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Elizabeth took her hand. Charlotte let it stay there, then pointed out the cupboard again, as if the admission had been one more defect to be measured.

Her father's allowance would help for the first year under the arrangement they had now settled together. It was family assistance, finite and openly recorded. Charlotte intended to keep enough in reserve that an unexpected bill would not compel her to accept the first offer made to silence it. A single servant and occasional paid help would be necessary. The figures were not generous, but they could be made to meet.

Elizabeth proposed that the prettier house might be affordable if Charlotte dispensed with certain furnishings. Charlotte gave her a look so familiar that she stopped before elaborating.

“I should like a home in which I can afford to break a cup,” Charlotte said.

“Then we must buy exceptionally plain cups.”

“I intend to buy ugly ones if they are cheaper.”

They disagreed over a table which Elizabeth thought hideous and Charlotte considered durable. Elizabeth pressed one corner to demonstrate that it rocked, only to discover that the fault belonged to a loose board beneath its foot. Charlotte fetched a scrap of wood from the kitchen and set it under the leg.

“There,” she said. “It has acquired all the virtues you require.”

“Except beauty.”

“I shall put flowers on it.” Charlotte brushed the dust from her hands. “Not expensive flowers. You may send me cuttings when you have learnt what grows at Ashbourne.”

Elizabeth promised. It was a pleasant thing to be asked for something she could supply without attempting to remake her friend’s life. She pictured the ugly table with a vase upon it and admitted, reluctantly, that the effect might be tolerable. Mrs. Gardiner settled nothing, observing only that she would be happy to drink tea at either table. Charlotte chose the smaller house, subject to the terms being checked by her adviser, and wrote to her father that evening. Elizabeth sat with her while she did it, relieved that they could quarrel about furniture without the argument concealing a question of who must be obeyed.

* * *

Back at Ashbourne, Elizabeth found that Darcy's letters had begun to divide her days. Six weeks had passed since she had left Grosvenor Square. She disliked discovering how promptly she recognised his hand among the post, but not enough to leave his letters unopened.

The first at Ashbourne had concerned an estate matter he thought might amuse her: two tenants disputing the ownership of a tree whose branches observed no boundaries. He had described the quarrel without appointing her to resolve it. Only at the end did he add that his aunt had written to repeat, at greater length, that she would not receive him, and that he did not intend to ask her to reconsider. Elizabeth answered with the history of the bench, omitting none of the ridiculous importance she had attached to its removal. His reply asked whether the south wall had improved the view. It offered no new garden furniture.

A later letter went unanswered for four days. No reminder followed. When she wrote again, she asked after the aunt in their foolish novel. She had finished it at last and found the woman married off to a man who had spent two volumes misunderstanding her.

Darcy's answer made her laugh before she reached the second page.

“Perhaps he improved in the interval omitted by the author. It is a considerable advantage to a gentleman to have his worst conversation left out.”

On a fresh sheet she wrote, “You are not to expect the same assistance.”

“I had begun to suspect it,” came his reply. Then, less neatly: “I was vexed not to hear from you. I had nearly written to ask whether you were ill. You had given me no reason to suppose it; I wanted an answer and could make concern sound better than impatience.”

Elizabeth laid the letter beside her. She had expected either an accusation or an elegant declaration of patience. The admission pleased her less easily than either would have done. He was still capable of finding a respectable excuse for demanding her attention; this time he had found it and not used it.

She answered the following morning, when she wanted to. She told him how the gardener had exposed her confident mistake about a plant and asked whether his tenants had yet persuaded the tree to respect its owner. She found herself looking forward to his answer before she had sealed her own.

She asked him, in another letter, whether he still considered her departure unnecessary. It was an ungracious question to put between an account of the weather and news of Charlotte's house, but she wished to know the answer before she invited him to share more agreeable subjects.

His reply arrived after the ordinary delay. He said that he had considered it unnecessary because he had believed his readiness to alter an arrangement ought to satisfy her. He had not understood why discovering the arrangement mattered as much as stopping it. He wrote that he understood that part better now. He did not say that her absence had become agreeable to him.

Elizabeth read those lines at the moved bench. Summer had strengthened the light upon the south wall, and the garden no longer smelled chiefly of wet earth. She could remain here for the rest of the agreed term, then live elsewhere upon the provision her father had obtained. Wanting Darcy did not remove those possibilities. Perhaps she had begun to want to see him because they remained.

She went indoors and wrote an invitation for a day a fortnight later. He might come to walk with her and dine early, putting up at the inn in the town for the night, as the distance from London required. She asked him to bring news of himself, rather than a proposal for settling the future of their marriage. If the day was inconvenient, he could suggest another.

Before sealing the letter, she read it once to discover whether she had hidden any test in it which he could fail without knowing. There was only an invitation, plainly offered. She sent it with the afternoon post and went back to the garden, where she found she could no longer attend to her book.

CHAPTER 12

DARCY

Darcy reached Ashbourne on the day Elizabeth had proposed, eight weeks after she had left his house. He had accepted her invitation by return of post, taken rooms at the town inn as she had suggested, and resisted three separate impulses to bring something she had not requested. The difficulty was in allowing himself to arrive with nothing which might oblige her to be pleased.

She came to the door before he had taken off his gloves. For a moment he could think only that she looked well. The light caught the fine movement of hair loosened near her temple, and her dark eyes held an amusement which had nothing to do with defending herself. Her gown was plain, the hem marked by the garden. He wanted to kiss her with an immediacy which made the formality of greeting seem almost absurd.