“And you may write to her, and express your kind wishes and hopes for her through that most gentle medium,” Mrs Ashwood suggested.
After several more such reassurances, Mr Collins finally retreated. When he had exited at last, Mrs Ashwood sighed and dropped onto the nearest settee.
“I apologise,” Darcy said immediately, chagrined. Collins had forgotten common civilities, but Darcy had not rectified the situation. “I ought to have remembered my manners, and offered you a chair at once. You have had a long night, I would wager, with very little rest.”
She waved this off. “No, no, I am glad you did not. It might have made it more difficult to achieve my brother’sspeedy departure.” It should have sounded a bit callous, but her words were accompanied by amusement and even affection in her expression, although she did not smile. It was there, in the twinkle in her warm brown eyes. “I supposed you to be my ally in keeping him on his feet.”
He found himself wondering what she would look like with a full smile upon that wide, lovely mouth, but quickly he recalled himself. “I suppose he cannot be blamed for his distress.”
“Of course not,” she agreed. “He is a man of deep feeling. One only wishes for a little less exposure to it. Perhaps, instead, I ought to admire his visible emotions. Why is wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve such an affront to my views of masculinity? Ought he not to be commended for his obvious and heartfelt concern?”
Darcy could not say why he told her the truth—only that she was somehow one of those rare individuals with whom he felt easy saying whatever came to mind. “Perhaps. However,ifI were married, andifmy wife were ill, Iwouldsee her. No one—not Bingley’s butler nor his housekeeper nor his houseguest and certainly not Bingley himself—could stop me. I would not waste a lot of time discussing the matter with them, or waiting for permission.”
“Even if she did notwishto see you?”
“I can imagine only two motives for such a refusal, neither of which would keep me from my purpose.”
“Oh? Dare I ask your rationale on the reasoning of this unfortunate fictional female who dares deny you?”
She was teasing him as if she were intrigued by the conversation and wanted its continuance, and something within him was drawn to it, and to her. “I have not the smallest objection to explaining it. Either she has some othersecret she hides behind an illness, or she does not wish me to see her at a time when her looks do not appear to her greatest advantage. In either case, I wholly reject such thinking. If the former, I shall have no secrets from my spouse, and she shall have none from me. If the latter, our vows compel a certain responsibility on my part ‘in sickness and in health’. Not only should she expect my support when she is at her best, but she ought to demand it, as is her right, when at her most fragile.”
There came a look upon her face that he could not interpret. Grief? Her husband was hardly a year in his grave. A lingering illness, Sir William had explained. But all she replied was, “I find myself in agreement. But which of these motives do you ascribe to my sister?”
“Oh, for Mrs Collins, neither—it is only that her husband requires extreme and even unnecessary reassurance. She is not feeling well enough to provide it, which would thereby require her to assume the role of his caretaker, instead of he, hers.”
Her eyes regained that warm, hidden gleam, but she still did not openly show her amusement. “I cannot imagine concluding anything so personal about a person so recently introduced to me,” she said demurely.
“You cannot? Tell me truthfully—have you drawn no personal conclusions whatsoever regarding Miss Bingley, even upon so brief an acquaintance?”
Her eyes were positively sparkling now. “I suppose I have,” she replied agreeably. “But I mean to ask her and her sister to walk in the garden with me later today, if she is feeling improved over yesterday. I have learnt that I sometimes too easily make certain suppositions, such as those Iformed about you upon our first encounter—I will not call it a ‘meeting’—that may be overly assumptive.”
It was clear that she meant him to smile, but he felt instead a stab of guilt. “I believe I owe you an apology. I attended that entertainment while in the most savage of moods. Further, I expressed my poor mood to Bingley, without considering who else might overhear my tactless remarks.”
“You owe me nothing. I rudely interrupted before any nascent tactlessness might be aimed in my direction.”
“The very fact that you could intuit the unhappy potential for my conversation eliminates any possibility of rudeness on your part. Although it was plain that you did not wish to dance—not simply with me, but with anyone at all, as you proved throughout the evening.”
She appeared surprised, but only shrugged at his discernment. “I am astonished you noticed. But yes, it seemed a sensible course to take.”
“I do not see why. I believe the words you used to discredit my behaviour went something like ‘I am not in the habit of being agreeable to those who find dancing—at aball—a torture.’ It seems you were not in the habit of being agreeable to any partner whatsoever.”
Her expression remained nonchalant. “I am a social creature. The period of my mourning was difficult, and now that I am free to enjoy the activities and friendships available to me, I wish to do so. You are a stranger to the area, and cannot know the reputation of every man in it. I am not, however. I live alone, as Miss Bingley has pointed out. It gives some men ideas that my privacy might be an excuse to foster…other connexions. Those who were pursuing a dance with me were ofthe type whom I trust least, and there were those present who were only waiting to remark upon my ‘choice’ of partner. Besides, I am content in my widowhood. I did not go to the assembly in search of a man, husband or otherwise.”
He could not prevent his frown. Sir William had related the story of her marriage and the Bennets’ complicated familial estate inheritance; Ashwood had been a beneficial connexion at a time when—her father upon his deathbed—her future had been a great unknown. Her elderly husband, however, had not taken care of her in any particularly liberal fashion, and the settlement her father had negotiated was, by all reports, insufficient. The idea that she would remain in some type of permanent mourning after shedding her blacks was repugnant. But before he could offer any objection, or indeed think of any reason why he should, Mrs Miles interrupted.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said. “But Mrs Collins has another visitor who begs a brief visit.” She handed over a card.
“Mrs John Ashwood,” he read aloud. “A relation of yours?”
One moment, Mrs Ashwood had been conversing with him, her manner friendly, interested, and disarming. The second he stated the caller’s name, it was as if she had been doused in a torrent of icy formality. Her lips tightened, her shoulders braced, and her expressive eyes shuttered. “John Ashwood is my late husband’s nephew, and the new master of Stoke,” she said. Her voice was even; her posture bespoke something else. “And his wife, Fanny, is my sister’s dearest friend.”
There was nothing else for it. “I do not know whether Mrs Collins is up to having a visitor,” he said to the servant. “But show her in.”
8
GIFTED AND TALENTED
Fanny Ashwood was a woman of perhaps his own age, expensively dressed, with dark hair and green eyes. Her appearance was greatly in her favour; she had all the best part of beauty—a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. She greeted Mrs Ashwood with the utmost civility.
