The butler withdrew, and Caroline took up her needle again, although she pointed it to the ceiling. “Poor creature. One cannot fault her, I suppose. She is in London, staying with that uncle of hers in Cheapside, and I imagine she hoped we might resume our friendship. But these things run their natural course, and the kindest thing, truly, is to let them.”
“You knew she was in London.”
“She wrote to me in December.”
“And you did not call on her.”
“I saw no advantage in encouraging an attachment that leads nowhere. Charles is not going to marry Miss Bennet. You said so yourself, Mr. Darcy. Her feelings were not engaged, her family is quite impossible, and a continued acquaintance would only prolong the girl’s confusion.” She looked up. “It is a mercy. She will see it in time.”
A mercy. I turned the word over and went to the window, making sure the thick curtains obscured me.
The street below was grey, the pavement damp from an earlier rain, the light thin and grudging as March always was in London. Directly below the house, a hired carriage stood at the curb, its horse shifting as if it too wished to be elsewhere.
Miss Bennet appeared, her blue pelisse—the same shade as at Netherfield—now hanging on her as if winter had stolen something more than appetite.
The driver descended to open the door, and she paused with her hand on the frame. And then, she looked up.
I drew back so sharply that the curtain moved. And I could not erase the image of her face tilted upward. She was thinner than I remembered. Her features, which had been so serene at Netherfield that I had taken their composure for the whole of her feeling, were not serene now. There was a quiet devastation that tore at my heart, as if she had hoped against her better judgment and been proven right to doubt.
She was not indifferent, and I had been utterly wrong.
A woman who does not care does not cross London to call on someone who will not see her. I had told Bingley that Miss Bennet’s composure bespoke an untouched heart, that her smiles were habitual, her sweetness general. I had been certain, and I had been wrong, and the evidence of my error was climbing into a hired carriage with all the dignity of a woman who has been cut and will not permit herself to show it.
I watched the carriage pull away.
“Mr. Darcy?” Caroline’s voice, bright and perfectly composed, came from behind me. “Has something caught your eye?”
“I have an engagement I had forgotten.”
“On a Tuesday?”
“Why, yes. I do believe our interview about Charles has concluded. Good afternoon, Miss Bingley. Mrs. Hurst.”
I was in the hallway before Caroline could reply, in my greatcoat before the footman had found his wits, and in my carriage with an address on my tongue before I’d decided what sense, if any, I was making.
“Cheapside,” I told the coachman. “A textile warehouse, Gardiner.”
I had known the name since Netherfield. When a man considers whether his closest friend should attach himself to a particular family, he takes notice of the relations, and the uncle in Cheapside had figured prominently in my reasons for advising Bingley to withdraw. I had pictured a cramped shop on a dirty lane, a man in shirtsleeves with the manner of his counting-house. What I found was a well-kept building on a respectable corner, with clean signage and a clerk who showed me to Mr. Gardiner’s office within minutes.
The office was warm, orderly, and furnished with good taste. Mr. Gardiner rose when I entered. He was perhaps in his late thirties, tall, well-tailored, with kind brown eyes and the easy bearing of someone who had nothing to prove.
“Mr. Darcy,” he said after the clerk introduced me. “This is unexpected. Please, sit down.”
“I must beg your pardon for calling without notice. I need a supplier for fine merino. Pemberley has standing contracts, but I am told your firm handles superior Continental weaves.”
“We do. Saxony principally this season; the quality is remarkable.” He settled into his chair with a naturalness that made my own stiffness feel faintly absurd. “Tighter weave, better for a Derbyshire winter. Tell me the weight you need, and I will pull samples.”
We spoke of wool. The conversation ought to have been brief, but Mr. Gardiner knew his trade as well as I knew my land. He was well-read, too; I noticed Wordsworth on his shelf, a well-handled Johnson’s Dictionary, and a volume of Cowper beside a ledger that looked equally consulted. His manner was direct, his judgment sound, and his courtesy had the relaxed quality of a man who extends it from character rather than performance.
“I will send samples to your house by Friday,” he said, making a note. “If the Saxony suits, we can discuss a standing arrangement.” He moved a child’s drawing from the edge of his desk, a spirited rendering in colored chalks of what might have been a horse or a remarkably ambitious cat. “Forgive this. My eldest is in her artistic season.”
“How many children, Mr. Gardiner?”
“Four. Each one louder than the last, though my wife insists they are simply expressive.” He glanced at a newspaper clipping pinned to the wall. “They have been campaigning for a pet since autumn. My wife placed a notice in the Chronicle; the responses have been colorful—a parrot with a Portuguese vocabulary, a hedgehog of questionable disposition. We remain, as you see, without a pet.”
“What sort of creature does Mrs. Gardiner have in mind?”
“Something gentle, patient, and unlikely to bite. She has four children and would prefer not to pick up torn articles, and our upholstery will not take shedding fur. She will insist the children keep the creature’s care and not burden the maids.”
