She looked at him sharply, then away again, just as quickly. “Oh. How did you find out?”
“Mrs Reynolds informed me.”
“Your housekeeper? How did she know?”
“It is rather a complicated story.”
“I see. You do not have to tell me.”
“I do. It is why I have come.”
She glanced at him again, warily. “Very well. I am listening.”
“Mrs Reynolds came to me about a week ago and told me that you called at Pemberley the day you left Derbyshire.”
It did not take Elizabeth long to comprehend the significance of this. She frowned indignantly. “Only a week ago?”
Darcy nodded and tried his best not to be distracted by how magnificent she looked when she was vexed.
“But you are wearing the coat you lent me. How did she account for that being returned?”
“She said a servant brought it to the house.”
Elizabeth expelled an incredulous huff of air. “I stood in the pouring rain until I was soaked through, pleading to be allowed to speak to you! It was undignified and improper, and she wasscrupulousin making me feel it. I suppose she did not tell you that she slammed the door in my face?”
Darcy clenched his teeth. He had not thought he could resent Mrs Reynolds any more. Apparently, he had been wrong. “She did not.”
“I take it she did not give my note to Miss Darcy either?”
“No. She burnt it.”
Elizabeth stopped walking. “Burntit? Why?”
He took a deep breath; this part would be unpleasant. “For some reason I have not been able to unearth, it seems Mrs Reynolds took a dislike to you when you first came to Pemberley. She was quite alone in her opinion, and indefensibly presumptuous to have formed it, but form it she did, and she allowed it to affect her judgment.” Elizabeth had coloured but said nothing, thus he continued. “Two letters to you from your family fell into her possession, and rather than pass them on, she read them. They contained news of your youngest sister’s elopement.”
She let out a wordless cry. “So you know it was an elopement. I have not even the consolation of pretending the marriage was respectable.” She looked away into the trees, wringing her hands together. “This explains why I never received Jane’s letters. I cannot believe this! ’Tis too much!”
“I beg you would believemewhen I say that nothing in Mrs Reynolds’s behaviour has ever led me to suspect her capable of such duplicity. Had I any inkling of what she was up to, I should have acted sooner. I can only apologise for the delay it has caused in my coming for you.”
He could see she was too angry to take his meaning.
“But I do not understand! What has this to do with her not telling you that I called?”
“She apparently sought to protect me from a connexion with Wickham. When you came to Pemberley to say you were leaving, she took it upon herself to let you go without informing anybody, thinking it was for the best.”
“Then not only did you not know why I had gone, but you thought I had left without even a word of farewell? What must you have thought of me!”
“The same as I have always thought.”
She was still too angry. She had begun pacing back and forth across the path in front of him, and his implication went entirely unnoticed.
“Shesaidshe did not think anyone was good enough for you—that day she showed us the house! Had I known she was speaking for my benefit, I should not have thought her quite so generous! What right had she to decide who would make you happy?”
“None, which is why her opinion is of no importance, and her efforts to direct my affections have all been in vain. The only way in which her reprehensible interference has disadvantaged me is that I no longer have a housekeeper.”
“You have dismissed her? I suppose that is well and good. I only wish she had not painted me as an unsuitable, inconstant, and ungrateful interloper before you had the chance!”
“I did not dismiss her. I had not decidedwhatto do about her, but she has taken the matter out of my hands. I received a letter from my steward this morning, informing me that she has left Pemberley—under the cover of darkness and without notice.”
