Page 7 of Near Pemberley

Mr. Gardiner continued quietly, “But she added, with some reluctance, that he had turned out very wild, and was not at all what he ought to have been.”

Elizabeth’s fingers tightened slightly upon her napkin.

This was no new information to her. Yet to hear it confirmed by another voice, and that voice belonging to Pemberley, gave the truth a weight which her own recollections had not quite possessed.

“And she said no more than that?” she asked.

“No more of consequence,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “Yet she called him wild and said it with a gravity which made the word seem to contain much more than she wished to express.”

Elizabeth felt the colour rise faintly in her cheeks. “It is a strong accusation.”

“It is,” her aunt replied. “And I would not repeat it lightly. I know you liked him. Yet I must own, I saw no reason to doubt her. She had nothing to gain by misrepresenting him, and she spoke rather as one who regretted the necessity of saying so much.”

Elizabeth did not instantly answer.

“I believe I may have been mistaken in my former opinion of him,” she said at last. “Indeed, I no longer think of him as I once did.”

“Indeed?”

“He has left the neighbourhood. He will not be missed by those who have had occasion to know him better.”

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner looked at each other.

There was a short pause, during which Elizabeth appeared more thoughtful than before. Her aunt, with the delicacy of affection, asked no more, but her silence showed that she understood there was more to be known.

It was Mrs. Gardiner who resumed the subject, though with a lighter tone. “But we must not conclude our account in so serious a manner. There is something else we have not yet told you, and which perhaps will interest you more.”

Elizabeth looked up; she tried to appear indifferent. “What is that?”

“We have seen the gentleman’s portrait,” said her aunt, with a small smile.

Elizabeth could not help but return it. “Mr. Darcy’s?”

They both nodded enthusiastically.

“And what did you think of it?”

“That it was very like what I expected,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “and very favourable. He is, beyond question, a handsome man, though I suspect the painter has made him appear more severe than he truly is.”

Mr. Gardiner added, “Though I must say, the portrait does not quite do him justice.”

Elizabeth’s attention was now fully engaged. “Does it not?”

“No,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “For we had the opportunity of judging for ourselves.”

Chapter III

Elizabeth started slightly.

“You met him?”

“We did, indeed,” said her uncle. “Quite unexpectedly. He came into the house while we were there and addressed his housekeeper and then us with the greatest civility.”

“More than civility,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “He would not hear of Mrs. Reynolds abandoning us in the middle of the tour. There was a degree of ease in his manner which surprised us exceedingly. Nothing of that reserve which we had been prepared to expect.”

Elizabeth could not conceal her astonishment.

“That is very unlike what I have known of him – or thought I knew.”