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“In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was,” Elliot said, and Wickham looked as if he scarcely knew whether to rejoice over those words, or to distrust their meaning.
There was a something in Elliot’s countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention. Would Elliot have noticed it without the information Darcy had entrusted him with? He hoped so, for had he not already begun to feel that Wickham was false and shallow?
“When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood,” Elliot added.
Wickham’s alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look. For a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned and said in the gentlest of accents, “You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by.”
“Discussions on conduct are always interesting, are they not?” Elliot asked and Wickham visibly flushed.
“Indeed they are!”
He quickly went into a rant about Darcy, about his poor treatment, about Lady Catherine, about Miss de Bourgh—of whom Darcy was clearly chasing for a match! If only Wickham knew the truth…
“Shall we revisit the subject of conduct?” Elliot asked when he could listen to no more of Wickham’s latest nonsense, but Wickham simply smiled and moved the conversation on. They parted later that evening with a false, mutual civility, and certainly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
When the party broke up, Louis returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from where they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between him and his family was a sombre affair and not least because Jack, Elliot and Marc all feared the worst. Only Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her son, and impressive in her injunctions that he should not miss the opportunity of enjoying himself as much as possible—advice which there was every reason to believe would be well attended to, and in the clamorous satisfaction of Louis himself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of his brothers were uttered without being heard.
Forty-Three
Darcy had taken to spending far too much time walking the grounds of Pemberley and as May turned to June and then began the march into July, he was joined on some of those walks not just by Fitzwilliam who had decided to spend the summer at Pemberley but also by Bingley who was planning to do the same and therefore had arrived with his entire family at the end of June.
Pemberley was such a large estate that there was ample room not just for the Darcys and the Bingleys but also for some extended family who had joined them including Fitzwilliam’s parents and his older brother and sister, and so it was that as the summer approached, they had made a bit of a party of the whole thing, and Georgiana showed a not insignificant amount of pleasure at that.
Given her distress the previous summer, Darcy could only be grateful for it. He delighted in seeing her laugh and gad about the place with their younger cousins. Her heart was healing nicely.
Darcy wished he could say the same about his own.
“I fear this walk might be beyond me,” Bingley said as they reached the ridge of high, woody hills on the boundaries of Pemberley.
“Nonsense,” Darcy said, though he was slightly out of breath himself as they had been walking for some hours and the inclines were challenging. “You’ve walked this route before.”
“When we were younger,” Bingley replied. “And my constitution hardier!”
“Perhaps walks rather than parties should be your objective for the summer?” Darcy suggested and Charles laughed.
“Indeed!”
They reached a narrow pass through several large oak trees and moved into single file to make it through. The ground underfoot was slightly treacherous, and Darcy found himself wondering how Elliot would fare on such a walk. Splendidly he expected.
He had taken to doing that in these past months. He would consider something, an event, a book, a meal, anything at all really—and then wonder what Elliot’s thoughts on it might be. It was a strange little ritual that he had crept upon him but rather than deepen the pain that now accompanied Darcy everywhere, it helped ease it. Why that should be so, Darcy did not know, but he welcomed the change and therefore embraced the whole thing.
They made it through the pass and spread themselves back out, walking under the canopy the trees now made. It was exceedingly pretty, and Darcy drew in a deep breath of the Derbyshire air, well satisfied with it.
“You sound contented at that, my friend,” Bingley said.
Darcy inclined his head in Bingley’s direction. “Indeed, I am.”
Charles gestured to the countryside surrounding them. “I am glad to be here, also,” he said. “It is strange, for when I took the lease of Netherfield, I had in mind that I would enjoy the country pursuits such as fishing and hunting and the like, but it did not occur to me that I would also enjoy simply being there out in the woods and the mud and the plants.” He paused. “I got used to it, I think, the scents of the trees, the sounds of the birds in the morning…” Another pause. “I find myself missing Netherfield.”
“Charles...”
“It is impossible to return though,” he added. “Pemberley will have to do!” He grinned. “Not that it is a poor substitute!”
“Have you decided what you might do with Netherfield?” Darcy asked after a time.
Charles shrugged. “I suppose at some point I will need to surrender the lease. It was quite short anyway and runs only until the winter.”
“I wonder,” Darcy said slowly as they reached to top of the ridge. “Whether we might review what happened during our time at Netherfield. We could use the time now as we make our way back.” They had looped the Pemberley estate and the walk down from the ridge and back to flat ground was quite a bit shorter.
