A Few Ordinary Errands
Christmas arrived in Gracechurch Street with brown paper, string, secrets, and the household confusion that only Mrs Gardiner could make appear orderly.
Parcels came in and were carried out. The children whispered in corners with all the discretion of puppies. A sprig of holly vanished from the hall, was discovered in the nursery, and was defended by the youngest Gardiner child as necessary for reasons he declined to explain.
Elizabeth helped where she could. She tied string. She folded paper. She admired a pincushion that had been worked with great industry and only moderate accuracy.
A letter from Jane lay open on the breakfast table, where Mrs Gardiner had placed it after reading aloud the safest portions.
Mrs Bennet had decided the wedding breakfast was to be elegant without being extravagant, which, in Elizabeth’s experience, meant it would be extravagant while everyone was forbidden to name it so.
Kitty had opinions on ribbons. Lydia had opinions on everything.
Mary had suggested a hymn, which she had selected, Jane wrote, “for its doctrinal soundness rather than its popularity,” a distinction Mary felt the family did not sufficiently appreciate.
Jane wrote that Mr Bingley was kindness itself.
Elizabeth smiled over that line longer than the others.
Some happiness, at least, required no interpretation.
Jane wrote on. Mr Collins had sent a letter of congratulation so long that Mr Bennet had read only the first and last paragraphs and declared the middle could be safely assumed.
Charlotte was well, and sent her particular regard, and had asked, twice, whether Elizabeth meant to return before the wedding or after.
I did not know what to tell her, Jane wrote. I do not quite know myself. Mama wishes you home for the breakfast. I wish you home whenever it suits you, and not a day before.
Elizabeth read that line twice. It was, she thought, exactly like Jane to want her present and exactly like Jane to say so without the smallest pressure attached.
She folded the letter and set it beside her plate, where it sat through the rest of breakfast like a small, patient question.
Yet even Gracechurch Street, with all its warmth and paper and purposeful little deceptions, could not make Elizabeth forget the colder sort. Mr Darcy was safe. For now.
The words had taken up residence in her mind with all the stubbornness of an undesired guest. They followed her from breakfast table to nursery, from nursery to parlour, from parlour to the neat pile of wedding ribbons Mrs Gardiner had asked her to sort.
White for Jane. Blue for Kitty. Pink for Lydia, because Lydia had written three lines on the subject and underlined two of them.
She was still considering whether Lydia would consider the pink sufficiently pink when Mr Gardiner came in, removed his gloves, and regarded the ribbons gravely.
“Am I interrupting wedding councils?”
“Only ribbon diplomacy,” Mrs Gardiner said. “It is delicate work.”
“So I see.” He took the chair opposite Elizabeth. “Then perhaps I may offer a less delicate subject and be forgiven for the contrast.”
“You have heard something,” Mrs Gardiner said.
“A little,” Mr Gardiner said. “Not much, but a little tends to mean more than it appears, in matters like these.”
Mrs Gardiner crossed to close the door.
“There is a banking house,” he said, “that has had unusual instructions this autumn regarding a Derbyshire estate. Nothing improper on its face. A guardian managing a ward’s affairs is not, in itself, remarkable. But the instructions have grown more frequent since November. And larger.”
“Larger,” Elizabeth repeated.
“Sums moved from the estate’s account into accounts that are not the estate’s.
” Mr Gardiner’s tone stayed even, almost gentle, as though he were describing the weather rather than theft.
“Someone who intends to remain in his position does not generally behave this way. Someone expecting that position to end does.”
“August,” Mrs Gardiner said.
“August,” Mr Gardiner agreed. “Or before it, if he can manage the timing to his advantage.”
Elizabeth felt the ribbon in her hand, forgotten now, slack against her fingers.
“Can nothing be done?” she asked. “Now? Before…”
“Accusing a guardian of mismanaging an estate, on the word of a man who has already said more than prudence allows, is not nothing done,” Mr Gardiner said. “It is worse than nothing. It is noise without proof, and noise without proof only warns the man you mean to catch.”
“Patience is not the same as inaction, Lizzy. I know it feels so.”
Elizabeth set the ribbon down entirely. “Then what is to be done?”
“Watched,” Mr Gardiner said. “Carefully, and by people who will not be noticed doing it. I believe that is already happening.”
“The man outside the coffee-house,” Elizabeth said. “The one Thomas noticed.”
“Possibly. Possibly others we have not seen at all. Whoever is managing this, and I do not think it is left to chance, they will want proof that holds, not suspicion that frightens Mr Wickham into hiding what he has done more carefully.”
“And until then?” Mrs Gardiner asked.
“Until then, we go on exactly as we have been. Christmas. Ribbons. Ordinary errands. You go on being a young woman visiting her aunt and uncle in London, who happens to know rather more than she ought, and says rather less than she could.”
Elizabeth almost smiled, despite everything. “That sounds like very dull work.”
“The dullest work is often the most necessary,” Mr Gardiner said. “Soldiers call it discipline. I call it bookkeeping. The principle is the same.”
He rose, collecting his gloves again.
“I shall write to a man I trust in Derby,” he said, more to his wife than to Elizabeth. “Quietly. No names that need not be named.”
At the door, Mr Gardiner said, “Lizzy. Whatever else is true, and I grant a great deal seems to be, secretly moving money is the behaviour of a frightened man. Frightened men make mistakes. Mr Wickham has perhaps seven months left in which to make his.”
He went out. Elizabeth looked down at the abandoned ribbons, white, blue, pink, ordinary and bright and entirely unconcerned with guardians, missing money, or August. She picked the pink one up again and went back to wondering whether it would satisfy Lydia.
It was, she thought, the only sensible thing left to do.
The ordinary errands began after luncheon. Mrs Gardiner required ribbon, sealing wax, a small book for one child who had been unusually good, and a small book for another who had not, because Christmas justice, she said, need not be as strict as legal justice.
Elizabeth took her bonnet without objection. The streets were busier than they had been all week. Shops glowed with lamplight even before dusk, their windows crowded with gloves, toys, ribbons, books, and small luxuries made more desirable by being slightly unnecessary.
For an hour, London behaved exactly as Mr Gardiner had instructed it to behave. Ordinarily.
They had nearly finished. Mrs Gardiner was paying for the sealing wax, and Elizabeth stood a little apart, examining a tray of hair ribbons with no intention of buying any, when a voice spoke at her shoulder.
“Miss Bennet. What an unexpected pleasure.”
She knew the voice before she turned. Mr Wickham stood with his hat in his hand, dressed for the street rather than for company, perfectly pleasant and entirely watchful.
For one foolish instant, Hertfordshire seemed to have stepped into the London street.
“Mr Wickham,” Elizabeth said, and was pleased to hear that her voice did not alter. “London is full of surprises.”
“So I find.” His smile deepened, but his eyes did not leave her face. “I had heard you were in town with your aunt and uncle, but I did not expect fortune to be so obliging as to present you to me in the street.”
“Fortune is often obliging in London,” Elizabeth said. “There are so many streets in which to be accidental.”
“Still Miss Bennet,” he said. “I am glad of it.”
Mrs Gardiner turned from the counter just then, her purchases gathered.
“Mr Wickham,” Elizabeth said, “may I present my aunt, Mrs Gardiner.”
“Mrs Gardiner.” He bowed with easy grace. “I have had the pleasure of your niece’s acquaintance since November. Hertfordshire was fortunate in its visitors this autumn.”
“So I understand,” Mrs Gardiner said pleasantly, in a tone that gave away nothing at all.
“I confess I had not expected to find Miss Bennet in town,” Wickham said. “Though London does have a way of gathering up everyone one knows, sooner or later.”
“It does seem to,” Mrs Gardiner agreed.
Mr Wickham glanced at the parcels in her hands, then back to Elizabeth.
“And how do you find London, Miss Bennet? Different from Hertfordshire, I should think.”
“Larger,” Elizabeth said. “And colder.”
“London in December is rarely kind to anyone. Though I find the company sometimes makes up for the weather.”
“That has not been my experience of every quarter.”
“No,” he said softly. “I suppose it would not have been.”
Mrs Gardiner’s hand shifted slightly around her parcels. Elizabeth could not tell whether it was warning or readiness.
“I hope London has been kind to you, Mrs Gardiner,” Mr Wickham said. “It can be a difficult season. Too many crowds, too much business, and everyone pretending Christmas makes haste pleasant.”
“We are accustomed to business,” Mrs Gardiner said. “And Christmas has its compensations.”
“Indeed. Family, above all. I have found that London makes one value family more than ever.”
There it was.
“You must be fortunate in yours, then,” Elizabeth said.
“Fortunate,” he said. “Yes. Though fortune, as you say, is often obliging only up to a point.”
“And beyond that point?”
“Beyond that point, one must rely on other qualities. Patience. Diligence. Loyalty, where one can find it.”
“My wife sends her regards, I am sure, were she here to give them,” he continued smoothly. “She mentioned meeting you, I believe. At some shop or other.”
Elizabeth kept her face very still.