She laughed. “Very well. She has blessed us. Both of us. She made me promise, before she would let me out of the cottage, that I should tell you so, and I should not have told you in this manner if you had not been standing there looking as you did. She has blessed us. And she said—these were her words and not mine, my love, and you are not to put any construction upon them that she did not intend—she said that there was, after all, more than one kind man in the world; and that perhaps, in some hour of her own coming, she might meet with one. That is what she said. That is the whole of it.”
He did not answer at once. The colour, which had been going out of his face, returned in a small degree, but it was a different colour from what it had been at the door. She watched him carry the thing she had told him, and put it down, and pick it up again from a different angle; and she watched his mouth begin to ask a thing, and stop short of the asking.
Then he laughed. It was the smaller of his laughs—the one he kept for the private rooms of the house and gave out only by half a measure, the sound of a man recognising a thing he had been half-recognising for some days already.
“More than one kind man in the world.”
“Those were her words.”
“They were her words exactly. I shall not put any construction upon them she did not intend.” He was silent a count of seconds. “My cousin has been, in the four days he has been at this house, more inclined to defend your sister than I have ever known him to defend a person on four days’ acquaintance. He took me to task in the library yesterday on a matter of her comfort I had not, by his own account, attended to with sufficient particularity. He has not, in my recollection, taken me to task on the comfort of a stranger in any month of the prior twenty years.”
“Has he not?”
“He has not. I had been considering, on a separate matter, whether to sell Merebank. I had been considering it since Wednesday, and had not arrived at a settled view. I am inclined now to consider, instead, the leasing of it. It is a thing I shall take under further consideration. I may have occasion to discuss it with my cousin, who has, on most matters that have come to me in the prior years, given me better counsel than I have, on most of those matters, given myself.”
She looked at him. “That is a great deal of consideration, Mr Darcy, for a hint Jane was very particular not to offer with any construction.”
“It is. I do not propose to act on any of it for some little time. I propose only to consider.”
“That is what she said also.”
“Then we are all three of us considering. I shall not say anything of any of this to him. I shall let him remain the man who took me to task in the library on the comfort of a stranger.”
“That is the kindest thing you could do for him, Mr Darcy. I commend it to you.”
His breath came out in something like a laugh and not quite one, and his arms about her closed in a manner they had not done since the morning at the bank. “I love you, Elizabeth.”
“I know it. I have, for some weeks, known it. Now, stop your protests and your humility and stand still. I am about to take a great liberty with the master of this house.”
She put her hand against the side of his face, and she kissed him.
Chapter Forty-Two
Thecarriagecameupthe south drive at half past three of the fourth afternoon since the wade, and Hadley brought word to the study.
“Mr Ellison, sir. Just stepping down.”
Darcy went down to the hall. Ellison was coming up the steps, the brown leather bag strapped close at his side. “Mr Darcy.”
“Come in. Hadley, send Mrs Reeves with tea.”
In the study Ellison sat down, undid the strap of the bag, and lifted out three letters tied with tape—and beneath them a paper folded twice and sealed with a heavier wax than any letter wore.
“This first, sir.” He set the heavier paper apart on the long table, within Darcy’s reach, and took his hand off it.
A common license. He had been preparing himself for this paper since he had come back from the mere on Elizabeth’s arm, but all his preparing had not been the same thing as the arrival of it.
“Was there much difficulty?”
“Less than I had expected, sir. Mr Pearce, the surrogate at Lichfield, took your sworn affidavit from Derby without question. He sat the Quarter Sessions with your uncle of Pemberley for the better part of fifteen years, as I believe you knew.”
“He did. Go on.”
“He set his seal upon the licence inside the hour. The longer business was the bishop’s clerk, who keeps the calendar of seals and had a particular rule about parties not attending in their own persons. Mr Pearce had his own view of the rule. It was set aside for the afternoon. The licence was issued before evening yesterday, and I came up by post in the night.”
“You went down to Lichfield yourself?”
“I did, sir. Mr Wainwright thought the matter would not bear sending under post, and I should not myself have wished to put it under post.”
