Page 35 of Affectations of Candour

“Get off your knees, Brother. I shall do that while you wrap a blanket round yourself. Now, Miss Bennet, I shall just unlace⁠—”

“Please stop fussing. I am perfectly capable of taking off my own boots.” Elizabeth sat up transversally on the thwart. With trembling fingers, she tried to untie her wet laces. “Fiddlesticks!” She glowered at the disobliging linen cords. “Miss Darcy, if you would.”

Once her boots were set in the sun to dry, Elizabeth swung her stockinged feet off the seat. “I would like everyone here to be advised that I am no stranger to plunging into water. Several years ago, I rescued a gun dog—incidentally belonging to Miss Hughes’s brother—from a canal with a depth of approximately five feet. Today’s dive was unsettling only because I was unprepared for it. I do appreciate your concern, but truly, it is unnecessary.”

Contrary to what she had expected—which was sitting next to a wet, smelly dog on the return trip—ironically, Elizabeth, too, would be soaked and malodorous. “What is that stench?” Smelling her sleeve, she wrinkled her nose and supposed that her hair reeked too. What a sight I must be. And in front of Mr Darcy! She patted her hair. Where is my bonnet? “Miss Darcy, where is my bonnet?”

The girl looked from Elizabeth to her brother. “It, um⁠—”

Mr Darcy, who had been fiddling with something, approached. “While I had the foresight to remove my hat before jumping in, I am sorry to say that your bonnet floated away. It seems the otters have a new plaything.” He pointed, and Elizabeth followed the path of his finger to the opposite bank. Her straw bonnet floated left, violet ribbons trailing behind, then it turned and went right. It bobbed a few times before floating back and forth again.

Elizabeth laughed in delight. “I am pleased that my bonnet has found a new occupation, but— Whatever are you doing there, sir?” Twisting round, she watched Mr Darcy wedge the handle of his sister’s open parasol into place so that it would provide shade for her hatless head. It was a simple gesture, but it brought tears to her eyes. He is such a thoughtful man. Flawed, but solicitous. He had rolled up his wet shirt sleeves, and Elizabeth could not help but admire his strong forearms. And that angular jaw. And those long, muscular thi⁠—

“Ho, the ship ahoy!” Mr Baker’s punt had pulled up on the outside of Mr Darcy’s. “Is Miss Bennet well?”

Before Mr Darcy could reply, Miss Hughes had scrambled over both gunwales, moved with haste to Elizabeth’s side, and embraced her. “Oh, Miss Bennet! How awful for you!” She pulled away. “And—phew!—how awful you smell.” They both laughed.

“My dear girl!” Miss Baker moved more quickly than Elizabeth thought the woman capable of. Crouching, she took Elizabeth’s cold hands in her own warm ones and chafed them. “Miss Althea and Frederick wanted to come over, too, but, my goodness, this punt is crowded.”

Elizabeth did a quick count. Including herself, there were seven people and a large dog on the narrow boat.

Mr Darcy skirted round Hector, who was still licking his trodden-upon paw. “We must get underway so that Miss Bennet may be made comfortable.”

About to protest that she was, in fact, comfortable and had no wish to curtail their excursion, Elizabeth knew no one would credit such a pretence. Although no longer in danger and certainly not in any pain, save for a little soreness where the teeth of one of her rescuers had broken the skin on her wrist, she longed to rid herself of reeking pond scum. Tom passed her a mug of warm tea, for which she thanked him. “Now,” she whispered to Miss Baker, “all I require is a long soak in a tub of clean water and a good application of soap.”

The woman called to Mr Darcy, “It will be best if my brother takes Miss Bennet, our niece, and me straightaway home in our punt. Tom can ferry the Wright family to Strandsmere, then he may go from there to Cliff House in our carriage.”

“As you wish, madam. Please allow me to assist the three of you over to your brother’s punt.” Mr Darcy then fetched his sister’s parasol and Elizabeth’s boots.

While she was being handed into his care, Mr Baker said, “Are you certain you want to leave the pond so soon, Miss Bennet?”

What an odd question. “Yes please. Why would I not?”

A gleam of mischief sparkled in his eyes. “I presumed you might be sedimental about this place.”

“Frederick!” Turning to her niece and Elizabeth, Miss Baker whispered, “See? That is what I meant when I told you that he occasionally needs a good swift kick.”

“I heard that, Emma.”

Still wrapped in a couple of blankets, Elizabeth turned to Mr Darcy, who passed the parasol and boots to her while standing at the gunwale of his own punt. “Before I forget, sir, I thank you for a most diverting afternoon.”

He bowed to her. “I sincerely wish, madam, that you had not been diverted all the way to the mucky bottom of the mere, and I pray you will not be adversely affected.”

Smiling and waving to the others as Mr Baker’s punt headed for the wetland, Elizabeth realised that Mr Darcy was still wearing his tall, waterlogged boots and had not wrapped himself in a blanket. She prayed that he would suffer no grave repercussions from being wet. Despite Miss Wright’s questionable claim, I still care deeply about him and his welfare. His company that day had been exemplary, and she immediately missed it. We could be happy together.

The Bakers and their niece had obviously noticed how quiet Elizabeth was, for they attempted to buoy her spirits. As they drifted along the stream, Miss Hughes cried, “Look!” She pointed to a roe deer grazing in a lush, peat-rich pasture. The doe’s twin fawns, about two months old, emerged from their hiding place in the long grass.

Elizabeth lost herself in a fanciful reverie. Together Mr Darcy and I could raise a brood of impertinent little girls and arrogant boys.

How could she have allowed it to happen, to have fallen in love with him so easily, so swiftly, and so completely? He had been gone from her life for over half a year. Then, suddenly, there he was again. But it was neither time nor opportunity that determined intimacy. It was disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and a se’nnight was more than enough for others.

“Then there was the time I encountered a dangerous lion’s mane jellyfish.” Mr Baker evidently had been talking about sea-bathing. “Otherwise known as a red sea nettle, it has hundreds of stinging tentacles. By Jove, I escaped by the skin of a gnat’s eyelash that time.”

Stinging nettles brought to Elizabeth’s mind the note found in her friendship book. Beware the territorial wasp that may sting repeatedly. Was someone warning her about ‘Miss Wright the Bur’? The woman’s deliberately hurtful remarks had often been aimed in Elizabeth’s direction, but her own good manners forbade return displays of spite. A strong, polished surface simply deflected such barbs.

A whistling sound drew Elizabeth’s attention to the riverbank, where she spotted the dabbling widgeon that had made the call. Rather than stinging me, Miss Wright’s barbs simply roll away, like water off a duck’s back.

Mr Baker rattled on about the health benefits of living near the sea. “But, of course, the marshes and swamps are a different story. Some folks believe ill health is caused by the miasmas and mud found in such places.”