“If that is what it takes to get the letter delivered, then that is what you’ll do! And take this one with you, while you’re at it. ’Tis for her as well.” He snatched the second letter from one boy and waved it angrily at the other.
Arthur took it, but when he made no move to leave, Mrs Reynolds took pity on him and held out her hand. “Give them to me, young man. I shall deliver them to Miss Bennet. How much is the postage?”
Both letters were pre-paid, it transpired, which information, along with the postboy’s repeated and breathless thanks, almost made the dubious privilege of becoming Miss Bennet’s personal Letter Carrier bearable.
“They went along Mill Lane, towards the bridge,” Arthur told her as he pressed the letters into her hand.
Mrs Reynolds nodded, and with the postmaster’s additional professions of gratitude, returned outside and set out in the direction of the river. The open letter felt even more as though it were burning her now—a searing hot temptation that only pride gave her the strength to resist. No matter that Miss Bennet was a woman of inferior birth with a flagrant dislike for the master and a reputation as an unprincipled self-seeker, Mrs Reynolds was not the sort of woman who read other people’s correspondence.
At least, she had never been before, but human curiosity is a force to be reckoned with, and what began as a cursory glance of the ill-written address progressed, quite without volition, to a quick glimpse of the seal. She did not recognise it, but by then, her eye had gone to the inside lip of the folded paper, for it was unusually tight with words, written right up to the edge in an untidy hand as though added as an afterthought. It was there that her gaze struck upon a word that crowded her mind with alarm: Wickham.
She clapped the letter closed between her palms. Somebody bumped into her and shuffled off, grumbling at her for having stopped in his path. She looked up to call an apology to him, but the words died on her lips when she espied the scene before her. At the end of the road were Miss Bennet’s relations, standing on the bank of the river, talking to another couple Mrs Reynolds did not recognise. Mr Darcy and Miss Bennet were on the bridge. She was looking at the river, pointing at something downstream. He was looking at her, and in a way that made it very clear it was too late to prevent him falling completely into her trap.
With slow deliberation, Mrs Reynolds turned in the direction of the haberdashery to settle the first of her bills. Miss Bennet’s letters she slipped into her pocket. Curiosity had quite deserted her, leaving only profound sadness in its wake. Since she first met him when he was a sweet, unflappable little four-year-old, Mrs Reynolds had been endeared to the master. That he had grown to become a venerated and liberal landlord, that by his generous superintendence her own life had been given purpose and security, only increased her devotion. For four-and-twenty years, she had done everything in her limited power to care for him from afar. In the scheme of things that was little enough, but whatever she could do, from helping his mother hire the best nursemaids to burying ruinous gossip, she had done it.
It had all been for nothing; he would be made miserable after all. She walked away as though her bonnet were made of lead—her head bowed, her shoulders slumped, and her eyes filled with tears. Whatever arts Miss Bennet had condescended to employ to captivate a man she did not even like, they had worked, and it was too cunning, too despicable a thing to watch.
CHAPTERTWELVE
UNINHIBITED LIVELINESS
Darcy wished he knew what Elizabeth thought of his obtrusion onto her outing. The Gardiners seemed pleased with his company, but he had no faith whatsoever in his ability to discern Elizabeth’s feelings correctly. It was regrettable that his offer to act as their guide had been all but impossible to decline. Two of Mrs Gardiner’s acquaintance had happened by just as he suggested it, and it was they who expressed astonishment and delight at the honour of his condescension, the Gardiners only accepting thereafter.
It was precisely the opposite of what he intended. He had meant to demonstrate the sincerity of his regard to Elizabeth and show humility to her relations, not to flaunt his rank by rendering the townsfolk awestruck.
“Well, my dear, is it as pretty as you recall?” Mr Gardiner enquired as they descended into the narrow valley.
“It is deeper than I remember,” his wife answered. “I did not think the sides were so steep or so high as this.”
“It is usually the other way around for childhood memories,” Elizabeth remarked. “Things you revisit as an adult tend to look smaller than you remember them, not bigger.”
“Your aunt is uncommonly short though, Lizzy. You must make allowances,” Mr Gardiner quipped.
Darcy smiled, beginning to enjoy the Gardiners’ sportive way of talking to each other and comprehending that it was likely from them Elizabeth learnt her talent of teasing without any meanness at all.
“Very droll,” Mrs Gardiner replied. “But, as your uncle knows perfectly well, I was not a child when I lived in Lambton, Lizzy. I came here when I was eighteen, after my mother died, and my father sent me to live with my aunt and uncle. I remember your father coming into my uncle’s workshop one day, Mr Darcy. His fob watch—his grandfather’s—had come loose as he rode through the town, and it was caked in mud, and the glass cracked. He was so pleased my uncle managed to salvage the workings that he sent all his watches and clocks there afterwards.”
“Your uncle was Mr Henrick?” Darcy asked. When Mrs Gardiner confirmed it, he turned around, lifting his fob watch on its ribbon, and holding it in his palm for her to see. “The very watch he mended. He is no longer in Lambton, though.”
“He and my aunt moved to Anglesey some years later, and I was sent to live with another uncle in Bishops Stortford. That is where Mr Gardiner and I met.”
“Fortunately for me, my wife has a surfeit of uncles,” Mr Gardiner observed.
“That I do,” she agreed. “My father was one of seven boys.”
Elizabeth had grown exceedingly quiet, and a quick glance revealed her head to be bowed, the rim of her bonnet not wholly concealing her blush. Darcy did not wonder that she was uncomfortable; she was no doubt anticipating that he would despise Mrs Gardiner yet more for her family’s condition in life.
“It must be pleasant to have a large family,” he said. “My father was an only child, so I have no aunts or uncles on his side. My mother was one of three, though she occasionally expressed envy at my father’s want of brothers and sisters. But Miss Bennet has met my aunt, so she will comprehend that sentiment well enough.”
Elizabeth’s incredulous amusement banished any regret he ought to have felt for such a coarse and disloyal remark.
“Ihavemet Lady Catherine,” she agreed. “I have also met Colonel Fitzwilliam. So, tell me, which of them is your uncle most like—his son or his sister?”
“Neither really. Lord Matlock is very quiet, very self-possessed.”
“More like his nephew, then.”
Her comment drew his gaze to hers. He dared not presume she meant to compliment him, but neither did he think she meant to censure him. “Yes, I suppose so.”
