When earlier that morning Darcy had rode out onto Gracechurch Street, with Bingley at his side, he'd had a full expectation that he would be shocked and even horrified by the manners and habits he would observe at the house of Elizabeth's relations.
The attitude he'd always been given, from his father, from his friends, and from the rest of the world was dismissive of Cits: Of their manners, habits, vulgarity, and grasping nature. He expected to meet persons like Mrs. Bennet, except more so.
The house was a respectable building, though substantially smaller than Darcy's, and on a bustling loud street. Darcy's house fronted a quiet square that was protected from vagabonds by a black wrought iron fence.
The maid who greeted them with a curtsey was neat and respectable looking. She took their cards to the drawing room, and immediately they were invited in.
While the house lacked the marble floors, doors inset with a painting by a master, and statuary along the hallway that characterized Darcy's London residence, the drawing room was a fine high-ceilinged room with a bright carpet. Everything clean, well maintained, and in order.
Darcy's heart beat faster as the door to the drawing room opened, and he and Bingley were announced by the manservant. He stepped in, and his eyes scanned the room for Elizabeth.
And they continued to search.
She was not present.
A midsized piano with a bench sat in one corner of the room. Darcy knew that it was an older model missing an innovation in the foot pedals, because he recalled the speeches and explanations of the person who he had purchased from when he had bought a piano for Georgiana to surprise her after she returned from Ramsgate.
Still sitting in Pemberley.
Still unused.
No Elizabeth. Not anywhere in the room. Not sitting in one of the Windsor chairs by the window. Not on the Chesterfields. Not in the two red velvet armchairs facing the fireplace. She didn't stand next to the large map of Europe stretched out on one of the walls, or next to the midsized globe with a pedestal.
Bingley's eyes found the object of their search.
Jane Bennet had sat on one of the comfortable and utilitarian sofas, with a woven basket filled with embroidery supplies next to her.
The two women rose, Jane and another woman who must be their aunt by marriage.
Miss Bennet made the introductions in a tone that showed no great extent of emotion, and none of the sadness that Darcy was sure he had detected in her manner the previous day.
Her color though was high. "Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley—" Here her voice caught at saying that name. But she recovered near instantly, "Might I present to you my aunt, Mrs. Gardiner."
All bows, all curtseys were made. Politeness was satisfied.
Mrs. Gardiner was younger than Darcy had imagined, and she was dressed in what he thought was the fashion of the season — which is to say, she wore the same style that the cousins, debutantes and other women of the ton who had forced their way in front of his unencouraging eyes over the past months generally wore.
He would not have been able to espy without prior knowledge, nor even, as the fact was now proven, with prior knowledge, that she was the wife of a tradesman rather than a gentleman.
After a few commonplace comments, Mrs. Gardiner smiled with a bright expression at Darcy, and likely prompted by the way that Darcy's eyes still shot around to each corner of the well-appointed drawing room, as though he could scarcely believe that Elizabeth was not there, she said, "It is a delight to meet you, Mr. Darcy — I have heard a great deal about you. I am afraid that Lizzy is out with our daughter's new governess buying books, but they are likely to return within a half hour or so."
"Oh," Darcy smiled with relief, "I am glad to hear that. We will certainly prolong our call —provided you have no objection to us doing so — for long enough to greet her."
"You must," Jane said. It was the first words she'd spoken since the introduction. She smiled and appeared wholly in possession of herself, but there was something in her manner of speaking that suggested this was merely an appearance. "Lizzy would be terribly disappointed to not see you."
"Very like her to be off to see books," Mr. Bingley said. All four of them sat down across from each other. "A great reader."
"You may recall," Darcy said, "That she disclaimed that title when your sister gave it to her."
"Did she? I hardly can tell." Bingley's eyes seemed to be unable to decide where to rest. It was clear that he wanted to stare at Miss Bennet, but at the same time, he was too embarrassed to do so.
Jane seemed to be in similar straights.
There was a brief pause after Bingley said that which Darcy feared would presage a long awkward silence, but Mrs. Gardiner cheerfully stepped into the breach by saying, "Mr. Darcy, that while it is likely that I am wholly unknown to you, I saw you several times with your father when you were still a lad."
"You did?" he said with some surprise.
"I was born and raised in Lambton. My father, Mr. Lee, was a solicitor."
"Lambton!" Darcy replied, enthused to find a point of commonality with Elizabeth's aunt. "I am delighted to find a fellow inhabitant of Derby. Lambton is lovely. I think it prettier than Ashbridge, the smaller towns always have more character — I am always delighted to see it when pleasure or business takes me so far out. You must remember the inn — it has one of the finest ales in Derbyshire."
"Of course! Mr. Thorn was one of my father's dearest friends. We always had a store of his famed ale set in for any picnic or feast."
"A fine building the inn, as I recall it dates back to Henry V's reign."
"Yes. Mr. Thorn always bragged of how the foundation stones were laid down in the year of Agincourt. The parish church though is from more modern times," Mrs. Gardiner replied. "The old one burned down during the first George."
Darcy smiled. "You must miss the pleasanter of life in such a town — do you live primarily in London, the whole year?"
"Yes — my husband's business requires it. Though often in summer we have an opportunity to get out of the city for a few months. It is better for the children to be in the countryside during that time."
"I am afraid I cannot recall what your husband's trade is."
"The import of fine wines, chiefly Portuguese and Madeira. But we presently have a commission that is only half complete to sell some particularly fine French wines that the government seized from a smuggler."
Bingley and Jane contributed little to the conversation. At first both tended to avoid each other's gaze, but then they started to look, and then they began to look openly.
Darcy found to his surprise that he enjoyed his conversation with Mrs. Gardiner. Partially because she was not merely from Derbyshire, but from the very neighborhood of Pemberley. Darcy recalled at one point during the conversation that Mr. Wickham, that is Wickham's father, the steward, had on occasion mentioned Mr. Lee with respect in connection to various lawsuits about land where the solicitor represented the opposite side from the Darcy family.
However, Mrs. Gardiner had a way of expressing herself, and a tendency to sensible opinions, which made Darcy believe that he would have enjoyed the discussion without that connection.
Even though they were not related by blood, she reminded him of Elizabeth. As Darcy talked with her, he realized that was because Mrs. Gardiner had partially shaped Elizabeth's character. The discussion was peppered with mentions of the many times that Elizabeth and Jane had visited them here in London, and how they were great favorites with all the children.
And then there was a sound at the door. Darcy desperately hoped the commotion he could hear signified that Elizabeth had at last arrived. Jane and Bingley had by now progressed to sharing entire sentences, though both were still silent compared to Darcy and Mrs. Gardiner.
Darcy's eyes eagerly watched the door as he heard bits of muffled conversation from the hallway.
And then she came.
She stopped short in the door and looked at him, and he looked back.
Elizabeth had dressed in a simple sprigged muslin day dress, with layers of petticoats underneath to compensate for the coldness of season. Her curls were disordered, her color was high, her eyes were uncertain. In a word: She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
As their eyes met, the unhappiness and uncertainty of the past months drained away from him.
He felt a jolt. His stomach leapt, his heart squeezed, and he hoped.
He knew.
She mattered more to him than anyone else.
There was no hint of his father's ghost left in his mind.
Darcy hoped that Elizabeth felt something similar. Her eyes widened, her color went higher, and then she tremulously smiled at him and came forward. Mr. Darcy and Bingley rose to greet her.
However, Darcy suddenly found that his voice did not work, he could say nothing suddenly. Bingley bowed to her and shook her hands and said, "You look well, Miss Elizabeth. Remarkably well — too long since we have seen each other. I only just said that to Miss Bennet."
Jane said softly, but with sincere feeling, "Far too long."
Without smiling Elizabeth replied, "I remember that night exceedingly well." Darcy's stomach flipped in anxiety. She was recalling how insultingly he had spoken when he asked for her hand, and perhaps she was recalling her own refusal.
"It was a memorable night for me as well," Darcy said.
"And too long ago," Bingley said. "If I am not mistaken it was precisely the twenty-sixth of November, and now we are nearly in February."
"You remember the date so precisely?" Jane asked with something unreadable in her voice.
"I could not forget it," Bingley said.
"You left so suddenly — I was wholly surprised," Jane replied.
Bingley looked shamed, glanced at Darcy, frowned at the rug.
Then Miss Bennet added, "But I am glad that you found friends and amusements in London. You look well."
"I… I do wish you had called on Caroline and Louisa once you came to London. It would have been a pleasure to see you."
The three women looked at each other.
Jane looked surprised, then confused, and then her face was suffused with a soft disappointed sadness. Mrs. Gardiner pursed her lips tightly. Elizabeth had a fierce and predatory smile.
Elizabeth spoke first, "We of course did visit our friends. Soon after we came to London we called, and then they returned the visit just last week."
"You did?" Bingley cut himself off. He finished the sentence in a rather colder tone than Darcy remembered Bingley having used ever before. "Yes, I see."
"I am sure it was a simple oversight that they did not mention our visit to you—" Elizabeth said with an edged smile. "You must not be surprised, us ladies can have such a churn and froth of visitors that if we forget to mention a caller to a brother who might also be a friend of them, it is invariably an innocent matter."
"Do you think?" Bingley replied with stress on the last syllable.
Elizabeth and Bingley looked at each other, and then Elizabeth's eyes darted to Jane and then back to Bingley.
Bingley's face cleared. "Ah! But of course. It likely was an oversight. I shall still tell Caro and Louisa that I would have greatly wished to know." He smiled at Jane. "But I am delighted beyond words that you and Darcy encountered each other by accident. If you had not, I never would have known that you were in London."
Jane smiled at him, her delicate color was lovely. "In that case we would never have seen each again, not until you returned to Netherfield."
Now Bingley flushed a little, and looked down, somewhat shamefacedly. But he then exclaimed, "I have a plan to return come summer. I always prefer summer in the countryside — Darcy, do you not also prefer it?"
"I prefer the countryside in all seasons," Darcy replied. "Town has many virtues, and it is necessary to spend some time in it, but I always would choose Pemberley over London."
Bingley looked at him skeptically and raised an eyebrow.
Darcy did not flush, but he knew that his friend meant to say that his presence in London these last two months had been entirely his own choice.
Elizabeth eagerly replied, "Yes, yes — the loam under one's feet. The sparrows flitting in the branches — it does not even snow the same in London. I wonder why? — and the empty wild rambles. You can ramble for an hour in London, and still not come across a single glen or dale, forest or field."
"If you admire snow, you must visit Derbyshire. In the hills around Pemberley, we have the most beautiful winter snows — whole fields far as the eye can see covered this deep in snow, with the late rising sun glinting across it… there is not a more sublime sight, I swear."
The eyes of Elizabeth as she listened to this speech made perhaps an even yet more sublime sight.
Bingley said more prosaically, "Best fox hunting I've ever enjoyed."
"Not being much of a rider," Elizabeth said with a laugh, "I cannot claim to have enjoyed a single fox hunt."
"You must learn to ride; you can hardly experience Pemberley fully on foot."
When Darcy said that both he and Elizabeth flushed deep red.
They looked at each other, and her eyes seemed warm and encouraging. She then said, looking down at her hands, "Let us not make plans too far ahead. What is that saying? Act in haste, repent in leisure?"
"I rather prefer," Darcy said, "to say that—"
But before he could finish his sentence the door was thrown open, and a little girl ran in. "Georgie—" she began, and then seeing the gentlemen amended her statement to, "I mean Mrs. Georgiana, was just taken ill in her stomach."
"Oh, my," Mrs. Gardiner said rising. "Was she?"
"Yes," the little girl replied, holding her hands behind her back and turning side to side to look shyly at the two gentlemen from the sides of her eyes. "She cast up her accounts. But she achieved the chamber pot before she spewed, so there is no mess!"
Elizabeth also had risen with her aunt, and she smiled apologetically at Darcy. "Beth's new governess — I ought look in upon her, to ensure that she is well."
Darcy rose with worry. "Do you not think there is some danger of contagion?"
With a bob of her head back and forth, Elizabeth made an odd wry expression and then shrugged. "There always is some chance. The occasional illness is a cost of civilization, and a bargain at the price — if this were from the meal, I ate the same food as her, and my stomach has no odd heaves. No, I do not think I have need to fear contagion. I suspect a different cause entirely."
Jane looked sharply at her sister. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Dear Jane!" Elizabeth laughed in an almost unpleasant way in reply.
Mrs. Gardiner turned around when she reached the door, and said with a smile, "If you gentlemen would be amenable to it, I would be delighted if you would join us for dinner soon, would you be able to attend Tuesday?"
Bingley replied unhesitatingly, "I vouchsafe that there is nothing that would delight me more than such a dinner. And I look forward eagerly to meeting your husband."
With his own smile and bow to Mrs. Gardiner, Darcy also assented to the plan.
To his own surprise, there was no hesitation, no unwillingness to descend to ornament the table of a man in the fellowship of one of the merchant companies of London.
He'd stepped through an enchanted bower and found himself in a fairy world where up was down, and down was up. Or perhaps he had been transformed into the sort of creature seen in a distorted mirror — yet in fundamentals he was unchanged. Perhaps even he had become more thoroughly what he had always been most truly.
All the payment he needed for every pain in his life came from Elizabeth's glowing smile at his promise of attending dinner with them.
Mrs. Gardiner left the room following her daughter, and Bingley rose. He apologetically coughed and looked rather longingly at Jane. "We have already outstayed the ordinary bounds of politeness. But I thank you greatly for your hospitality and hope to call again soon — and dinner on Tuesday evening!"
"It would make me very happy to see you again," Jane said this quietly, without looking at him. Her color was a bright red.
How had Darcy ever thought it likely that this girl had no affection for Bingley?
His only excuse was that he had not paid close attention to her. Darcy was certain that if he had made a point of observing her behavior while they were still at Netherfield, that it was impossible he should have missed it.
It was impossible for Darcy to say what he wished to Elizabeth, and he could see that she was eager to attend to this governess in her illness. He just bowed to her, smiled, and promised that he would also call.
The two of them left the house and retrieved their horses from where they'd been tied up. They rode side by side in silence for half the way home, until they were out of the City, and turned off onto a quieter street that paralleled the main road back to Darcy's house.
Bingley then said with vehemence, "Damned Caroline! Damn her — Louisa as well, for she went along with the scheme. But it was not her scheme. Not telling me that Jane Bennet had called. I told her that I wanted to marry that girl."
"And then left Netherfield."
"Because I was convinced — you all convinced me that she cared nothing for me. I do not know how much of a fool I could have been to think that. You saw how she looked at me. Unless I fool myself very much…" Bingley trailed off. "But damn that possibility. Devils take it! I'll throw my dice and take my chance."
"Good for you, good for you."
"I cannot blame you, Darcy," Bingley replied with a laugh. "Even though it was your advice that overthrew my intention November last. After all I remember that conversation as clear as a winter sky — you insisted that you had not observed her closely then."
"I should not have ventured to say so much. It was neither my business, nor a matter on which I am qualified to advise."
"Nonsense — I was the fool to ask your advice in the matter. My sister though — concealing Jane's presence in London. I am most seriously annoyed with her."
"I ought to admit," Darcy said cautiously, "that she told me a few days before that they were at Gracechurch Street. After she had returned the call of the Misses Bennet. She wished to complain about how 'the fortune hunter' had chased you."
"The fortune hunter! Jane? There is not a sweeter, nor less mercenary woman who I know — Why didn't you tell me about this then?"
Darcy shrugged. "I did not think to. I was absorbed with a concern of my own, and it did not seem as though it was specifically my business and — Bingley, I made a mistake. One I wish to apologize for."
"Oh nonsense. But wait. And you then encountered Jane by accident near Gracechurch Street. What were you doing in the City?" Bingley's look suddenly became sly. "Oh, my dear friend."
"What do you mean?" Darcy exclaimed. Despite his bluff good nature and indecisiveness, Bingley was a remarkably clever fellow, and when he set his mind upon it he could see through most matters.
"I was right! Hahahaha. You had a tendre for Miss Elizabeth this whole time. I thought you were quite insistent on accompanying me on this call."
"Now I—"
"Don't be a fool, Darcy. Don't! You left her in Hertfordshire, no doubt because of all those concerns you spouted to me then about her family, her lack of fortune, and her connections in trade — We've met the connections in trade now. I'd say there isn't a more respectable, finer looking woman than Mrs. Gardiner."
"Perhaps Mr. Gardiner merely married well," Darcy said with a half-smile, "and he is like Mrs. Bennet, but only younger and in the wine trade."
Bingley laughed. "Mrs. Bennet could sell a fine bottle of wine if she wished to. I do not doubt that. But truly, Darcy, if I am wrong, and you do not admire Miss Elizabeth, then you can mock and laugh at me. But if I am correct, you would be a fool, a fool, if you do not pursue a woman such as that. And my judgement is that she likes you well enough."
Darcy's horse clopped along at the walk they both had them following, stepping over gutters filled with manure, and under the bare trees that shadowed the avenue. "There is nothing here for me to mock you for guessing at. But it will be the lady's choice in the end."
"You mean to ask her? — God bless us both," Bingley exclaimed. "We'd be brothers!"
At that thought Darcy grinned widely. "Why we would."
"As your brother I wish to suggest something, Darcy: You look awful. Like you've barely left the house for weeks, have not eaten enough, and have barely exercised. I see why you were so melancholy, fading away in sorrow over Miss Elizabeth. But I think you will do better with her if you rather get out and about more."
Darcy laughed. "A pointed suggestion."
The two of them reached Darcy's house and dismounted.
A waiting footman opened the door and ran down to take the reins of their horses to lead them off to the stables. Bingley though waved him off. "I must speak with my sister — You've not met me for fencing since the start of January. This evening and then we can go to the club, and maybe the theatre? — And then we'll call on the Gardiners again tomorrow?"
As soon as Darcy assented to these plans, sans the theatre, he entered the house. As soon as he stepped in the door the housekeeper told him, "Colonel Fitzwilliam is waiting in the drawing room, with a…" She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "A decidedly disreputable person. He is waiting for you."
"Ah, thank you." Darcy cheerfully hurried up the grand staircase, and then down the marble hallway, past the busts and portraits of his father, and his father's father back five generations. He opened the door wondering just what sort of disreputable fellow would be sufficiently disreputable as to make Mrs. North hold her nose like that.
The instant though he opened the door, his cheerful mood was quenched, as though he'd fallen through the cracked ice of a pond.
Colonel Fitzwilliam stood by the window, and he looked towards Darcy with a grim expression as soon as he entered.
The man with Colonel Fitzwilliam nervously held his hat in his hand, and he was dressed in shabby coat that stunk of horse droppings. He was the fellow they had placed in the stables closest to the house that Wickham had taken to observe the Wickhams and ensure that Mr. Wickham did not mistreat Georgiana in an obvious and visible way.
Richard stalked across the room. "They've both disappeared. Georgiana, several days ago, then Mr. Wickham yesterday."