Page 102

“And many are unhappy. I do not know Anna well enough to tell you what she will bear. I only wonder how long you can answer her questions by making her comfortable.”

He rested his hand upon the gate. It was a reasonable question, made less agreeable by the fact that Martha had approached it in other words and he had repeatedly found a reason to postpone his answer.

“You cannot understand all that an acknowledgment would expose her to.”

“No. I cannot.” Elizabeth’s voice lost some of its firmness. “I have given you sufficient proof of how readily people may judge what they do not understand.”

Her apology on Saturday had been sincere. He did not wish to make her repeat it in payment for every opinion she offered him.

“That is not what I meant.”

“I know. But I must remember it even when you are kind enough not to mention it.”

Sally had begun walking again. Seeing them pause beside the gate, she stopped at the turning to examine the ribbon once more. They remained in the maid’s sight, but the distance left them some privacy.

“If I bring Anna into my house,” he said, “people will wish to know why. A child whom nobody knows to be related to me does not take up residence at Pemberley without attracting notice.”

“You might make her your ward.”

“That would give the arrangement a name. It would not prevent inquiry.”

“Must every inquiry receive an answer?”

“Those which receive none generally produce an answer of their own.”

“Then let them suppose what I supposed.”

He turned sharply toward her.

Elizabeth did not look away. “You need not say it. You need not tell a falsehood about either yourself or your sister. Anna is Anna Hargreaves. You wish to undertake her care. If people insist upon inventing something more, must that determine whether she may live with her family?”

“You speak very easily of an accusation you regarded as a grave fault in me.”

“It would not become true because somebody believed it.”

“Its consequences might be much the same.”

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “For your reputation. I do not mean to pretend that you would lose nothing.”

The admission checked his resentment. She was not promising an easy choice, though he would have found it simpler to dismiss her argument if she had been.

“And for Anna,” he said. “She would hear it. A child may be protected from a great deal in a quiet household such as the Hargreaveses’. Here there would be visitors, servants coming and going, people who might take pleasure in saying what they supposed nobody dared to say before me.”

“She will hear unkind things wherever she lives. I wish that were not so.” Elizabeth’s fingers closed about the edge of her glove. “But here she would have you.”

He looked at the ground. A little stone had caught beneath his boot; he moved his foot without dislodging it.

“You give my presence more consequence than it deserves.”

“Anna appears to give it a great deal.”

“She is six months old.”

“Then you have ample time to prove her mistaken.”

Her answer wounded him. Elizabeth saw it and stopped.

“That was unkind,” she said. “I am sorry.”