Page 27 of The Pemberley Picnic

“That is because I know how to suffer with dignity. Mrs. Gardiner, Miss Bennet, your return restores elegance, sense, and the possibility that someone will contradict me.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I can provide only the last with confidence.”

The colonel smiled. “Then you provide what is most required.”

The party received them with either sincere or polite flutters of interest with one exception. Miss Bingley, after one quick glance at Elizabeth’s gown and another at the half-boots just visible beneath it, declared that she was amazed Miss Eliza had the spirits to rejoin them after such an alarm.

“I find my spirits very well supported by dry stockings,” said Elizabeth. “And by the prospect of cold chicken eaten out of doors.”

Mr. Bingley laughed. “A most rational recovery.”

Miss Bingley’s smile remained fixed. But she was not finished. As the party resettled itself, Miss Bingley fell in beside Elizabeth for a few steps.

“You will allow me to observe, Miss Eliza, that Derbyshire improves Mr. Darcy wonderfully. Louisa remarked upon it the instant we came down—she never sees him so easy as in his own home. In town, every word examined minutely, but here, there is nothing at stake, and a man may be charming at no cost at all.” She smiled with perfect kindness. “I say this only because a stranger to the family might take the difference to be something more than it is.”

Elizabeth took her seat by her aunt with her cheerfulness intact and her certainty rather less so. She understood that Miss Bingley was jealous—but that did not make what she said false.

The servants had reassembled the picnic beneath one of the great oaks. The cloths had been smoothed, the cushions restored, new plates set out. Elizabeth was hungry though she had been eating all day.

What had been disordered by alarm now became almost festive. The company settled in altered groupings, for interruptionssuch as they had experienced always gave people permission to begin again. Aunt Gardiner was placed in a comfortable chair with a view of the water, and Elizabeth was given a seat near her. Mr. Darcy, after seeing them accommodated, was immediately claimed by Sir Carstairs with a question about the road to Matlock.

Elizabeth watched Mr. Darcy answer. He gave the man his whole attention, though Colonel Fitzwilliam was trying, from only a few yards away, to draw him into some nonsense about whether the fish ought to be commemorated in song. Mr. Darcy did not rush. He described the turn in the road, the better inn for changing horses, and the place where the hill grew difficult to traverse after rain. Only when he had satisfied every question did he return to his cousin.

“I still maintain,” said the colonel, “that any fish which has thrown a gentleman into such heroic attitudes deserves at least a stanza. Two, if it proves larger in the telling.”

“Master Henry will be certain that it does,” Elizabeth said.

Aunt Gardiner laughed, and the conversation moved on. The fright under the marquee was not forgotten, but it was already being transformed into a story people would repeat. By tomorrow, Elizabeth suspected, Mr. Darcy’s rescue would be vastly more thrilling, and Henry’s fish would have required a boat to carry it.

Elizabeth let the talk swirl about her. It was easier now to sit among them than it had been that morning. Or perhaps she was easier.

Miss Darcy was with Mrs. Annesley at the far side of the party, attending to Miss Pelham and Miss Elinor with quiet perseverance. She was pale from effort but composed. When Elizabeth caught her eye, the girl smiled quickly, then returned to her guests. Elizabeth liked her the better for it. There wascourage in remaining where one was needed, even when one would rather be elsewhere.

Aunt Gardiner turned her face towards the line of hills beyond the lawn. “I had forgotten how much the light changes the view here. Or rather, I had not forgotten it, but I find memory a poor substitute. My husband admires the hills, but he cannot feel triumphant at the sight of them, as I do.”

Mr. Darcy’s expression warmed. “Then I am glad you have returned to them.”

“So am I. And greedier than ever. Every path I see reminds me that I have not time enough for half of them. Unlike my niece, I am not a great walker.”

“The ground rises beyond those trees,” he said, indicating the line with a slight motion of his hand. “From the upper path, you can see how the valley opens. You take the bridge over and walk up the rise.”

“Is that the bridge half hidden by birch trees?”

“Yes. In winter it can be seen from the house, but in summer one does not come upon it until the last moment.”

Aunt Gardiner’s face brightened with recognition. “I remember that. Or something like it. My father once took me walking near a bridge where the trees met overhead, and I thought it the finest place in the world.”

“I would not contradict you,” said Mr. Darcy.

Elizabeth shook her head. “I see how it is. My aunt has found an accomplice.”

“In admiring Derbyshire?” said Mr. Darcy. “I hope I may be permitted so natural an alliance.”

“A risky one. Between the two of you, we shall be marched over every hill in the county before Monday.”

Aunt Gardiner smiled, but there was regret beneath it. “No, my dear. That is precisely the trouble. We cannot see all that.”

“No,” Mr. Darcy replied. “Not before Monday.”