He almost pressed the matter, for it seemed the perfect opportunity to query something that had been troubling himsince the day before, but he decided against it. Quite apart from the possibility of his not liking her answer, there were weightier concerns to attend to. He thanked her for the broth and the conversation but suggested they set both aside that he might write a letter to his cousin.
Chapter 9
The Influence of Friendship
“It really is a good thing that Miss Bingley cannot see you at present. Though I am sure she would forgive you a great deal, I wonder if even she could overlook the unevenness of those lines.”
Darcy attempted to glare at Elizabeth but could not long suppress a smile. It was true; dashing off a few lines of conversation had been relatively easy even in his recumbent position, but composing a legible letter was proving impossible. The pain in his neck prevented him holding his head forward to see the page properly and squinting at it aslant meant his letters sloped pitifully across the page.
“Should you like me to write it for you?” Elizabeth asked more sympathetically, to which Darcy acceded by handing her the pen and paper. She declared what he had written to be illegible and began afresh, transcribing the salutation from the original. “Does this sayFitzwilliam?”
Darcy absentmindedly touched the back of one hand with the finger of another, distracted by how Elizabeth’s lips formed around the word.
She wrote it down. “I cannot read the rest so I shall improvise.” The glint in her eye and slight curl of her lip gave Darcy to hope some manner of devilry was imminent. His stomach turned over in anticipation.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” she began. “Pray, send help—no, help will never do.Reinforcementsis better. Send reinforcements. I have been hurt—no,incapacitated.I am stuck—I amimprisonedat an inn near Spencer’s Cross. The road is blocked—” She tapped the end of the pen against her front teeth while she thought. “The road has beenbarricadedby snow.I require…evacuation.”
“What are you about?” Darcy mouthed when she glanced at him slyly.
She fixed him with a look of such impishness as made his heart thump. “Studying for words of four syllables.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and she let slip a small laugh. “I am merely attempting to make it sound authentic. You would not like your cousin to dismiss the letter as a hoax.”
He held out his hand to take the pen and stack of paper from her and wrote, albeit messily, on a different page,
Bingley was wrong to imply that my use of long words is affected. It scarcely ought to reflect poorly on me that my vocabulary is more comprehensive than his.
Elizabeth’s smile faded. “Forgive me, Mr Darcy. I was only teasing, but I forget that you do not care for being laughed at.”
Yet more rattled than before, he handed back the writing apparatus, keeping his eyes downcast. “It was Bingley’s teasing I disliked,” he mouthed sullenly. “I enjoyed yours.”
It seemed a long while before he heard the scratch of the pen resume.
“It was most uncivil of Mr Bingley to tease you at Netherfield when he must have known you would not like it,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps he is not quite as deferential towards you as he claimed to be.”
Unable to guess whether she meant to defend him against Bingley’s teasing or defend Bingley againsthissupposed tyranny, Darcy made no reply.
“There,” Elizabeth declared. “I am finished. Will that do, do you think?”
He read what she showed him and assured her it would do very well.
“Here then,” she said, holding the pen out to him. “You had better sign it.”
He did, and she blew on it to dry the ink. “F. Darcy,” she read with interest. “Would it be terribly impertinent to enquire what the F stands for?”
“Fitzwilliam,” he mouthed.
“Fitzwilliam?” she repeated with a frown, as though she had misread his lips. “The same as your cousin’s surname?”
“In honour of my mother,” he replied with a small shrug that nonetheless sent pain lancing down his neck. Elizabeth pulled a face that he hoped was approval, though he had given up attempting to know her thoughts and resolved not to count on it. Instead, he determined to settle another matter that troubled him still and indicated that he wished her to hand back the stack of paper. In a mortifyingly childish scrawl, he wrote,
What was your meaning when you said that you were not as complying as my other friends?
She smiled ruefully upon reading it. “I ought not to have said that, sir. It was uncivil, and I apologise.”
Nevertheless, I would know your meaning.
“Very well,” she said, tilting her chin defiantly. “I meant that you appear to like having your own way very well, but that I am not as willing as some of your friends to be at your disposal.”
He refrained from gaping at her and mouthed, “Which friends?”
