“Jane.”
“I do not know what you mean by it.” Her eyes had gone to the workbox. Her hands had gone to her sleeve. “It is unkind of you to ask such a thing, Lizzy. I had thought we were past unkindness.”
“Jane —”
“You will not press me on this. Not tonight.”
“I think I must.”
“There is nothing to press upon.” She had half risen, and had not finished the motion. The hand on her sleeve had begun to work at a thread that was not loose. “Mr Darcy has been our host. He has been everything that is gentlemanly. I do not know what you suspect me of believing about him, but I assure you it has not crossed my mind, and I had rather not have it crossed for me at this hour.”
“Jane. Look at me.”
“I am perfectly composed!”
“Not by half.”
“I am—I have been—I am tired. The day has been long and I have been with Georgiana the better part of it, and you are asking me a question that you have not the right to ask, Lizzy, and I do not propose to answer it.”
When Jane answered, at last, she did not answer the question that had been asked.
“He has been the only decent man in this house since November. He has been kind to me. He has been courteous in a way I had forgotten men could be to widows who have ceased to be interesting. I sat across from him at supper for six weeks of the winter and I did not imagine anything you are imagining. If you are asking me whether I was going to survive my widowhood by believing a gentleman of great property was going to interest himself in me, the answer is no, Lizzy, I was not. I had enough sense left for that. But I did not believe, either, that he was going to be undone under my nose by my own sister.”
“Undone—”
“You did not deserve him!”
Elizabeth swallowed. “No. And I have not pretended otherwise to him or to myself.”
“And I am going to have to watch you be loved by him, am I not?”
“Jane —”
“Because he is a just man, and he will not abandon you, and he will spend whatever of himself he has to spend to make this right, and he will do it with the grave sure face he has never worn toward any other woman. I have watched him this evening, from the stair. He has not been to bed. He is at the window of the study as if the window held him up. He has sent a rider to Derby at a pace that will lame the horse. And you have done that to him, Lizzy, and you will go on doing it, and he will let you, because that is the sort of man he is.”
She lifted her chin. “Mr Darcy is his own man. I did not ask him to do any of that, but if he has done it for me, I shall live with what that makes me.”
“You are such a fool, Lizzy. I wish I had left this house a month ago!”
“Jane—”
“I am not leaving it now. Do not be afraid of that. I have given this family too much already to leave when it is at its lowest. But do not look to me, Lizzy, for the warmth you were used to getting from me. I have not any warmth to spare this morning, and I do not know when I shall.”
At the door she stopped but did not turn.
“If he comes for you before breakfast—and he will—he will have a question for you that you will wish to answer. I would rather not know what answer you give him. I do not wish to hear what else you are putting upon him before the household is up.”
She went out, and closed the door behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Darcyheardthewheelsin the yard before Norton came to the door. He was in the study, staring at an untouched glass of brandy and debating on the merits of collapsing on his cot when the hooves on gravel roused him.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam, sir,” Norton said. “In the hall. And damp about the temper.”
Darcy stood and went to the door. He had expected another letter, not the man himself. Fitzwilliam’s presence implied either that concern had sharpened into action or that curiosity had. Neither was convenient. The former was more just.
Fitzwilliam stood by the fire, shedding gloves, road-cloak, and impatience in unequal portions. Travel had reddened his face and soaked his coat. The weather, Darcy thought, suited him—inconvenient enough to provoke complaint, yet insufficient to excuse it.
