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“It does not sound silly to me.”

“I still think of him sometimes. Is that very wicked? I wish he would come and make right with Fitzwilliam.”

“It is not wicked to think of someone who was once dear to you, Georgiana.”

Mr Wickham's story came back to her just as he had told it in Meryton: the living kept from him, the old master's wishes ignored, the jealous boy grown into a hard, unforgiving man. Here was one more thing taken from him, and by the same hand. It matched his account in every particular.

It matched a little too well. Not a quarter of an hour ago, she had been told that Mr Darcy's judgement was sound in everything else. She had begun, much against her will, to half believe it.

She drew Georgiana's arm closer through her own, and they walked on towards the grey water without speaking. Elizabeth could not have said, just then, whether she was sorrier for the girl beside her or for the man in Meryton. Still less could she guess how much Mr Darcy knew that he had never thought fit to tell his sister.

Chapter Twenty

Darcy

“You wish me to go shopping with you?”

Elizabeth put down her cup. Georgiana had gone up to the music room straight after breakfast, and her scales were already coming down through the ceiling, rather faster than her master would have liked.

“Only as far as Piccadilly. I have one or two errands, and you may want some things of your own.” He had got the next part ready on the stairs. It did not sound any better out loud. “Besides, it would do us no harm to be seen together. People talk less about a sudden marriage when the husband and wife are seen walking out like any other couple.”

“Like any other couple,” she said. “Yes, I suppose that is what married people do.”

“So I am told.”

She looked at him for rather longer than he liked. Then she folded her napkin and stood up.

“I shall fetch my pelisse. You need not look so surprised, Mr Darcy. I know what is expected of me, even if nobody asked me first.”

***

It was a raw morning, with a white sky over the chimney pots and the smell of coal smoke hanging low in the streets. On the shady side of the square the frost had not yet gone from the railings. Elizabeth laid her hand on his arm so lightly that he could not have sworn it was there, and he thought about very little else all the way to Bond Street.

At the corner they met two ladies he knew. He bowed and they curtseyed. Then they looked Elizabeth over from her bonnet to her boots, as thoroughly as a pair of horse dealers at a fair. Elizabeth bore it without a flicker and said nothing until they had gone by.

“Did I pass?”

“With honours.”

“I have been looked over by people who made up their minds beforehand. It is nothing new to me.” She kept her eyes on the shop windows. “Meryton gives a very good education in that line.”

He let it go. There was a thing he had meant to say since they left the house, and if he waited for a better moment he would never say it at all.

“I hope you will let yourself be happy at Pemberley. Or comfortable, if happy is too much to ask.”

She turned her head a little.

“It is a beautiful place,” he went on. “You have heard me say so before, and I dare say you think me partial. But the people there are good people. Most of them have known me since I was in short coats, and they will be kinder to you than they ever were to me. Your aunt knows the country already, and Lambton is only five miles off. She will be welcome whenever she likes to come. So will any of your family.”

“You have thought of everything.”

“Not quite. Bingley means to settle in the north, and he will not be far from us. I think you would see more of your sister at Pemberley than you ever did at Longbourn.”

She did not answer for a few steps. A hackney went by at a smart pace and threw up a spray of grey slush from the gutter. He moved her further from the kerb, and she let him.

“Thank you. That is kindly meant.”

It was more than he had hoped for, and a good deal less than he wanted. He knew he ought to stop there. He went on anyway.