She waited. Counted the movements of the table. The clink of china. Miss Bingley’s voice. Bingley’s laugh. Darcy’s silence.
At last, when no one was watching her—when Darcy’s attention had been deliberately bent elsewhere—she slipped the paper into her lap and opened it again.
My dearest Lizzy,
I am relieved beyond measure to hear that you are easier. That you are not merely easier, but yourself again; clear-headed, lively, impatient with fuss. That alone tells me more than any physician might.
Her throat tightened. She read on.
I cannot pretend I am easy in my mind about London. I am easier knowing you are not there alone, and easier still knowing whose roof shelters you. I confessed to you once before that I have long suspected (quietly, and without proof) that Mr Darcy’s presence answers something in you that nothing else does. You will forgive a father for noticing such things, but I am gratified to hear that in this case, at least, it seems to be true.
Elizabeth stopped reading long enough to take a bite, smile at Jane, and pretend to be entirely engaged with the meal. Then the letter pulled her attention once more.
But ease is not cure. I have been consulting with Mr Wickham, whom I have found to be a sympathetic and rational ear. He is of the opinion (and I cannot dismiss it lightly) that whatever comfort Mr Darcy provides may be only provisional. He believes there is a reckoning bound up with thatgentleman which, if delayed or mishandled, may cost you more than you now gain.
Her eyes moved faster now.
You must therefore be watchful. Not fearful, but observant. Attend to yourself. Keep note of what strengthens you, and what leaves you diminished. Be cautious of any moment that feels too much, whether of relief or of strain.
She felt heat rise beneath her collar. She stole a sip of wine, but her eyes scarcely left her lap.
Once Mary is wed, I intend to come for you myself. If at any moment before that you feel alarm or a return of your malaise, you are to go at once to your Aunt and Uncle Gardiner. I have written them and trust them entirely. You need not explain yourself beyond what is necessary.
The page ended there. No flourish. No reassurance. Just the weight of his care, set squarely upon her shoulders.
Elizabeth folded the letter again with care and slipped it back into the folds of her gown.
Darcy lifted his glass, then set it down untouched. His hand returned to the table’s edge, fingers spread, as though grounding himself by habit alone.
Her father thought him her shelter.
Wickham thought him her danger.
And Darcy—who met her gaze then, only for a moment—looked like a man bearing a cost he would not challenge and could not afford, yet paying it willingly all the same.
Darcy declined Bingley’s invitationto sport with a civility so automatic it scarcely touched his mind. Billiards required motion without purpose, talk without consequence. He could not trust himself to either.
The study received him in lamplight and order. Books towering on the shelves. The clock upon the mantel marking time with a patience that felt, at present, almost offensive. Darcy shut the door and stood with his hand upon it a moment, listening through the oak for the sound of her footsteps.
But that was silly. The ladies had all retired for the night, and he had watched Brutus stubbornly following Elizabeth up the stairs himself.
He crossed to the desk and set his palms upon its surface, leaning there without sitting. His thoughts refused their accustomed discipline. They returned, again and again, to the shape of her presence in the house—so near it altered the air, so ordinary it seemed impossible that it should cost anything at all.
Darcy forced himself into the chair and reached for the topmost paper. His steward’s hand. A sensible request for more funds from the coffer to cover the increased grain price he had negotiated. He read the first line, then the second, then found himself at the end of the paragraph with no memory of how he had arrived there. The page slid aside. Another followed it. Then another. Each failed him in turn.
At last, he abandoned the pretence and reached instead for the folded sheet Harrowe had sent that morning, already creased thin from having been opened, read, and read again. Harrowe’s hand was heavy and uneven, the ink pressed deep as though he had not troubled himself with elegance.
Mr. Darcy,
I have not come because I am still at the work, and because what I have found does not yet warrant the disturbance. I write only so you will not suppose I have forgot you.
Beyond the Liber and the Ballads, there are only scraps worthy of the name. Late marginal hands, a travelling bard’s verse copied by a parish clerk, a death notice altered and crossed through. None of it would stand before a learned society, which may be the reason it endures at all.
One such verse follows Bedevere into old age. It claims he lived long, retained his name, and was spoken of with respect, but never again with honour. The bard dwells much on barrenness: of land, of house, of legacy. I send it for what it is worth,which may be little.
There is also this: several late sources describing the years after the Roman withdrawal record flooding, land loss, and sudden abandonment of settled places. The accounts disagree in detail and offer no explanation. Their only commonality is timing. That may signify something, or nothing at all. I cannot yet say.
I will come when there is something worth the hire of a hansom. Until then, do not wait on me. Such things were never kept to spare a man discomfort.
