Ferguson’s dining-parlour was always dingy. More so presently with the light leaching out of the day. The gloom rendered dinner muted, colourless. It was at least cool. Blessed relief after standing about all afternoon in the August sun, staring fruitlessly at the ominous black fracture in Pemberley’s wall.
“I trust your mother is keeping well,” Darcy said to Mrs Ferguson.
“Remarkably well, all things considered. And Miss Darcy? I hope she is in good health.”
“Excellent health, thank you.”
“Did she have the opportunity to go to the seaside again this year—Ramsgate, was it?”
“No, she has been in town these past six months.” He felt no alarm at the mention of his sister’s summer activities. That was new. Then again, a whole year had passed, and Georgiana’s brush with ruin remained a secret. From all but one. Andshehad not shunned the acquaintance in revulsion. “She may well go next summer, though. The sea air is far superior to London’s,” he added. Dull words, but anything sufficed that would tame the churning of his mind.
“I should like to see the sea one day,” Mrs Ferguson mused. “’Tis difficult to imagine—a person must set eyes on it to comprehend, I suspect.”
“It is unlikely we shall be setting eyes on the sea any day soon, my dear,” her husband remarked. “Not with the work that’s needed at Pemberley now.”
Pemberley. Darcy shifted restlessly in his seat as Mrs Ferguson announced her leave-taking. He caught the tail end of a look between husband and wife. What it signified he knew not.
Once a servant had cleared the table and lit some candles, Ferguson poured two glasses of port and came to the point with gratifying brevity. “Were you satisfied with Mr Jacobs, sir? There are several other architects of sound reputation I could approach if you would prefer.”
“No, no—he will do. You have been very thorough in checking his references. And I have heard excellent reports of him amongst my own acquaintances. Would that he had proved inept. I should much rather he was wrong.”
Ferguson grimaced. “We can only hope one of his less troubling prognoses is found to be the cause. Indeed, he seemed disinclined to attribute the problem to the foundations. He remarked more than once on the area’s geology making movement in the ground unlikely. To which I would add that Pemberley has stood on that spot for well over a hundred years without incident.”
Darcy swirled the liquid in his glass and stared into it. One-hundred-and-forty-eight years to be precise. Six generations of Darcys. Six masters of Pemberley. And only under his superintendence were the walls crumbling. “There was an earthquake in 1795 that caused damage to buildings across the county. We thought Pemberley had escaped unscathed. I wonder now whether it did not.”
“Surely, if the foundations were compromised seventeen years ago, it would have caused problems before now.”
Darcy finished the last of his port and deposited the glass heavily on the table. “There is no profit in speculating. We shall have to wait and see what the investigations turn up. Have we enough labourers available for the work, or do you anticipate having to hire extra?”
“Trenches of the size Mr Jacobs was talking about will only take a few men to dig, a few more to cart away the spoil. Mr Howes ought to be able to spare enough of his gardeners. I shall have to hire a stonemason to work on revealing the lintels, though. And they will want scaffolding.”
“You have informed Matthis and Mrs Reynolds that no one is to enter that part of the house?”
“I have, and alternative rooms are being readied for those guests who would have been in that wing.”
Darcy nodded absently. Pemberley did not want for bedrooms, although some of the finest were in the east wing. Those which, when not in use, were kept made up to exhibit to visitors. Visitors such as those Mrs Reynolds had shown around earlier. “The embargo applies to the servants as well, not just my guests.”
“Some of the footmen will need access, sir. To clear space for the workmen.”
“Granted, but in general, admittance should be kept to a minimum,” Darcy insisted.
“Of course. On the subject of your guests, should you prefer to postpone the work until they have left?”
His guests. Fifteen friends invited for the purpose of disguising the absence of one. One who, against every expectation and all likelihood, was not absent at all. “Let us see how disruptive it all proves once it has begun. Perhaps I shall curtail the gathering.” He found himself tapping his fingertips on the table and stopped. “I ought to be going, Ferguson. The light is almost gone.”
His steward graciously agreed and, after wishing Mrs Ferguson goodnight and thanking them both for dinner, Darcy left. They waved him off at the door. He walked to the end of the path and turned to touch his hat, then rounded the hedge and set off down the lane. Twenty yards along it, he stopped walking, doubled over with his hands on his knees, and expelled all the air from his lungs in one forceful breath.
Elizabeth was here!
Maintaining his composure for the interminable hours since they parted had proved taxing to the point of bewilderment. His mind had not ceased roiling, attempting over and again to dwell upon every detail of their encounter, yet he had not had a private moment to reflect on it from that instant to this. Rather, he had been obliged to pore over complex architectural drawings, listen to Mr Jacobs’s catalogue of dire prognostications, and scrutinise, from every conceivable angle, the shocking fissure splintering Pemberley’s stonework.
Nevertheless, it was little more than half an hour after he had seen her—half an hour of pitiful distraction and soaring hope—before Darcy understood that he still loved her. Regardless of what he had attempted to convince himself these past months, there was no refuting Elizabeth’s power to render him light of heart even as he received news of a potentially catastrophic structural failure at his ancestral home.
Light as his heart was, it was nevertheless plagued with questions—and he, wild with the need for answers. Why had she come? What thought she of Pemberley? Was it too much to hope that she had forgiven him? He began walking again, his steps rapidly gaining pace as he passed the home farm and crossed the bridge.
They were on their travels, her uncle had said, visiting her aunt’s friends in Lambton. Elizabeth had been emphatic in her assertions that she had been assured of his absence before agreeing to come. She need not have taken such pains to convince him of it; he had known she was not expecting to see him the instant their eyes met. Darcy huffed a small laugh of sympathy for her upon comprehending that she may not have been able to avoid the visit; her relations had likely wished it.
She had come under sufferance, then, and only after ascertaining he would not be there. This he might have taken as proof that she despised him still, except he had never seen her so abashed. Impertinent, yes; vexed, certainly—even embarrassed, but never humbled, never meek. Darcy knew from painful experience that if Elizabeth remained angry with him, she would not have struggled to meet his eye. She would have regarded him directly with the same undisguised resentment as during their last encounters in Kent.
