Page 194 of A Witch Comes to Pemberley

“She asked whether I disliked the name she suggested for the baby,” Charles admitted. “We had been discussing it before her mother came in. I said I did not dislike it at all, and she asked why I had become so quiet.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I was thinking of the house.”

There was no need for Darcy to express an opinion of that answer. Charles sighed and gave it himself.

“She has heard quite enough about the house.”

“Have you settled upon a name?” Darcy asked.

“No. She wished to consider names from both our families. I had been perfectly willing until I began imagining that I might be obliged to choose one without her.”

He spoke the last words quickly, as though they could be made less dreadful by being finished sooner.

Darcy remembered Georgiana writing names upon a sheet and laughing at those he proposed. He remembered the pleasure of having her dispute him over something which belonged to an ordinary future. The paper had remained after she was gone.

He could not give that recollection to Charles. He could give him his attention.

“You need not choose anything tonight,” he said.

“No.”

“And you need not be cheerful about it for my sake.”

Charles bent forward and covered his face with his hands.

Darcy sat still. His first impulse was to rise, put a hand upon his friend’s shoulder, offer some activity which would make the silence easier to endure. Charles had spent the day answering inquiries and making certain Jane wanted nothing. He might require a few minutes in which no one asked him to do anything at all.

The fire settled. Somewhere in the hall a servant closed a door softly.

At last Charles lowered his hands.

“I had imagined myself an agreeable sort of husband.”

“You are.”

“I have spent the evening following her about and asking questions she has already answered. She cannot so much as stand without my demanding where she intends to go.”