Page 21 of The Marriage Articles

Dinner was a handsome meal taken in near silence. The dining room could have seated twenty and held four, Elizabeth at one end of too much mahogany, Mr Darcy at the other, Miss Darcy and Mrs Annesley between them like sentries at a truce. The soup was rich, the roast even richer, and Elizabeth ate little, her stomach having declined, hours ago, to keep pace with the day.

“You must be fatigued by the journey, Mrs Darcy,” Mrs Annesley offered, kindly.

“Three hours is not so very far,” Elizabeth said, “though I confess the last mile felt the longest.”

“The roads were good,” said Mr Darcy. “We were fortunate in the weather.”

The weather, the roads, the excellence of the roast. Miss Darcy answered when addressed and otherwise studied her plate, and Elizabeth, watching her covertly over the rim of her glass, revised nothing of her first reading. The girl disliked her. It was a pity. She had rather hoped for an ally in the house, and had acquired instead one more person before whom she must be composed.

When they removed to the drawing room, Mr Darcy crossed to where his sister sat with her hands folded and said, quietly, “Georgiana. Will you play for us?”

“If you wish it.” She rose at once, with the air of a prisoner reprieved, and went to the pianoforte.

What happened then Elizabeth did not soon forget. The silent girl of the dinner table disappeared into the music and another person came out, her back straightening, her hands sure, the instrument answering her as though it had been waiting all day to be asked. She played exquisitely. Elizabeth, who considered herself a stern but fair judge of music, sat with her tea going cold and listened to the end of every piece.

When Miss Darcy at last closed the instrument, Elizabeth went to her. “That was beautiful. I have rarely heard the sonata played with so much feeling, and I am not in the habit of saying so.”

“Thank you.” The colour came up in the girl’s face, and this time, fleetingly, her eyes came up with it.

“I hope,” Elizabeth said, “that you will not stand on ceremony with me. We are sisters now, which is an awkward business to conduct at a distance. Will you call me Elizabeth?”

Georgiana’s eyes went wide, and flew to her brother, and came back. “Then you must call me Georgiana,” she said, and the ghost of a smile arrived with it, the first Elizabeth had seen.

“Well then, Georgiana.” She turned to where he stood by the fire. “I walk every morning, as I believe I have warned your brother. It is a habit I do not intend to surrender to matrimony. Can you recommend me somewhere, or am I to pace the square until a constable removes me?”

“The square has a garden,” Mr Darcy interjected. “Laid out with winding walks and shrubbery, with a pond at its centre and lanes that run the full oval. It is kept locked for the houses round it, and each householder holds a key. Ours is in the hall drawer, and a footman will attend you whenever you wish to go.”

“I am quite capable of walking alone, sir. I have done it all my life.”

“In Hertfordshire,” he agreed. “In town a lady does not walk without a servant in attendance. It is the custom, no more. He is not set to watch you.”

She looked at him. It ought to have felt like management. It felt, disconcertingly, like care. “Then I thank you,” she said. “For the garden, and for the footman, and for sending to Pemberley for Smith. It was thoughtfully done.”

He waved it away as though it were nothing. “It was nothing.”

When the evening ended he walked her up himself. Georgiana and Mrs Annesley had said their goodnights below. Elizabeth’s composure, which had held through staff and dinner and music, began to count the steps.

He did not stop at her door. He led her past it to another, and opened it on a room she had not yet seen. A small sitting room, with a fire already laid and burning, two chairs drawn up to it, a table with a candle, an escritoire against the wall.

“This is our private sitting room,” he said. “It connects to your chamber on one side and to mine on the other.” Crossing to the far door, he opened it. Beyond it lay a man’s room, a bed hung in blue, a fire banked low for the night. He stood in the sitting room and let her look. “The door between them locks from your side. It will not be opened unless you wish it.”

Until this moment Elizabeth had not known how much of her fear had been riding on whether he would keep his promise without being reminded.

“Thank you,” she said, and meant it past her power to be arch about it.

“Goodnight, Mrs Darcy.”

“Goodnight, Mr Darcy.”

He went through the connecting door to his bedchamber and closed it behind him. She stood alone in the little room and took it in, the fire, the two chairs, a room prepared without her having to ask. Then she went into her own chamber and turned the key in the connecting door.

Smith came up once Mr Darcy had gone, helped her out of the blue dress, drew a bath in the dressing room, and laid out a nightgown.

“I understand you are from Derbyshire, Smith?”

“Yes, ma’am. Born not ten miles from Pemberley, and in service there all my life, since I was twelve.”

“And do you like London?”