Page 65 of Hard Home

She had made a great point of telling him, on the second occasion, that the plantation on the far side of the park was a favorite haunt of hers; and how it could occur a second time therefore was very odd, and it occurred a third and a fourth. He never said a great deal, and did not oblige her to talk much herself; but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions — about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings, and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be stayingtheretoo.

That was one thing.

The other, which she attended to less because it was of no interest whatever, was that Mr. Darcy walked with his right hand out of his glove.

He did it always. She noticed it on the second meeting and confirmed it on the third and the fourth, and she noticed too —being a person who could not help noticing — that he did not walk anywhere in that park at random. He went along the same line each time: from the gate at the mount, down inside the pales, past the stew ponds, and up the long field to the corner where the Bromley road runs; and he walked it at the same pace, and at the corner he stopped for a while, and then came back along it.

Once she came on him at the far end of it, standing quite still at the pale, with his bare hand flat against the top rail, looking at nothing whatever.

He had it behind his back before she was within twenty yards, and said good morning, and asked whether she found the mornings cold.

He is bored to death, thought Elizabeth,and rich, and has nothing in the world to do but walk about his aunt's land counting the fence posts; and she went home and made Charlotte laugh about it for a quarter of an hour, and it was a very good imitation, and Charlotte laughed a great deal.

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More than once did Elizabeth meet Colonel Fitzwilliam also, and rather liked it.

He was, she thought, the pleasantest man of her acquaintance in Kent, which was not a high standard and which he would have been the first to say so; and on the day in question he joined her in the lane and they walked a mile together, and talked of Rosings, and of his own prospects, which were those of a younger son.

"Younger sons cannot marry where they like."

"Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do."

"Our habits of expence make us too dependant, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money."

"Is this," thought Elizabeth, "meant for me?" and she colored at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what is the usual price of an Earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds."

He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped.

To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said,

"I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But perhaps his sister does as well for the present, and as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her."

"No," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy."

"Are you, indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way."

As she spoke, she observed him looking at her earnestly, and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied,

"You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favorite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them."

"I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man — he is a great friend of Darcy's."

"Oh! yes," said Elizabeth drily — "Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him."

"Care of him! — Yes, I really believe Darcydoestake care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture."

"What is it you mean?"

"It is a circumstance which Darcy of course would not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an unpleasant thing."

"You may depend upon my not mentioning it."

"And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this; that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer."

"Did Mr. Darcy give you his reasons for this interference?"

"I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady."