“Save for the fact that theydo,” Saye informed him. “Their wares are sublime. Gunter’s is nothing to them…eh, Darcy? How often have you been there?”
“Once or twice,” said Darcy stiffly.
“Once or twice!” Saye scoffed. “Your waistcoat tells me otherwise.”
Darcy sat straighter in his seat, intending to deliver a blistering reply. It was true, he had gone more than once or twice. In fact, he had been there daily, enjoying its distance from Mayfair and the strange way the delicacy seemed to assuage his wounded soul. On one particularly low day, he had gone twice, making an excuse to the shopkeeper about needing to bring some to his sister.
Alas, his reply could not be made, for as he inhaled in preparation for it, one of the buttons on his waistcoat gave up on him. He felt it—a brief tightening and then a release—and looked down to see it hanging valiantly by a thread.
Saye saw it too, unfortunately, and laughed. “My point exactly,” he declared. “Too many cream ices, Darcy. You have grown stout.”
“I am not grown stout,” he said indignantly. “This is a very old waistcoat.”
Although in fact, it was not so old, and it had fitted him perfectly at Rosings Park in April—before thatfateful night in Mr Collins’s parlour. Some men took to drink. Evidently, he took to sweets.
“Avoiding companyandconsoling yourself with food, eh?” Fitzwilliam raised a mocking eyebrow. “If I did not know better, I might begin to think you had suffered some manner of disappointment.”
Darcy concentrated diligently on trying to unpick the thread from his loose button and did not answer. Fitzwilliam knew perfectly well what manner of disappointment he had suffered, since he had been at Rosings to witness the aftermath of his disastrous proposal. He trusted him not to reveal anything, but he did not trust Saye not to sniff out the truth if he caught a glimpse of his present discomfort.
“You have two choices,” Saye announced. “New suits to replace the ones you grow out of, or a summer at Brighton. You might swim in the sea, fence, walk along the Promenade. Very healthful. Your waistcoats will be buttoning again in no time.”
“It would be terribly diverting to go to Brighton, for at least a little while,” Georgiana said pleadingly. “Pemberley is just so…rural sometimes.”
That was precisely why Darcy wished to go, but he knew exactly what she meant. The want of society and diversion must be keenly felt by a girl of her age, even if she was not yet out. And a small part of him knew it would not do for him to continue to shy away from people, licking his wounds. At some point, he would need to forget Elizabeth. He would need to put this behind him and begin to recover himself. It seemed an impossibility at present, but it had to happen eventually.
“Perhaps a short stay,” he conceded. “Assuming thatour cousin is able to find something suitable. I am of no mind for discomfort.”
“A month, or perhaps two,” Saye replied. “And did you suppose I would be willing to sleep in a tent? I assure you, my charming seaside abode will be nothing less than should be expected for men of our station. A view of the sea and everything charming!”
Georgiana clapped her hands like a child and giggled happily. “Oh, I simply cannot wait!”
Darcy sincerely hoped he would not come to regret his decision.
4
When the Gardiners’ carriage crested the South Downs and Elizabeth saw Brighton—and the sea beyond it—both sparkling in the sun, she could not help but gasp. She sent a prayer of thanks to her aunt. To think that she owned property in such a beautiful part of the world was almost beyond belief.
They passed some of the regiment’s encampments as they neared the town—an eye-opening experience. Row upon row of tents and swarms of raucous redcoats spread out as far as the eye could see. After that, the town itself was revealed to them, and Elizabeth was enraptured. It was bustling and bright, with handsome buildings surrounding large open parks where people meandered arm in arm. It all looked so very new and smart that it seemed more like theatre scenery than a real place.
Mr Gardiner pulled down the carriage window. “Take in a lungful of that sea air, Lizzy. Tell me what you think.”
Elizabeth leant as close to the window as waspossible with her young cousin Timothy on her lap and inhaled deeply. The air was salty and unfathomably fresh. “Heavenly,” she said with a sigh.
“’Tis even better down on the beach,” Mrs Gardiner said. “But we shall have to wait a little longer to explore that. Mrs Millhouse’s home is farther away from the centre than yours.”
Mr Gardiner gave Elizabeth a nod. “Not everyone is so fortunate as to own shoreward property, eh?”
The Millhouses’ establishment may not have been close to the beach, but it still had commanding views of the town and surrounding countryside and was uncommonly well appointed. Elizabeth was given a small but cosy room on the top floor, from which she could see a steep wooded hill with some very promising paths winding beneath the trees. Mr and Mrs Millhouse were perfectly charming and, all in all, Elizabeth felt confident of a delightful stay, but impatience to see her own house rendered the rest of the afternoon and evening interminably long.
Neither did the next morning bring her any relief, for before she could attend to any business of her own, she and Mrs Gardiner felt obliged to pay a call on the Forsters, with whom Lydia had been permitted to come to Brighton the week before. Despite all her attempts to shock them with tales of the officers’ exploits, it seemed Lydia herself had not done anything in which Mrs Forster was not complicit, which they agreed on the way back was likely the best for which they could hope.
At long last, after a quiet luncheon with the Millhouses, the time came for Elizabeth and Mr Gardiner to wander down through the town and survey her house. It was about a half an hour’s walk, and Elizabeth’s anticipation mounted with every step. Theypassed through an open grassy area, which her uncle informed her was called the Steyne, and down onto the seafront, where a pebbly beach stretched out as far as the eye could see on either side, while ahead, the sea glistened all the way to the horizon. The seafront properties stood far back from the beach, a wide promenade separating the two, along which fashionably dressed men and women proudly paraded.
It was quite unlike anything Elizabeth had imagined: neither quaint, like Lyme Regis, where she had visited as a girl, nor busy, like London’s ports, nor rugged, like the pictures she had seen of other coastal towns. It was open, elegant, and grand. As though someone had scooped up Mayfair and deposited it by the sea.
She let out a long, disbelieving sigh. “I never truly understood the rage about Brighton until now. What a place!”
“Indeed,” her uncle said with a knowing smile. “Marine Parade is this way, I believe.”
