Page 93 of Hard Home

Elizabeth walked in the long gallery in a kind of daze.

There were the pictures, and there were the windows, and at the far end of it, under the third window, there was a pianoforte with the lid down and a stool pushed in square to it.

She stood and looked at it for perhaps half a minute.

Four people in the room and a housekeeper going in and out of the far door with the plates. She played it exactly right. And Elizabeth had heard, quite distinctly, through the music, the small honest domestic sound of china being stacked.

She turned round. Mrs. Reynolds was at the other end of the gallery telling Mr. Gardiner about a Vandyke.

That is her, thought Elizabeth. That is the woman with the plates. She was in this room; she is in this room now; she was eleven feet from a girl of fifteen who had just lost nine-tenths of everything she had, and she went on with her work because there was nothing whatever to stop her, and she does not know to this day that anything happened at all.

And then, because she could not prevent it:and if she knew, she would have got it out of Mr. Wickham's own account within a fortnight, from somebody in the village, and it would have been all over Derbyshire, and that is precisely why she was never told.

She looked at the pianoforte again and found that her eyes were stinging, and moved on to the pictures.

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There were many good paintings, but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible.

In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her.

At last it arrested her — and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her.

She stood several minutes before the picture in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery.

Mrs. Reynolds informed them, that it had been taken in his father's life time.

There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation toward the original, than she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance.

"And this," said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures below, "is the other gentleman, that used to be with my master. He is now gone into the army; but I am afraid he has turned out very wild."

Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, and Elizabeth did not return it.

She looked instead at the small painted face of a boy of about fifteen, hung a little lower than the rest, in a good frame, still on the wall of that house eleven years after everything; and she thought about a man who kept his father's arrangements exactly as his father had left them, including the ones that must have cost him something to look at every day of his life.

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"Is your master much at home in the winter?" said Mrs. Gardiner, as they came down.

"He was not, last winter, ma'am. He was away in the autumn — Hertfordshire, I believe it was, with Mr. Bingley — and then he was in town, and when he came down at Christmas he was—"

She stopped, and smoothed her apron.

"He was very much fatigued," she said. "He had been doing too much, whatever it was; gentlemen will not be told. He sat in the library a great deal in January and would not have the horses out. It went off by Lady day and I have said more than I ought and I will thank you not to repeat it, for he cannot abide to be talked about."

"Of course," said Mrs. Gardiner.

Elizabeth stood in the hall of Pemberley with her hand on the newel post and did not say one word.

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They then went out; and it was agreed that they should walk about the grounds. As they walked across the lawn toward the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables.

They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immoveable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced toward the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility.

She had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it.

They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil inquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration in his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there, recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued together, were some of the most uncomfortable of her life. Nor did he seem much more atease; when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his inquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts.