Elizabeth beamed at Mr Darcy when their eyes met across the dining table. It gratified her to see him courting the good opinion of people with whom, a few weeks ago, any interaction could have been a disgrace. She could find no fault in the manners ofthisMr Darcy.
The time came for the women to leave the table, and for Elizabeth and her sister, it would be the most tedious hour, thrown on their own resources in the drawing room with no male company. Fortunately, the young gentlemen were of equal mind and soon rejoined them. Elizabeth made tea, and all she could wonder about was whether Mr Darcy would approach her and whether she could not offend him. She had tried to provoke him so often in the past that she was now unsure whether she could engage him in pleasant conversation.
“Miss Elizabeth, you are a conversation in my debt.”
She started to find the object of her thoughts next to her. “I beg your pardon?”
“We are not in a ballroom. You owe me a conversation about books, and there is nothing present to distract you.”
“Perhaps the act of pouring your tea will occupy my attention.” Was Mr Darcy attempting to tease her? “I would hate to spill tea and ruin my gown while I quote Coleridge to impress you. I would hardly appear to my advantage, and you would not judge me as an accomplished lady.”
“I have already made it clear to you what I comprehend in ladies’ accomplishments.”
Elizabeth smiled at the memory of that conversation and wondered how it would have transpired had she not been trying to aggravate him. “Then let us talk of books. Gilpin’s travelogues on the picturesque have occupied me of late, given our plans to travel north.”
“Do not you find his descriptions vague? He concentrates too much on how the scenery has conformed to picturesque principles rather than the specific character of the country.”
Elizabeth refuted his opinion on Gilpin, and they continued in this manner until her aunt prevailed upon her to play. Mr Darcy and her uncle were engaged in conversation for the greater part of the evening, although Elizabeth noticed that the younger man’s eyes drifted toward where she sat at the pianoforte. It was Mr Bingley who had to tell Mr Darcy when the evening drew late, rather than the reverse. The carriage was called, and her aunt excused herself to check on her children. Her uncle attended to Mr Bingley and Jane’s conversation while Maria Lucas lounged sleepily in a chair.
Her heartbeat raced as she realised she had relative solitude with Mr Darcy while he awaited the carriage. She hardly knew this man despite all the time she had spent in his company, but she supposed that more time with him would gradually improve her estimation of him.
I want to learn more of him.
Darcy enjoyedthe evening thoroughly and was not eager to see it end. He knew that, had Elizabeth not admonished him for his conceit and ungentlemanly behaviour, he would never have considered her having connexions of whom he could not be ashamed. A fortnight ago, he never would have comprehended he could have passed a pleasant evening in Cheapside, nor could he imagine he would court the good opinion of a woman who had emphatically rejected him.
Darcy heard his pulse pounding in his ears as he approached Elizabeth. “May I call on you before you leave London?” His voice shook more than it did when he had asked her to marry him.
“Yes.” She addressed this reply to her own shoes after an agonisingly long moment. “Would the day after tomorrow be agreeable?”
Darcy said that it was, but Elizabeth did not appear at ease. He felt their awkwardness from Hunsford as a heavy weight between them. He wanted to vow that he would endeavour not to be the prideful, ungentlemanly man she had known. Despite her ill-founded accusations, he still admired her and hoped to earn her good opinion. He glanced at the others and, seeing that he and Elizabeth had a modicum of privacy, boldly grasped her hand and pressed it.
Elizabeth gasped at the contact of her bare hand inside his, and Darcy let it go. Her cheeks had turned pink, and her breath came faster, but she gave him a shy, tremulous smile.
Before he could say or ask anything more, Bingley came forward to wish her a cheerful good evening, and Darcy had to step away. His gaze never left her while he donned his gloves and hat, but she did not speak, and he did not know whether to feel disheartened or encouraged.
* * *
Elizabeth watched in the hall,the stairs, and the drawing room for the first sound of a carriage that would bring Mr Darcy. It was an agitating thirty minutes during which she did not know whether she should be happy or anxious. Neither her aunt’s conversation nor Frances and Isabella’s chatter could keep her from looking out the window, pacing the room, and walking up and down the stairs.
Mr Darcy appeared and expressed an unaffected cordiality on seeing everyone again. Elizabeth was embarrassed. Recently she had told him, with a dreadful bitterness of spirit, that he was the last man in the world she could be prevailed upon to marry. That he would speak kindly with her and her family at all spoke of his generous nature.
“Mr Darcy, sit here by me!” Isabella took his hand and led him to the sofa. Frances immediately sat on the other side of him, and the three were packed as tightly as could fit, the girls’ stockinged legs swinging back and forth as they looked up at their tall guest with admiration.
Elizabeth watched him try to talk to her aunt while her cousins offered to show him their alphabets, the artificial flowers they had made, and their needle books. He kept his patience, and only a bemused smile betrayed his thoughts on his newfound popularity.
“Girls, why do we not go together to get your samplers and work baskets, and you may show them to Mr Darcy before he leaves? We shall be back in five minutes.” Mrs Gardiner said this with an expressive look at Elizabeth as she took the girls from the room.
The girls did not need an escort to find their rooms, retrieve their work, and walk back down. The ploy lacked the vulgarity of her mother’s tactics, but it was a ploy, nonetheless. She expected to see Mr Darcy shrugging his shoulders, but he looked at her with good-humoured ease that brought a genuine smile to her lips.
“You seem more comfortable with the attentions of lively eight- and six-year-olds than I would have thought possible.”
“I can remember when my sister was that small, though when she was that age, her interest in me went only as far as how high I could toss her toward the ceiling.”
She smiled at the picture. “I am certain that is not true. Miss Darcy must have known even then how lucky she was to have a caring older brother.”
“I could not deny that I care about her, but as you know, I have not recently taken as good care of her as she deserves.” His face fell. “She had the right to expect better from her guardian and only brother.”
“You cannot hold yourself accountable for Mr Wickham’s terrible actions, and I suspect that Miss Darcy would be the first to agree with me.” To know how deeply he cared for his sister and for her happiness placed him in an even more amiable light. “You are certainly a good brother.”
