Georgiana looked at him quickly. There was something in her face that he could not quite read. She said at last, “That is very high praise, brother.”
Darcy considered this. “Yes,” he said at last. “I suppose it is.” He said it quietly, but he felt the truth of it all the same.
There had been a time when he would have resisted such a conclusion, or examined it until it lost its force. Now he found no inclination to do either. What he had observed in her that evening confirmed what he had begun, however reluctantly, to understand before.
Elizabeth’s judgement was steady. Her manner was unaffected. Her regard, when given, was neither careless nor easily withdrawn.
He had thought himself justified in admiring her. He was no longer certain that admiration was a sufficient word.
As he glanced out the window toward the parsonage, Darcy knew all at once that his regard for her had passed beyond the limits he had once intended to observe.
He could not bring himself to regret it.
Chapter 17
Sir William’s visit to Hunsford lasted only a week, but that week was more than enough time to convince him of his daughter being most comfortably settled, with such a home, such a husband, and such a patroness as were not often met with. He then returned to Hertfordshire, leaving Maria and Elizabeth to continue their visit.
Though Elizabeth had not been sanguine in her hopes of enjoyment in a visit to any house which included Mr Collins, she soon found that the result surpassed all her expectations. Not in Mr Collins himself, for he was just as foolish, just as patronising to herself and obsequious to Lady Catherine as she might have guessed, but in several other respects, Kent soon proved to have charms beyond anything Elizabeth could have guessed.
It was most pleasant to walk all over the countryside, clothed as it was in the fresh green of spring. The grounds of Rosings Park and the lanes around the parsonage were both engaging in their way, butElizabeth’s favourite walk of all was one which lay between them, and yet seemed to belong to neither. It was wilder than the groomed paths of Rosings, but Elizabeth liked it all the better for that. Best of all, it was peaceful in its quietness, and sometimes amusing for the squirrels and wild rabbits she saw playing among the trees.
In so quiet a place, it was strange how often she seemed to meet Mr Darcy. Stranger still, that they met still more often after she mentioned that it was a favourite haunt of hers, so that he might avoid it if he wished, and strangest of all that Elizabeth found herself looking forward to each meeting more than the last.
How wrong she had been in thinking him proud, cold, and superior! Each conversation showed her something of his affection for his sister and cousins, the responsibility he felt towards his estate and his people, even of a certain sly humour she had not suspected him to possess. Elizabeth began to have a mortifying suspicion that the walk, which had once been her favourite for its own merits, was rapidly becoming preferred as the place she met Mr Darcy.
But that was folly, surely. If they were rapidly becoming friends, they could never be anything more. Mr Darcy had been good enough to warn her, good enough to help her, and good enough to become her friend. She ought not to hope for morethan that.
Still, Elizabeth set out for her walk one morning with a sense of eagerness she could not deny, nor even tell herself was entirely due to the beauty of the Kentish countryside.
“You are being very foolish,” Elizabeth mumbled to herself. “How lovely the morning is! You ought to enjoy what is all around you, and not spoil a pleasant walk thinking of a gentleman who certainly is not thinking of you.”
As she reached the turn onto the path where they had so often met, Elizabeth slowed. There was no reason to believe anyone should be there; none at all. She did her best not to hope.
Mr Darcy stood just beyond the turn in the path, as though he had come there with no particular expectation of meeting anyone, yet was not entirely surprised to find that he had. At her approach, he inclined his head with composed civility, though there was, to Elizabeth’s perception, a slight alteration in his expression which suggested that her presence was not unwelcome.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mr Darcy.”
He turned to walk beside her, easily and without discussion. They continued for some distance without speaking, the quiet between them not somuch awkward as undefined, until he said, with a glance toward the path ahead, “You have chosen the same direction as before.”
“I find it the most agreeable,” she replied. “Though I begin to suspect it is less private than I had supposed.”
“I hope you do not consider your enjoyment of it diminished.”
“Not diminished,” she said, though with a slight smile, “only less exclusively my own.”
He appeared to consider this, then said, “I should be sorry to deprive you of any claim you may have had on it.”
“I cannot claim it,” she returned. “Only recommend it.”
“And I am obliged to you for the recommendation.”
There was something in the manner of this which, though lightly spoken, carried more intention than the words themselves required. Elizabeth was conscious of it without choosing to examine it too closely.
After a moment, he said, “My sister has been very much pleased with your company.”
“I have been very glad of hers,” Elizabeth replied. “She has a sweetness of disposition which must recommend her to everyone who knows her.”
