Page 85

Albrecht laughed at the recollection, but the laughter did not hold. He touched the little drawing and looked down. Elizabeth might have filled the silence by asking for another story. Instead she moved nearer and waited while he gathered himself.

"I used to be the one who made her laugh," he said at last. "Friedrich always pretended to be severe. Then he would bring her whatever she had wanted in the first place."

Elizabeth imagined her mother as a girl walking between two brothers. She had no memory of Minna being anyone's sister. Now she could almost hear an old argument beginning beneath the vaulted ceilings of Falkenried. She asked if she might keep the drawing for the afternoon before returning it to him. Albrecht gave it to her. When she came back at supper, it had acquired a place beside her father's book.

A fortnight after their first meeting, Albrecht joined the Matlocks at dinner without ceremony. He was discovering that the simplest pleasures of their household were often the ones he most wished to remember. Saye spoke of an anxious tenant whose harvest had failed; the Earl asked practical questions; Richard recommended a remedy so extravagant that no one supposed he meant it. Elizabeth listened until both brothers disagreed about whether a drainage ditch should be moved or repaired.

"You have become as solemn as the gentlemen who examined my mother's locket," she said to Saye. "It is a ditch, not a question of state."

"A flooded ditch becomes a question of state to the farmer whose wheat it destroys," Saye answered.

"Very well. Then I withdraw my criticism of ditches in general and shall confine myself to this particular one."

Albrecht smiled into his glass. After dinner Saye drew him aside to ask about the management of northern estates, and for some time they discussed crop rotations and the responsibilities of inheritance. Albrecht found the younger man's judgment steady but unpretentious.

"Your sister is fortunate to have you," he said at last.

Saye glanced across the room, where Elizabeth and Richard were disputing the merits of a new book. "I should hope she considers herself equally fortunate in Richard. We are an arrangement which has always required both halves."

"I once said much the same of my brother and sister," Albrecht answered.

"I know a little of your loss. I am sorry for it."

"Thank you. I find myself remembering them more easily here than I have anywhere else."

Saye hesitated. "Elizabeth has never been merely our father's ward. I hope that does not seem presumptuous to you."

"It seems a mercy," Albrecht answered. "She cannot be loved too much because others have loved her before me. If Minna had lived to see this household, she would have thanked you all."

Later Elizabeth discovered Albrecht studying a portrait of the two Fitzwilliam sons as boys. Saye stood with grave dignity, while a much younger Richard appeared to have been ordered to hold still for the only time in his life.

"They were very handsome," Elizabeth said.

"I see why they are as they are," Albrecht replied. "The elder is already considering whether the painter has done his duty. The younger is deciding how quickly he can escape."

"And Mama? Which was she?"

"The one who encouraged the escape," he answered, smiling. "But she always returned before anyone had reason to be truly afraid."

Elizabeth looked at him carefully. They were speaking of a happy child, yet the words had made his eyes darken. She touched his sleeve and asked another question about the portrait, allowing him to remember joy without demanding that he surrender grief.

Darcy and Georgiana joined the Matlocks for dinner two evenings after the first meeting. Elizabeth had been anxious that her newly discovered uncle might find the company overwhelming, but Albrecht entered the drawing room with a curiosity that made his formal manners seem almost youthful. He was particularly interested in the gentleman to whom Elizabeth had promised her future.

“You are Mr. Darcy,” Albrecht said. “My niece has written of you with admirable restraint. I am beginning to suspect the restraint concealed a good deal.”

“Elizabeth has written of me?” Darcy asked, recovering his composure with difficulty.

“Enough for me to know she considers you a very fortunate man.”

“I do,” Elizabeth said. “But I must beg you not to make him insufferable, Uncle. His own opinion of his judgment is already quite satisfactory.”

Albrecht laughed, and Darcy found that the sound resembled Elizabeth's when she was particularly pleased with herself. He understood at once why she looked upon this new relation with such affection.

Georgiana approached with the quiet courage Elizabeth had spent years encouraging. “I am Miss Darcy,” she said. “Elizabeth has spoken of her mother to me for a long time. I am very happy that you are here.”

Albrecht bowed. “Then you have known my sister's daughter longer than I have. I hope you will forgive me for envying you that privilege.”

“Perhaps you will tell us things about Minna which Elizabeth can put into her music,” Georgiana said. “She taught me a song in German, and I have always wondered where it came from.”