Page 41 of Most Truly the Gentleman

“It is to be hoped that everyone will kindly forget this trouble once Miss Harrington is married,” Jane said. “They are decent people, I assure you.”

Mr Darcy smiled kindly at Jane and said, “I think every family has at least one hasty wedding in its history. Once they are safely wed, Miss Bennet, I believe you may expect your neighbours’ memories to prove remarkably short.”

“Well said, sir,” Elizabeth replied. “But you surprise me. I should not have thought you quite so ready to forget the follies and vices of others.”

He turned his smile upon her. “When those follies and vices cause harm, Miss Elizabeth, I freely admit that I am not. Offences against myself or my family in particular, I find it almost impossible to forgive. But in such cases as the one of which we speak, where those I love best are not involved and the injury, if there is any, adheres largely to the participants, and where honour is restored by honourable action, there is naught for me to resent.”

“A sensible view, to my mind. I cannot disagree with it in any particular. I have a great sympathy for young Mr Harrington at present, as I think anyone with sisters must.”

The gazes of the cousins both slid towards Miss Darcy then. She was not far away, laughing with Kitty and the Miss Longs. “Yes,” Mr Darcy said, fixing her with an earnest gaze, “those of us with a young lady in our household, have we any sense at all, must feel how precious and delicate her reputation is, and how zealously we must guard it.”

Even to the point of concealing her indiscretions, thought Elizabeth, nodding to him in understanding.

“This, I believe, is the boundary with Longbourn,” Fitzwilliam said as he and Darcy stepped their horses through the broad, shallow wash of a stream. Darcy looked about with interest, always curious as to the running of other estates. They trotted along the paths around the fields, his critical eye noting a ramshackle fence here, an ill-ploughed furrow there. He thought it would not take a great deal to increase the prosperity of the place, though it was hardly falling down about the family’s ears. Perhaps now that the inheritance would be secured to descendants of Mr Bennet by the marriage of his daughter to Mr Collins, the man might find such improvements worth his time, Darcy hoped.

His cousin’s thoughts seemed to be running along an adjoining path, for he said, “A fair little place, this. I presume Bennet has implemented the Norfolk system.”

“His father did, as I recall. As has everyone who is not firmly mired in the ways of our great-grandfathers.”

Fitzwilliam laughed. “You will convince Lady Catherine one day; I am sure of it.”

“And I am not,” he retorted. “Longbourn is not a great deal smaller than Jordan Abbey, I think.”

“The Abbey is larger than Longbourn and smaller than Netherfield,” Fitzwilliam agreed. “Though it may well rival Netherfield in income once I have made my mark upon it.”

Darcy’s eyebrows rose. “What plan have you hatched, Cousin?”

“The flocks are not profitable enough to justify their upkeep. As their wintering barn is, fortunately, close to the stables, I will sell the sheep, knock down the barn, expand the stables, and raise horses. Saddle-horses and hunters, to be precise. O’Leary and I shall train them ourselves, to begin with, and when the enterprise begins to yield a profit, I mean to hire a few old cavalrymen; let us hope this benighted war has ended by then.”

Darcy nodded thoughtfully. “A man will pay a great deal for a good hunter, and there is always a market for a well-trained saddle-horse. Will you deal only in gentlemen’s mounts, or train some mares to the side-saddle?”

“I mean to train all the mares I do not keep exclusively for breeding to the side-saddle, for I recall how much trouble you had finding one suitable for Georgiana. Too many breeders put a side-saddle on a mare, trot it around a ring, and if it does not buck, they call it schooled.”

“Indeed.” Darcy patted his horse’s neck and said, “If you should like to put Zephyr here to stud, I would be pleased to oblige you in return for one of his offspring.”

“I will certainly take you up on that. I meant to ask once I had acquired a few mares, in any case.” His head swivelled to his right, where two ladies walking the path along the opposite side of the same field, carrying a large basket between them, had just appeared through an opening in the hedgerow. “I do believe there are Miss Elizabeth and Miss Mary,” he said. “Shall we greet them?”

“The acuity of your vision continues to astound,” Darcy remarked, following Fitzwilliam onto the turning to skirt the south end of the field.

“Saved my life more than once on the Continent.”

They caught up to the ladies in short order, exchanging pleasantries and comments on the fineness of the morning. It was chill, but not near so cold as late December was capable of offering, and sunny. The ladies were pink-cheeked under their wool bonnets.

“What brings you so far afield?” the colonel enquired.

“A visit to a tenant family in need,” Miss Elizabeth replied. “There are seven children and insufficient funds, so we have made winter clothes for the little ones to add to our usual delivery of flour, cheese, and sundries.”

“You made the clothes yourselves?” Darcy asked. At Pemberley, such sewing as was required for tenants in difficulty was a task the maids undertook when the family was from home and their daily labours thereby reduced.

“We did. The servants at Longbourn are well occupied with the family’s needs,” she explained. “Mary does the greater portion of it, though Jane and I assist. I suppose we shall have to find more time for it when Mary leaves us,” she added with a smile at her blushing younger sister.

“I did not do much more than you and Jane,” she protested mildly.

“We ought not keep you standing out in the cold,” Fitzwilliam said. “May we escort you to your destination?”

The young ladies agreed and the gentlemen dismounted, leading their horses as the party walked a further quarter mile to a simple cottage, where they were met by a harried-looking woman with a babe in arms and a pair of little ones clinging to her skirts. Her left cheek bore the fading remnants of a great bruise. Yet more children spilled from the doorway to run about the yard. Miss Elizabeth introduced them to Mrs Wallace and reduced the general clamour greatly by handing out sweets to the children old enough not to choke upon them.

The ladies then offered to carry the basket inside for her, but Mrs Wallace swiftly insisted that her elder children would do it. Darcy noted Miss Elizabeth’s lips tighten for just a second before her cheerful demeanour reasserted itself. Miss Mary reminded Mrs Wallace to send to the manor if her family had need of any assistance therefrom, and the visit concluded.