Page 24 of The Marriage Articles

He led her to the shelf that held his favourites, and she saw that they stood already in order by author, Cowper beside Cowper, Gibbon in his solemn row. Whoever arranged the library had the tidy soul of a man who could not abide a misplaced volume, and she thought she knew whose soul it was.

“This is the room I shall spend my time in,” she said. “You have been warned.”

“Then I am well warned.” He gestured towards the far wall. “My study is through there. You are welcome in it whenever you wish, to work or to read or to interrupt me, as you please.”

She hesitated. Her father had never liked her in his study without his express invitation. “You would not mind it? My father never cared to have anyone in his study. I grew up believing it was a law of nature.”

“It is no law of this house.” He said it without any flourish, as he might have told her the hour. “This is your home, Elizabeth, and you are its mistress. You may do as you like in every room of it, and that one is no exception.”

He had not called her Elizabeth before. She let it pass without remark and followed him into the study.

It was a plainer room than the rest, a desk, a fire, shelves of ledgers. On the desk lay a set of account books, and these he opened for her with the same gravity he might have shown a treaty. Her pin money, he explained, was paid quarterly by his banker and placed entirely at her disposal. The banker had been informed of her position and would call within the week to make his formal presentation to Mrs Darcy, and she might write to him whenever she required anything at all, without reference to anyone.

“Without reference to you?” she asked.

“Without reference to anyone,” he repeated. “It is yours.”

She closed the book gently, unwilling to let him read what she felt in that moment, and murmured that she would leave him to his business. She had a note to write to her aunt.

She left him at his desk and went back to the library. There she wrote her letter to her aunt Gardiner, two full pages and one crossed out line, then took down a volume and settled by the window. She read until the words began to slide past her eyes.

She was still there, some while later, when Mrs Fenwick appeared at the door with a salver and an air of patient ceremony.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. If it suits you, I should be glad to go over the dinner plans with you, that the kitchen may have your orders.”

“Of course. Come in, Mrs Fenwick.”

There was to be a turtle soup, a remove of roasted beef with a rich sauce, a haunch of venison, two elaborate puddings, and a dish of forcemeat that had a French name Mrs Fenwick pronounced with visible respect, all to be spread across the two great courses before the dessert. Elizabeth listened to the catalogue grow richer and heavier by the item and felt her appetite retiring before it. Her own taste ran to simpler things, a plain fowl, a tart, anything that did not require a sauce with a pedigree. But this was Darcy House. This was plainly the table the house had always kept. Mr Darcy and Georgiana had been reared on it and would expect it. She was not going to begin her reign by rearranging the dinner.

“That sounds very fine,” she said. “Let it stand exactly as you have planned it.”

“As you please, ma’am.” Mrs Fenwick folded the paper again, and if she was quietly relieved to find her menus spared any Hertfordshire whims, she kept the thought to herself.

She withdrew, and Elizabeth returned to her book, and the house settled into its afternoon quiet.

She did not know how much time had passed when she heard the music.

It came faintly through the corridor, a pianoforte played not merely correctly but beautifully, with a delicacy that made her put down her book and listen. Georgiana. The music drew her out of her chair and down the corridor, and she paused at the drawing room door before she entered, unwilling to break it.

Georgiana sat at the instrument with her back very straight, her whole self given to the keys. Her face, which Elizabeth had only seen lowered and shuttered, was open, grave, almost happy.

Then she looked up and saw Elizabeth in the doorway, and stopped as though intruding on a private thing had been discovered. Her fingers left the keys and settled in her lap, and the music left behind it a silence that rang.

“I beg your pardon.” Elizabeth stepped into the room. “I did not mean to interrupt. You play beautifully, Georgiana, truly, better than anyone I have ever heard. Pray do not stop on my account. I should love nothing more than to listen.”

“No, I was only practising. I have finished.” The girl’s voice was small and her eyes had gone to the floor. “Would you like to play? I am sure you play far better than I do. I will fetch my music, if you like, or you may have the instrument, I do not need it.”

“I could not follow that. I would not dare to.” Elizabeth came a step into the room, smiling. “Please, go on. You play exquisitely and I was eavesdropping shamelessly. Do not let me drive you from your own instrument.”

“You are not driving me. I was quite done.” Georgiana rose from the bench and stood with her hands clasped, looking at a point somewhere near Elizabeth’s left shoulder. “It is yours, whenever you wish it. My brother says you are fond of music.”

“You are very good, but I am the most indolent performer imaginable. To tell the truth, I prefer my book. It asks nothing of me and never minds being interrupted.” She stepped back towards the door. “I shall leave you to your practice.”

She went out, and the corridor back to the library stretched further than she remembered. Behind her, after a moment, the music started anew, soft and beautiful and perfectly content. She sat down again by the window, took up her book, and found she could not read a word of it.

The girl was shy, she told herself. Or the girl disliked her. One of those was true. She had chosen which. She sat with her choice, looked out at the square, and did not turn the page for a long while.

Chapter Thirteen