Page 17 of Mr Darcy’s Inconvenient Wife

After Nicola had left, Elizabeth went to find her sister. Jane sat on the edge of her bed with her face in her hands. She did not look up when Elizabeth came in.

“It must all be called off, Lizzy. You must tell Mama, for I cannot bear to hear what she will say. Tell Papa, and he will send word to Netherfield.”

“Jane —”

“I cannot marry him tomorrow. I cannot stand up in church and promise —” Her voice broke. “It was my handkerchief. I made it for him.”

Elizabeth sat down beside her and took her hand. It was very cold.

“I know you did. I watched you do it. And I will tell whoever you like whatever you like, only not yet. Do not decide anything in a hurry. Give me a few hours first.”

“What can a few hours change?”

“I do not know. That is why I want them.”

Jane was quiet for a long time. Across the passage, their mother's voice rose over Aunt Phillips's, and somebody announced that the lace was Brussels after all.

“Until this evening, then,” Jane said at last.

Elizabeth pressed her hand and went out, closing the door behind her. She stood in the passage with her fingers still on the latch and the handkerchief crumpled in her other hand, and tried to think who in all Hertfordshire knew Mr Bingley's habits better than Jane did.

Only one name came to her. She did not like it in the least.

Chapter Eight

Darcy

Miss Bingley had taken breakfast in her room. Darcy had been told so by the footman at nine o'clock, and again by her maid at ten, and at eleven he had given up waiting in the breakfast parlour and carried his book to the library. The library door looked onto the hall, and he meant to be there when she did.

The book was a treatise on the draining of clay soils. Bingley had bought it in the autumn and never cut the pages beyond the fourth chapter. Darcy had now read the first page three times, and still could not have said where the water went.

The rest of the house had no such difficulty keeping its mind on its business. Bingley had ridden out early with Hurst, to meet with the vicar, and taken his good humour with him, but the servants had enough of their own. Housemaids went up and down with linen for the guests. A boy crossed the hall twice with his arms full of holly and left a trail of leaves behind him. Somewhere below stairs a tin fell with a great clatter, and the cook told the whole kitchen what she thought of the girl who had dropped it.

Darcy turned back to the top of the page.

Then someone knocked at the front door. It was not the brisk rap of a tradesman, who would have gone round to the back in any case. Nor was it a neighbour come to wish the family joy, for neighbours knocked as if they expected to be let in. This knock was light, and it came only once.

He heard the footman cross the hall and draw the bolt. A woman spoke, too low for him to make out the words. After a short pause the footman went away up the stairs, and presently a second step came down them. It was a good deal quicker than the first.

“This way, if you please. We shall not be disturbed.”

Darcy had heard Caroline Bingley speak in a great many moods, and he knew this was not the voice she used for callers. It was lower than usual, and it was in a hurry.

He set the book down on the arm of his chair and rose. The library door stood open, and through the gap he could see a narrow strip of the hall. There was the black and white floor, and the foot of the stairs, and the green door of the morning room on the other side. Caroline was just going through it. Behind her went a young woman in a dark pelisse, with fair hair under a velvet bonnet. She was slender and carried herself well. As she turned her head, something in the line of her cheek put him so strongly in mind of Jane Bennet that he took half a step forward before he could stop himself.

The green door shut.

Darcy did not sit down again. He knew perfectly well that a gentleman ought not to stand behind a door and spy on his host's sister, and he knew just as well that he was going to do it.

He thought of her face over the embroidery frame two evenings ago, when she had told him she had another idea. He thought of the carriage taking her off down the drive last night, to dine with friends of Louisa's whom he would not wish to know.

The clock on the chimney-piece struck the quarter. He picked up the poker and stirred the fire, which did not need it, and put the poker back.

At last, the green door opened. The young woman came out first. She was pulling the strings of her reticule tight, and the sound of coins clanging told him what she’d just inserted there. Caroline came after her, smiling. Darcy had known her for years and could not remember seeing her smile like that. She was not troubling to hide it from anybody.

He went out into the hall.

Caroline had turned towards the stairs. When she saw him she stopped, and the smile changed a little, though it did not go.