is one of my few remaining virtues.”
Elizabeth sank into the chair opposite him. “Then preserve it a little longer.”
He regarded her for several seconds, his expression more gentle than his words. “Very well. But if a tall gentleman from Derbyshire appears at my door, I reserve the right to be unsurprised.”
Elizabeth looked down at her gloves.
Mr. Bennet opened his book again, though she did not think he read.
She missed Mr. Darcy with a constancy that made ordinary conversation feel oddly strenuous.
For three days, Longbourn continued as Longbourn always had.
Mrs. Bennet spoke of neighbors, gowns, nerves, and the shocking failure of any gentleman to call within an hour of their arrival in the neighborhood.
Kitty demanded more details of Derbyshire until Lydia, for once, grew selective.
Mary practiced solemn pieces in the parlor and occasionally informed Lydia that friendship with a young woman of fortune carried responsibilities beyond laughter.
Lydia told her that laughter was a responsibility if one’s friends had been tragically deprived of it.
Elizabeth walked.
She walked the lane toward Meryton, then turned back before reaching the village. She walked through the shrubbery, along the edge of the fields, and once as far as the little rise beyond Longbourn where she could see Netherfield in the distance.
Empty still.
On the third afternoon, she escaped to Oakham Mount.
The path rose through grass browned by sun and late summer dust. The air held the hum of insects.
A lark rose from a field beyond the hedgerow.
Elizabeth climbed without haste, one hand gathering her skirts when the ground grew uneven.
By the time she reached the top, the breeze had loosened several curls at her temple.
She stood facing the direction of Netherfield.
The eye could not travel where the heart insisted upon going. Still, she looked.
Three days.
A week since Pemberley.
Long enough for a man to receive a letter and respond, if roads and weather and circumstance allowed, and if his business matters were resolved quickly.
Too soon for despair.
Too long for ease.
She pressed one hand against the rough bark of a nearby tree and breathed in the dry summer air.
A sound came from below.
Hooves.
Elizabeth turned.
A rider had entered the lane at the base of the mount.
The horse was dark, flecked with dust and foam from hard travel.
The gentleman dismounted before the path rose too steeply and handed the reins to a boy from one of the nearby cottages who had apparently appeared from nowhere at the sight of a coin.
Even before he turned fully, Elizabeth knew him.
Her hand slid from the tree.
Mr. Darcy began climbing toward her.
He wore a riding coat marked by travel, his boots dusty, his hat in one hand. He did not hurry in any undignified manner. Indeed, he was still Mr. Darcy. There was urgency in every stride, in the set of his shoulders, in the way his gaze found her and did not leave.
Elizabeth could not move.
When he reached the top, he stopped several paces away, breathing harder than usual from the climb and perhaps from more than that.
“Miss Bennet.”
The formality struck them both.
His mouth relaxed as he regarded her.
“Elizabeth.”
Her name in his voice undid the week in an instant.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, then shook her head because that would not do. Not after a letter like hers. Not after Pemberley. “Fitzwilliam.”
His whole face changed. The breeze moved between them, lifting the edge of her ribbon and stirring the grass at their feet.
“You came,” she said.
“I received your letter.”
“I hoped you would.”
“I left within the hour.”
Her lips parted. “Within the hour?”
“Yes.”
“But it has been—”
“Longer than I wished. I rode first. Bingley, Georgiana, Mrs. Annesley, and the carriage followed. They experienced similar delays, I am afraid. I reached Netherfield ahead of them, but the house required opening, and Bingley—” He stopped, took off his hat, and looked down at it as if the object had become unexpectedly complicated.
“Bingley wished to call upon your sister properly. I would not leave him unsupported.”
“Jane?”
“He has not yet seen her. He intends to come tomorrow, if your family will receive him.”
Elizabeth’s hands pressed together.
“Jane does not know.”
“No. But Bingley knows what he must say.”
“And Georgiana?”
“At Netherfield.”
“Lydia will be impossible.”
“She has had time to prepare, I expect.”
Despite the ache in her chest, Elizabeth laughed.
The sound trembled.
Darcy came one step nearer. “Your letter.”
She bit her lip. “I should not have written so much.”
“You should have written more, if more remained.”
“That is very generous.”
“It is very true.”