Page 208 of A Witch Comes to Pemberley

“I do not know whether she wished me gone or only wished to prevent my feeling that I had been turned out.”

“You may believe that she knows you are near.”

“I told her.”

“Then she knows.”

Charles looked at the door again. Darcy had gone upstairs often enough when Georgiana was ill, merely to make himself visible. He could not condemn his friend’s restlessness.

Mr. Bennet joined them carrying a book which he had not marked.

“Mrs. Bennet has consented to take some tea in her room,” he said. “Mrs. Talbot wished for fewer people about Jane, and my wife assures me she has only withdrawn because Elizabeth is there.”

“Is Jane asking for me?” Charles said at once.

“Not when I heard.”

“Has anything changed?”

Mr. Bennet shook his head. “I have no news beyond what you have been told.”

He sat opposite them and placed the book upon his knee. Darcy offered him a glass of water. He accepted it, drank a little, and put it down within reach.

For a time nobody attempted conversation.

Charles clasped his hands, loosened them, and rested them upon his knees again. He had repeated the movement often that afternoon without finding any position comfortable for long.

“I had meant to show Jane the drawing of Alderbrook’s garden today,” he said.

Mr. Bennet looked up.

“The gardener sent it with the account. She wished to know whether there was room for the roses she likes near the house. I put it away after breakfast. I thought we should have a quiet hour later.”

“She will still wish to see it,” Mr. Bennet said.

Charles nodded, though his eyes had filled. He turned his face toward the fire.

Darcy wanted Jane to see the garden, and Elizabeth to laugh over a rosebush her sister had insisted upon planting in an inconvenient place. The ordinary future had become difficult to imagine without feeling that he asked for too much.