“Indeed, I will, but I am certain that it was only a passing conversation, as you say. Run along, and I will see you at dinner.” He kissed the cheek she lifted to him and stood back as she left the study.
“Isabella Godfrey now, is it?” he murmured to himself. “Let us hope Elizabeth Wickham is made of finer stuff than you were, old girl.”
July 1813
Elizabethhadneverseena more beautiful sight in all her life than the one that greeted her at her front door. Jane—long-lost Jane, gone these two years to Dorsetshire, now returning to the bosom of her family. Elizabeth raced to her first, nearly sweeping her much taller sister off her feet and twirling her about in transports of joy.
The reunion was boisterous and long, with all six women talking over one another in a frenzy of exultation. There were news to share, gossip to catch up, Lydia’s startling new height to marvel over, and every feature and corner of Corbett Lodge to be admired. When they had exhausted their words and hands, they fell to satisfying their stomachs with the bounty from the larder. And the best gift of all—the Darcys had insisted that Elizabeth should remain at least two or three days to welcome her favourite sister, with no concern for rushing back to Pemberley.
“Oh, Lizzy!” Jane draped herself over the sofa, her hand cast over her stomach and her countenance suffused with plenitude for the first time in far too long. “I can only think we have been granted some Providential blessing. I still cannot credit your story!”
“It is true, every word.”
Jane lifted her head. “Why, Lizzy, you do not look at all pleased. Do you regret marrying Mr Wickham? Surely the knowledge that his estate would be well cared-for lent him peace in his last days. He must have desired a wife for some reason.”
“So I was told, but I am questioning that reason.”
Jane straightened, glancing quizzically at their mother. “Oh! Do not listen to Lizzy,” scoffed Mrs Bennet. “You know she frets over everything.”
“It is far more than ‘fretting’ to be concerned for the prospects of one who was injured by my gain,” Elizabeth replied. “And yes, I am. I have met Mr George Wickham on a few occasions now, and can trace no resemblance to the fearsome creature Mr Darcy sketched for me.”
“But your letters told of Mr Darcy’s kindness to you,” Jane recalled. “How he arranged everything here, cared for his friend’s affairs and now acts the gracious employer and generous neighbour. Surely, such a man must have had his reasons for supporting Mr Wickham’s decision to marry, rather than permitting the inheritance to pass to his brother.”
“Mr Darcy is a person who has some hidden reason for all he does. He rarely speaks more than a sentence or two and never explains his motives, so how am I to understand them? Even kindness can be corrupt, if bestowed for the wrong reasons.”
Jane and Mary exchanged a long look, with the latter lifting her shoulders and returning to Fordyce. Jane sighed. “I will trust that so many good things to come into our lives cannot be tainted at their root. When am I to meet this Mr Darcy?”
Elizabeth turned her head at the sound of hoofbeats clattering in the drive. “Right now, it would seem.”
It was not merely Mr Darcy. In his company was that Charles Bingley fellow, whose arrival Elizabeth had not known to expect. What inconvenient presumption, and at such a time! As a precaution against unwanted courtliness, Elizabeth kept her greeting to Mr Bingley as short as she could without being uncivil. Oh, he was not a bad sort of man. In fact, she might have heartily liked him, had it not been for Mr Darcy’s clear desire that she ought to do so.
Mr Darcy introduced everyone, and Mr Bingley cheerfully fell into conversation with her mother—a thing few gentlemen ever had the temerity or patience for. Elizabeth watched them in a detached fashion, until she sensed Mr Darcy standing at her side.
“Your eldest sister little resembles you,” he noted.
She turned a cross look on him. “Is this your typically impolite means of asking if she truly is my sister? I assure you, she is.”
“I intended no speculation of the kind, but many families have siblings who, for… various reasons, look quite different from one another.”
“Mr Darcy, that statement only affirms to me that you think my sister’s birth might have been irregular. Though I have adequate assurances that it was not, it is a terribly coarse observation, and better kept to yourself.”
He laughed. “I meant no offense.”
“Of course, you did. You delight in espousing opinions designed to provoke.”
“And if I do, you never fail to make statements intended either to misdirect the conversation or overtly confront my words.”
“Perhaps you could terminate my employment, if my manner is offensive.”
Mr Darcy offered an enigmatic smile. “I never said I was offended.”
They ceased speaking, and he stood beside her in taut silence, his hands crossed behind his back and his weight balanced forward on his toes. Every so often he would tense, as if thinking of something, and then the notion would pass, and he would stand at ease once more.
“Mr Darcy, had you something to say?” she asked at length. “What can you mean by coming in all this state just to meet my sister?”
“Why, Mrs Wickham, do you not think I would stir myself to greet a new neighbour?”
“No.”
