Page 69

- Darcy

P.S. Lydia wishes to ask Jane how she keeps track of what has happened without confusing it with what other people expect. She says this may be useful when George explains himself.

P.P.S. Wickham asked if his "smoldering gaze" count was competitive with mine. I refused to answer.

Elizabeth put the letter down. "He has taken to criticism already?"

"Jane showed me their letter this morning. Three pages explaining how the story ought to have been arranged." He was smiling again. "He has discovered that other people can be at fault without owing him money. I fear we shall hear a great deal about it."

"This is absurd."

"This is hilarious." He produced the letter. "Jane left it with me. She has pinned a note to it for you."

Elizabeth read:

Wickham has found seventeen things wrong with the account of Lydia's disappearance. Some of them concern actual difficulties. Others concern his own appearance. I am keeping the two lists separate.

"The villain is doing literary criticism," Elizabeth said faintly.

"He has made a graph," her father said. "I've not yet discovered where to put it, though the fire is near."

"Of course he did."

Elizabeth folded the note. "Is Lydia happy?"

Her father's amusement subsided. "At present she says she is. I shall endeavor to listen more carefully than I did before she left."

"So shall I."

He handed her another folded sheet, addressed in Lydia's untidy hand. It contained complaints about the wedding bonnet, a demand that Kitty be told the correct particulars, and, squeezed into the margin, thanks for Elizabeth's letter. I was glad you said I might write freely. Everyone else wished to know something at once.

Elizabeth read the margin again. Then she went to find paper. She could argue with her sister's judgment another day. Today Lydia had offered her the beginning of a conversation.

Before she left the library, her father said, "Your theory about minor characters has suffered badly."

"It deserved to."

He nodded. "I shall not miss it."

CHAPTER 24

The next day, Elizabeth arrived at Netherfield with Jane and Charlotte and was shown into the drawing room. Darcy looked up from a packet whose cover had been amended in three different inks.

"Elizabeth! I was just⁠—"

"Are those more charts?"

"Wickham has sent an account of his charms compared with Willoughby's." Darcy folded the top sheet. "He wishes me to confirm that he has been unfairly represented."

"Have you?"

"I returned his first inquiry with a reminder about the settlement. He has since sent another, apparently in the hope that persistence will alter either my answer or the terms."

Elizabeth examined the title. "He has supplied himself with several excellent reviews."

"All in the same handwriting."

She put the paper down. "Papa showed me his objections to the plot. Has he found anything useful among them?"