Page 33 of The Marriage Articles

Elizabeth set down her own glass. “A round of what, precisely?”

“Boxing,” he said, and then, because she was plainly waiting for the sentence to explain itself, he went on. “Two men of respectable reputation, eleven rounds.” There was an ease in his account of it she had not heard from him at any dinner table. “It is a sharpening sport to watch. Every feint must be read before it is made, and a man who only watches for the blows has missed the whole of it.”

“You speak of it as a student of it,” Elizabeth said. “Am I to understand that you box, sir, or only that you watch?”

“I have done both.” A small pause, and the corner of his mouth moved. “I am better at watching. My science is respectable and my reach is ordinary, which a man learns early, in a schoolroom of that kind.”

“I confess I am astonished.” She was. “I had formed a picture of you as a man of letters, Mr Darcy. Books in one hand, grave opinions in the other. Fists did not appear in it anywhere.”

“A man may be both,” he said. “I have read enough to know that books seldom settle a quarrel. When they do not, one must do what one can with what one has.”

Georgiana made a sound that was almost a laugh and swallowed it.

“Then I am relieved to hear it,” Elizabeth said. “I had begun to fear I had married a man who did nothing in his leisure but read letters and look grave over them. It is a comfort to know there is a bruise somewhere in your history.”

“I shall show you the scar on my knuckle some evening, if you doubt me.”

“I shall hold you to that proof.”

The first course came in. Chicken roasted with herbs came to the table without its customary company of three other dishes crowding it. Potatoes were boiled plain. Beside them sat a salad, simple and dressed.

Mr Darcy took his first helping, ate, and set down his fork. “This is very good,” he said. “The cook has done well by it. I find I have been wanting a dinner that was not drowned in French sauces.”

“I am glad of it,” Georgiana said, and there was a warmth in it that made Elizabeth glance at her. “I have been wishing for something lighter for an age. I did not like to say. One does not like to complain of abundance.”

“You might have said,” her brother answered, and mildly.

Georgiana gave him an unladylike shrug worthy of Lydia, and applied herself to her potatoes with sudden industry.

Elizabeth ate her chicken and kept her countenance. She had ordered a lighter menu that morning, and since then had wondered whether she was exercising her office as mistress, or merely meddling as a stranger in a kitchen that had fed this family for twenty years. Looking up, she caught Mr Darcy’s eye across the candles. He gave her a small nod, no more than an inch of movement, and returned to his plate.

The talk wandered, comfortable, and after the meal was done and the cloth cleared, it came round, as Georgiana had plainly been willing it to come round for an hour, to the crates from Bond Street.

“Elizabeth’s dresses arrived this morning,” Georgiana said to her brother, and the words began to come faster. “Two evening dresses, and three morning dresses, and a walking dress in a blue that is exactly right, and the silks for the drawing room. Fitzwilliam, she will be dressed as fashionably as any lady in town, and more becomingly than most of them, and you will like all of it excessively, I promise you.”

The rush of it ran down at last into a small silence. Georgiana looked at her plate, as though surprised by how much she had said.

“I am sure she will be dressed very well,” Mr Darcy said. “Though I confess the particulars are beyond me.” He set down his glass and looked at his sister, and then at Elizabeth. “I like my wife in whatever she is wearing.”

Elizabeth felt the colour rise in her face, vexed that she should betray herself so easily, yet sensible of a deeper, quieter satisfaction.

Georgiana laughed. “Fitzwilliam, that is the most evasive compliment I have ever heard. You must at least allow that the dress Elizabeth has on tonight is very fine.”

“It suits her very well,” he said.

Elizabeth looked across at Mr Darcy and found him watching his sister. There was something like gratitude in his face. Georgiana was talking with unusual spirit about some trivial matter of the day, her hands moving as she spoke. Mrs Annesley sat over her needlework at the edge of the candlelight and did not look up.

When they rose, Mr Darcy stopped at the door with his hand on it. “An excellent dinner, Mrs Darcy,” he said, and was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Matlock House came up out of the dark with more windows lit than she cared to count, and she straightened her gloves and gave herself to the evening. Inside, the hall was all candlelight and pale marble. Servants seemed to rise out of it at every few steps, taking cloaks, taking gloves, taking her small measure and keeping their conclusions to themselves. Elizabeth surrendered her wrap and was aware, with a satisfaction she would not have admitted aloud, that the green silk was doing its work. A married woman could wear a colour a girl could not. She intended the colour to argue for her.

Mr Darcy offered his arm. “You look remarkably well tonight.”

“I take that as a particular compliment,” Elizabeth replied, smoothing her glove over his sleeve, “coming from a gentleman who wears his own dark wool with such terrifying perfection.”

He paused, a flicker of genuine amusement touching his mouth before settling into deep, pleased approval.