Bath was a small place and when it rained it became smaller, as its visitors and residents sought shelter and squeezed together in any place which might keep them dry. Later the same day, huddled in Mollands around a table laden with tea things, were Sophy and Harriet Yorke, and Elizabeth. The rain came down in sheets outside and Frederick Yorke had been dispatched to request the use of Mrs Mountford’s carriage to convey them all home.
Mr Yorke had found them at the library and Elizabeth’s mind was occupied with the problem he presented. He had flirted outrageously with her all morning and found any excuse to touch her. Whenever his sisters were distracted momentarily, he would brush his fingers along her forearm, or squeeze her hand. He always stood close, too close, till he was practically leaning on her. Elizabeth felt she was at a crossroads with him but was unable to make up her mind in which direction she wanted to turn. If she allowed him to continue with such attentions then she was entering into a courtship, acknowledging him as a suitor to herself and the world and then she would have to endure all the speculation and presumption about them marrying such a relationship would produce. If only he would take things more gradually. He seemed in so much of a rush and it was spoiling the delicious, playful beginning they had made.
Such was the depth of her thoughts, Mr Darcy standing over them, with Georgiana on one arm and a dripping umbrella in the other, caught her by surprise and she sprang from her seat a little too quickly to say hello to them, brushing the table and causing the tea things to rattle.
“Twice in one day, Miss Bennet, I hope you do not think I am hunting you down,” he said.
She laughed uncomfortably and saw he could have done nothing but address her. The shop was too small for him to have avoided it. Georgiana made a comment about the rain and the weather was discussed for a while until Elizabeth saw Mr Darcy looking around in vain for a table to sit at. There were none spare.
“Won’t you join us? There are no tables available but we have one spare chair and I am sure we could find another.”
Georgiana thanked her and took the empty seat. Elizabeth could not have said what Mr Darcy’s feelings about being forced into her company once again were, or how he might bear sitting with the Yorkes. There was no change of expression on his face to give her even the slightest clue, but he did not make for the door, or state he would rather stand, so she supposed he was not entirely unwilling. Another chair was found and it was squeezed into a small space between Elizabeth and the window. Mr Darcy somehow managed to maneuverer his broad frame onto it without the loss of too much dignity. They were as close as they had been the night of the Fitzwilliam’s dinner and he shot her a look, “bad luck, Miss Bennet.”
Her laugh was genuine this time. “You have a good memory for the things I say, Mr Darcy.”
“You say many memorable things.”
“I do? I often think the things I say are complete nonsense. I am much cleverer in my own head. There, I am quite the philosopher and comedienne. It is a pity though that my pithy retorts and words of wisdom only occur to me two or three hours after they would have been of any use.”
He smiled broadly and she noticed for the first time a dimple in his right cheek that fascinated her for a few moments.
“Tis the same with me, but you are easy in company in a way I admire. I often wish I had your way with nonsense, if that’s what you insist on calling it.”
She looked down at the table, wondering, not for the first time, if some of his apparent rudeness, his silence, was merely a natural reserve. Did he suffer from shyness? He had spoken before, long ago at Rosings, of his being uneasy in company and she had tartly and unsympathetically told him he ought to take the trouble to practice.
Now she was the one who was reserved and said nothing and silence hung over them. On the other side of the table Harriet, in her bubbly and lively way, had drawn Georgiana out and they were talking with some animation. Sophy was quietly studying the street outside. Elizabeth turned to Mr Darcy, suddenly resolved to make amends for her previous ridiculing of him. “Before you walked in we were talking of Devonshire, where Miss Yorke is from,” she caught Sophy’s eye and smiled at her. “Have you ever visited Devonshire, Mr Darcy?”
“Yes. I went there once.” He replied in his clipped manner.
Elizabeth waited for him to elaborate but he stared at her blankly.
“Oh, I was saying I should like to see it, particularly the coastlines which I believe are quite rugged and wild. The descriptions of it make me think of pirates and tall ships. I have only ever been to Lyme, which is probably quite tame by comparison,” she said, speaking with enthusiasm.
He looked thoughtful and then seemed to realise it was ‘turn’ to say something. “I have not been to Lyme.” He ventured.
“I think, Elizabeth,” said Sophy, after a lengthy pause. “You are imagining Devonshire to be more like its neighbour, Cornwall. Devonshire is a much softer and flatter place and I can’t remember the last time I came across any pirates, smugglers or lost treasure while at home.”
They both looked to Mr Darcy but he seemed baffled as to how to join in this conversation and did not seem to understand the point of it.
Elizabeth persevered. “But the coastline, whether the rugged one of my imagination, or the pretty one of your reality, must be a good subject for an artist, is it not? Miss Yorke is very accomplished, Mr Darcy. In watercolours too, but I particularly admire her line drawings.” There! She had given him a perfect opportunity. He might ask Sophy Yorke about her art.
He opened his mouth, closed it again and said nothing, looking back to the ladies to continue.
He was indeed, decided Elizabeth, spectacularly bad at small talk, almost endearingly so. It seemed preposterous that a man with such standing in society, a man of his age and education should be so inhibited. Had he not stood in a thousand parlours, taken a hundred dinners and attended dozens upon dozens of balls?
Sophy Yorke seemed to understand that Elizabeth was trying to engage him in conversation and took up the reins. “We were also talking of portraits, Mr Darcy. I should like to sketch Elizabeth. She has such an interesting face, so many expressions.”
Elizabeth was embarrassed and shook her head. “And I was saying, I should not be able to sit still for long enough. Mrs Mountford will attest to my habit of fidgeting.”
The door of Mollands had meanwhile opened once more and admitted Mr Yorke and Mrs Mountford, slightly damp from the rain. “You see I have done my duty well and secured not only the carriage but the lady herself.” He bowed before the assembled party and as there were no vacant chairs, went around the table and perched on the edge of Elizabeth’s. She did well not to gasp at his audaciousness. It was a gesture that seemed to scream not only of his intentions but of his sureness of her – as if he had already claimed her as his own and wanted the world to know it.
As his leg was pressed along her own she shifted a little, but could not move too far across, for this brought her closer to Mr Darcy and she feared it might seem as if she were trying to climb into his lap. She suppressed a slightly hysterical giggle at the thought. Nevertheless, when Mr Yorke shifted further onto the seat, using the space she had created, she instinctively moved away again, till her leg accidentally touched Mr Darcy’s and she felt his start. She tried to make herself as small as possible, so as not to touch either gentleman. Her aunt, when Elizabeth looked up at her, seemed amused.
“What might I attest to, Elizabeth? I overheard something on the way in?”
“You are always saying I fidget.”
Mrs Mountford rolled her eyes. “Oh goodness me, yes, my dressmaker does despair of her during fittings. Do you know, Mr Darcy, that when she was sixteen she had to be sent to London to learn how to be still in a parlour. It is true. Her mother complained she knew not how to either keep quiet when she should, or how to keep her seat. Her other aunt, Mrs Gardiner, solved the problem by getting her to sit on her hands whenever she felt the urge to move or speak out of turn. While this formula proved somewhat successful, she is, and always will be, a person of constant movement.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at her aunt. “I am sure none of that is of interest to Mr Darcy, madam.”
“On the contrary, I am excessively diverted.” He replied and Elizabeth saw the appearance of his dimple again, before he became suddenly serious and rose quickly to his feet. “Mrs Mountford, I am terribly rude, would you like a chair?”
The lady waved him away. “Stay where you are, young man, I was on my way home from your aunt’s when Mr Yorke flagged me down. I have been out all morning and am now keen to be at home. I have merely come in to apologise. My carriage is a barouche and will not hold more than four with any comfort.”
“Oh, of course,” said Elizabeth, “you must take the Miss Yorkes and Miss Darcy home. I shall be fine to walk. My boots have good, thick soles.”
Mr Darcy turned to her with some concern. “But it rains very hard.”
“I shall be fine with the loan of an umbrella.”
He passed her his without a word and she took it with a small smile.
“Well, that is settled then. Mr Yorke won’t you please go and tell the driver we will be ready shortly? He waits at the end of the street but if he might bring the carriage as close as possible it will be appreciated.”
Mr Yorke hurried off to the task.
“You would do me a service and see Elizabeth home safely, won’t you, Mr Darcy?”
Elizabeth was about to protest and say she would be fine walking home on her own, but Mr Darcy earnestly agreed he would be happy to escort her and she fell silent, finding, much to her surprise, that she would not mind his company at all. The thought of perhaps half an hour alone with him did not fill her with horror after all. She would actually like the chance to speak with him further, to perhaps understand him a little better. Was it possible she was warming towards him?
The ladies all left to take the carriage and she and Mr Darcy stood to start walking. Elizabeth had not counted on the reappearance of Mr Yorke, however. In fact, she had quite forgotten about him. He held out his arm for Elizabeth to take. “Shall we?”
“Oh, Mr Darcy kindly offered to take me home.”
“Well thank you, Darcy, but you are for Milsom Street are you not? Laura Place is quite out of your way. No, this will be my duty and pleasure. Come along, Miss Bennet.” He threaded Elizabeth’s hand through his arm.
Reluctantly, she held out Mr Darcy’s umbrella, giving it back to him.
“No please have it,” he protested.
“You’ll need yours, Darcy,” said Mr Yorke. “Do not worry. I have one myself you see.” He held up his own umbrella for inspection and Darcy took his back from Elizabeth’s outstretched hand.
She left him standing in the middle of Mollands with quite a forlorn look upon his face, feeling she had been carried away from him against her will, but not knowing how she could have insisted on remaining with him.
Elizabeth arrived back at Laura Place to find dry shoes and a mug of hot chocolate waiting for her.
“How was your walk with Mr Darcy?” Mrs Mountford asked when she joined her.
“I did not walk with him. Mr Yorke brought me home.”
“Oh.” Her aunt said nothing more while Elizabeth chewed her bottom lip and stared into the fire.
“What is your opinion of Mr Darcy?” She asked after a few moments silence.
Mrs Mountford looked surprised. “Why, I hardly think I know him well enough to be able to give one. I have only met him twice.”
“But that is why I ask, on your brief acquaintance, what are your impressions?”
“Well,” Mrs Mountford completely set aside the book she had been reading before Elizabeth had come in. “I suppose I think him a good brother. Miss Darcy is a testament to that. He has observed the proper mourning period for his wife, which suggests he has regard for honour. He does not rattle on like some young men do, he likes to listen and observe, but when he does speak, his words are well judged and intelligent. I think him sensible and steady. While his manners could not be called ‘happy’, he perhaps has other qualities which more than compensate for his tendency to solemnity. These are just my observations, yet I heard something of him today to make me think him both kind and generous too.
Elizabeth was quiet but her look was all curiosity and Mrs Mountford continued.
“When I visited at Milsom Street, Lady Fitzwilliam was speaking of her son’s forthcoming wedding. The Colonel is a great favourite of hers and she spoke of her regret at never having been able to assist him in securing his happiness. It seems he fell in love at a young age, with a Miss Clement, the daughter of Lord Clement. The Fitzwilliam entail is arranged around the eldest son to the exclusion of any other children and the family circumstances were such that the Colonel only had his army pay to recommend him. It was not enough for Lord Clement. The daughter was not yet old enough, nor did she wish to defy the father - and so it was not to be.”
“But now they are to be married?”
“Oh yes. Rosings, which I understand is quite a substantial estate, has passed to Darcy, who has settled it on Colonel Fitzwilliam on the occasion of his marriage. His application for Miss Clement’s hand could hardly be denied further, with so much to recommend it and so the story ends happily.”
“Rosings? How is it Mr Darcy’s?”
“He married Miss de Bourgh, of course.”
“But Lady Catherine de Bourgh, her mother?”
“Quite dead, my dear, long before the daughter.” Mrs Mountford said bluntly.
Elizabeth gasped at the thought. Lady Catherine had seemed such a tour de force, a character larger than life and too comically bad to be simply dead. She was of the kind that usually lived on for far longer than they should, spreading their misery and their unwanted advice wherever they went, and daring mortality to disagree with them.
“So you see,” Mrs Mountford continued. “Rosings went to Darcy and now he has bestowed it on his cousin.”
“What incredible generosity,” Elizabeth said with wonder in her voice.
“Well, I suppose the estate has come back into the folds of the family that used to own it. Lady Catherine was a Fitzwilliam and it was Fitzwilliam property for generations, but you are correct. Mr Darcy did not have to act so. He would have been well within his rights to keep it as his own.”
“I am always impressed, madam,” said Elizabeth after a pause, “at how much information you manage to obtain from a short morning call.”
“So, I have given you my impressions, Elizabeth. Pray tell me, what is your opinion of Mr Darcy?”
Elizabeth could not compose a proper answer, she did not have one. “My opinion of Mr Darcy changes constantly, so rapidly, I dare not venture it.”
“Well, I believe he wants for nothing but a little more liveliness and that is something, if he marry more prudently next time, his wife may teach him.”
Mrs Mountford did not look at her niece and reached again for her book but her words hung in the air and then begun to swirl, swoop and dart around the place, permeating Elizabeth’s consciousness, seeping into her heart, befuddling her emotions.
“I think I might go and retrieve a book from my room.” She said at last, rising from her seat.
Her aunt nodded. “A good idea. A wet afternoon is a fine excuse to lose oneself in a book.”
Before she quit the room however, Elizabeth turned to ask a question. “By the by, are we engaged to go to Lady Winslow’s? Miss Darcy mentioned a party or something similar.”
She received a twinkling smile from her aunt in response. “Tomorrow evening.”