"What do you think of the French men?" the girl said.
"I have not seen enough of them to know," Elizabeth responded archly. This sent the group into a flurry of giggles, and too late Elizabeth realised the unintentional double meaning in her words. Oh well – no offence had been given.
She pulled herself onto the rock and sat with her legs swinging, and after a few moments, more of the girls returned. They were mostly talking among themselves, about the weather and the farming season, about their work – some working at a laundry, some in a fishery, some at a bakery – and about the young men of the town. It was the very same conversation Elizabeth expected was taking place in Meryton at this moment, among the young ladies there.
"Miss Elizabeth?" Louise was looking longingly at the sea again, but Elizabeth agreed it must be near time to depart.
Dry, with only a bit of sand in her shift that walking would soon dislodge, she made her way up through the path to the town.
Chapter 19.
Darcy was walking through the trees near the coast, working over the problem of Miss Bennet in his mind. Her actions reviewed, she had proven herself discreet and intrepid; but this project of his and Richard's was dangerous, and no place for ladies. He must find a way to set her out of the affair – and his thoughts.
This task was not helped by the lady herself appearing before him on the path like a sylph, her hair in a loose style, her bonnet swinging from her hand, and her shift adhering to her body under her frock, the hem still damp.
"Mr. Darcy!" she exclaimed.
"Miss Bennet," he said.
He bowed; she curtsied.
There was nothing to say. Her maid was smirking at him like she knew the secrets of the universe.
"You are still planning to travel with us tomorrow?" she said.
"I am. My baggage is prepared." A pause. "And yourself?"
"Yes, ours as well." She looked over her shoulder at her maid. "We are just returning to the passport office – we have an appointment so I will be able to travel."
"May I escort you?" The words were out before he could consciously think of them. "I am walking in that direction myself."
"Thank you," Miss Bennet said, in tones of confusion.
Her hair was pulling loose around her face, and Darcy had the absurd urge to tuck it behind her ear. She looked fresh and healthy, a tan beginning to show on her nose, and her eyes sparkling brightly.
They walked in silence for several minutes before Darcy recalled her chiding him, months ago, for not picking up his share of the conversation. He was determined that she would have no cause to chide him now. "Have you explored the town?" he said. "I have not seen much of it myself."
"Nor I," Miss Bennet said. "That is – except last night's activities, I have been mostly occupied in – well, aside from Lydia, the sort of dull business that I might as easily have done at home – attending to my bank, my passport…"
"Do let me know if I can be of assistance," Darcy said.
She looked up at him. "I will, thank you."
The trees thinned, and they were on the outskirts of town. A chop house was set up on the street, to grill fresh fish from the fishermen's catch, and a small tavern selling small beer. It all had the pleasant feeling of a holiday, and Darcy found himself idly making plans to return the next summer, with Georgiana.
"You have not been to France before?" Elizabeth said.
"No – I am not so old," Darcy said, smiling. Elizabeth blushed, the red darkening the freckles on her nose. "I did not mean – "
"I apologise – it was churlish of me to pretend to take it the wrong way. I have not, no," he said. "I have, however, greatly benefited from their wines, and their cooks."
Elizabeth energetically agreed on the subject of wines; she recalled an excellent Chardonnay that Mr. Bingley had served at Netherfield. Did Mr. Darcy remember this? Darcy also remembered the wine.
He was cautious of discussing Bingley; reflection had made him appreciate that his behaviour had possibly not been entirely appropriate, and perhaps more driven by his own desire to withdraw from the country and get himself out of danger.
Skirting carefully around the subject, they discussed Beaujolais, Madiran and even cremant de Loire before reaching the turning to the town office.
"Thank you for your company," Miss Bennet said, curtsying.
Darcy bowed. "The pleasure was mine."
As he walked away, he realised this was true. It had been a pleasurable afternoon – much more pleasurable than he expected on first setting out. Miss Bennet's company made the time pleasant. He did not feel like Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley with her; he felt like any young man with a charming young woman. This was the danger he had first perceived at Netherfield; this was what had driven him to act so outrageously at the house in Hunsford.
He walked away quickly. His task should be taking all his attention; there was none to spare on the confusion that Miss Bennet inevitably caused him.
Chapter 20.
Passport at last retrieved, and sea salt and sand washed away, Elizabeth returned to the inn to pack. Her borrowed ball gown was still in the room, and she helped Louise order their things before packing them. Fortunately she had not been in town long enough to truly unpack. Her shift was salty with the sea; but it could be cleaned at their destination. On her walk back to the inn, Elizabeth left a note at the post office, asking that any post be forwarded on to Rouen.
Rouen – an ancient city. The name called up images of grand Gothic cathedrals, Norman horsemen, priests in jewelled robes, Joan of Arc piteously imprisoned and superstitiously burned. Elizabeth shuddered. In Le Havre they were never more than a day from England. In Rouen they would be another day's journey inland – with no easy way home.
Elizabeth paid their bill, leaving her with just a few coins – a day's expenses, or two days if she was prudent. She had written again to her father, asking him to write to their bank for a letter of credit. With any luck, that letter would come through and she would be able to draw on it on their arrival.
On their budget, a public coach would have to do. The landlady informed them it was a day's travel to Rouen, starting at dawn and arriving just after dinner, around six o'clock. They would have an hour or two of daylight to find lodging, and the landlady was confident they would be able to: "it is a fine city, you know, with many travellers coming to see the cathedrals."
Louise was aggrieved that there was no time to do the laundry in Le Havre before setting out. "I'm sure we will be all right with what we have," Elizabeth said reasonably. She only had four dresses with her, anyway: her travelling dress she did not mind getting dirty, as it was already dusty from the first day's walking; her day dresses were still in good cleanliness, and her borrowed ball dress was carefully folded in its case.
At dinner, Mr. Darcy called on them at their inn.
"It does not seem to me to require you go along," he said. His hand worked a small catch in his trousers, in an agitated manner. "Le Havre is a port of safety. If anything were to happen, you can sail for England easily, on any notice. Rouen is a full day's journey by carriage. Even the fastest rider would not be able to make it in less than three hours."
Elizabeth did not give away that she had been thinking this same thing – but she did not trust the gentlemen to themselves, she did not trust Col. Fitzwilliam to have Lydia's best interests at heart as she did. "It seems less dangerous to me to be accompanied by gentlemen of our acquaintance," she said. "You overestimate the danger of the countryside to ladies, and underestimate that of a military town."
Mr. Darcy started as if to argue at this slight against the army's characters, but he stopped himself and quickly acknowledged the fairness of her words. "It is not only English lads here," he conceded.
"And besides," Elizabeth said, her heart quickening at the thought, "I should love to see Rouen. It is a place I have read of." Mr. Darcy smiled at this, and Elizabeth felt the need to defe
nd her interest. "It is famous," she said. "Joan of Arc was tried and burned there. The heart of our own Richard the Lionheart is kept in the great cathedral."
"I bow to your knowledge," Mr. Darcy said. "I apologise; I did not mean to laugh. Tomorrow morning, then."
All through dinner Elizabeth was annoyed. It was too unkind of him to bother her at home when he could bother her just as well in the carriage tomorrow. Why could he not leave her in peace for one day? Already she had wiped the memory of their pleasant walk by the coast, and replaced it with a version in which he was much less agreeable.
Louise, who did not achieve her position by being unobservant, watched Elizabeth pick at an excellent plate of fruits de mer simmered in white wine, and said nothing. Lydia also said nothing; she was waiting for her sister to stop fussing and pass the plate.
Chapter 21.
The carriage was ready at nine o'clock, and Elizabeth and Lydia had breakfast of baguettes, fresh butter, jam and coffee while the inn staff loaded their bags into the back of the carriage.
"I will never get used to this odd stuff," Lydia said, curling her lip a little at the coffee. "It is so sharp! There is no sugar in it whatsoever. It is too strong."
Elizabeth shared this opinion somewhat, although the strong bitter taste of the traditional French morning drink was beginning to grow on her. She did not answer; she was eating as many of the heavenly bread rolls as she could manage.
She marvelled at how the French precision of cooking could turn such a simple substance as bread into something so divine: light, airy and fluffy, with none of the rough weight that marked even their best attempts at bread at home. It was especially impressive considering what she thought would be the chaos and upheaval of the Revolution and Terror. Although Elizabeth could only now admit it to herself, she had come to France half fearing that she would have to rescue Lydia from the chaos of a collapsed society, fighting off urchins for half a heel of bread. But here there were inns, bakeries, taverns, breweries, coffeehouses and vineyards – if the past week had been typical, everyday life in France was only a little more unsettled than that in England.
Louise poked her head into the inn's breakfast room. "We are ready?" Elizabeth was glad to see Louise also had a cup of coffee in her own hand; otherwise she would have offered her some of their own breakfast; as it was, she took a few more rolls in her pocket for the journey.
Mr. Darcy were waiting for them, with a barely disguised air of impatience, although he did his best to hide it.
Lydia entered the carriage first and immediately seized the cushioned window seat. As the Colonel was not with them, there was room enough inside for Louise, who sat next to Lydia. Elizabeth could not help but wish that their maid had been a little less attentive to propriety, just this once, as this arrangement left nowhere for her to sit but next to Mr. Darcy.
He handed her into the carriage and the skin of her wrist above her glove brushed his. It was only a moment; but it was a shock through her. It reminded her of their intimacy at the officers' ball, when they danced: his arm securely around her, holding her waist, her hand on his shoulder, her arm wrapped around his. The warmth of his body so near to hers.
Elizabeth flushed, and took a seat at the far side of the carriage. She stared out the window at the uninteresting French street, and picked at her handkerchief.
Mr. Darcy was the last to enter, and he evaluated the seating arrangements quickly, and came to the same conclusion as Elizabeth. He, too, took a seat as far towards the window as possible, and gazed at the inn they had just departed.
The coachman called out, and Mr. Darcy thumped the ceiling with his stick; and they were off.
They passed a full hour in silence, until the carriage entered a town that looked familiar to Elizabeth. Perhaps she recognised it from an illustration in a history book. "Oh! Where are we?" she said.
"Lawd, I don't know," Lydia said, with a look of annoyance, "what a silly question!"
Louise peered out the window. "The city here? It is Harfleur," she said.
"Oh, I had hoped so!" Elizabeth said. "It is the famous walls – which Henry the Fifth breached. Many of his men died here."
Mr. Darcy smiled. "You are well read in history," he said.
"Oh, it is not history," Elizabeth admitted. The air of inland France was intoxicating; she had never experienced anything like it. "It is something far worse, far more lurid and melodramatic." She lowered her voice in self-mockery. "It is…Shakespeare."
"Of course," Mr. Darcy said. "I have read him a dozen times or more myself. Harfleur, let me see – "
"Once more into the breach," Elizabeth supplied.
"Yes, yes, it's coming to me," he said. "Naked infants spitted on pikes."
Lydia turned to them in appalled disgust. "What are you talking about?" she said.
"History," Elizabeth said, at the same time that Mr. Darcy said, "Shakespeare," and they both laughed a little.
From then on their conversation was, if not animated, at least regular: they talked of whether King Henry had been a war hero, or a tyrant; of the last time they had seen the play performed; of whether his match with Princess Katherine was a love-match or enforced.
"How can it be anything but enforced, when the lady's country has just been conquered, her father mad, her brother imprisoned and everyone she knows killed on the field of Agincourt?" Mr. Darcy said. "Surely you can grant that it is in the least not a fully free choice."
"Your argument assumes that any choice is fully free," Elizabeth said. "When no lady in England has ever been free to make an unconstrained choice. Why, even Empress Matilda married after her father's choosing. We are constrained by a thousand things beyond our ability to control – our situation, our looks, the requirements of our income." She was enjoying the conversation, and this was bringing colour to her cheeks and brightness to her eyes. "Yet all this is immaterial, for we are told Princess Katherine is beautiful, we hear that she is witty, we know she is wealthy, and her family of the very best. For such a lady to complain about a handsome, heroic English prince paying court seems picky beyond the bounds of reason. At least he bothers to ask before he demands – and anyway, his speech is so romantic."
"'There is witchcraft in thy lips, Kate'," Mr. Darcy quoted.
"Y – yes," Elizabeth said.
"Yet there is more that a lady can do to overcome these things," Mr. Darcy said. "She may be of a good family, beautiful, wealthy – and the dullest girl in England."
"She would be much sought after," Elizabeth said, laughing. "Despite what gentlemen might say about preferring accomplishments and extensive reading, I have seen it many times: men enjoy a pretty face and an income, and a girl who will not ask too many questions."
"Perhaps," said Mr. Darcy. "I do not think the prospects of a lively woman with a poor family are as bad as she might think – " He stopped abruptly, and turned to face the window again.
The carriage was very hot, then very cold. Elizabeth looked out the window on the other side. Beside her, she felt Mr. Darcy move. She did not dare to look at him. The lush green forests of tall trees, shading the carriage path, turned into scrub brush and grassy fields, and opened out into a plain, with the silvery Seine looping and threading as if pulled by a needle in front of them. A town sat in front of them, in the bend of the river, and the coachman seemed to speed up.
Chapter 22.
After a few hours' riding they stopped at a coaching inn to refresh the horses. Mr. Darcy handed down Lydia, then Elizabeth, and the travellers went inside to see what lunch might be available. The kitchen was well provided for the carriage, with bread, cold roast meats and cheeses, and Elizabeth was pleased at the opportunity to practice her French.
"We could sit in the inn, or on the lawn?"
The carriage had been stuffy. "Let us picnic."
Mr. Darcy procured a half-bottle of Chablis. Louise hummed approvingly at the choice. Elizabeth spread her skirts out on the grass.
What a pleasure it was to be outside. Elizabeth loved travelling within England, but like most travellers, preferred the destination to the journey; the fresh air was a joy. A light breeze puffed around her, that ruffled her skirts but did not otherwise disturb the party.
"More wine?"
"Yes, thank you." Elizabeth held out her glass as Mr. Darcy poured. It was a rich yellow-white in the sunlight.
He was being so courteous that she hesitated in what she was going to say. It was difficult in front of Lydia and Louise, but she did not want him to think she did not understand what he had done for them.
"Thank you for your assistance in our journey," she said. "When I saw you on the ferry, I did not appreciate the aim of your voyage."
"Nor I yours," Mr. Darcy said. He also hesitated a moment, before saying, "I am sorry to have attempted the obstruction."
Elizabeth's blue dress set off her dark hair and eyes exceedingly well. She lifted her face to the sun, and sighed a little in appreciation of the clear air and pleasant atmosphere.
The coachman returned, having caught up with the local news, and they were back into the carriage.
Elizabeth was again so impressed by the French accomplishment of turning the everyday into the delicious, that she had perhaps had too large a glass – or not noticed when it was last topped up. The afternoon was warm, and though the windows of the coach were open, Lydia had drawn the curtains against the sun. With nothing to look at, she rested her eyes for a moment. They had been up late last night, and it had been an early morning, and the wine had been so pleasant… King Henry and Kate….
Elizabeth awoke to the feeling of fine cloth beneath her cheek.
To her extreme horror, she realised she had fallen asleep on Mr. Darcy's shoulder.
She dared not flicker her eyes; she needed to move gently without alerting him that she was awake. His shoulder was so warm, and comforting; strong and welcoming, like a good hot meal.
For Miss Bennet's Honour Page 8
