Chapter Thirty-Seven
Shehadcomedownthe passage on the stick at ten o’clock. The parlour had had no further use for her past nine, and the long night had finished, at some hour before light, work which she had not been able, in the autumn or the early winter, to finish for herself.
She had got it sentence by sentence in the dark—by six it had taken its shape, by eight there had been nothing further she could add to it—and by ten the only piece of work the day had left her was to walk into the room he was in and say it.
The voices inside the study door stopped her three paces short of the latch.
Darcy’s voice first—the voice which had been at her bedside in November and December through fevers and the small black hours of the morning, the voice which had saidDrink this, Elizabeth. A little more, until the fever had broken or she had gone back into sleep—and through the door she could mostly make out the words it carried; the care in it she could make out entire.
“And the letter to Miss Bennet's uncle, Mr Gardiner is to go separate cover, before the post bag is taken out of Lambton.”
“It will.”
“Pemberton’s lad to take it. Directly to the post. Not by way of the smithy.”
“Pemberton’s lad. Directly to the post. Not by way of the smithy.”
“Do not parrot me, Fitzwilliam.”
“I parrot you, Darcy, because you have given me the same instruction four times since seven. There may yet be a fifth. I should like to be word-perfect.”
A half-laugh of her own caught in her throat; she pressed her hand harder against the door frame to keep it there. She wanted to spend the rest of her life being spoken to in that voice, teasing him back even as his cousin was teasing him now.
“You are an impertinent man.”
“I am the man who has been awake with you the whole of one night and most of the morning of another. I am unfortunately the man you have at your disposal. If you wanted a man who writes down what you say without saying anything back, you should have applied elsewhere.”
“I shall remember that.”
“Apply to your London man.”
“My London man is in London.”
“You have me, then.”
There was a small silence in the room. She heard the sound of papers being taken up and set down again on the table, and then the cousin spoke once more, with something in his tone that was not the same.
“You have written to Wainwright. You have written to Gardiner. You have written, I gather, twice to your London man. You have not written to your aunt.”
“No.”
“Are you keeping that letter for after the wedding, or are you keeping it for never?”
“For never.”
“Sound.”
Then the colonel’s voice altered.
“Darcy. You have not heard the worst of what you are taking on, and I will not let you walk into it without having said it aloud. Pemberley is going to be tied, by your hand on a marriage book and by every paper that goes down to Derby this morning, to a woman the county will not call by any honourable word for a year and more if the matter is got out. Your sister will be received with whispers. Your tenants will read of it in the papers and pretend they have not. Our aunt will write you the longest letter of her life. My father will not write at all, which is worse. The girls Georgiana might have known will have their mothers’ decisions made for them six months before she meets any of them. I am not asking you to reconsider. I am asking you to know.”
“I do know, Fitzwilliam.”
“Yes.”
“I have known since I rode through the village yesterday afternoon. I know every piece of what you have said and a great deal besides. I have known, and I have made my decision, and I am not opening it again. Not this morning. Not next week. Not ever. If you cannot stand for me at it I shall ask my uncle’s vicar. If my aunt writes, I shall not read the letter.If my sister is whispered at, I shall remove her where she is not whispered at. I have not asked your view, Fitzwilliam, and I am telling you only because of the family you are.”
“Very well, Darcy.”
