He had not gone down to her, but had turned away, retreating to his correspondence. He had told himself that whatever had stirred in him was nothing that required attention. That was his way with her from the beginning—to observe, to be struck, and to withdraw.
And she was here now, inside his house, preparing to win over a child who did not want her with a battered wooden horse and a determination that did not know when to quit. And he was sitting on his own front step in the springtime breeze, thinking of daisies, wooden horses, and the sound of her voice promisingshe had no intention of leaving, and wondered if the habit might be worth breaking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A SNAIL’S PATIENCE
“He will not go to her,”Georgiana whispered, gripping Darcy’s arm as though the scene before them were a theatrical performance and she had placed a considerable wager on.
Little Tom stood in the middle of the small parlor with his fist in his mouth, and his entire body angled toward the wall, presenting Elizabeth with the back of his head and the full force of his disapproval. The wooden horse had already been discarded, flung across the room when Elizabeth presented it to him, and the nursemaid, Hartley, who had deposited the child and retreated to the doorway, folded her hands and settled herself to observe and intervene if needed.
Elizabeth, however, was not flustered, walking by the boy without a glance. She arranged herself at the window seat, examining the view of the kitchen garden with an attention it did not deserve. After a moment’s contemplation, she rose to her feet and announced to no one in particular, “What a fine afternoon it has become. I believe the garden presents an agreeable prospect, and I should like to take a walk.”
Georgiana sought Darcy’s face for guidance. “Is she not intending to try again with Little Tom?”
“She has four sisters, and I gather she has a method,” he replied, although he, too, was not quite certain if Elizabeth had decided the child was not worth the trouble.
“Perhaps we should follow her,” Georgiana suggested.
“If you wish,” Darcy agreed, since her suggestion so conveniently matched his own inclinations.
The footman, Jamison, appeared as if presenting the gates of paradise, holding the door while Hartley gathered Little Tom on her hip and brought him along. Georgiana took his arm, and they brought up the rear of the small procession.
The gravel path wound along the kitchen wall, where the afternoon sun had warmed the old stone to a pleasant temperature, and the air carried the delightful mingled scents of rosemary and damp earth. Hartley set Thomas down on the path, and the boy stood, surveying the garden with deep suspicion before inserting half his fingers into his mouth, causing both cheeks to bulge comically. His expression achieved a quality of grievance that would have done credit to a displaced monarch deprived of his rightful throne.
“He appears rather furious,” Georgiana observed.
Darcy withheld comment, his own feelings on the matter being anything but cheerful. Little Tom had once been a contented child, and Darcy could not, in good conscience, blame him for resenting a world so thoroughly upended. His only slender comfort was that Lady Amelia had not brought her son along on that last, ill-starred phaeton ride.
They soon found Elizabeth near the base of the wall, where violets grew thick in the shelter of the ancient stone. She knelt, casually parting the leaves as if the dirt beneath the flowers held the deepest interest imaginable.
“Mrs. Darcy, have you discovered something of particular interest?” Georgiana crossed the path to bend beside her sister-in-law. “Is it a toad? I confess to having a fondness for toads.”
“It is not a toad, Miss Darcy, but a creature far more civilized.” Elizabeth held up a leaf. “See this snail? Observe his remarkable eyes, positioned upon those delicate stalks, which enable him to look in any direction without the necessity of turning his head—a quality I have always considered infinitely useful in company. Imagine being able to observe everyone in a room without the indignity of being caught in the act of staring, a deficiency I understand some gentlemen possess in unfortunate abundance.”
Darcy accepted this observation without comment, for the reply it truly deserved would require him to acknowledge that he had, indeed, been persistently staring at her without the disguise of flexible eye stalks.
Naturally, she had noticed, and the awareness meant she was paying him the same attention he had once focused on her. Georgiana caught the reference, flashing him a knowing look, so he turned his gaze to Thomas, whose fingers had at last emerged from his mouth.
Curious as to what held both Elizabeth and Georgiana’s interest, the boy took unsteady steps toward the two women while Elizabeth pretended not to notice his approach.
Instead, she transferred the snail to the flat stone of the garden wall, precisely at the boy’s eye level. The creature, affronted by so much attention, withdrew at once into its shell. Thomas regarded the brown spiral with a look of such wounded bewilderment, one might suppose he had been promised a marvel and received, instead, a pebble.
“Patience, now,” Elizabeth said, not to Thomas, but to the air, or maybe to Darcy or the afternoon. “The snail is very shy, and he is hiding in his shell. Maybe if we remain very still and quiet, he will come out to look you over.”
Thomas, now completely engrossed by the small brown spiral, stood motionless with one finger extended toward it.His lower lip trembled slightly as the snail’s eyestalks emerged, tentative at first, then testing their environment as they swiveled inquisitively, while the creature’s two lower feelers gently touched the stone wall.
The boy reached out and touched the snail’s head, causing the eyestalks to withdraw swiftly along with the rest of the creature into a tightly sealed amorphous blob concealed within the safety of its shell. Thomas then snatched his hand back and looked at Elizabeth as if she had played a trick on him.
Feigning a prolonged yawn, Elizabeth studied her bandaged thumb with great interest, again not addressing Thomas. “I suppose Mr. Snail needs to feel safe, so we must wait.”
Darcy held his breath and was certain his sister held hers, too, and perhaps even Thomas.
“Again,” he demanded, finally unable to hold still as he pointed toward the snail, his face slack with curiosity rather than its usual fury.
Elizabeth kept her gaze fixed on the small creature. “He will grow curious if we display the proper patience and simply wait.”
“Again,” the boy insisted.
