Page 18 of A Compromise By Design

“The thought had not crossed my mind,” he said. From the openness and slight surprise of his tone, it was obviously nothing more or less than simple truth. Elizabeth smiled at him easily for once, while filing that away to consider at a calmer moment.

With their engagement and plan in place, Mr Darcy bid Elizabeth farewell and made to return to Netherfield Park.

The rest of the day felt long, and the evening longer still once Elizabeth had suggested the possibility of visiting Netherfield the next day to her mother. Though it was convenient that Mrs Bennet took up the suggestion at once, her raptures were lengthy and delivered at considerable volume, and Elizabeth had tired of them long before Jane could lead their mother into another avenue of conversation. It was a considerable relief when she could at last escape upstairs to bed.

She lay awake longer than she would have liked. Elizabeth thought about locks, and keys, and Caroline Bingley’s face in the corridor. She thought about what she hoped to find the next day, and what she would do with it if she found it. Then she thought about what Mr Darcy had said.

The thought had not crossed my mind.

How little it resembled anything she had expected from him. Mr Darcy…was not what Elizabeth had thought him, in more than one regard. And there was something in that small statement that left her feeling strangely warmed by the unhesitating quality of his respect.

Eventually she slept, which felt like a small achievement.

∞∞∞

The following morning saw Mrs Bennet, Jane, and Elizabeth on the road to Netherfield, accompanied by Mrs Bennet’s opinions on table linens for a wedding breakfast, which occupied considerable space in the carriage.

Upon their arrival, their welcome was a rather mixed affair. Mr Bingley, at least, greeted Jane with uncomplicated delight, and seized the opportunity of steering her towards the morning room at once.

Miss Bingley greeted Elizabeth with a smile that showed all her teeth. “Why, Miss Eliza! How delightful that we will have so much more occasion to see each other now.”

Elizabeth did not attempt to make her own smile more than merely polite. “Indeed, it will. I thank you for your hospitality, Miss Bingley.”

Mr Darcy appeared in the hallway as though by coincidence, though Elizabeth very much suspected it was not. “Mrs Bennet, good morning. Good morning, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Good morning, Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth returned softly, wondering how they might make their escape to the study.

“Miss Elizabeth, I should greatly appreciate having your opinion about one of the downstairs rooms and its suitability for the wedding breakfast,” Mr Darcy said then, naturally enough. “It is a question of the light. If you would allow us, Mrs Bennet?”

Mrs Bennet waved them away, already absorbed in a conversation with Mrs Hurst about floral arrangements. Mrs Hurst’s expression suggested she had not fully anticipated what a Bennet visit would require of her.

Elizabeth followed Mr Darcy down the eastern corridor, a housemaid trailing far enough behind for some privacy and close enough to satisfy propriety — what a case of locking the barn door after the horses had run away! Elizabeth was aware of the distance between herself and Mr Darcy: two feet, approximately, the distance of business rather than intimacy. She was keenly aware that two weeks ago she would have found his proximity irritating.

Somehow, it was irritating no longer. Elizabeth could not quite put words to it. It seemed nothing so much as comfortable, perhaps even comforting, an impossible thought.

He opened the study door.

It seemed wrong, somehow, that the space that had utterly transformed her life had nothing extraordinary about it at all. Everything was the same as it had been when she first entered the study. The same window, the same grey east light, the same smell of old paper and cold grate. Elizabeth stood in the doorway for a moment and then went directly to the lock.

She crouched before it. Mr Darcy crouched beside her. The housemaid remained in the corridor and studied the ceiling with professional dedication.

The lock was old and well-made, and must have been at least a score of years old. From inside, without a key, there was nothing to show whether the bolt had been engaged accidentally or deliberately. Elizabeth examined the escutcheon, the striker plate, the seat of the mechanism, and sat back on her heels.

“It has the appearance of perfect innocence,” she observed. “Which, I suppose, proves nothing. Villains rarely advertise themselves.”

Mr Darcy’s mouth curved slightly. “You suspect the lock itself of moral failing?”

“I must blame something,” Elizabeth returned lightly. “Surely something must be to blame for our disaster.”

She stood, turning to look instead at the door itself. She studied the way it sat in the frame, the angle of the handle. Then Elizabeth considered the question of how it had come to be closed in the first place, and why it had been locked at that moment. Standing in the door frame, she peered down the corridor, feeling for any draughtiness that might account for the door’s sudden closing.

She thought back carefully. The door had been standing open when she entered. She had crossed the room, shelved the book, and turned back. Mr Darcy had been in the doorway. She had moved toward him, intending to leave the room, and the door closed before she could reach it.

“Why did the door close?” she asked, almost to herself.

Mr Darcy had been watching her investigations with the ghost of a smile. Methodical as he was, Elizabeth suspected he had checked all elements before her arrival. “I cannot say,” he said slowly. “I came in behind you, but I did not pull it closed.”

“And I had not yet reached the door when it shut. Nor did I feel a draft of wind — certainly not one strong enough that it could have shut the door.” Elizabeth looked at the door’s edge, the latch, the way the corridor beyond it was angled. “A well-hung door on a level floor does not close itself. It will stand open or stand shut.” She stepped out into the corridor and crouched to examine the external face of the lock. Along the lower rim of the brass plate, a small bright scratch, faint but fresh, the kind left by a key turned in haste.