CHAPTER THIRTY
DO NOT LOOK DOWN
Elizabeth
Three daysof almost-normal had done more damage to my defenses than the storm that preceded them. Georgiana stayed at Longbourn for two of those three days before returning to Netherfield, which was now blissfully devoid of female Bingleys-by-birth. She taught Mary the bridge passage of the jig in exchange for Mary teaching her a particularly melancholy Bach prelude, and the two of them sat at the pianoforte for hours.
Darcy called every afternoon with Bingley, arriving at the civilized hour of two and departing at the increasingly uncivilized hour of six, which meant the man was spending four hours a day in a house where Lydia exercised her lungs at volume, Kitty trailed him, offering biscuits, cakes, and lemon squares, and Mama assessed him with the relentless efficiency of a woman evaluating a horse at auction while pretending to embroider.
He submitted to all of it. He played Commerce with Lydia and lost in a way that suggested he was trying to lose, which Lydia did not notice, and I noticed immediately. He endured Papa’s rhetoricalquestions on subjects Papa had already decided, deployed for the sole purpose of watching a proud man navigate agreement without appearing sycophantic—which Darcy managed with such careful precision that Papa began assigning him reading, starting with Fordyce’s Sermons, which Darcy reported as appalling, which was why Papa liked him. He kneaded bread in the kitchen beside Mama, who considered the surest path to a man’s soul to be demonstrated through the quality of his pastry technique, and who found his technique surprisingly competent for a man whose household employed a French-trained cook.
And he dropped food for Cinnamon with a healthy consistency that could not have been accidental.
And then, on the fourth morning, the sun came out, and Darcy arrived alone. He found me in the garden with Cinnamon andBelinda, which I had finished the night before by candlelight, turning the last page with the green ribbon trailing across my wrist.
“You finished it,” he said, nodding at the book.
“Lady Delacour survives. I was not certain she would.” I closed the cover. “The ending is more generous than I expected. Edgeworth forgives everyone, which is either compassionate or naive, and I have not decided which.”
“And which would you prefer?”
“Compassionate. I find I am developing a taste for it.”
He looked at me with that expression I was learning to read—the one where amusement and something deeper occupied the same space and neither displaced the other.
“Will you walk with me? A longer walk, I mean. Boots and a bonnet.” He hesitated, which was unusual for a man who generally delivered requests as though they were accomplished facts. “Georgiana told me about the stream crossing. Where the stones are flat, and the water overran them in the storm. She said you taught her not to look down but to look at where she wished to step next. I should like to see it.”
Asking to see a stream where his sister had been brave was both curiosity and a need to understand, and naturally, I concurred.
My heart, however, wondered, though I swiftly quelled such imprudent thoughts. It would not do to entertain fanciful notions about Mr. Darcy’s intentions. He was a brother who cared greatly for a sister who had finally come out of her shell.
“I shall get my boots and my bonnet,” I said. “And I shall bring Cinnamon, because she will follow us regardless. It is more dignified to invite a cat than to be pursued by one.”
Cinnamon, as it happened, had already decided to come. She darted from one side of the path, weaving between dried bushes and clumps of greenery, chasing birds or stalking unseen creatures.
The meadow was golden in the November sun, the grass fading in the frost, and the hedgerows stripped to their bones. We walked side by side with eighteen inches of air between us, and the eighteen inches felt both impossible and insufficient, and I was acutely aware of every one of them.
“Bingley tells me he means to propose,” Darcy said.
“Jane tells me she means to accept. You may inform Bingley, if you wish, though I suspect she will tell him herself within approximately four seconds of the question being asked.”
“They are well-suited.”
“They are identically suited. Two people who believe the best of everyone and are occasionally right. It is a miracle they are not both dead of misplaced trust.”
He laughed, and I smiled.
We crossed the stile. Darcy offered his hand to help me over, and I took it, and the taking was an ordinary courtesy and not ordinary at all, and I released his fingers on the other side, and we walked on.
“Your father has been very generous with his time,” Darcy said, after a pause. “Our conversations have been instructive.”
“Papa considers you a project. He hasn’t had a good project since Mary abandoned Latin in favor of German. I would not be surprised if he begins assigning youmore reading.”
“He has already assigned me Fordyce’s Sermons. I believe it was meant ironically.”
“With Papa, one can never be entirely certain. He may also have been testing whether you would actually read them, which would tell him everything he wished to know about your character.”
“I read two. They were appalling.”
