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"Shall we go next week?" says Mr. Darcy. "I thought we might travel together. Your sister will be glad to see you. And I should like," he says, very low, so that only I can hear, "to see where you grew up."

I open my mouth.

Under the table, with no one seeing, his hand finds mine, and holds it.

And I hear myself say, "Yes."

Chapter Twelve — Darcy

"If you leave this house, Darcy, you will never darken its door again!"

My aunt says this from the top of the front steps of Rosings, at a volume that sends the rooks up out of the elms in a black, complaining cloud.

It is Tuesday. It is a fine, blowing April morning, with white clouds racing over the park. My carriage stands on the gravel with the horses stamping. The luggage is strapped on. Lowe is on the box beside the coachman, in his greatcoat, with the face of a man who has seen a great many departures from Rosings and expects this one to be the worst.

"I shall darken it at Easter, Aunt," I say. "As I always do."

"You will not! I shall have the doors barred!"

"Then I shall stand outside them and darken the step."

Fitzwilliam, mounting his horse a little way off, makes a noise and turns it into a sneeze. His horse sidles in alarm.

"Do not trifle with me, Darcy." My aunt comes down one step. She is in purple this morning, a great deal of it, with a turban to match, and she looks like a thunderstorm that has been fitted for a gown. "You are not well. Dr. Crane is a fool, and Dr. Hollis is a coward, and Sir Augustus Pell arrives on Thursday, and he will find you gone. Gone! To Hertfordshire! With a—with that—"

She points a quivering finger past me.

Elizabeth, standing at my elbow in her traveling pelisse, looks up at the finger with polite interest, as though it were a weathervane.

"With Miss Bennet," I supply. "Yes, Aunt."

"I forbid it."

"You cannot forbid it. I am eight-and-twenty, and it is my carriage."

"I shall write to your uncle! I shall write to the Earl!"

"My uncle," I say, "will be delighted. He has been trying to marry me off since I was twenty. He sent me a letter of congratulation on Saturday. He wishes to know whether Miss Bennet hunts."

My aunt makes a sound like a kettle that has been left on the hob all night.

***

Mr. Collins is bowing.

He has been bowing since we came out of the house. He bows to my aunt, for being so condescending as to see us off. He bows to me, for being so condescending as to leave. He bows to Elizabeth, as my intended. He bows to Fitzwilliam, as my cousin. He bows, once, to the coachman, before he realizes his mistake, and then bows to the horses, apparently to apologize for having bowed to the coachman.

Charlotte stands beside him, holding his arm, with the patient expression of a woman steadying a weathercock in a high wind.

"Mr. Darcy," says Mr. Collins, coming up, and bowing. "Sir. I wish you a safe journey. I wish you a very safe journey. And I hope—that is, I trust—I am sure her ladyship does not mean—" He looks over his shoulder at my aunt, who glares at him from the steps. He goes pale and bows to her. He looks back at me. He goes pink and bows to me. "I wish everyone a safe journey," he says at last, in despair, and retreats.

Charlotte comes forward and takes Elizabeth's hands.

I step back a little, to give them room. They do not need room. They stand very close together and say almost nothing. Mrs. Collins says, "Write to me," and Elizabeth says, "Every day," and Mrs. Collins says, "Every week will do," and then she leans in and says something into Elizabeth's ear that I cannot hear. Elizabeth goes very still. Then she nods, and they hold each other for a moment, quite hard.

When Mrs. Collins steps back, her eyes are bright. She turns to me.

"Mr. Darcy," she says. "Take care of her."