Page 173 of A Question of Character

“Then do not give me occasion.”

He looked as though he wished to argue, thought better of it, and offered his arm again.

They entered the house together.

Nothing was solved. Not the bill, not Ramsgate, not Wickham, not the question of what Darcy would do when pride and justice pulled against each other.

But as Elizabeth stepped back into the noise and warmth of Longbourn, Darcy beside her and Jane smiling over Mr. Bingley’s hopeless confusion with ribbons, she permitted herself one fragile hope.

Truth had begun to move.

And perhaps, if they were very fortunate, love might survive long enough to meet it.

twenty-one

Evidence and Doubt

Darcy had imagined, when first he sought Mr. Bennet’s permission to court Elizabeth, that once the matter was arranged between their families the greatest obstacles would have been overcome. Instead, the weeks that followed proved among the happiest—and the most perplexing—of his life.

Elizabeth accepted his company with unaffected pleasure. They walked most every afternoon when the weather permitted. They laughed together more easily than ever before. She challenged him without hesitation, teased him whenever his dignity deserved it, and possessed an astonishing talent for coaxing amusement from the most ordinary circumstances. Darcy, who had once imagined himself equal to governing his own affections, found they had long since escaped his management.

If she smiled across a room, he smiled in answer before he had determined to do so.

If she entered unexpectedly, conversation elsewhere lost all interest.

He had never believed love could insinuate itself so thoroughly into the common occupations of every day.

Yet another presence lay across those pleasant weeks like an unwelcome shadow.

An odd understanding had arisen without anyone proposing it.

Should Wickham happen to be at Longbourn when Darcy arrived, Elizabeth merely met his eye across the room.

“Would you care for some air, Mr. Darcy?”

He always accepted.

No explanation followed.

No one attempted one.

The household carried on behind them while they wandered the shrubbery or crossed the meadow beyond the house. Their conversations changed to books, Derbyshire, Jane’s growing attachment to Bingley, Georgiana’s music, or Mrs. Gardiner’s amusing observations of London society.

Never Mr. Wickham.

Once, Elizabeth ventured near the forbidden subject.

“I had a conversation yesterday with—”

Darcy interrupted more quickly than civility recommended.

“Miss Bennet, have I ever described the little valley below Pemberley after the autumn rains?”

She stopped speaking.

For several paces she merely watched him.

“You have become very accomplished at changing the subject.”