“A pity. I am sorry for her.”
“Are you? Perhaps you should be. She was intended to be my wife.”
“What? Are you in earnest?”
“Well, it was my aunt’s wish when we were infants. In fact, it still is.”
She laughed at me.
“There is nothing funny about it,” I objected. “I am harassed with great regularity to attach myself to a cousin who does not really like me, is an invalid besides, and is thrust upon me as a duty by my aunt.”
“Ah, but she issuitablein fortune and class,” she said sweetly.
“There is a great deal more to it than that as well you know, and I will thank you not to tease me.”
“Do you mean to shock me with the suggestion that marriage is not as simple a matter as breeding horses?” she asked with eyes widened in specious wonder.
“I must have known you could not resist the urge to tease me. Even if wewerehorses, it would not be an advisable pairing since the salient point is to produce foals and fillies for profit.”
We had suddenly gone too far into the forbidden subject of breeding, and she covered her embarrassment beneath a breezy reply.
“Oh well. If you are not inclined to do as you are told, you must laugh at it. That is my strategy, and it often works, sir.”
After that slightly treacherous exchange, Elizabeth lapsed into longer silences, and if she did speak, she offered only benign murmurs. I felt as though I had contributed mysteriously to this cloud of melancholy, but I still had no clear conclusion to my principal question. Did she love me? She certainly did not seem to when, at the very end of the gallery, she put an end to our meeting with an air of hasty relief.
While I wondered what the lady’s feelings might be, my sister’s were increasingly clear; she was smitten. Elizabeth had been elevated to the position of mentor, accomplice, instructor, and of course, so inherently kind, she was still sainted in Georgiana’s eyes.
It was lowering to conclude that I had provided for my sister and ward in every way except for what must be essential to her happiness—supportive, enriching friendships. By the excitement and pleasure she now evinced upon waking in the morning, she may as well have grown up in a luxurious desert. I no longer wondered that George Wickham could so easily befriend her, for she had been deprived of meaningful companionship, and he was a master at sniffing out such weaknesses.
I did not often think of Wickham, but his ghost had been resurrected by such reflections, and then, unbelievably, he presented himself forcefully to my notice.
The day after I had toured the gallery with Elizabeth, Sir Hugh and Lady Pembridge paid us a morning call. They did so from time to time, and we received them with cordial reservation. Sir Hugh was a powerful ally in the neighborhood, but he was also an overwhelming one. Members of the squirearchy are sometimes full of bluster and gruff goodwill, and my sister met him as though on trial, forcing herself not to jump when he spoke or cower under his attempts to rally her from her reserve. Lady Pembridge was no less forceful, but she had done Elizabeth a service at my behest, and I welcomed her accordingly.
Georgiana came down with Mrs. Annesley to act as bulwark, and to my surprise, she brought Elizabeth as well. I do not precisely know why I was surprised. She was our guest and known to Lady Pembridge. Perhaps I wished she wouldnotpresent herself so obviously to the squire’s notice. This was the first inkling I had that Elizabeth’s objections might have been justified—that a stay at Pemberley would indeed be fuel for local speculation.
There was nothing for it, however, and the visit proceeded predictably. Sir Hugh rather bluntly examined my guest from under the shaggy cliffs of his eyebrows.
“So, this is Miss Elizabeth Bennet of whom I have heard so much,” he remarked.
She was the very opposite of unnerved and openly chuckled at his effrontery. It was a dangerous moment for both parties. The squire’s eyebrows visibly lifted, and Lady Pembridge’s expression began to hint at a suspicious dislike of such boldness as though she were the only woman in the room qualified to be blunt.
I very quickly intervened by shifting the squire’s attention away from our guest and toward my kennel, and since I had bought Fee from Sir Hugh, he was easily distracted, expressing a desire to see how the hound had developed.
I called for Wood to bring my dog and was in the midst of congratulating myself for averting a crisis when the squire remembered Mr. Arneson and his report of gangs coming down from Yorkshire. It was not a subject I wished to be brought into a room in which Elizabeth sat. I tried to deflectthis with the affectation of disinterest to no avail, for the subject suddenly reminded Sir Hugh of something else he wished to know, and the visit then reached a shocking apex.
“Oh, I say, Darcy, I have been meaning to ask: What do you hear of Wickham these days?” he demanded in the tone of local magistrate.
Lady Pembridge condemned the rascal in no uncertain terms, my sister sat in mute paralysis, and while Sir Hugh expounded on the man’s perfidy, even Mrs. Annesley found herself at a stand. Thus, the question hung in the air, and it was left to me to answer the man. I replied evasively that he was rumored to be in the militia.
Rather than satisfy, this inflamed Sir Hugh’s notions of justice, and he demanded to be told just where the miscreant could be found. Before I could jump into the breach and rescue us all with another evasive answer, Elizabeth calmly gave up Wickham’s location and the name of his commanding officer.
For better or worse, my dog and her pup arrived at that critical moment, and the subject was instantly dropped by the squire. Inwardly, however, I reeled. The consequences of that brief exchange were enormous.
Oblivious to the whole of it, the blustering pair left in good spirits. My sister quietly excused herself with Mrs. Annesley close behind her, and Elizabeth followed in a somewhat thoughtful attitude.
I stood at the window and stared out at the drive as the Pembridge’s carriage drove away. The long silence that followed the disappearance of that coach beyond the bend at the first hill was broken by my butler come to see whether there was something I needed. It was unusual for me to linger in the salon after company, but I found I could not move.
I answered in a non-committal mumble, and the excellent man left me after closing the doors behind him.
