Page 25 of Return to Pemberley

Elizabeth, left in possession of the field, was nonetheless aware of a subtle tremor in her hand as she replaced the glass on the sideboard.

She turned, meaning to seek out Mr. Darcy, but found her path intercepted by Lady Matlock, who had arrived with such silence as to suggest collusion with the staff.

“Well done, my dear,” the countess whispered, her eyes alight with the pleasure of a well-fought skirmish. “She has been waiting years for an adversary worthy of her mettle. You have given the entire county something to discuss until Michaelmas.”

Elizabeth exhaled, the tension leaving her in a single, audible breath. “I fear I may have overstepped. It is one thing to be thought a novelty; it is another to be considered an interloper.”

“Nonsense,” replied Lady Matlock, linking her arm through Elizabeth’s.

“You have said nothing that was not true, and everything that needed saying. Besides, the only way to silence Mrs. Willoughby is to outlast her. It is the principle on which all enduring marriages, and most enduring estates, are built.”

They made a slow circuit of the room, the countess pausing at intervals to exchange greetings or administer comfort to those whose nerves had been unsettled by the earlier display.

Elizabeth, once again the object of a hundred covert glances, bore herself with a composure that would have pleased even Mrs. Reynolds.

It was not until the next dance was announced—a waltz, and therefore safely devoid of conversation—that Elizabeth allowed herself to relax.

She watched as Darcy, who had been engaged in a vigorous debate regarding the merits of enclosure with a baronet from Bakewell, extricated himself and approached, his face betraying both amusement and the faintest hint of pride.

He offered his arm with ceremony, and as they assumed their positions for the dance, he remarked in low tones, "I observed Mrs. Willoughby's approach to the refreshment table with considerable interest. I trust you emerged from the encounter with your reputation intact?"

Elizabeth smiled, her hand settling into his with the ease born of growing familiarity and deepening trust. "I believe I may claim survival, and Lady Matlock has pronounced it a victory for the family honor. Though I remain uncertain precisely what has been won."

Darcy, whose own conception of victory was invariably modest, replied, "If Pemberley's standing remains undiminished at the season's end, I shall account the campaign an unqualified success. In my experience, survival with dignity constitutes triumph enough in such engagements."

They joined the swirling pattern of the waltz, the music filling the room with echoes of every ball that had ever graced the halls of Derbyshire.

Elizabeth, her senses heightened by the evening's trials, found herself oddly grateful for the challenge.

If the county required proof of her worthiness, she was resolved to satisfy every test they might devise.

And as the dance carried them in ever-widening circles, she caught sight—through the moving crowd—of Mrs. Willoughby already recounting the evening's drama to a fresh audience, her gestures as precisely calculated as the angles of her coiffure.

Elizabeth met the older woman's gaze across the room, and in that instant recognized a truth as enduring as the countryside itself:

There would always be examinations, and there would always be judges.

But there would also, for as long as she had strength to endure them, be assemblies, and music, and—at the conclusion of every trial—someone whose arm offered both refuge and the promise of shared victories yet to come.

I f there is an element in the English character more to be dreaded than its gift for quiet industry, it is its inexhaustible appetite for rumor—especially when nourished by the soil of an assembly, and watered with the tears of vanity and ambition.

The remainder of the ball at Harrington Hall became, for Elizabeth, a living proof of this proposition.

No sooner had the waltz concluded than she perceived in the altered pitch of the company’s laughter, the new caution with which groups admitted her presence, that she had become less participant than spectacle.

It was not the open antagonism of a battlefield, but rather the chill that follows the drawing of a social boundary.

The first warning came as Elizabeth passed the card tables: the conversation, which had been lively, shrank to a murmur, then ceased altogether, as though some fugitive breeze had extinguished the flame of discourse.

Two gentlemen, caught in the act of speculation, bowed so low she might have supposed herself a duchess; one lady, attempting to recover a lost point in whist, murmured “Shepherd’s Lot” so distinctly as to make the pretense of ignorance laughable.

Elizabeth smiled and moved on, but at every turn the evidence multiplied.

She saw Mrs. Willoughby, established on a damask sofa in the centre of a circle, conducting a post-mortem on the earlier exchange with such delicacy that only the most obtuse could fail to catch its implication.

"Of course," Mrs. Willoughby was saying to Lady Stanton, "one cannot but admire such.

.. spirited convictions in so young a person.

Though I confess myself reminded of that delightful American custom of rewriting history to suit present convenience.

Such refreshing disregard for precedent!

Is it not remarkable, Lady Stanton, how quickly foreign notions take root in English soil?

" The old lady, a veteran of four generations of gossip, replied only with a slow shake of the head and the portentous observation, "In my experience, my dear Augusta, those who would remake the world invariably succeed only in unmaking themselves. "

The air seemed charged with a new purpose, and Elizabeth felt, for the first time since her marriage, the full force of a community arrayed in judgment.

She sought a refuge in the refreshment room, where she encountered Colonel Lewis’s wife, a woman whose broad brow and uncompromising gaze had cowed many a less determined opponent.

The colonel’s wife greeted Elizabeth with the customary civility, but wasted no time in bringing the conversation to its true object.

“My dear Mrs. Darcy,” she began, “I must tell you, I found your exchange with Mrs. Willoughby most invigorating. The county needs a little shaking up now and then! But do tell me—what is to become of the disputed boundary at Pemberley? I had understood the Shepherd’s Lot was a mere rumor, yet you appear to have given it new life. ”

Elizabeth, unwilling to yield her composure, replied with the serene candor she had so often admired in her own father.

“It is true, Mrs. Lewis, that the Shepherd’s Lot has a history, but I am assured by my husband and the steward that no claim is likely to arise.

My only interest is in ensuring that Pemberley conducts its affairs with justice to all concerned. The rest, I leave to the experts.”

The colonel’s wife narrowed her eyes, as if weighing the relative worth of Elizabeth’s answer and the speculation it was meant to allay.

“A very proper attitude, I am sure. Still, I do wonder what the world is coming to, when such matters fall to the ladies.” She smiled, but the expression did not reach her eyes.

Elizabeth excused herself with diplomatic grace, only to find her retreat intercepted by the vicar's wife, whose countenance bore an expression of pastoral concern so pronounced as to suggest imminent catastrophe.

"Mrs. Darcy," she began with breathless urgency, "I hope you will not think me presumptuous, but I feel compelled to express my concern regarding the... discussions that have followed your investigations into estate matters. Such talk can be so distressing to sensitive minds! I do hope you will not allow yourself to be overly affected. Some subjects, you know, are perhaps best left… settled.”

"Your solicitude does you credit," Elizabeth replied, summoning a smile whose artificiality was apparent even to herself.

"Though I confess myself puzzled by the suggestion that the pursuit of historical accuracy could disturb any mind not already disposed to agitation.

I have always maintained that truth, however inconvenient its timing, possesses a virtue that mere tranquility cannot claim. "

She accepted a cup of tea from a footman—her hand trembling slightly as she did so, a fact she registered with both shame and a kind of perverse satisfaction.

The fragility of the gesture was its own rebellion; she would not, she resolved, let her nerves be dictated by the likes of Mrs. Willoughby or her acolytes.

Seeking respite, Elizabeth surveyed the ballroom in search of Mr. Darcy.

She discovered him in earnest discourse with two gentlemen of the old school, men whose conception of progress moved with all the urgency of geological formation.

Even at a distance, she could perceive both his steady command of the conversation and the careful reserve with which he received their observations—that quality she had once found maddening, then learned to appreciate, and now recognized as essential armor against the predations of polite society.

Their eyes met across the intervening crowd, and for a moment she contemplated joining him. But the resolution with which she had entered the evening reasserted itself: this was her battle to wage, and she would conduct it according to her own strategy.

It was then that Lady Matlock materialized at her side, silent and spectral as only a woman of her rank could be. The countess regarded Elizabeth with a measured, almost surgical gaze, as if taking inventory of the damages.