Page 50 of Near Pemberley

Not cold – never cold with her – but more inwardly absent. She observed it without entirely understanding its cause, though he surprised her several times when she looked at him with anxious concern.

Towards the middle of September, he proposed accompanying her to London for some weeks.

The idea had first occurred to him almost accidentally.

Pemberley, which had once offered him every comfort, had lately become associated with expectations better forgotten. Everywhere he turned, some trivial recollection seemed ready to present itself: a room he had intended Elizabeth to see, a path through the grounds he had hoped to walk with her, a conversation interrupted before it had properly begun.

A change of scene appeared desirable.

When he mentioned the possibility to Georgiana, the suggestion delighted her.

“I had wished very much to see the new exhibition at Somerset House,” she confessed shyly. “And Mrs. Annesley says there is to be a performance at Theatre Royal which everyone admires exceedingly.”

“Then we shall see both.”

Georgiana smiled with more animation than he had observed in her for some time.

The journey south proved beneficial to her almost immediately.

London, visited now without the former shadows associated with Ramsgate and its unhappy recollections, offered Georgiana pleasures she could enjoy with increasing confidence under her brother’s protection. Museums, exhibitions, musical evenings, the theatre – all succeeded in drawing her gradually from the habitual reserve which still clung to her in larger society.

Darcy watched the improvement with genuine satisfaction. It relieved him, at least, to feel himself useful to someone he loved.

Indeed, much of his own comfort during those weeks arose solely from observing hers.

They attended the theatre several times. Georgiana admired tragedy most, though she wept so sincerely during one performance that Darcy afterwards forbade himself from smiling at her emotion, however tempted he had briefly been.

At the British Museum, she moved with quiet wonder through galleries which she insisted upon examining far more carefully than fashionable visitors generally thought necessary. Darcy accompanied her patiently everywhere, listening while she spoke with increasing intelligence and confidence regarding paintings, sculpture, and music.

To outward appearance, his life had resumed perfect regularity.

Only inwardly, nothing was restored.

For even amidst the movement and distraction of London, Elizabeth Bennet remained present in his thoughts with a constancy time had done nothing to diminish.

Sometimes, crossing crowded streets or entering brilliant drawing rooms filled with fashionable company, he would suddenly recall with painful vividness the quiet parlour at Lambton; her voice across the tea table; the softened expression in her eyes.

Then would follow inevitably the recollection that she had vanished from his life almost in an instant afterwards.

And still no word came from Longbourn.

Chapter XIV

Several days later, after her argument with Jane, finding herself increasingly unable to endure either her mother’s lamentations downstairs or Kitty’s restless weeping upstairs, Elizabeth escaped for a short interval into her father’s library.

The room stood empty.

At any former period, the sight would almost certainly have comforted her. The library had long been associated in her mind with ease, intelligence, and that quiet sort of companionship she had once believed herself always to share with her father. Here she had laughed with him, argued with him, sought refuge beside him from the follies of the rest of the household.

Now even the room itself seemed altered.

Dust lay neglected upon several shelves. Newspapers and opened letters remained scattered untidily across the writing table. One candle had burned entirely down into hardened wax beside a pile of accounts apparently abandoned halfway through examination.

The disorder struck her sorely.

Her father, who had always retreated into indolence with an air of amused superiority, now appeared merely weary.

Elizabeth moved slowly towards the shelves, searching almost mechanically among familiar volumes. She did not quite know what she sought. Distraction perhaps. Silence. Some temporary relief from thoughts which never wholly left her now.