13. In which no one likes 'Glenarvon'

The following week, Colonel Fitzwiliam's youngest sister, Lady Arabella came for a long overdue visit. She had been in the last trimester of a complicated pregnancy when Colonel Fitzwilliam had died, and now that she and her son were well enough to travel, they came to England with all due pomp.

Elizabeth was glad not to be in the spotlight, for a little while, and was not surprised, but a little saddened to discover that she and Lady Arabella did not know what to say to each other. They sat in strained silence when they could not avoid each other, Elizabeth attempting to talk of books or music, which held little interest to Arabella, and Arabella responding with the domestic concerns which occupied her waking hours, and in which Elizabeth, without husband, farm, household, or children of her own, could have no share. Elizabeth found herself rather relieved when Lady Arabella and her husband went onto Scotland with Lady Honoria and Miss Duncan. 

While Lady Arabella was in town, however Elizabeth took comfort in visits with the Gardiners, whom she rather felt she had neglected. 

Mrs. Gardiner was always glad to see Elizabeth, and teased her a little for being so long in town without dining with them. “I am sorry we cannot provide any great men for you, Lizzy, but I think your uncle Gardiner has grown greater since you last saw him.” She put a hand to her own rounded stomach and said, laughingly, “I certainly have!”

Elizabeth smiled, “Oh really, aunt. Great men are just men . Shall I let you into a secret?”

“Oh pray do!”

“The Duke of Wellington dined with us so often because it was the only place he could read his newspaper without being disturbed.”

Both Gardiners stared at her a moment, and then began to laugh.

“It is true,” Elizabeth said, still laughing herself. “The whole house was still in mourning! Our dinner parties were necessarily small, and we did not receive a great number of visitors. And you know I have, from earliest infancy, been brought up to understand the ways of reserved, clever men who just wish to be left alone to read.”

“How little you have changed, in some ways,” said Mr. Gardiner.

Elizabeth’s smile turned a little incredulous at this. “Oh, dear sir! I have observed some of the greatest victories of the wars, and paid the highest cost. A person cannot help but be changed by this.”

“That is unavoidable,” said Mr. Gardiner, “but Lizzy, you are still as arch as ever. Perhaps the subjects of your study have changed, but your take on them has not.” There came a knock on the door; a ship that had been much delayed by winter storms had returned to port, and Mr. Gardiner begged their pardon, but ran off it once. Elizabeth was not displeased to be left to the company of her aunt, and unburdened herself a little, of the feelings caused by a rather disappointing letter she’d had from Jane.

“They do not think they shall be really done with repairs until the fall at least,” said Elizabeth, “due to some rioting at Mr. Bingley’s fathers’ mills, which damaged the machinery— which will necessarily put off their scheduled home repairs, and which will necessarily put off my arrival. I am selfish enough to write back declaring it is no hardship— I have been used to sleep through cannonades— but I wonder if I would be adding to Jane’s burdens in being there.”

“Your uncle Gardiner had heard there were riots up north. These Luddites certainly make themselves heard.” She rested her folded hands on top of her swollen midsection. “Well, Lizzy, if you cannot go to your sister, why not have one of your sisters come to you? I am not sure Mary will think it right, since you have not finished your year of mourning, but Kitty will, I think, be quite mad with joy at the idea of staying with you for a full season.”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, warming to the idea, “Georgiana was just pressing Darcy to have Kitty come and stay with her in London— Darcy did not think it proper to have Kitty stay with him, why did I not think of having Kitty come to stay with me ?”

“Lady Stornoway cannot, I think, object to your having your sister with you.”

Lady Stornoway did not, and indeed, was surprised that Elizabeth had not thought to invite Kitty sooner. “I had Lawrence over every week when I was first married,” said Marjorie, “and I almost always have a friend staying with me for at least part of the season. Of course you are welcome to invite your sister to stay with you; I only wonder why you did not ask before.”

“I thought perhaps you might have... tired of my relations, given this summer. I did not wish to impose.”

“Why, Lizzy!” exclaimed Marjorie, in some surprise, “your manners are too nice. Do you really think any of your relations are worse than Lady Catherine? Two of your sisters are at home, I believe... shall I invite one of them to come stay with you?”

Elizabeth felt suddenly more cheerful. “Truly, you would not mind my having Kitty with me for the season?”

“As long as Kitty does not mind how limited our entertainments will be,” said Marjorie. “But even if there are no balls, I think you might now safely go to the opera and the theatre. As long as you are not seen only attending a comedy, there can be no complaints.”

***

Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, their two unmarried daughters, and Miss Darcy arrived towards the end of February. Elizabeth was glad of her father, Kitty, and Georgianna, and could— in small doses— be glad of Mary and Mrs. Bennet.

Mary’s conversation, though as dry as ever, was at least more interesting now that it concerned Egyptian gods, rather than English ones, and Mrs. Bennet, in her way, attempted to be kind. “ Well , Lizzy,” said Mrs. Bennet, almost as soon as Elizabeth arrived at the Gardiners' house, “you are receiving dukes now! But you were always a favorite of Wellington’s were you not? Ever since your first campaign! I was just telling Mrs. Phillips the other day, you know, about how when you were all safely retreated from Burgos, His Grace danced the supper set with you in Lisbon— at the very first ball after the retreat! And now you are safe back in England, what would please the Duke of Wellington more but to take his suppers always with you! Lady Lucas was good enough to say she saw a very pleasing mention of you in the society pages. It read, “The Duke of Wellington remains, as ever, in the company of the the widow Fitzwilliam.” Indeed, everyone I asked in Meryton seemed to have read it! I do not like to brag about my own children, to be sure— but it is a fine thing to see my own daughter grown out of her wildness and mentioned as being in the company of the Duke of Wellington! As ever in the company of the widow Fitzwilliam. Oh how it pleased me to see it!”

Elizabeth was uncomfortable on this subject, especially since Mary Crawford still liked teasing her on it, and Darcy had been in a Mood since it had occurred, two weeks ago. She was acquainted, at this point, with most of Darcy’s moods, but she hadn’t seen the shape of this one before. Usually what one saw in Darcy was only a tenth of what he was feeling or thinking, but there were tells enough that Elizabeth could pursue a scowl to its source, like a fisherman pulling up a line, after seeing a float jerk about on the water. She knew Darcy had been offended by what Mary had said, but was not entirely sure why so black a mood had lasted so long. Did he somehow feel she was betraying Colonel Fitzwilliam? The thought was absurd— but the other that presented himself, that Darcy was somehow jealous, did not make much sense either.

Surely Darcy knew how much she preferred his company? If she ever did remarry (though, depending on the day, she thought she might never do so), surely he realized she would never marry anyone that would be threatened by the close friendship she had with Darcy? Surely Darcy did not think she would not abandon him, and leave him entirely without confidantes? But she had paused too long. Mrs. Bennet said, pointedly, “Lizzy, I cannot think you will long remain a favorite if you just sit silently like this before the Duke of Wellington.”

“The Fitzwilliams have trained your daughter into stoicism, my dear,” said Mr. Bennet, flicking his glance up from his paper. “All she can now do is sit like patience on a monument, or pose for commemorative cameos.”

“I was merely wool-gathering,” protested Elizabeth, setting her cup of tea down.

Mrs. Bennet was all sympathy. “Yes, those Fitzwilliams must have worked you to nothing. My poor girl, you were so worn out in September! And to be in London all winter! The country is a vast deal pleasanter to my way of thinking. They ought to have let you come to Longbourn with Miss Darcy. A nice, restorative lease at Longbourn, that is what will put a bloom back in your cheeks.” She sighed. “Black always did make you look pale and sickly.”

“Thank you Mama,” said Elizabeth, after a moment.

“I wish you would get some lavender dresses, they would become you a great deal better. But I suppose the Fitzwilliams expect you to be in black for the full year.”

“No, they do not, but I rather expect it of myself.” Elizabeth picked up her tea again, so that she had something to do.

Mr. Bennet quite surprised them all by folding up his paper and putting it aside. “Hard going still, eh Lizzy?”

“Harder some days than others, sir.” Elizabeth was surprised to feel a hand on her shoulder, and surprised again to realize it was her mother’s.

“Oh Lizzy,” said Mrs. Bennet, patting her shoulder, “it is a very sad thing to be sure. It was a very good match you made, almost better than Jane’s! Of course you will be forever regretting that Colonel Fitzwilliam is gone. But look how well off he has left you!”

“I would give it all to have him back,” said Elizabeth, frustrated.

“I only meant that that shews how very much he cared for you,” said Mrs. Bennet, tartly, “but you are always so determined to misunderstand people. Of course you wish him back! It is much better for a woman to be married than to be a widow. No one finds widowhood pleasant, even if they have your jointure. But Lizzy, you must face the reality that you are a widow and there is no changing that unless you marry a second time.”

“I know— I know it is impossible to have him back, Mama. I am... becoming resigned to that fact.”

“There,” said Mrs. Bennet. “That is all one can ask. And you know, I am very glad you will be having Kitty with you for the rest of the season. Kitty is so lively, she will cheer you up. And I know you cannot go anywhere, but men may visit you . There is no shame in a second match, you know. You always were, in your way, very romantic, and let me tell you, Miss Lizzy, there is no reason to wear the willow forever unless you wish to.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Bennet, seeing that Elizabeth’s temper could not quite bear this yet, “perhaps you might wish to show Elizabeth Lydia’s last letter.”

Lydia was as infrequent and dilatory a correspondent as Mr. Bennet; Elizabeth had received only two letters since Lydia’s departure: one saying that Lydia had safely arrived in Canton, and another saying there was talk of a great battle in Belgium, and had Lizzy been part of it? Elizabeth still had not answered this second. She did not know what to say.

The letter to Mrs. Bennet was cheerful and though very long, did not contain a great deal of information. But it did supply a great deal of conversation, which lasted until Mary, Kitty, and Georgiana came down, and Darcy arrived for dinner.

He was in better spirits at the appearance of his sister and even smiled when she gave a glad cry of, “Fitzwilliam!” and rushed into his arms. Elizabeth wondered if perhaps Darcy had just been missing his sister, but the real answer came after dinner, when Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner were pouring the coffee. Darcy hesitated as he took his cup and said, “Elizabeth— Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”

“Yes?” she prodded, when no answer was forthcoming.

He cleared his throat, his color high. “I wonder if perhaps— now that Miss Catherine Bennet is staying with you, and you are chaperoning her, perhaps you might consent to chaperoning Georgiana as well. Georgianna has been begging me to ask you since you invited your sister to town. As they seem to have made a pact to attend all, or nearly all their social engagements together, I do not think it will be very much more work for you.”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, a little startled. “Why that— I should be very glad to. Is that what you have been brooding over, like a hen with her chicks?”

Darcy cleared his throat in a way that conveyed that he had been brooding about exactly this issue.

“Good God, Darcy, I could have told you weeks ago that I would be very happy to do it, if you can live with the inconvenience of a chaperone living in a house other than your own.” She felt incredibly relieved.

“Of course. Georgiana was very affected by Colonel Fitzwilliam’s death; I do not think she will wish to be very much out in society. I am not sure we will venture much beyond the family circle.”

“Then really, what was your concern?”

“I did not wish in any way to imply that you were of the same standing as a paid companion—”

“No, I am family— which means, dear cousin, that you could have just asked me and I would have agreed at once. After all you have done for me, you do not think I would deny you something as simple as ‘watching over the best behaved nineteen-year-old I know’?”

Darcy seemed to be smiling in spite of himself. “I thought you might dislike the scheme, since it would require you to go out in society once again.” At her puzzled look, he clarified, “You are still in all black.”

“So I am,” said Elizabeth, looking down at herself. “I daresay I can manage half-mourning if you can give me a week or two to buy some grays and purples. That should please my mother.”

It did, a great deal. Mrs. Bennet had a lot of opinions on just what shape Elizabeth’s half-mourning should take, and was delighted to hear that Kitty might be taken to some ton events after all. Mary was delighted, in her way— delighted, at least, to have a subject on which to moralize. It did not suit her feelings or her sense of propriety to have Elizabeth dashing about in (horrors!) lavender muslin to balls and parties. Elizabeth’s protests that these would probably all be family affairs, and that she would not be dancing did not weaken Mary’s resolute disapproval.

Kitty found it ridiculous, but had finally grown out of arguing with Mary. Instead, she loftily said to Elizabeth after dinner, “Mary is not happy unless she can look down on one or another of us for being worse behaved than she is. Now Lydia is gone off to China, she has to make do with things that only bother her . If you had spent the full year and a day of your mourning period all in black, she would have found something to disapprove of.”

Elizabeth was considerably started by the wisdom and insight of this, particularly since, in her mind, Kitty was perpetually a fretful little girl with a constant cough. But Elizabeth supposed this to be an effect of war; anyone who hadn’t seen a howitzer shell explode overhead seemed to Elizabeth young and terribly sheltered. It still occasionally surprised Elizabeth to see that Kitty was... perhaps not entirely grown up, but adult enough to have relatively well-informed opinions. The fact that Mr. Bennet occasionally asked Kitty’s opinion of things out of interest (instead of a desire to make fun of her), only cemented this impression, and, while Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and Mary remained in town, Elizabeth found herself feeling absurdly sentimental that little Kitty was all grown up. She hadn’t felt this maudlin when Kitty or Lydia had begun pinning their hair up or going to balls, but the fact that Kitty was almost mature made her feel rather old.

Though, it had to be admitted, the fact that she was acting as someone’s chaperone probably contributed more to that feeling than any insights of Kitty’s. Elizabeth had begun to go out a little— no more than two or three times a week, to salons run by Marjorie’s friends, or in family groups to the concerts, plays, and operas London offered— but did not enter into these with the same unthinking enjoyment she once had. Part of it was the fact that Colonel Fitzwilliam could no longer listen to her commentary on this person’s dress, or that play’s surprise twist, but part of it was the fact that she was responsible for more than just herself. It felt very odd. She tried to convince herself that it wasn't that different from the hints she'd given and interventions she'd staged before, but something seemed to have shifted— not just in her mind, but in the minds of those around her. People approached her and talked to her more formally; they flattered her rather than treat her with the amused indifference they had in the past. 

Elizabeth was rather puzzled by this until Mary Crawford said, “My God, Mrs. Fitzwilliam, the deference with which they treat you! It is enough to bore one to tears.”

Elizabeth glanced around Lady Jersey’s drawing room and, seeing that Marjorie had an eye on Kitty and Georgianna, said, “Why, what do you mean, Miss Crawford? I feel rather as if they are just treating me like a dowager— which I am.”

“Yes, at five-and-twenty, you are aged out of the fun of ton life, fit only to decorate the edges of ballrooms. No, I only mean that after you were praised in the Commons for being a model of female delicacy, and it became public knowledge that the only way to the Duke of Wellington was through you, people started holding you in considerable awe. Now that so high a stickler as Mr. Darcy of Pemberley has entrusted you with his sister, no one quite knows what to do with you.”

Elizabeth protested this, but realized it was true. She had somehow become a person of considerable importance. Even her father observed it, when the two of them were walking to the British Museum, to pick up Mary. They could scarcely go two or three paces without someone tipping their hat.

“My goodness Lizzy,” said Mr. Bennet. “I rarely pay attention to the people with whom I am forced to converse at Matlock House, but I cannot possibly have met and forgotten all these people at your father-in-law’s. Have you?”

“Oh that insufferable man,” said Elizabeth.

“That is an unkind way to talk about your father-in-law. True things often are.”

“No, Wellington! If I was in my old military circles, I would have a better epithet to use than ‘insufferable,’ but this is all his fault. He didn’t want to talk to anyone when he was here, so he hid behind me and my mourning like a redoubt. I had my blacks to hide behind, but now I am in gray and taking Miss Darcy about, there is no avoiding society.”

Mr. Bennet was vastly amused. “Poor Lizzy! Turned into the lines of Torres Vedras! Useful to the great man during battle, and plagued by interested tourists forever thereafter. Does he actually write to you?”

“He does.”

“Then you should sign your next not as “E. Fitzwilliam, widow,” but as “E. Fitzwilliam, access point to rich and taciturn men of consequence.” Though perhaps I am limiting you too much in that. I daresay your chaperoning Miss Darcy about town is part of your newfound popularity. She is rather a great heiress if I am not mistaken. I think a large number of the men smiling at you are hoping to smile through you at your dear young cousin.”

“Da— confound it all!”

“And then, too, there is your other cousin, Mr . Darcy. He is not married— and despite being a proud, disagreeable sort of man, he is still very rich. I daresay all those women nodding at you are as interested in what you can tell them about Mr. Darcy as they are about the Duke of Wellington. Darcy they might actually manage to make into a husband. His Grace is already married— though I daresay that doesn’t stop him.”

Elizabeth groaned. “Good God! I liked it better when I was just a colonel’s wife.” Before her father could speak she said, impatiently, “Yes, yes, I know— I cannot be that any longer. But I am not sure I like being merely a conduit for unsociable men. At least when I was a colonel’s wife, I was understood to have some sort of...value on my own, not just based on my relationship to a man. That is— yes, I was primarily defined by who my husband was, but I was... I don’t quite know how to express it— active?”

“Yes, it was understood you quite regularly faced danger and laughed at it. Now it is understood that you quite regularly face great men and laugh at them.”

“Ha ha,” said Elizabeth.

“That’s the spirit,” said her father, pretending to be flattered.

***

The attention did not abate when April began, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet removed to Longbourne once again, taking Mary with them. Mary left Elizabeth a very long lecture that Elizabeth shoved into a desk drawer and forgot about; Mrs. Bennet left Elizabeth with an admonition to have Kitty married (but only to a rich gentleman); and Mr. Bennet left Elizabeth with a copy of Olympe de Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of Women . This she read multiple times. It put into comprehensible focus some of the amorphous but persistent problems that had always worried and bothered her. Elizabeth thought that she felt as she supposed a myope might, after putting on spectacles for the first time.

Marjorie, seeing Elizabeth reading it after dinner one evening, as Georgiana and Kitty played duets, asked to see it and read aloud the first sentence (“Men, are you capable of being just?”) with great amusement.

“Of course they aren’t,” said Marjorie. “Why would Madame de Gouges even feel the need to ask so ridiculous a question?”

“Because not everyone realizes it is a question that ought to have a different answer,” said Elizabeth, picking up the never-finished, never-quite-right christening gown. She was convinced her new Gardiner cousin would be married with children of their own by the time she finally managed to correctly pin the pleats. “Marjorie, how on earth do you live with this— with this constant attention and misunderstanding? I daresay even our father-in-law does not understand the extent of all you do.”

“I surround myself with people who do understand me, as much as I can,” replied Marjorie, skimming the declaration. “Unfortunately, my dear sister, our society is structured in a way that means women are constantly misunderstood or devalued. That is how you, someone who has very cheerfully written to me about blowing up powder wagons, picking locks, loading pistols, dressing the dinners of your captors with laudanum, and breaking out of French prisons, can be held up as an exemplar of female delicacy. Or how people can say that Stornoway is a competent politician, and that I’m merely a very charming hostess. When you find people who... shall we say understand why your petticoats are muddy?”

“That will never die will it?”

“No,” said Marjorie serenely. “It will not. But when you do find those people, cling to them. Be kind to them. They will remind you who you are when everyone else tells you you’re something you’re not.”

“Does that work for you?”

“If I did not visit Lawrence in his barracks twice a week, and Mary was not so constantly at Matlock House I would probably have to lock myself into a linen closet in order to scream everyday without being heard by the servants. Oh! My dear— I wasn’t thinking— you must have a number of friends from your military days. Invite them to stay at Matlock House! Just tell me names and addresses and I will have them here. You need allies when you are just starting a society career.”

“I should like to see Mrs. Collins,” said Elizabeth, promptly. “Perhaps the Tilneys might come for a fortnight, if Mrs. Tilney can be persuaded to leave her children for so long a time, and perhaps my friend Mrs. Kirke and her husband might come over from Paris? But certainly Mrs. Collins.”

“Mrs. Collins I could probably get,” said Marjorie. “It is getting her without getting Mr. Collins that shall be the difficulty.”

***

The Tilneys were the first to accept the invitation to Matlock House. They were kind enough to read into Elizabeth’s cheerful, short missive all the longing for their company she could not set down on paper, and replied that they would be very glad to come to town for a few weeks, if Lady Stornoway could make room for their children in their nursery. This Lady Stornoway readily granted, and the Tilneys arrived speedily and without ceremony. Their reunion was at first met with tears, for the want of their usual fourth was very painful, but they took great consolation in being once more together, and the Tilneys were happy to renew their acquaintance with Kitty Bennet and the Darcys. If they were less happy to renew their acquaintance with the Fitzwilliams, they did not show it, except in Mr. Tilney’s engaging Lady Catherine in a conversation where she ended up so violently disagreeing with herself she declared the London air was not good for her, and returned to Rosings Park.

Elizabeth and Mrs. Tilney were both ramblers by nature, preferring to be out of doors when the weather was fine (and even occasionally when it was not), and were able to bolster their spirit by what exercise they could get in the Matlock succession houses, and what parks could be braved in pelisses and pattens. It was thanks to the former that Marjorie hit upon the idea of turning over her usual duties with the flowers more permanently to Elizabeth.

“Henry had to teach me to love a rose,” said Mrs. Tilley, as they arranged flowers in Elizabeth’s sitting room one day. “I was never very fond of hot house blooms before, but I suppose that is partly because I was unused to them.”

“I am grown too used to luxury now,” said Elizabeth, arranging some leftover pinks in a Wedgewood vase. “I must have fresh flowers about me even in February.”

They were interrupted in their tasks by one of the parlormaids, Betsy, who announced a Colonel Brandon, with his wife and ward, wished to call upon Mrs. Fitzwilliam, if she was at home to visitors.

Darcy looked up from the game of chess he was playing with Mr. Tilney. “The name is familiar.”

Boatswain huffed his agreement, though Mrs. Tilney admitted her ignorance.

“He was Colonel Fitzwilliam’s first commanding officer,” Elizabeth explained to Mrs. Tilney.

“Have you met him before?” asked she.

“We were all introduced but it was at rather a large and crowded ball, and it was just after I had come back from Spain for the second time.” She finished depositing the last rose into the vase, and turned back to the door, where the maidservant was pretending not to eavesdrop. “Thank you Betsy, please show him up. Oh— and do tell me where I ought to put my poor attempt at a floral arrangement.”

Betsy was a little started to have her opinion asked and looked about the room. “Er...on the small round table, nearest the fire, Mrs. Fitzwilliam? It will look a treat when someone comes through the door.”

Elizabeth moved it there and studied the effect. “Thank you Betsy! You have a good eye. Mrs. Tilney and I shall have completed our more ambitious project for the front hall by the time you return.”

Their final effort was not as pretty as any of Marjorie’s creations, but for someone whose tastes were best pleased by a handful of roses in a imitation-Grecian vase, and someone who was naturally indifferent about flowers, it was better than either of them expected. Mrs. Tilney eagerly pulled her husband and Darcy away from their game to admire their handiwork, when Colonel Brandon came with his wife and ward. They greeted Elizabeth with all the warmth of old friends, even though Elizabeth honestly could not recall what, if anything she had said to them at one ball where she had been delirious with seasickness and sleeplessness. To Elizabeth’s deep embarrassment, she even had some trouble telling which was the wife and which was the ward. They were both very lovely, expressive women in their early thirties.

Elizabeth gestured vaguely at them all and said, “Colonel and Mrs. Brandon, and their ward,” when making the introductions. The Brandons apparently considered this satisfactory, and did not correct her or introduce themselves further, instead electing to begin immediately with their condolences. The woman in the slate green cambric swept Elizabeth into her arms and poured forth a torrent of feelings and poetry, before recollecting herself and pulling back to dry her eyes.

Elizabeth was embarrassed not to recall making the acquaintance of this woman and mumbled the honorific before saying “—Brandon, thank you, it is kind of you to visit me when your own spirits are still affected.”

The second lady, in a print round gown, was also very tearful, and though she did not offer any Thomas Grey or Cowper, expressed her deep sorrow. Neither of the ladies actually mentioned when they had last seen Colonel Fitzwilliam however, and Elizabeth was just as lost at how to address them as before.

To Elizabeth’s relief, Mrs. Tilney was equally confused, and so did not address either lady with anything more than a vague, ‘Oh!’ Darcy’s reaction to the general befuddlement was to go and fuss with the fireplace and abandon them all to continuing ambiguity and awkwardness.

Eventually Mr. Tilney hit upon the clever idea of saying Colonel Brandon, “Sir, Colonel Fitzwilliam told me that he was always glad of a visit to Delaford, because your home was so musical. I forget who is the musician of the party—”

“Mrs. Brandon,” said the colonel, smiling at the lady in slate green cambric, “is the true musician among us. Though I have heard often enough from Colonel Fitzwilliam that Mrs. Fitzwilliam plays and sings very well.”

“Not as well as Mrs. Brandon, I am sure,” demurred Elizabeth, and begged that lady to favor them with some music. To the relief of all, the woman in the slate green cambric went over to the piano to play, and thus establish her identity. Elizabeth felt quite easy in addressing the woman in the print round-gown as ‘Miss Brandon’ only to be gently corrected with an, “Oh no! Colonel Brandon is my relation from my mother’s side. I am Miss Williams.”

Mrs. Tilney said, “Oh?”

“Yes,” said Colonel Brandon, tearing his attention from the music. “Eliza is the daughter of my cousin, the late Mrs. Williams.” He looked a little anxious at this; Elizabeth had some vague recollection of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s saying Colonel Brandon had tried to elope with a cousin as a young man.

“It is a great pleasure for me to meet a fellow Elizabeth,” said Elizabeth, trying to smile through the suspicion that Miss Williams was really Miss Brandon, after all, “Though I must admit I am glad to hear you are an Eliza rather than a Lizzy. It shall save us all confusion.”

Miss Williams dimpled. “There are so many variations to Elizabeth, are there not? It is a great blessing to be able to pick up and put down as many names as one wishes. When I was at school in Dorsetshire, people insisted on calling me ‘Betsy.’ I cannot tell you with what relief I heard Colonel Brandon call me ‘Eliza’ on his visits from the East Indies.”

Darcy was obviously listening to this conversation, and, in the hopes of luring him back to the couch, Elizabeth spoke to Miss Williams for rather longer than she had intended. She discovered that Miss Williams vehemently hated Bath, had been born in London, but prefered the country. “I generally keep to the country,” said Miss Williams, with a slightly anxious look at her guardian, “for my mother died of a consumption and— and I find the city air not generally beneficial to my health. Indeed, I should have remained in Devonshire had it not been my earnest wish to convey my condolences to you myself. Your husband was my guardian’s aide-de-campe for several years, and once he was good enough to convey me from school to some friends in Bath, when Colonel Brandon was too busy with his regiment to do so himself. Lieutenant Fitzwilliam was a very awesome figure in his red coat and gold braid to me, but he was so extremely kind and cheerful I grew comfortable with him very quickly. I can only imagine he grew in amiability as the years continued.”

Elizabeth was very touched by this, and thanked Miss Williams with more warmth than politeness, admitting that she did not think she would ever find a man who united such intelligence and so easy-going a temperament as Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was still very much missed. She found herself rather tearful all of a sudden. She pretended to be affected by the slight smoke from the fire, and lapsed into silence, to better attend to Mrs. Brandon’s performance.

It was an astonishing rendition of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” and the applause and praise that followed it was sincere. Elizabeth was in some anxiety she might be called upon to play after so masterly a performance, but as Mr. Pattinson brought in the tea tray, she was spared this. Elizabeth was left with an extra cup, when everyone had sat down again, and was puzzling over it when she realized Darcy had not given up his post by the fire.

“Cousin Darcy,” said Elizabeth, a little pointedly, “there is tea now.”

Darcy made a vague noise that indicated he had heard her, but was absorbed in peering up the chimney. When she rephrased her statement as a question, Darcy said, abruptly, “Have you noticed the fire is not drawing well?”

“The room is a little smokey,” said Elizabeth, “but nothing to signify.”

“I hardly noticed it,” said Mrs. Tilney.

“The chimney is blocked,” said Darcy, arming himself with the fireplace poker.

“Then I shall procure the services of a chimney sweep,” said Elizabeth, in some exasperation. “Darcy, I wish you would sit and drink tea like all the rest of us. You are mistaking the general tone of the party, which is for tea and conversation, not soot and home repair.”

“I shall have it fixed in a moment.”

Mr. Tilney laughed. “You cannot win this battle, Mrs. Fitzwilliam. I recall one Sunday evening where Darcy entirely dismantled a clock because the second hand was off by two seconds, entirely disrupting every plan Colonel Fitzwilliam and I had.”

Darcy started prodding at whatever was blocking the chimney.

The knot of Brandons, civilly drinking tea by the fire, kindly pretended this was normal behavior. Indeed, Colonel Brandon even thanked Darcy for his pains, for it was still very cold out, and his flannel waistcoat did not entirely keep out the chill. Elizabeth shook her head at the Tilneys, who hid their smiles in their teacups.

“Ah,” said Darcy, “I have got it—”

He managed to dislodge an abandoned bird’s nest that had fallen down the chimney and gotten stuck there. This fell onto the logs, shooting up hot gusts of air and a number of sparks; Mr. Darcy fell back, coughing a little, but not quickly enough to avoid the right sleeve of his coat catching fire.

“Mr. Darcy is on fire!” exclaimed Mrs. Tilney, loud enough to rouse Boatswain and set him to barking.

“The vase, there is water in the vase!” Elizabeth cried. There was liquid in the teapot, too, she thought desperately and, seizing it, raced towards Darcy. Miss Williams was quicker and nearer. She seized the vase, and thrusting the flowers at Mrs. Brandon, threw the water fast enough to extinguish the worst of the conflagration. Colonel Brandon picked up a lap blanket and flung it about Darcy to smother what remained of the flames.

Darcy was shaken (and a little smokey) but seemed perfectly fine by the time Elizabeth was near enough for the tea to be of any use.

Mr. Tilney occupied himself in stomping out any lingering sparks on the carpet, Mrs. Tilney went running for a servant, Boatswain bowled over his master, and Elizabeth, to her mortification, burst into tears. The scent of burning cloth had frightened her half out of her wits.

“I am quite well,” said Darcy, from the floor. He pushed Boatswain aside and carefully peeled off the blanket. His blackened sleeve steamed but was not smoldering, or on fire. “You must not be distressed on my account.”

“Not distressed!” Elizabeth cried. “Good God man, you caught on fire! If Miss Williams hadn't picked up the vase, you would be horribly burnt, if not dead— of course I am distressed!”

Kitty and Georgianna, drawn by Mrs. Tilney’s cries, came running from the still room, where they had been attempting to make cowslip wine. They were very much astonished at the tableau which greeted them.

Miss Williams, standing dumbly in place, still holding the vase, said, “Oh, er, hello. The danger is quite passed. Mr. Darcy was on fire, but we have put it out.”

“What?” exclaimed Georgiana, rushing into the room.

Elizabeth sank down onto the divan out of actual weakness. Darcy sat down beside her, seeming more upset by her reaction than the fact that he had been literally on fire, which was so of a piece with him that Elizabeth cried harder. All was hopeless confusion; Georgiana and Boatswain quite outdid each other in their mutual desires to inspect Darcy themselves for any real injury; Mrs. Brandon seemed close to fainting; Mr. Tilney was making some joke no one heard, and Miss Williams, at rather a loss, put the roses back in the empty vase, and set it back on the end table.

“We miss everything exciting,” said Kitty.

“Exciting!” cried Elizabeth. “Oh aye, very exciting! Darcy, I have never been so vexed with you— you frightened me half to death!”

“Frightened you?” cried Georgiana, much astonished.

Elizabeth wiped her streaming eyes and said, “Yes, I can still be frightened. I thought Darcy would be seriously injured.”

Darcy looked harassed but unharmed, and said, “It was no great matter.”

“Aye, thanks to Miss Williams,” Elizabeth managed to get out, in between tears. “She saved your life.”

Darcy looked as if he was about to protest and then said, with a look of mild chagrin, “I forgot the fire would necessarily flare up.”

Elizabeth realized she was still holding the teapot and passed it over to Kitty, who was hovering anxiously by her side. “Oh you impossible man! You forgot how much I care for you. If anything happened to you, I would fall utterly to pieces. Never frighten me like that again!”

Darcy colored at this, no doubt embarrassed, and, after offering Elizabeth his handkerchief, turned gravely to the Brandons, to thank them all. They declared, in varying degrees of dazedness, that they were happy to be of service. Elizabeth added to their thanks, and then the servants burst in, with the Earl and Lord and Lady Stornoway in tow and there were so many people Elizabeth gave up keeping track of what was happening and merely focused on trying to stop crying.

She had been very badly shaken; Kitty, anxious and fretful, and not in the least helpful in a crisis, kept offering various things that Elizabeth neither needed nor wanted. In some desperation, Kitty asked Elizabeth to come pass judgment on the cowslip wine she and Georgiana had been making in the still room—  for it was a receipt Elizabeth had given them, and only that February Elizabeth had managed to avert their attempt at making orange wine from its inevitable and disastrous conclusion.

They removed themselves from the crowd, and to the coolness of the stillroom. Kitty solicitously bathed Elizabeth’s temples with cologne water, and Elizabeth at last grew calm enough to pin on her apron and look at Kitty and Georgiana’s efforts. They had successfully boiled water and sugar, and poured it over the orange and lemon rinds; they had been waiting for this to cool before sprinkling in the gallon of cowslips Elizabeth and Mrs. Tiney had helped them pick, on a daylong expedition to Richmond. Elizabeth tested the temperature, found it to be milk-warm, and began strewing in the flowers, trying very determinedly not to think of Hougoumont. But those still-smoldering walls seemed to loom about her; she felt as if she was still choking on the filthy, sooty air, thick with powder and smoke and the scent of corruption.

There were footsteps in the hall, and then the door flew open. Boatswain bounded in. The door (which he had opened) slammed against the wall and startled him. He tried to scramble away from the noise and merely ended up knocking over the table on which the tub of flowers had rested. The delicate yellow cowslips surged upwards and then, with a great noisy clatter of table and tub, fell in a soft shower over the heads of Kitty and Elizabeth. Some even made it into the sugar-water.

Kitty, who had always been afraid of dogs the way Elizabeth had been afraid of horses, practically leapt onto the counter. Elizabeth moved to catch Boatswain, but ended up slipping on the flowers and sitting heavily on the floor, an event ridiculous enough to move her from tears to a snort of laughter. This was less alarming of a tableau for Miss Darcy to observe when arriving quickly at a room, and at least a better smelling one. The sweet, apricot-like scent of the crushed and stewed blossoms surrounded them all, driving away the lingering memory of Waterloo. Georgiana went at once to call Boatswain to order and Darcy, in his shirtsleeves, appeared in the doorway, backlit by the candles.

“Elizabeth!” he exclaimed, and was by her side in seconds. She held out her hand; he pulled her to her feet and surveyed her anxiously. “You look far from well.”

“Oh you flatterer,” said Elizabeth, amused out of her earlier agitation.

Darcy looked harassed. “That is not what I— ”

“I know! I am well. Boatswain makes a very poor stillroom maid, that is all.”

Darcy brushed off some of the yellow cowslip petals from the shoulders of Elizabeth’s long-sleeved gown of lilac cambric, and the folds of the gauzy white fichu she wore over it. “I am sorry,” he said, stiffly. “Elizabeth— ” Elizabeth took a moment to appreciate how he said her Christian name in this moments, when he was struggling with his own reserve to try and comfort her; as gentle and tentative as the first caress offered to an unknown cat one would like to befriend “— I ought to have thought—  the smell. I gave my coat over to the laundrymaid to be washed. The smell reminded me of Hougoumont too.”

Elizabeth felt her expression freeze, and a sickening lurch in her midsection, as if she had tried to put her weight on a stair that was not there. She had fallen through the worn barrier against her grief, against the head-long tumble into misery. ‘I am past this,’ Elizabeth thought, but then came, plaintive as Ophelia’s songs, ‘He is dead and gone lady, he is dead and gone—’

Darcy had been about to remove a blossom from the curls at her right temple but, seeing her expression, instead moved his hand under her widow's veil, cupped the back of her head in his hand, and pressed her face to his shoulder. Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and fisted a hand in the folds of his cravat. Darcy tucked the top of her head under his chin, a familiar hold from Brussels and said, in the same, low, rough voice he used then, “I can never forget it either.”

Georgiana and Kitty had been no doubt alarmed by all this, too alarmed to say anything until Georgiana asked, tentatively, “Did you—  did you see Hougoumont yourself, brother?”

“Yes,” he said, tightly. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam was dying some gowns black. I thought, perhaps, if I went to see— ”

Wiping her eyes on the soft muslin of his shirt, Elizabeth said, “Oh Darcy, I would have told you not to go, if I had known. I hope it has not haunted you, as it has haunted me.”

Darcy gently stroked the hair at the nape of her neck, something that had soothed her since earliest childhood. “I would not have you bear it alone.” Then, with unexpected honesty, “I would not have listened to you, anyhow. My own grief would not allow me to do anything less than visit the battlefield.”

“Of course not. Insufferable man! And yet, I have no idea how I would get on without you. Darcy, you are too good to knowingly frighten me again like that; will you promise me not to poke at fires in future?”

“A promise very easily given,” said Darcy, rather dryly. “It was not my intention to set myself on fire. I shall avoid it in future; it was an unpleasant experience.”

It was a very clumsy attempt at a joke, but Elizabeth laughed at it none-the-less. She did not move from the circle of his arms. He had not really held her since they had left Matlock, and Elizabeth was surprised at how much she had missed it. He had the knack of holding someone so that they felt supported without feeling trapped. She closed her eyes and felt the tension that had sparked along her shoulder blades slowly draining from her.

She had almost forgotten the presence of everyone else when Boatswain bumped apologetically at the back of her legs. Elizabeth clung onto Darcy until she regained her balance, and then said, “Oh alright, I know you were as anxious about Darcy as I was!”

Feeling oddly reluctant to let go, Elizabeth forced herself to move away, and to survey the mess of cowslips about her. She felt a hand on her hair; Darcy had removed the blosom that had earlier caught his attention.

“Don’t say anything,” said Elizabeth, holding her hands up in mock fear of his censure. “I know I look a fright. You and your dog are entirely to blame.”

“You hardly look a fright,” said Darcy. “I think you are perfectly aware that wearing flowers in your hair has always suited you.”

Georgiana sighed and Elizabeth laughed. “Darcy, I do not think you know how to pay a compliment!”

“He doesn’t,” Georgiana said glumly.

“At least your brother is honest! I am always perfectly aware of his sincerity when expressing an opinion.” Elizabeth smiled at Kitty, who still had an anxious eye on Boatswain. “Kitty my dear, really, you needn’t be quite so worried about Boatswain. We have just established that Darcy is scrupulously honest. Sir, will Boatswain hurt my sister?”

“Boatswain will never hurt anything, including the waterfowl he was bred to fetch,” said Darcy. “Which is part of the reason my uncle was not reluctant to part with him.”

They talked of more indifferent subjects and cleaned the stillroom, until a maid brought back Mr. Darcy’s coat. It smelled reassuringly of laundry soap and starch. Elizabeth tucked a spring of cowslip in the lapel before handing it over. To her slight surprise, Darcy reached for her hand rather than his coat and, pressing it, said, “You asked me once, to show you that you are not alone in what you feel. I cannot say it is a request that is easy for me to fulfill, but I—  I hope you know that you are not alone in this; you are not the only person who has been changed so much by what they've seen, that they cannot bear the scent of smoke.”

His tinkering with the fireplace made more sense. Elizabeth pressed his hand and said, “I am glad we finally see eye to eye, Darcy. We have taken long enough.”

***

Elizabeth was still rather anxious and out of sorts the next day. The Tilneys had not liked to leave her while she was still so upset and unsettled, but Mr. Tilney could not be away from his parish more than three weeks. They parted with many promises of long letters, and with Elizabeth sneaking sweets into the pockets of all the children. She could not hide how glum she felt; Marjorie tried to cheer her, but did not succeed. It was not until she could offer the news that the Fitzwilliams had been included in Lady Caroline Lamb’s revenge against society, a rather too obvious roman-a-clef called Glenarvon, that Elizabeth was diverted out of her melancholia.

The heroine, Calantha (Lady Caroline Lamb so thinly disguised even the most exhibitionist courtesan at a masked ball would be embarrassed), was persecuted by the literally Byronic hero of the title, at a dinner given by the “Earl of Morekey, or rather, at the home of his daughter-in-law, Lady Seylee.” Lady Caroline went on to write:

Lord Morekey had not much use for his daughters, whom he all sent away, as soon as it could be easily contrived, but with his son’s wives, he was excessively pleased, for it proved his sons were, respectively, neither as stupid or as scandalous as first appearances would suggest. More valuable than rubies, a good wife! Lady Seylee was the crown jewel of His Lordship’s collection, with his second son’s wife, Mrs. Fothingham, an equally valued ornament, though not in the least of equal provenance, for His Lordship’s sister had prised Mrs. Fothingham out of the Kentish countryside and provided the necessary polish to make her worthy of display for as long as half the year. Lady Seylee had the honor of year round display. She welcomed Calantha with all the shows of friendliness and few of the actual practices, for she always arranged her table to amuse herself— indeed, there was no other amusement for her, at so moralistic a table as the one presided over by her father-in-law— and to that end had given Lord Glenarvon to understand he was to lead in the lovely Calantha....

Elizabeth read this with some amusement and alarm. “I am not sure I like what she wrote about my husband. How open a secret was it that he was...?”

“Lady Catherine did not precisely censure herself as I would have wished after your marriage.”

Elizabeth well remembered Lady Catherine’s loquaciousness on that subject. “This is a little better than Mr. Elliot's characterization of me; I am not terrifically offended. But I am a little offended she called you a false friend! Is she not your relation?”

“I regret to say that Caro and I are cousins,” said Marjorie. “We were rather closer at one point. I was initially quite in favor of her marrying poor William Lamb, for I thought his mother might knock some discretion into Caro, but that was not to be. She was entirely blind to the benefits of having Lady Melbourne as a mother-in-law.”

Elizabeth was not sure what benefits could be gained from having Lady Melbourne as a mother-in-law, given that a perennially popular bon mot amongst high society was some variation of “Who fathered her children?” “Certainly not Lord Melbourne.” But Elizabeth supposed she was still too much of a country squire’s daughter at heart to be entirely comfortable with the easy way the aristocracy traded partners. Her ideal was still a committed and loving monogamy.

“I was unwise enough to tell Caro she ought to have learnt from her mother-in-law’s example, after a particularly tedious afternoon of complaints about Lord Byron and Mr. Lamb. Caro took against me as a result... though her revenge I find rather clumsy. She decries Lord Matlock’s table as moralistic, and then asserts that a character certainly not Lord Byron sits at it to dinner! I suppose she meant to foist upon our poor father-in-law a dinner guest he would not nod to in the street."

"What has the Earl of Matlock done to offend her so?"

"He has not allowed Caro to come here since her behavior at Lady Heathcote’s ball three seasons ago.”

“I think I was in Spain then. What happened?”

“Oh, so you were! Lady Caroline smashed a wine glass and tried to use the broken stem to cut off her soulmark and literally fling it in Byron’s face. Lady Melbourne tore off her turban and managed to wrap it around Caro’s wrist, but then Caro seized Byron’s arm and revealed to everyone the ‘Leigh’ written there, and then Caro fainted dead away. Apparently he hadn’t even shown her his mark when they were sharing a bed! It was all dreadfully exciting. Stornoway nearly spilt his wine on himself, when he saw it all happen.”

“Are we mentioned elsewhere?”

“I complain with someone obviously Lady Jersey at the tiresomeness of married couples in love with each other, as she is too ugly and I am too cold to have ever inspired love in anyone, let alone our husbands, but you only have the half-sentence. I am very sorry, my dear, but that is what comes of being away on campaign!”

“I would gladly wash my hands of so much as a subclause,” said Elizabeth. “I hope you have hidden all this from His Lordship.”

“I did, but Stornoway blundered into it again. I cannot be too angry with him, the poor dear; he was very touchingly upset at Caro’s accusation that he did not love me. He was so offended he shewed the relevant passages to his father, and they are now drinking a great more than they ought to at White’s.”

“You seem more amused than angry.”

Marjorie laughed. “It is an accurate, if unflattering, portrait; one has to admire the skill it took to make it. And, you know, it would have been dreadfully embarrassing to go on a visit and be entirely unable to complain about how I was portrayed in Glenarvon as everyone else was. Here comes your sister; do hide the book, I cannot think it is quite right for her to read it. She would show it to Georgiana, and we would never be forgiven that.”

Kitty came in perfectly ignorant of what was now amusing and occupying most of London; and was entirely bewildered to find their lordships in a cold fury all Friday and Saturday. Nor did she have any context for the cut direct the Earl gave Lady Caroline Lamb as they were walking out of church and into St. James’s Park that Sunday.

“Lizzy,” Kitty whispered, “what on earth—”

But then Lord Stornoway, rigid with displeasure, seized Marjorie’s hand. He pulled his wife away from where she was speaking with Lady Jersey, Mary Crawford, and Mrs. Grant.

“What is it, my lord?” Marjorie said, annoyed and confused.

Lord Stornoway dipped Marjorie into a dramatic kiss that would have been excessive on a Drury Lane stage. Marjorie was too startled to protest at this impropriety, and was still gaping at him when he released her.

Lord Stornoway made eye contact with Lady Caroline and, deliberately looking away, said,“My dear, beloved Marjorie, it is rather tiresome, is it not, for unhappily married women to see a devotion that has not lost its strength in thirteen years?”

“Surely you have only been married twelve,” said Lady Jersey, a little confused.

“I fell quite hopelessly in love with Marjorie the first time I danced with her at Almack’s,” declared Lord Stornoway. He turned now to Elizabeth and said, loudly and deliberately, “My very dear sister-in-law, how is the Duke of Wellington? I know you are a very great favorite of his, for the devotion you showed my late brother, in choosing to follow Colonel Fitzwilliam into the very greatest danger.”

“His Grace is at present in Cambrai,” said Elizabeth, not entirely sure what was required of her.

“He writes to you,” said Lord Stonroway, leadingly.

“Oh! Yes, His Grace is very kind in that regard, and he is a diligent correspondent. His last was quite cheerful.”

“I know Lady Stornoway is happy to have you with her year round, and indeed, would have kept you with her while Colonel Fitzwilliam was still alive, had it not been for the earnest desire on both your part and my brother’s to be all the year together. Indeed, Lady Stornoway is the most excellent of friends; for those she truly loves, she would do anything.”

Elizabeth agreed to this, and risked a glance at Lady Caroline, who met her eyes with an expression of cool defiance.

Marjorie’s shock was now beginning to fade to a half-pleased embarrassment; she put her hand on Stornoway’s arm and said, “My dear, you are too kind to me! How good you are to praise me so publically. But your father has walked off; we must follow him.”

“My father,” said Lord Stornoway, desirous of answering every slander leveled at his family, “who is a very good man, who provided very well for all of his children, and enabled every single one of them to marry their soulmate. If that is moralistic, then— then so should we all be!”

Marjorie gently towed him away, down the path. Elizabeth and Kitty were for a moment rooted to the spot in shock, but went quickly to follow them. Kitty risked a glance over her shoulder at Lady Jersey, who was speaking very long and in great confusion, at a stunned Mrs. Grant and a bemused Mary. Lady Caroline Lamb had walked away.

“Lizzy, what was that about?” Kitty asked.

“Lady Caroline published a novel which— unfortunately for her— everyone read, in order to learn all the scandalous details of her affair with Lord Byron. But her account had more to do with how all of her friends and family members failed her, than Lord Byron’s perfidy. An easy mistake for a first time novelist. I think she will have to come up with different subject matter for her second, as I doubt she will have any friends and family to blame after this.”

Kitty gawked at her. “ No ! Do not tell me she insulted Lady Stornoway!”

“Multiple times. I even made it in, for half of a run-on sentence. I cannot think it quite right for you to give it to you to read—”

“I am turned twenty!” exclaimed Kitty, indignantly. “I am quite capable of reading a novel.”

“You will be dreadfully bored by her wildly inaccurate take on the Irish Rebellion of 1798, but so be it. It is on the little table by the fire, in my sitting room. I daresay if it went missing this afternoon, I would not notice.” They caught up with the Earl, and Lord and Lady Stornoway then, and Elizabeth fell silent. She was very afraid she might laugh at her brother-in-law’s well meant but ill thought out defiance, which would have embarrassed him, and therefore embarrassed Marjorie. Their walk through the park back to Matlock House was very silent, attended mostly by amused or speculative glances from other members of the ton .

They arrived in time for the servants to leave for their half-day holiday. Kitty ran up to Elizabeth’s parlor to get a start on Glenarvon, Lord Matlock locked himself in his study, and Lord Stornoway, filled to the brim with familial pride, announced he would take the three children still in the nursery and walk them through the portrait gallery. Marjorie and Elizabeth were left in possession of the main sitting room, facing the street.

“I did not put him up to that,” said Marjorie, shutting the door to the vestibule.

“No one would have thought that .”

Marjorie looked at Elizabeth in some confusion. “No, you do not quite understand— I did not put Stornoway up to it. He acted purely of his own volition, following his own line of thinking. All out of love for me!” She went to the mirror and fluffing up the curls crushed by her bonnet, added, wonderingly, “I really thought I could not be surprised by Stornoway. I thought the contents of his mind to be entirely what I had put there. Well! It puts a different complexion on things.” She turned from the mirror with a smile. “It  is very heartening to see he is capable of independent thought and action, even if he does not prefer to use that ability. I suppose even in his usual habits of dependence, one may see proof of devotion.”

Elizabeth tried very hard not to laugh; Marjorie actually did and said, “Oh, well! Perhaps it was not as perfect a match as yours, but I cannot regret it. It is very nice to be worshiped.”

“Even so publically?”

Marjorie’s look was rather droll. “Perhaps I would prefer a more private display, but as I was not the author, I cannot rearrange the words set on the page.” They heard a knock at the door. Marjorie went to the window, and lifting back the curtain to the window nearest the door, Marjorie exclaimed, “Callers, just now? I thought Stebbins had removed the knocker, when all the servants had gone.

Elizabeth followed Marjorie to the window and saw no less a person than Lady Jersey waiting there. “I cannot believe Silence followed us from church!” exclaimed Marjorie. “Though really, Caro was vicious to her, far more vicious than she was to me— and there is Lady Oxford! Was she watching Stornoway? I did not see her, but that does not mean she was not watching—”

They were quite deluged with callers, which was rather inconvenient, as there was no one to open the door but Elizabeth, and absolutely no one to take gloves and hats, or to bring up tea. The Earl of Matlock was extremely put out, and by breakfast the next morning, when Marjorie was summarizing her visitors’ complaints, was moved enough to exclaim,“This is in every way intolerable!”

“Nobody likes how Lady Caroline portrayed them, my lord,” said Marjorie, soothingly. “Dear Silence—” this being the ironic nickname of Lady Jersey, who never stopped talking “— was so upset by the way she was portrayed that she is going to revoke Caro’s voucher for Almack’s.”

Though this revenge spelled absolute social ruin, it did not appease His Lordship. “I am inclined,” said he, “to pay a visit to Sybil. I have never been to Tahiti. I previously thought it too long a journey from England. But I find the idea of being a sixmonth from England very pleasant.”

“Sir,” said Marjorie, soothingly, “much worse things were said about people other than yourself.”

Lord Matlock blustered a great deal and Elizabeth soon realized that he had been deeply hurt at the insinuation that he did not love his children. There was no doubt, an unacknowledged stirring of guilt that attended this, for he had not truly loved his second son until that son had been killed, and his treatment of Honoria was scarcely better. Elizabeth could not bring herself to speak openly about this, but hinted that Lady Honoria and Miss Duncan would appreciate a visit as well. She was met with half-formed excuses, a strained silence and then a sudden, “I ought to invite them to come with us.”

Marjorie was so shocked she poured tea into her saucer instead of the cup, and Elizabeth had to ask the Earl to repeat himself.

“We shall go as a family,” declared the Earl. “Stebbins! Go and fetch my steward. Let us think on the logistics of all this. And pen and paper— I must write Honoria.”

They were still at table, discussing all the practicalities of this when the Darcys (and Boatswain) arrived. They were offered coffee and cold ham, and attached themselves to the Bennets that were their particular friends. Georgianna and Kitty bent their heads together and engaged in a series of whispers where the names of various characters from Glenarvon could be distinguished, and Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on a very similar conversation.

“Why this haste to go to Tahiti?” Darcy asked, when Elizabeth had finished describing that morning's conversation. “Sybil has been there five years without exciting enough interest for a family visit.”

“His Lordship does not like the insinuations leveled at him in Glenarvon .” Elizabeth sketched these, delivering as much detail as she could from memory. Darcy grew quite pale with anger and said, in a tone of forced calm, “I do not know how Lady Caroline lives with herself; setting down such insults against people who have done nothing to her. You can only have met her in passing; and I cannot conceive of anything you could have possibly said or done to deserve such public mockery of so common a choice as to follow the drum.”

Elizabeth protested with a laugh, “Darcy, really! I have suffered worse public characterizations just this February. I am touched you are so angry at a clause meant more to insult Marjorie and Lord Matlock than myself, but I must confess, it is a truer portrait than any other. At heart, I am still an impertinent country miss who ought not to be overmuch in society. Lady Caroline only mistakes the cause. I grow frustrated without my long rambles through the woods— or long marches through enemy territory— and become perfectly impossible to live with.”

Darcy was still quite offended on her behalf, and Elizabeth quickly launched into a retelling of Stornoway’s antics after church, until he was calmer. He was able to ask with some semblance of composure what Lady Caroline’s response to this had been, and looked satisfied when Elizabeth told him Lady Jersey had decided to ban Lady Caroline from Almack's.

“Do you intend to go to to Tahiti?” Darcy asked, a little abruptly.

The idea of spending several months on a ship sounded in every way horrible to Elizabeth, and as intrigued as she was by the idea of so long a voyage to so interesting a destination, she had to admit she was not equal to the challenge. “I think perhaps I will go back with Kitty to Longbourn— though how I am then to get to the Bingleys this fall I am not entirely sure. Do you think I would excite a great deal of comment if I traveled by myself? I suppose I have the Pattinsons—”

“You and your sister might stay with me and Georgiana for the rest of the season,” said Darcy, as he fed Boatswain a slice of ham. “If you will come to Pemberley this summer, you will be but thirty miles from the Bingleys.”

Elizabeth felt herself flush, a little fearful lest she should be seen to be taking advantage of Darcy’s friendship for her, but Darcy, still intently focused on feeding ham to Boatswain added, “Georgiana has only been asking to have Miss Catherine stay with us since August. Usually I am prompter about satisfying her requests.”

“Oh, well , if it is for Georgiana— I hope you can resign yourself to my teasing you at the breakfast table every morning.”

Darcy smiled, though he still focused his attention on Boatswain. “You will have to wait until after I have finished my coffee to get any kind of a response.”

“It shall be a struggle, but I shall do my poor best. Yes, thank you. I would be very happy to come live with you until the fall— and I think I can safely answer for Kitty. She will be equally happy to be in the same house as Georgiana.”

This arrangement suited everyone. The Stornoways turned over their children to Marjorie’s grandmother, the quite formidable Dowager Countess Spencer, Honoria and Miss Duncan accepted the invitation in a rather heart-felt series of letters, and Elizabeth dashed off a quick letter of her own to Wellington:

Your Grace was correct in my change of address, though perhaps not as you anticipated! My father-in-law was so enraged with the depiction of himself and his society in Glenarvon he has decided to quit it entirely and visit Lady Sybil and Mr. Omai in Tahiti. Lord and Lady Stornoway go with him, and, perhaps suprisingly, Lady Honoria and Miss Duncan. I, alas, am the widow of an infantryman, not a sailor, and as I cannot march to Tahiti, but would have to sail, remain in England. I pray you will address your letters to Dacy House until 26 June, whereafter you must address them to Pemberley, in Derbyshire.

She added some further gossip about Glenarvon and was a little annoyed that Wellington ignored all her outpourings of wit; he instead sent back quite a cheeky, short note:

Mrs. Fitzwilliam (though I am still not convinced I shall be long addressing my letters to you as such)— pray assure me you have removed my wingback chair with your charming self and I shall write you wherever you like.

Elizabeth did not show this to Darcy (though she usually showed him most of her letters from Wellington) and almost did not show it to Marjorie. She was confused and embarrassed by the address, and could not account for it. Marjorie looked thoughtful, and turned over the page, in search of a postscript, but finding none, said, “Certainly you may take the chair with you. I wonder....” Then, abruptly, “My dear, I know it will embarrass you to hear this, but should you decide to remarry while we are away, rest assured that when he returns, Matlock will dower you very handsomely. And if you talk to the lawyer, Mr. Knightley, I am sure you will find out how much your jointure is yours for life, but I know some funds in the five percent are yours forever, however many men you marry. Stornoway told me your father drove rather a hard bargain during the marriage settlements.”

“Marjorie—”

Though she was not a very physically demonstrative person, Marjorie put an arm about Elizabeth’s waist and said, “Selfishly, I hope you do not go too far; it has been beyond a pleasure to have another intelligent person in the house. But, you know, I really do not think Richard was the sort of person to have wanted you to wear the willow forever. He would be very glad to see you happy, however you managed to become so. No more on that subject now, I promise— I see you are not quite ready to think on it.”

Elizabeth confusedly agreed to this.

***

The talk with Marjorie had rather unsettled her (and she had been in an odd mood to begin with) but in the flurry of planning and packing, Elizabeth did not have much time to dwell on it. It built into a continual, mild sense of discomfort, like having something stuck between her back teeth. Elizabeth would sometimes worry at it without being able to dislodge it, when she was sprawled in her empty bed, idly watching the moonlight advance through the bed curtains, over the pillow that had been Colonel Fitzwilliam’s.

The last night she was to spend in her room at Matlock House— the room she had always, previously shared with Colonel Fitzwilliam— she dared stretch her left hand out into the moonlight. Her wedding ring gleamed dull and cold. It still did not look quite right with its golden partner buried with its owner in Belgium.

So many things now were defined for her based on absence—  so many things had changed in ways she could not always describe, or make understood. It bothered her, she realized, that people were hinting and insinuating that she was tired of this lack, and could fill it up. They were partly right—  Elizabeth  was tired of being defined by lack—  but there were some absences that she could never fill; she felt she might always trip up and accidentally fall into them. She would never be able to smell burning cloth without thinking of Hougoumont just after the battle. She would never be able to forget Hougoumont. Elizabeth rolled over and flung her left arm over her eyes. Darcy seemed to be the only person who understood this, and even he had trouble expressing it. Elizabeth wondered if Marjorie’s advice, of surrounding herself with people who truly saw her, would be quite impossible. Could anyone quite comprehend the mass of contradictions she had become—  perhaps had always been? She did not entirely understand herself at times.

Elizabeth was exhausted by the time the Fitzwilliams left, and all the pomp that attended their departure rather wore on her uncertain temper. She was extremely sarcastic about Glenarvon during the carriage ride home, not really caring that Georgiana and Kitty technically should not have read it, and had worked herself up into a fine temper by the time they arrived at Darcy House. It was surprising to Elizabeth that this mood did not last. The Darcy siblings immediately suggested resting before dinner (as both of them were rather weary at being around so many people for so long), and when Elizabeth went up to her room, she was astonished to see how exactly suited to her needs and tastes it was. It overlooked the formal gardens rather than the road, and was fitted up with a neatness and elegance that characterized the whole house. The silk panels were of her favorite, jonquil shade of yellow; there were Wedgewood vases filled with wildflowers on every table; there was a small bookshelf next to her fireplace, full of de Vega and Shakespeare plays (and a volume of Byron's The Giaour cleverly hidden behind them); and the pictures hung on the walls were some of the landscapes she always complimented when she visited Darcy House.

Her bad mood lifted, especially when she went down to the still room, out of curiosity, and learnt that Mr. Darcy had given explicit instruction to the staff that this room and its contents now fell under her purview. It further cheered her to discover the still room opened onto the kitchen gardens and greenhouses. She had a really splendid walk about, and was knocking the mud off her boots when Darcy found her.

“Everything is to your satisfaction?” he asked, a little anxiously.

Elizabeth smiled at him. “Yes—  you and Georgiana seem to have taken a prodigious deal of care over all these arrangements. Kitty was asleep when I knocked on her door, but I am sure her room as as fitted to her as mine is to myself.  I am—  I think I am more than satisfied.”

Darcy smiled. “You are comfortable?”

It occurred to Elizabeth that she had not run mad during the whole dreadful time with her father-in-law because of Darcy —  because Darcy had been there, quietly arranging things, showing, in every action, no matter how small, that he saw her, truly saw her, in all her aspects, light and dark. He understood her in ways no one else living did.

“More than that,” said Elizabeth. She tested the phrase in her head before saying it, and only released it into the tidy still room, fragrant with cut flowers when she knew it to be true: “I am happy."