Darcy supposed she meant to tease him because she thought it unnecessary for a steward on the edge of gentility to leave his card for anyone in town. Elizabeth must want some return to their former amity, and he would make the most of any opportunity she presented him. “I intend to take you to the Lake District. I expect to leave next week if that suits you?”
“It is all the same to me. I was once an unwanted sister to be ferried from one house to another, and always at the convenience of others. I can be ready to travel at a moment’s notice, although it does feel sudden for a man who likes to deliberate before acting.”
“Yet once I fix my mind on something, it is as good as done.” He could not admit that he wanted to settle everything quickly to enjoy the time he had left with her, to boost her spirits, and move them both away from this place that harboured painful memories. “I hope you are not disappointed to miss the joys of sea-bathing in South End withLydia and helping her find a husband with at least two thousand a year.”
“That depends: can I go bathing in Grasmere, or will I have to be content with the air and the view?”
He almost promised that next summer he would take her to any watering place she liked. “I have seen no one in the public places venture farther in than to their knees, and it is usually the children.”
“Are you often at one watering place or another?”
“Not often, but the prospect of the sea is striking, and the sublimity and?—”
“No, I must beg you not to talk of the sea. You will make me envious if you talk of places I have not seen.” Her tone was arch, but he caught her wistful expression. What would otherwise have been a lively statement, one that came naturally from her playful manner, now took on a darker meaning.
“Then perhaps I shall tell you of what happened the first time I was taken bathing,” he answered to distract them both. “But, I warn you, it shows my cousin Fitzwilliam in an unfavourable light.”
She linked an arm through his, and his heart beat faster. “In that case, I insist that you tell me all.”
“I remember bathing in the River Derwent when I was four, and Fitzwilliam would have been about seven, and his brother eight or nine—certainly both of them old enough to know better than to lead astray their young, impressionable cousin.”
“As one with more younger siblings than older, I might side with your cousin when all is said and done, but continue.”
While they walked past the toll gate into Meryton, Darcy described being challenged by his cousins to find as many crayfish in the river as possible before they were called back. “I was a competitive boy and wanted to win, but could only catch one. When we were finished, both of my cousins—very generously, I wrongly presumed—allowed me to keep their crayfish as well, and convinced me that we ought to bring the lot back with us. We ran to the carriages ahead of all the parents and servants, and Fitzwilliam helped me find the perfect place to store them for the ride home.”
Elizabeth looked at him with an expectant smile. Seeing her so animated was a lovely sight. “Where did you put them?”
“Fitzwilliam said that the most sensible place would be in our aunt’s work bag, which she had left on the seat.”
She gasped. “Oh no!” With her eyes she implored him to tell the rest.
“I happily crammed ten crayfish into it, thinking what fun I would have at the pond at home with my new collection.”
His wife was now hanging on his arm and laughing heartily. “When did she discover your pets?”
“Somewhere north of Matlock Bath, she wanted her penknife or some thing. I remember a lot of shrieking and some equally angry crayfish being flung about the carriage with one determined creature clinging to her finger. My aunt was resentful for years.”
“That is a harsh view to take on a children’s joke,” she said when she caught her breath.
“No, forgive me, she was cross with my father, who laughed the hardest of all of us.”
Darcy looked at her as her laughter pealed. Elizabeth looked cheerful, blooming, and happy, and he would do whatever he could to keep her that way.
Through her laughter she asked, “Your father did not scold you boys terribly, did he?”
“He had firm words for my cousins, as well as a few for his influenceable son, but my father told the story with great spirit for years to come.”
When she calmed, she said, still smiling, “You must be very like him. Your father sounds like a good sort of man.”
“He was, Mrs Darcy,” he said quietly. “A well-meant, kindly man.”
He was saved from considering too long if he was as benevolent as his father had been because they arrived at the post office. He busied himself with dropping off and retrieving his letters, and he saw Elizabeth’s dismay that she had not received a reply from her aunt in the Canadas.
They were on Meryton’s high street, but he was still about to graspher hand in silent sympathy when he realised he was wearing York tan gloves.
“I have forgotten my black gloves,” he said more to himself. Mrs Bennet had given him those gloves. He had remembered the armband, and his hat still had its crepe band. It was two months since Georgiana died; a brother’s full mourning was three months. He had worn her watch fob, he had placed the armband, he still wore black, but he had thought nothing of wearing his favourite pair of fawn-coloured gloves on a summer walk.
“You do not love her any less,” his wife said softly, “and forgetting one black article is not disrespectful.”
