“The names of those who did not return,” the Colonel went on, “will not be spoken here tonight. Many are unknown beyond a regiment, or a village, or the family who received only a letter and the assurance that their son—or husband, or brother—had ‘fallen with honour.’ I have seen men of excellent mind and excellent heart go from us in an instant, and I have seen those left behind bear the loss without any audience for their pain.”
Across from him, Miss Fletcher’s hands, which had been resting lightly upon her lap, tightened about one another. It was a small motion, almost imperceptible, but her father’s glance fell upon it, and there was in his look something like approval—approval not of her distress, but of the truth that had moved her.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s tone did not become grand; it remained dignified, and for that reason it struck deeper than rhetoric.
“If I am to be thought worthy of advancement,” he said, “I should wish it to be understood that no advancement can repay what was spent. It can only impose a further duty. Those who command must remember those who obeyed. Those who sit safe at table must remember those who ate standing, or not at all. And those who speak of honour must not use it as ornament.”
Marquess of Ashford, before he quite knew he was speaking, inclined his head and said, in a low voice that nevertheless carried to those nearest him, “That is spoken as it ought to be spoken, sir.”
The Colonel’s eyes turned briefly in his direction, and his acknowledgement was immediate—neither condescending nor grateful, but respectful. “I thank you, sir.”
Lady Catherine, who could not allow the final note of the moment to belong to anyone but herself, drew a breath, preparing—no doubt—to translate his words into a compliment upon her own discernment; yet before she could speak, Georgiana—quiet as she had been all evening—lifted her gaze, not toward Lady Catherine, but toward the Colonel, and the steadiness of that look suggested she, too, had listened with more than politeness.
Elias Bennet, seated not far from her—near enough to observe without being accused of watching—had been listening with his head slightly inclined, his expression grave. He was not a man who admired noise; it was not the Colonel’s speech alone that held him, but the manner of it: the refusal to turn service into theatre, the refusal to accept praise at the expense of truth. When, at last, the Colonel resumed his seat, Elias’s eyes lifted, and met—only for a moment—Georgiana’s across the table.
There was nothing bold in the exchange; no smile, no invitation. Yet it was impossible to miss that both had been moved by the same thing, and that each, recognising it in the other, had felt a quiet, almost startled kinship.
Mr. Darcy, who missed little that concerned Georgiana, saw it at once—not with alarm, but with the sharpened attention of a guardian who understood that the smallest looks are sometimes the beginning of everything.
Lady Catherine, meanwhile, smiled as if the entire speech had been a confirmation of her own excellent judgement.
“Very proper, Colonel,” she declared, as though he had performed an exercise set by her hand. “Very proper indeed. And now”—her gaze swept the table, gathering them again into the machinery of her will—“we shall proceed with the evening exactly as it ought to proceed, for I do not invite company to sit in silence like Quakers. We have done justice to duty; we may now return to the pleasures of society.”
The servants, taking their cue from her tone rather than from any visible signal, moved again; dishes were changed; wine was offered; conversation, cautiously revived, began to run in channels Lady Catherine believed she could direct.
Yet something had been introduced into the room that was not of her arranging: a seriousness that could not be dismissed as mere sentiment, and a sense—felt by more than one person present—that there were kinds of authority which did not depend on being obeyed.
And, as Elias’s attention returned—half against his will—to the composed figure of Miss Darcy, and as Georgiana’s gaze drifted, briefly and thoughtfully, toward the quiet gentleman who had listened as if listening were an act of respect, Darcy’s watchfulness deepened into a new, careful interest: not becausehe feared for his sister, but because he had begun to perceive that her mind was already engaged, and that engagement—once begun—could not be directed by Lady Catherine’s chair, however high its back might be.
***
When the ladies withdrew, it was with the precise gradation of ceremony that Rosings demanded. Lady Catherine led, satisfied that the evening—though it had not unfolded exactly as she had designed—remained firmly within her governance; the other women followed according to rank and relation, their expressions carefully composed, their remarks subdued to what was permissible in the corridors of a great house. The gentlemen remained behind for a few minutes longer, as tradition required, though little was said that had not already been weighed and found acceptable.
By the time the party reassembled in the drawing room, the atmosphere had altered once again—not with the sharpness of confrontation, but with the quieter anticipation that attends a shift from public ceremony to social display. Chairs were arranged in a loose semicircle near the pianoforte; candles had been trimmed; the fire made to burn evenly, so that neither draught nor smoke might distract from whatever was to follow. Lady Catherine took her place as if she had never moved from it, and surveyed the room with the proprietary satisfaction of a woman who believed taste itself to be hereditary.
Georgiana Darcy was seated at some distance from her aunt, near the instrument, though not so near as to suggest presumption. She had spoken little since dinner, but her composure remained intact; if the Colonel’s speech had stirred her, she had not permitted the feeling to disorder her manners.Elias Bennet, now placed opposite her, found himself acutely conscious of that restraint. It was not coldness—it was control, and he recognised it at once, because he practised something very like it himself.
Lady Catherine, having allowed a sufficient interval for the company to settle, cleared her throat.
“Miss Darcy,” she said, with the tone of one who conferred distinction by requesting what she fully expected to receive, “you have not yet obliged us this evening. I think it quite proper that you should do so now. Music is, after all, among the accomplishments by which a young woman’s taste and discipline are best displayed.”
Georgiana rose without haste. There was no fluttering of hands, no pretence of reluctance; she inclined her head slightly, neither acquiescent nor defiant, and moved to the pianoforte as if the path had already been chosen and merely awaited her steps.
“If it pleases you, Aunt,” she said quietly.
“It will please our guests,” Lady Catherine replied at once. “Pray proceed.”
As Georgiana seated herself, Elias felt—before a single note had sounded—that peculiar tightening of attention which precedes something genuine. He had heard music often enough; Meryton was not without its performers, nor Oxford its accomplished amateurs. But there was, in the stillness that settled now, a sense that the company expected not merely sound, but revelation.
Georgiana’s hands rested upon the keys for a brief moment. She did not glance about for approval; she did not look to her brother. When she began, it was softly—so softly that more than one listener leaned forward without quite knowing why.
The piece was not chosen for brilliance. It was restrained, deliberate, and shaped with an intelligence that understood its own limits. The melody unfolded gradually, without ornamentation that called attention to skill, yet with a depth of feeling that could not be mistaken for mere practice. Georgiana played as she conducted herself: with exactness, with inward command, and with an emotion that did not seek display, but could not be concealed.
Elias Bennet forgot—entirely—the room.
It was not that he ceased to observe; rather, his observation narrowed, sharpened, until everything else fell into irrelevance. Elias became aware of the way her posture only slightly changed even in the most expressive passages, of the control with which she allowed a phrase to swell and recede, of the intelligence that governed her choices. This was not music performed to impress; it was music offered as speech, and spoken with sincerity. He did not smile. He did not shift in his seat. Yet something in him—long accustomed to restraint—had been reached with unmistakable clarity.
Mr. Darcy, watching from the far side of the room, observed the younger Bennet with attention that was neither indulgent nor suspicious. What struck him was its quality. Elias Bennet did not gaze at Georgiana as a man gazes at novelty, or beauty, or advantage. He listened—fully, intently, as if the performance demanded something of him in return. Darcy, who had spent years discerning the difference between admiration and appetite, noted it at once.
