The Best Room in the House
The next two days at Netherfield did not pass quickly so much as accumulate.
There were draughts and barley water, fresh sheets warmed before the fire, Mrs Nicholls’s quiet competence, and Jane’s repeated assurances that she was much better, which convinced Elizabeth of very little.
There were visits from Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, both kind enough in the sickroom to make Elizabeth doubt her own earlier judgement of them, and sharp enough elsewhere to restore it before dinner.
There was Mr Bingley, whose anxiety could not enter a room without announcing itself.
And there was Mr Darcy, who announced almost nothing at all.
He was simply present, in the way that certain people are present: not intrusively, not performatively, but in a manner that made his absence, on the one occasion when he rode out with Mr Bingley after breakfast and did not return until nearly four, oddly noticeable.
Elizabeth noticed. She did not mention it to anyone. By the second morning, Jane was well enough to sit up and look out of the window.
“Do you remember the Robinsons?” she said.
Elizabeth looked up from her book. Jane was looking at the chair by the window. It had a yellow cushion, slightly faded now, and a particular way of sitting that Elizabeth recognised before she could have said why.
“That is Mrs Robinson’s chair,” she said.
“I thought so.” Jane’s voice was quiet. “Nobody was ever permitted to sit in it but her.”
“And yet here it is in the guest bedroom.” Elizabeth looked at it for a moment. “She would have had something to say about that.”
Jane smiled. “She was very particular. But she always gave us cake afterwards, I think by way of apology.”
“She was very kind.” Elizabeth returned to her book, though her eyes stayed on the chair a moment longer. “I had forgotten how well I knew this house.”
“I had not,” Jane said softly. “I was thinking of it when I first arrived.”
The observation stayed with Elizabeth after Jane had fallen asleep again.
Netherfield was not, after all, merely Mr Bingley’s new house, nor Miss Bingley’s present theatre of elegance.
It had been the Robinsons’ house once, full of Mrs Robinson’s strict chairs and overgenerous cakes, and before that someone else’s, and before that another’s still.
Houses, Elizabeth thought, had longer memories than their inhabitants allowed.
It was an inconvenient thought to have in a borrowed room, wearing a gown her mother had chosen for strategic purposes, in a house where she was beginning to feel less like a visitor than prudence advised.
By the third day Jane was well enough to come downstairs for a few hours in the afternoon, which meant the drawing room was occupied, Mr Bingley was almost manageable, and Miss Bingley directed her attention towards Jane with the particular warmth of a woman determined to be gracious and determined, too, that everyone should notice.
Elizabeth was grateful for it. It left her, for the first time since arriving, with an hour to herself. She went outside.
The afternoon was clear and mild for November, and the gardens at Netherfield had always been worth walking in.
Elizabeth had looked at them often enough from Jane’s window over the past two days, and had found herself remembering the paths as they had been when she was younger: which turns led towards the meadow, which slope became treacherous after rain, which hedge sheltered the earliest violets in spring. She had not expected company.
Mr Darcy appeared at the side door at almost exactly the moment she stepped outside. He looked as though he had not entirely planned this and was not entirely sorry.
“The gardens?” he said.
“The gardens,” she agreed.
They walked without particular direction, which suited both of them. The paths were clear and the afternoon light was long and pale, and beyond the south wall the grounds opened into a meadow that ran down towards a small stream.
“You know the grounds well,” he said.
“Better than I remembered. Places have a way of returning themselves to one when one is not trying to recall them.”
“That is true.”
It was said too quietly to be merely agreement.
Elizabeth glanced at him. “You speak as if you have tested the matter.”
“I have lived all my life in one house,” he said. “It would be difficult not to.”
“And do you know every walk and turning of it?”
“Every one that mattered to me as a boy.”
There was something in his voice that made Elizabeth look away towards the meadow. “That sounds a great many.”
“Enough.”
“And are they all unchanged?”
“No,” he said. “That is the difficulty.”
She turned back to him then, but his face had settled into that careful composure she had begun to recognise as concealment rather than ease.
“To have known a place well does not mean it remains what one knew,” he added.
Elizabeth thought of the chair upstairs, removed from its old kingdom and set among guest-room conveniences, and understood him better than she expected.
“Perhaps not,” she said. “But it must count for something to remember what it was.”
He looked at her then, and Elizabeth had the distinct impression that he was on the verge of saying something that had nothing whatever to do with houses or memory.
Whatever it was, he did not say it. From somewhere above them, a window opened.
Miss Bingley’s voice carried down, pleasant and deliberate.
“Miss Eliza! Jane is asking for you.”
Elizabeth looked up. Miss Bingley stood at the window, smiling as though the summons were innocent and the timing accidental.
“Of course,” Elizabeth called back. “I am coming directly.”
She turned to Mr Darcy. Something in his face had closed again, not unkindly, but with the particular composure of a man reminded of something he had briefly forgotten.
“Miss Bennet will be glad to have you back,” he said.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I think she will.”
She went inside without looking back. But she was aware, with a clarity she could not account for, of him standing at the edge of the meadow for a moment longer before he followed.
Miss Bingley was not wrong. Jane had asked for her, though only because she wished to know whether Elizabeth had been enjoying the air.
“I was,” Elizabeth said, settling beside her. “Until I was discovered.”
Jane’s eyes, still tired, warmed with amusement. “By Miss Bingley?”
“Eventually.”
“And before that?”
Elizabeth smoothed the coverlet with unnecessary attention. “Mr Darcy was also in the garden.”
Jane said nothing, which was very like Jane and very inconvenient.
“He happened to be there,” Elizabeth added.
“Of course,” Jane said softly.
Elizabeth looked at her. Jane smiled, closed her eyes, and appeared to fall asleep.
By the following morning Jane was unmistakably better. She still looked pale, and her voice had not recovered its usual softness, but her fever had lessened, her headache had eased, and she was able to sit downstairs for longer than an hour without Elizabeth watching her like a gaoler.
Mr Bingley received the improvement as though Jane had personally restored sunshine to Hertfordshire.
“It is the best news imaginable,” he said at dinner, with very little regard for the fact that Jane was seated only two chairs away and could hear every word. “Indeed, Miss Bennet, if you continue in this excellent way, we shall have you quite recovered before the ball.”
“The ball?” Mrs Hurst repeated, looking up from her plate.
“Did I not mention it?” said Mr Bingley.
“You have mentioned it seven times,” said Mr Hurst. “Eight, if we count breakfast.”
Mr Bingley laughed. “Then I shall mention it an eighth or ninth time and make no apology. I mean to give a ball at Netherfield. A proper one. As soon as Miss Bennet is fully recovered and the neighbourhood can be properly invited.”
Jane coloured. “You are very kind, but you must not delay any plans on my account.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr Bingley. “It would be a very poor ball indeed if you were not well enough to attend it.”
Miss Bingley smiled with polished indulgence. “Charles has been determined upon this scheme since the assembly. We have all suffered greatly under his enthusiasm.”
“I am sure we shall bear it with fortitude,” Elizabeth said.
Mr Bingley turned to her at once. “You approve, then?”
“Of balls in general? I believe I have been known to survive them.”
“And this one in particular?”
“That must depend on the music, the supper, and whether Mr Hurst remains awake long enough to judge either.”
Mr Hurst opened one eye. “I shall judge the supper.”
“Then the matter is in safe hands,” Elizabeth said.
Mr Bingley laughed, Jane smiled, and even Mrs Hurst looked amused.
Mr Darcy said nothing. Elizabeth glanced towards him, half expecting the grave composure that usually answered general merriment.
Instead she found him looking at Mr Bingley with an expression not quite concealed quickly enough.
He looked away when he saw her looking, but not before his colour had risen. Miss Bingley noticed that too.
“How agreeable,” she said, with a brightness that had acquired an edge. “A ball will give everyone an opportunity to display themselves to advantage.”
“Or disadvantage,” said Mr Darcy quietly.
Elizabeth looked down at her plate.
Miss Bingley’s smile did not falter. “You are severe, Mr Darcy.”
“Not intentionally.”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “I think Mr Darcy is severe only when he forgets to prevent it.”
He looked at her then, and the corner of his mouth moved.
“That is a more generous account than I deserve.”
“I find I am more generous at dinner than at other hours.”
“Then I must be grateful the subject arose before supper.”
Mr Bingley looked between them with open delight. Jane looked down, smiling. Miss Bingley’s fork touched her plate with a very small sound.
Mr Hurst, who had missed the whole exchange, said, “Will there be white soup?”
“There shall be whatever soup you require,” said Mr Bingley, and the table was restored, outwardly at least, to safety.