“And I love you,” she said.
“If my family in London cannot help us, I will reconsider every avenue available to me.”
“Yes,” she said. “But if it comes to that, I would suggest a carriage rather than a boat. We are rather more conveniently placed for the northern road than for any harbour I know of.”
This time he did smile. “My impertinent love.” He raised her hand once more and held it there for a moment.
“I must go,” she said softly. “I will be missed.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She returned from her walk with enough colour in her cheeks to be attributed entirely to the morning air, and came to the side door to find Jane already there, shawl in hand, as though she had only just thought of going out, or had only just returned, and had happened by the happiest chance to be precisely where Elizabeth must arrive.
“Lizzy. You are back. I had thought to join you, but you were gone before I came down.” She smiled. “You always did love the early hours.”
“I do,” Elizabeth said.
They went in together. Elizabeth removed her gloves as they crossed the passage and laid them beside her bonnet upon the side table.
“I have been thinking,” Jane said, falling easily into step beside her, “that we have scarcely spoken since you came home. Not properly. There is so much I do not know of your time away, and perhaps a little you have not chosen to tell me.”
“There is very little to tell.” Elizabeth untied her bonnet and set it down. “Aunt Gardiner was determined to spoil me, Uncle Gardiner fed me too well, and the sea air made everyone believe themselves wiser than usual.”
“And Mr. Darcy?”
Elizabeth glanced at her. “What of him?”
Jane adjusted the shawl about her shoulders. “Only that I have seen how you are when his name is mentioned. I saw you at tea. I have seen you since father made his announcement. I am not blind, Lizzy, and I am your sister.”
Elizabeth looked at her sister and felt the peculiar discomfort of having no reasonable objection to something she nevertheless did not want. That, precisely, was the difficulty.
“I am perfectly well,” she said. “The visit was very enjoyable. I am sorry father took against Mr. Darcy, but I dare say it will resolve itself in time.”
“I hope so. Mr. Bingley, at least, is much easier to manage than Mr. Darcy, though perhaps not half so interesting.” There was enough affection in her voice to make denial feel almost like ingratitude. Yet the unease Elizabeth had first felt in Brinmouth returned.
As they reached the upper landing, Elizabeth seized upon the necessity of changing for breakfast as a welcome means of ending the discussion.
The day went on as days at Longbourn generally did. Mrs. Bennet lamented that Mr. Bingley had gone to town to fetch his sisters and would not return until the evening of the assembly, which she considered a most inconsiderate arrangement for a gentleman who must know very well how much depended upon proper appearances.
“If he means to marry Jane, he ought not to leave her to spend two whole days wondering whether he still remembers she exists,” she declared, though Jane protested that she was in no danger of such distress.
Lydia and Kitty altered ribbons and gowns with the serious application they reserved exclusively for occasions involving dancing, and debated at length whether officers were moreattentive to blue silk or pink. Mary observed that she did not see why new ribbons should be thought superior to old ones when the cultivation of the mind was of so much more lasting value, and was ignored so completely that even she seemed to feel it.
Mr. Collins made three separate attempts to engage Elizabeth in conversation and was politely defeated each time; on the fourth, he succeeded by intercepting her before dinner, when escape was made impossible by the combined obstacles of her mother, the drawing room, and propriety itself.
“Cousin Elizabeth,” he said, “I wonder if I might have the honour of the first two dances at the assembly on Monday.”
“Thank you, Mr. Collins,” she said. “I should be very happy to stand up with you.”
Mr. Collins beamed. Mrs. Bennet, overhearing enough to understand the substance if not the elegance of the exchange, looked equally satisfied. From the piano, Mary struck a chord of such unnecessary force that it startled the cat.
At dinner, her father asked, with the idle ease of a man making conversation chiefly for his own amusement, whether she had walked toward the northern fields that morning, as Kitty had mentioned seeing her and Mrs. Gardiner in that direction the day before.Elizabeth looked up at once and caught Kitty’s eye across the table. Kitty, who was very intent upon her potatoes, gave the smallest shake of her head.
“The lower fields today,” Elizabeth said. “The morning was fine.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Bennet. “Yesterday the northern fields, today the lower. I admire such geographical industry. Shall we expect east on Monday, or do you mean to go west; or perhaps north again?”
Mrs. Bennet, who had no wish for geography of any kind at dinner, interrupted to ask whether anyone had remembered to send word to Hill about Monday’s blancmange, and the moment passed.
