Page 51

She had noticed Miss Elizabeth’s composure under Lady Catherine’s inspection, and would not deny that it had been genuinely impressive. There was a backbone there. Though, Caroline thought, it was not entirely surprising. She had never doubted Elizabeth Bennett’s backbone.

Quite the contrary. It was one of the things she found least objectionable about her, that unflinching quality of her composure. Tonight it had been on full display. But backbone was not the same as belonging, and Elizabeth Bennet, whatever her qualities, did not belong in Mr Darcy’s world. Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s arrival in a country assembly room to confirm this in front of forty witnesses had been quite useful.

Because what the room had heard was not merely a challenge, but the sound of the Darcy family’s objection to the match, made public and unmistakable. Everyone would talk about this tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Lady Catherine must intend to visit Longbourn, and whatever happened there would be talked about as well. Every conversation that followed would add another layer to the narrative that Caroline had been quietly building since December: a match made in unhappy circumstances, met with family opposition, sustained by nothing but the honour of a man who had too much of it to do otherwise.

Caroline accepted a glass of negus from a passing footman and considered the second thing she had catalogued, namely the exchange she had been close enough to partially hear between Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth after Lady Catherine withdrew. She had not heard all of it, but she was confident that she had heard enough.

Thank you. For what you said. Elizabeth Bennet’s voice had been composed and quiet. And then, after a pause she could not interpret: That is worth a great deal.

The words were not enough, surely. There was nothing in them but mere politeness. That was not the same as warmth, and not the same as attachment, and was precisely the response one would expect from any well-bred person who had just been publicly insulted and then apologised to. She had been thanked for her patience and had thanked him in return. This was manners. This was what manners were for.

What she had not heard, and what she noted the absence of, was anything from him that went beyond the obligations of a gentleman managing an awkward situation with decorum. He had apologised for Lady Catherine. He had said his aunt was not a reliable judge. These were the actions of a man who took his responsibilities seriously, not the actions of a man in love, and that meant that Caroline still had a chance.

She moved through the room with her glass and her assessment. Then she stopped near the window to look out at the darkness of the evening and allowed herself to indulge in a sense of optimism.

The engagement stood because Mr Darcy’s honour required it to stand. That would not always be true. There would come a day — she was certain of it — when he looked at the whole of it clearly: the opposition, the gossip, the obvious unsuitability of Elizabeth Bennet, and on that day his honour would require something different of him.

She had been patient. Remarkably patient, given everything. And patience, in her experience, was not the passive thing people took it for. It was simply waiting with your eyes open.

The ground was shifting. She could feel it.

Caroline finished her negus and was perfectly composed. She went to say something charming to Lady Lucas, and all the while thought, with the steady focus of a woman who has not changed her mind and does not intend to, that it was only a matter of time.

Chapter Twenty

On Sunday morning, Elizabeth was at the window of her bedchamber attempting to read a book when she heard the latch and turned to see her sister entering the room. Jane’s expression was not worry exactly, because Jane turned worry into something gentler than its ordinary form. Yet her expression still communicated that she had been thinking about something for several days and had decided the time for thinking was over.

Jane closed the door behind her, then sat on the edge of the bed. Elizabeth put down the book.

“How long has it been like this?” Jane said.

Elizabeth swallowed hard. For Jane, who generally approached difficult things with the utmost delicacy, the directness of her question was itself a form of urgency.

“Like what?” Elizabeth said, and heard, even as she said it, how thin it was.

Jane looked at her with a kind of compassionate patience that said more clearly that words that she could not be deceived. “It has been some time, I think. Since our afternoon with Miss Darcy at Netherfield,” she said. “No, actually, earlier still. But it is growing worse and worse and — Lizzy, I have been watching you and growing more concerned every day. I am asking you plainly. Are you content?”

The question landed with the weight of a carefully chosen word, which was Jane’s method. Not happy, which would have been easier to deflect. Not well, which Elizabeth had answered so many times that the answer had worn smooth. Content. Which meant: is the life you are living bearable to you, and are you living it by choice, and do not tell me you are managing.

Elizabeth looked out at the garden, cold and lifeless.

“No,” she said. “I am not.” Merely speaking it aloud made the weight of her sorrow ease a little.

“Something is weighing on you,” Jane said gently, but inexorably. “I do not think it is simply your natural disquiet at entering into marriage under such circumstances. There is yet something more that is preying on you. Dear Lizzy, I wish you would not keep it to yourself. And do not tell me it is nothing, for I know very well that it is not.”

“Very well,” Elizabeth said, letting out a long breath. “You are quite right. There is something I have not told you. I have been deciding whether to, for some time.”

Jane waited.

“The compromise was no accident.” Elizabeth looked at the garden as she said it, not wishing to see Jane’s reaction to hearing of such wickedness. “Nor did the door lock by itself. It was all arranged deliberately.”

Jane pressed her fingers to her mouth. “You are certain?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since before Christmas. I overheard something I was not meant to hear, and then I asked a question I was not supposed to ask, and the answer was — sufficient.”