For the first time since setting eyes on him, it occurred to Elizabeth to question why he had come. Then, in the blink of an eye, all possible answers were rendered moot, for Mrs Bennet announced, “You have all heard, I suppose, that my youngest daughter is lately married? To Mr Wickham.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and lowered her chin as Mrs Bennet talked andtalkedabout her new son. It had been blissful while it lasted, but whatever Darcy’s reason for coming, it was sure to be his last visit now that he knew her connexions had sunk to a previously unthinkable low. As if to prove it, Mr Bingley interrupted her mother a few minutes later to announce their departure.
Before the gentlemen left, Mrs Bennet invited them to dine at Longbourn in a few days’ time. Mr Bingley accepted, and Mrs Bennet clearly considered that he meant to engage his friend as well as himself for attendance. Elizabeth was under no such illusion, and her goodbye to Darcy was appropriately final. She was pleased for the opportunity to say that which precipitance had not allowed when she left Derbyshire, but she found, when the time came, that her parting words did not convey even a tenth of her feelings, and that after he was gone, she was ten times more bereft than the last time they had been separated.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
TWO VACANCIES TO FILL
“Bad news?”
Darcy looked up from his letter into Bingley’s worried countenance. “Yes. My housekeeper has left.”
“Surely not. Mrs Reynolds has been there since the house was built.”
Too many urgent considerations churned in Darcy’s mind for him to do more than smile vaguely in response. Who would replace her, why and where she had gone—whether he was pleased that she had. The latter subject vexed him too much to dwell upon, but the matter of what would be done at Pemberley in her absence was a serious problem. He must send instructions to Georgiana for how to arrange things in the meantime. And he would need to think of something to placate his steward, whose displeasure at the clandestine manner of Mrs Reynolds’s departure veritably bristled off the page.
“I say, Darcy, can I ask you something?” Bingley said somewhat gingerly.
With an effort to conceal his impatience, Darcy set aside his letter and regarded his friend expectantly.
“What did you make of Miss Bennet yesterday? Think you she was pleased to see me?”
A flood of warmth instantly washed away all the discomfiture brought by Ferguson’s news as Darcy thought back to the previous day. His disappointment to discover Elizabeth from home when he arrived at Longbourn had been sharp, but had amplified his pleasure when she did, eventually return. He could not have wished for a better response from her, either. Delight overspread her countenance the moment she espied him, and she had not stopped smiling until her mother embarrassed her into silence. Before that, she had talked as though they were long lost friends, frantic to reacquaint each other with every detail of what separation had cost them. It had answered all his questions, done away with all his recent indecision in an instant; Elizabeth welcomed his return. He had been in an ecstasy of relief and anticipation ever since.
“I am, perhaps, not the best person to advise on this matter,” he said to Bingley, who had received no such open display from Miss Bennet. “It has been confirmed that she is serene by nature, so I daresay you ought not to be discouraged by her composure.”
“True, and she has good reason to doubt my affections. I would not expect her to make her own feelings known before being sure of mine. But I would know whether she resents my coming.”
“What did you talk about?”
He shrugged. “Not much. She asked after Caroline and Louisa. We spoke briefly about her cousins, whom she said were here last month. It was all terribly innocuous.”
Darcy grimaced slightly. He loathed inane chatter of precisely that sort, but as Bingley said, Miss Bennet could not be expected to put forward much more at this stage. Elizabeth had askedhimabout Pemberley. He had loved her intensely in that moment. No one else had enquired—not Bingley, not Gardiner, not Pettigrew or Aldridge when he saw them at his club earlier in the week, yet it had been the first query past Elizabeth’s lips. He dared to hope that was because she comprehended how deeply it mattered to him.
When she was at Pemberley, she had understood instinctively what the house represented, had spoken of it in terms entirely consonant with Darcy’s own feelings. She had clearly not forgotten it in the weeks since she left Derbyshire. Her eagerness to know every detail of the structural findings showed her interest to be more than polite enquiry. If he was not entirely mistaken, Pemberley mattered to Elizabeth, also.
He knew, abruptly, what was to be done about his housekeeper.
“Miss Bennet has had time to accustom herself to your return now,” he said to Bingley. “Perhaps she will be more at ease today.”
“You think we should call again so soon?”
“I am going. I need to speak to Miss Elizabeth. But you may do as you please.”
“No, no, I shall not stay here on my own while you dash off and make love to your lady. Let us saddle our horses!”
* * *
Elizabeth could not have looked more surprised to see Darcy when he entered Longbourn’s parlour, for which he could not account at first. Only when Mrs Bennet began, again, to boast of Wickham’s recent admission to their family, causing all her daughters to shrink in mortification, did he recall her panegyric on the same subject the previous day. Being already conversant with the entire sorry affair, Darcy had largely ignored her, but he recalled, belatedly, that Elizabeth was not aware of his intelligence. Evidently, she had believed the revelation would scare him off. He kicked himself for leaving her without reassurance and was thankful to have returned swiftly.
“Darcy and I thought a walk might be just the thing this afternoon,” Bingley declared. “It is gloriously sunny and not too cold. What say you, Miss Bennet? Miss Elizabeth?”
Mrs Bennet declared it an excellent idea and attempted to cajole Miss Catherine and Miss Mary to join them, to ‘keep Lizzy and Mr Darcy company,’ by which she clearly meant, ‘to ensure Jane and Mr Bingley are left in peace.’ It did not escape Darcy’s notice that, during the hubbub that followed, Miss Bennet quietly put the two younger girls off coming. He felt a pang of remorse for having once thought her spiritless, and a greater pang of exhilaration at the prospect of Elizabeth having said enough of her feelings for him that her sister would facilitate their being alone together.
They walked away from the village and through a small wood, emerging onto a picturesque stream. The scene reminded Darcy of the day they visited Dedman’s Gorge, prompting him to relate Mr Gardiner’s encounter with the river rat. Miss Bennet was greatly diverted, but Elizabeth only smiled, notably more subdued than she had been the preceding afternoon. Darcy begrudged that he would be obliged to begin what he came to say with a discussion about Wickham, but the more she frowned and bit her lips, the greater became the importance of putting her mind at rest. He slowed his pace until Bingley and Miss Bennet were out of sight.
“I beg you would not make yourself uneasy about your sister’s marriage. I already knew about it before your mother mentioned it.”
