“Miss Darcy?”
“Mrs Marsden. I hope you are not distressed. I came only to sit and have not done anything heroic.”
“Then I am relieved twice over.” Jane set down the tray and, in a breath, arranged her face to the same composed sweetness that had soothed sickrooms, servants, and frightened children since Elizabeth could remember. Yet Elizabeth, having learned too much lately of what Jane could conceal, saw the tiredness under it and the swift glance Jane gave Darcy before she began to pour.
Georgiana in the chair. Elizabeth against the pillows. Jane at the tray. Darcy by the hearth, still holding himself as if pleasure must be justified before he dared admit it. It was the first time the house had held all four together in anything resembling company rather than crisis.
Tea was poured. Georgiana took half a cup and no more. Jane watched the quantity with a nurse’s eye while pretending not to. Darcy remained standing until Georgiana informed him that looming over invalids was a habit more oppressive than helpful and that if he meant to govern the room, he ought at least to do it from a chair. He obeyed only so far as taking the one nearest the hearth, which proved that obedience, in him, was always limited by principle.
They spoke of harmless things because harmless things were all the afternoon could bear—the book Georgiana meant to send next, whether the valley’s damp was worse in November or March, whether south light deceived one into hopes the weather could not maintain. Georgiana said March, because in March one expected mercy and did not always receive it. Elizabeth said November, because in November one had the whole winter still to fear. Darcy chose neither and was informed by both ladies that abstention only proved weakness of character.
He accepted the rebuke with a gravity so exact Georgiana laughed aloud.
Because Elizabeth saw that, she also saw what it must cost Jane to stand by the tray and watch such ease spring up where no one had planted it.
The hand that set down the teapot did so with deliberate care. The colour that had risen in Jane’s face faded by degrees. Darcy’s eyes went to it before anyone spoke.
At length Georgiana set down her cup.
“I think,” she said, looking not at Darcy but at Elizabeth, “I have been brave enough for one afternoon and ought to retire before my reputation exceeds my stamina.”
“An excellent principle,” Elizabeth said. “If I had learned it younger, I should have spared myself much trouble.”
Darcy crossed to her. He did not fuss. That perhaps was why Georgiana permitted the assistance. He offered his hand. She placed her fingers in it and rose, declaring to him as she did so that she possessed more strength than two weeks before
She went out with Darcy beside her.
After their departure, their impression remained in the room. Jane stood still by the tray.
“That is the furthest Miss Darcy has come in weeks,” she said quietly.
Elizabeth nodded.
“And the furthest Mr Darcy has looked from despair since we came,” Jane added so softly it might have been meant for herself.
Elizabeth looked at her sister.
Jane did not look back. She was turning the cups, gathering spoons, restoring order to objects whose arrangement had not in truth suffered at all. Tidying was always kinder than feeling.
When Darcy returned ten minutes later, Georgiana put back upstairs and Nan dispatched to remain with her, he came not back to the hearth but to the chair Georgiana had vacated. He took it with a deliberateness that acknowledged the room’s altered terms.
“She is tired,” he said.
“Naturally,” Jane replied. “But I think it is good tiredness. One of satisfaction and not exhaustion.”
“I hope so.”
The nakedness of the words—not over-dramatic, not intimate, merely sincere—caught Elizabeth in the throat unexpectedly.
Darcy’s eyes moved to her. “And you, Miss Bennet? Has all this improvement ruined you?”
“Not yet. Ask me again when Mrs Hadley returns to pronounce sentence on my rashness in receiving visitors.”
“She will do so with visible satisfaction.”
“As do most people right where I am concerned.”
He looked at her a fraction too long. “That has not been my experience.”
