The Harmless Wrapping
Mrs Gardiner had an acquaintance in Hanover Square, a Mrs Bellamy, whom she had known before her marriage and visited whenever business or weather carried her so far west. Elizabeth accompanied her because she had no reason not to, and because London seen from a carriage was easier than London imagined from a window.
Mrs Bellamy was at home, delighted to receive them, and determined to show Mrs Gardiner a length of lace she had bought at what she insisted was a scandalously reasonable price.
Elizabeth admired the lace, agreed that the price was indeed scandalous, and then discovered that Mrs Bellamy intended to describe every yard of it.
Mrs Gardiner saw her expression and took pity.
“There is a print shop two doors down,” she said. “You may amuse yourself there for a quarter of an hour, if you like. I promise not to buy half of Mrs Bellamy’s lace in your absence.”
Mrs Bellamy protested that half would be the sensible quantity. Elizabeth escaped before the argument could involve her.
The print shop was exactly what it promised, small, cold, and full of engravings that required more attention than Elizabeth currently had available.
She looked at a series of views of the Lake District without taking any of them in, turned to examine a reproduction of something Italian, and then became aware that someone had come to stand beside her.
She looked up. The woman was fair, simply dressed, and younger in manner than Elizabeth had first supposed when she glimpsed her from the carriage. Perhaps eight and twenty or nine and twenty. She held herself very still beside the print.
She was looking at the Italian landscape and seemed to be seeing nothing at all. Then she turned, saw Elizabeth, and recovered almost at once.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mrs Wickham. I did not know you were in town.”
“We arrived last week. My husband had business. I hope you are well.”
“Very well, thank you,” Elizabeth said. “And Mr Darcy?”
Mrs Wickham looked at the print. “I believe he is well.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the edge of the print.
“I am glad to hear it,” she said.
Mrs Wickham looked back at the Italian landscape. “You have heard otherwise?”
“I have heard France, Italy, Derbyshire, and Germany.”
A faint, sad curve touched Mrs Wickham’s mouth. “London has a great imagination.”
“It does,” Elizabeth said.
The boy at the counter finished wrapping his parcel. Outside, the street went on.
“It is a very fine print,” Mrs Wickham said. “The colours are well done.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
Mrs Wickham set it down carefully. “I should go. I am expected.” She turned towards the door, then stopped, as though reconsidering.
“The children have been enjoying the mornings here, between ten and eleven. Green Park is very pleasant even in December. We generally walk near the Queen’s Basin between ten and eleven.
The children are very fond of watching the ducks. ”
“That sounds very pleasant,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes,” Mrs Wickham said. “It is.”
She went out. Elizabeth stood in the small cold shop before the Italian landscape, then set it down and went back to Mrs Bellamy’s lace.
Mrs Bellamy was still discussing lace when Elizabeth returned, though she had progressed from price to provenance. Mrs Gardiner looked up once, and Elizabeth knew at once that her aunt had seen enough. Whatever had happened in the print shop, something had.
“You did not care for the prints?” Mrs Gardiner asked.
“One was very fine,” Elizabeth said.
“Only one?”
Elizabeth sat down. “The shop was cold.”
Mrs Gardiner accepted this with perfect politeness and no belief at all.
The carriage home was quiet. Mrs Gardiner spoke of Mrs Bellamy and the lace and a mutual acquaintance who had recently removed to Bath, and Elizabeth listened and responded and looked out of the window at the grey December streets.
Mrs Gardiner did not ask, and Elizabeth did not volunteer.
They arrived in Gracechurch Street as the light was failing, and the children were waiting, and dinner was not far off, and the day folded itself away without further examination.
That night Elizabeth lay awake and thought about Green Park.
A woman might mention where she walked with her children merely to fill a silence.
Yet Mrs Wickham had not spoken vaguely. Green Park.
The mornings. Near the gates. The children and the ducks had been the harmless wrapping around the message.
Elizabeth turned over. Mrs Wickham had not given her those details accidentally. Elizabeth had learned that much at the ball. She went to sleep resolved not to go and woke no less determined.
In the morning, she went. She told Mrs Gardiner she wanted air, which was true, and that she intended to walk, which was also true, and that she might be an hour, which she did not know.
Mrs Gardiner said nothing except that she should take her warmest pelisse, which Elizabeth was already wearing, and that Thomas was to attend her.
The streets were quieter than usual at that hour.
The cold had its own quality in the city, damp and still and heavier than country cold, pressing down on the rooftops and the pavements with equal indifference.
Elizabeth walked quickly and did not think too carefully about where she was going or why.
The walk near the Queen’s Basin was nearly empty. A man passed along the far path with a dog. Two nursemaids sat on a bench with their charges and the glazed patience of women paid to be cold. A pigeon investigated something beside the gate with great seriousness.
There were no children and no Mrs Wickham, so Elizabeth began to walk.
The cold grass was stiff underfoot. The trees were bare.
Somewhere across the park a clock struck the quarter hour.
Thomas remained at a discreet distance near the gate, his attention fixed with admirable neutrality on the path ahead.
She completed one circuit and began another. On the second she saw them.
Two small figures were running ahead of a nurse, their breath white in the cold air. Behind them came Mrs Wickham at an unhurried pace.
Mrs Wickham saw her at almost the same moment. She continued along the path and arrived, entirely naturally, at the place where Elizabeth was standing.
“Miss Bennet,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“Mrs Wickham,” Elizabeth said.
They fell into step together without quite deciding to. Ahead of them the little girl had discovered something of great interest beside a tree and was explaining it at length to the smaller boy, who was not listening.
“My husband has gone to his club,” Mrs Wickham said, apparently to the park in general. “He generally does, on Tuesday mornings.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said.
“He will be there until noon. At least.”
The little girl had now abandoned the tree and was attempting to catch a pigeon with the confident optimism of a seven-year-old.
“Mrs Wickham,” Elizabeth said carefully. “Is Mr Darcy…”
“He is well,” Mrs Wickham said.
“That is what you needed to know first.”
“It is not all I wished to know.”
“No,” Mrs Wickham said quietly. “But it is what I can say.”
“Then I am grateful for it,” Elizabeth said.
“Anne,” Mrs Wickham called gently. “Do not trouble your brother.”
“Fitzwilliam is very stubborn,” Mrs Wickham said. “He always has been. Even as a boy. He decides what must be done and does it, and does not consider that other people might have opinions about the method.”
“I find it both admirable and very frustrating.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I imagine you do.”
Ahead of them the younger boy had taken the stick and thrown it for reasons that were entirely his own. Anne retrieved it with the long-suffering efficiency of an elder sister.
“August,” Mrs Wickham said.
Just the word. Nothing attached to it.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “August.”
They walked on.
Elizabeth had not intended to go back to the park. She went anyway.
The nurse had taken the children a little farther along the path, leaving Georgiana free to walk apart. She saw Elizabeth from some distance and came towards her without hurrying.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mrs Wickham.”
Georgiana turned with her along the path. Behind them Anne was explaining something to the nurse with great authority. The boy was investigating a puddle.
“I did not know if you would come,” Mrs Wickham said.
“Nor did I,” Elizabeth said honestly.
The park was quieter today, the cold sharper, the sky a pale London white that hinted at snow but had not yet committed.
Little George had found a stick and was conducting some private experiment with it that involved a great deal of serious effort and no discernible result.
“Little George is very like Fitzwilliam,” Mrs Wickham said. “At that age. Fitzwilliam was always doing something purposeful that nobody else could quite follow.”
“That sounds familiar,” Elizabeth said.
“My father was the same,” she said. “Very decided. Very clear about what mattered.” She watched little George abandon the stick and redirect his attention to a stone with equal seriousness. “I hope George takes after them.”
“After your father and your brother,” Elizabeth said carefully.
“Yes,” Mrs Wickham said. She did not look at Elizabeth. “After them. Is that a shocking thing to say?”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “It is not.”
Little George abandoned the stone and began following the nurse with great purpose, though apparently without yet knowing what he required.
“My father trusted people he should not have,” Mrs Wickham said. “Fitzwilliam saw it before I did.”
“And you?”
“Later,” she said. “More thoroughly.”
“Anne,” Elizabeth said quietly. “She is very like you.”
Mrs Wickham turned towards her daughter.
“Yes,” she said. “She is. I hope she learns it earlier than I did.”
“Learns what?”
“That composure,” she said at last, “is not the same as acceptance.”
The nurse called to little George. He ignored her with perfect serenity.
“We should turn back,” Mrs Wickham said. “It will be cold soon.”
It was already cold. Neither of them said so.
“Mrs Wickham,” Elizabeth said, “are you telling me that Mr Darcy is in danger?”
Mrs Wickham’s eyes moved at once to the nurse, then to the path behind them.
“I am telling you,” she said, “that my brother has spent many years learning how to survive in a house where the wrong person was believed.”
“And that he is tired.”