“Mr. Darcy,” I said, seating myself in the chair opposite with my cup poised and my composure solid, “you are very generous to part with a creature your father treasured. One might wonder what prompted such magnanimity.”
He rose from the carpet, brushing his knees. “Bertram required a home with children and a garden. Your uncle’s notice described such a household.”
“And you happened upon this notice… at my uncle’s warehouse?”
“I did.”
“How very fortunate that your interest in fine wool led you to Gracechurch Street. It is not, I think, a quarter where gentlemen of your acquaintance generally conduct their business.”
His jaw tightened, very slightly. “I found Mr. Gardiner’s firm to be excellent in every particular.”
“Did you? How refreshing. Not every gentleman of your rank would trouble himself to discover the merits of Cheapside.”
“Elizabeth.” Mrs. Gardiner’s voice carried the precise blend of warmth and warning that only an aunt of long standing can achieve. “More tea, Mr. Darcy?”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gardiner.”
My aunt poured, handed Darcy his cup, and settled into her chair, turning the conversation to Derbyshire.
“My husband tells me you are from Pemberley, Mr. Darcy. I grew up near Lambton, and I confess I have the warmest memories of the country. Do you spend much of the year there?”
“As much as I am able, ma’am. Pemberley is my principal home.”
“I remember the grounds as being very fine. The stream, and the hill, and the most extraordinary old oak on the south lawn. Is it still standing?”
“It is, though it has lost a branch in last winter’s storm. My housekeeper was quite distraught.”
“I am not surprised. That oak was ancient when I was a girl.” She smiled. “How strange that your father’s tortoise should find his way to the household of a woman who grew up fivemiles from where he was raised. Bertram will think he has come home.”
Darcy’s expression loosened at the word home, and he glanced toward the garden where the children’s voices carried through the glass: Rose issuing instructions, Samuel proposing expeditions, Alice counseling patience in the tone of a child who believes she is the sensible one.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, turning to Jane with careful courtesy. “I hope your stay in London has been pleasant.”
“It has, sir. My aunt and uncle have been very kind.”
“I am glad to hear it. London can be… unforgiving in winter.”
Jane met his eyes, and she held his gaze with a grace I could not have managed, a composure that did not flinch or accuse or even, to the untrained eye, reproach.
“It can be,” she said. “But one finds kindness in unexpected quarters.”
Darcy looked away first. I noticed his hand tightening on his teacup, how he avoided my eyes when he spoke to Jane, how his voice softened at the mention of his father, how gently he had caught Thomas’s hands. I would have preferred not to notice any of it.
He is performing, I told myself. He is being charming because it suits him. Mrs. Gardiner is welcoming, the children are delightful, and it costs him nothing to be kind for an hour in a drawing-room he will leave and never think of again.
He stayed a quarter-hour longer, answering Mrs. Gardiner’s questions about Bertram’s diet and temperament. He described how the tortoise liked to bask on a warm stone in the afternoon, how he would dig himself a shallow bed in soft earth if permitted, how he had once escaped the Pemberley kitchen garden and been discovered by the gamekeeper in a flowerbed half a mile distant.
“He has a will of his own,” Mrs. Gardiner said, laughing.
“He has outlived three kings, ma’am. I believe he has earned one.”
When he rose to leave, he bowed to Mrs. Gardiner with a warmth I could not fault, to Jane with something quieter and harder to name, and to me with the careful formality of a man who knows he is under judgment and has chosen, for now, to endure it rather than contest it.
“I hope Bertram will be happy here,” he said from the doorway.
“He will be treasured,” Mrs. Gardiner replied. “And Mr. Darcy, you must come whenever you wish to see him. Our door is open.”
Our door is open.I watched his face as the words reached him, and I watched him hear them as I heard them: as the precise opposite of everything that had been done to my sister yesterday at another door, in another drawing-room, by people who did not deserve to breathe the same air.
