Page 8 of Shipwrecked with Mr Darcy

He did not look, but he knew exactly where she stood. He knew which section of railing she preferred, how long she stayed, and the precise moment she turned to go below. He had lost access to her by every legitimate means, reduced to gathering intelligence by peripheral vision. It was not dignified, and it was not going to stop.

This was day five. He had managed to speak to her exactly three times—twice at dinner, once on deck that first night. Each conversation had lasted mere minutes, leaving him feeling as if he had performed badly in an examination. She was civil. She was correct. Mrs Gardiner was always beside her, watching him with sharp, unsentimental interest.

He was going to have to speak to Mr Gardiner again. This was not a hardship. The hardship was that speaking to Elizabeth's uncle was pleasant. Every agreeable exchange struck another crack in Darcy's prior judgements, forcing him to admit he had been wrong.

Mr Gardiner was on the foredeck, reading with complete absorption and no ceremony. A book balanced on his knee, his coat discarded beside him, his face turned up to catch the light. The book was Virgil. In Latin.

Darcy hesitated. He adjusted his expression and continued walking, the limited deck space forcing him past Mr Gardiner's position.

“Mr Darcy.” Mr Gardiner looked up with ready friendliness. Darcy was beginning to understand it was not performance, but temperament. “Join me. I am attempting to remember more Latin than I possess, and a conversation would provide a welcome excuse to abandon the effort.”

“Virgil?” Darcy sat. Standing over another man felt unpleasantly imposing.

“The Aeneid,” Mr Gardiner said. “I am rereading it for the voyage. It seemed appropriate — Mediterranean crossing, storm-tossed hero, the wrath of the gods. Though I confess I hope our crossing is less eventful than Aeneas's.”

“You read Classics.” Darcy heard himself and winced. The sentence carried the distinct tone of someone who had expected otherwise.

Mr Gardiner did not miss it. He looked at Darcy with mild, unruffled amusement—the look of someone accustomed to being underestimated. “I do. My education was not at Oxford, but it was thorough. My father was a country attorney who believed that a boy who could not parse a Latin sentence was a boy who had not yet been sufficiently threatened.” He smiled. “I can also parse a Greek one, if that improves my standing.”

The reproach was gentle and landed precisely. Darcy felt it in his chest. It was not a blow, but a correction.

“I did not mean⁠—”

“You did, a little.” Mr Gardiner's smile widened. He was not angry. He could acknowledge a slight and dismiss it in the same breath. Darcy envied the skill. “But you are correcting yourself, which I find more interesting than the error. Most men of your station would not bother.”

Darcy did not know what to do with this. He was not accustomed to being observed by people who were not trying to marry him, deceive him, or petition him for something. Mr Gardiner appeared to want nothing from him except conversation.

Darcy sat beside him and talked.

They discussed the Mediterranean — Mr Gardiner's trading routes, the complexities of Sicilian commerce, the tariffs and blockades that the war had produced. Mr Gardiner knew his business comprehensively. He was sharp, well-read, and expressed nuanced opinions about Napoleon without the posturing gentlemen often employed.

Darcy listened and asked questions. The interest was genuine, and it served as its own reproach. Six months ago, he would not have had this conversation. Mr Gardiner would have been a name attached to a Cheapside address. He would have placed the man under the heading of “trade” and moved on, never knowing what he missed.

He knew now. Elizabeth had told him. Your arrogance has blinded you to the worth of people who do not fit your assumptions. The accusation had been accurate. The accuracy was sitting beside him in the sun, reading Virgil and offering fishing advice.

Your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain for the feelings of others.

He thought of Bingley's face when he had told him Jane Bennet did not care for him. Bingley had accepted the verdict because Bingley trusted him. Darcy had used that trust, breaking something he could not see from where he stood.

“You are very quiet, Mr Darcy.” Mr Gardiner was watching him with gentle attention. “I have said something that has sent you somewhere else.”

“You have reminded me of something.”

“Something pleasant?”

“Something necessary.” He paused. “Mr Gardiner, I — I owe you — that is—” The sentence collapsed. He did not know how to finish it. He wanted to say, “I judged your family without meeting them.” The judgement cost your niece her sister's happiness. I am sitting here enjoying your company while Jane Bennet is thin and quiet in Hertfordshire. The incongruity of it is making me ill.

He said none of this. He said: “I am glad of your company, sir. It is a greater pleasure than I anticipated.”

Mr Gardiner looked at him. He was hearing what was said and also what was not said. With a generosity Elizabeth must have learnt from someone, he chose to accept the former and wait for the latter.

“The pleasure is mutual, Mr Darcy. And the crossing is long. There is time.”

Elizabeth was in the common cabin when Darcy entered for dinner, and she was laughing.

The laugh was directed at something Mrs Gardiner had said. The sound went through him. He had heard her laugh before, at assemblies and in drawing rooms, but he had never heard her laugh in close quarters. The candlelight caught the side of her face, her head tilted back, her throat exposed. The intimacy of it hit him with a force the open deck had not prepared him for.

She saw him, and her laugh faded instantly.