Page 4 of Homeless

“What would I be doing?” she asked, to gain a little time.

“I would have you translate, observe, keep me from trusting a rogue with eloquent manners, and prevent my agent from representing a vineyard as Paradise.”

She chuckled. “I had not known my value lay so high.”

“It rises every moment.”

Marianne tugged at Elizabeth’s skirt. “Will there be castles?”

“Undoubtedly, my pet,” said Mr Gardiner. “And mountains, mules, churches, and men who speak too fast for your cousin Lizzy to despise them properly.”

Elizabeth crossed her arms. “I never despise anybody improperly.”

“Then come to Spain and prove it abroad.”

Mrs Gardiner gave a short breath that was half resignation and half smile. “If she goes, she writes often.”

“If the roads contain ink, I shall write.”

“You shall write whether they contain ink or not. Your uncle will find some.”

“He had better, since he now proposes to risk his fortunes upon me.”

Mr Gardiner’s expression changed. Beneath all the pleasantry lay real hope—not only for profit, but for her. “Well, Lizzy?”

She meant to say she would think on it. That would have been the sensible thing, and the sensible thing was on her tongue, and what came out instead was —

“Yes.”

Marianne clapped. Edward demanded whether there were soldiers. Mr Gardiner laughed outright. Mrs Gardiner held out her hand; Elizabeth crossed to her and took it between both her own.

“Go, then,” said her aunt. “Be useful to him, since usefulness is the argument by which he means to carry us all. Be diverted too, if diversion offers. Only come back to me whole. Both of you.”

Across the room, her uncle had Edward under one arm again and was informing Marianne that Spanish girls, if they were wise, went to bed at proper hours and never laid siege to respectable furniture. The kettle sang. The cradle rocked. Outside, Gracechurch Street pursued its noisy commerce as if nothing of consequence had occurred.

She was going to Spain.

The knowledge sent fresh air deep into her lungs like the abrupt recovery of a horizon. Whatever waited there — dust, fatigue, error, disappointment, profit — would at least belong to motion. Fortune, if it meant to refuse her, must do so in the open, and not from the corner of a borrowed parlour.

“Well,” said Mrs Gardiner, taking up her needle again, “if Spain is to have you, the least we may do is mend your grey merino travelling gown before you set off to astonish it.”

II

Wind Permitting

The ship had not sailed.

It might go out at dawn. It might lie all the next day in harbour, rolling at its moorings while men shrugged and called the wind unfortunate. In either case, the wind would do precisely as it pleased, and he must submit to being delayed at Portsmouth like any other fool with money in his pocket and business abroad.

Darcy stood at the window and looked down into the yard. A boy was dragging a reluctant team through the mud while a sailor cursed and threw a bottle into the street. Beyond the roofs, the Solent showed itself in a long iron strip under the failing light.

He had been on the road since morning. Guildford had provided stale, cold meat, two letters from his solicitor, and no comfort. In the carriage, he had signed memoranda until the road jolted the pen across the page, then gone back over every arrangement made in London and found each wanting. Georgiana at Pemberley. Fletcher following with the second trunk, if he managed to arrive before the ship sailed. The claim to be lodged at Madrid before the new government closed the door on it. The sea still uncrossed, and beyond it, the whole length of a country lately at war.

He ought to have written to Georgiana before leaving London.

The reproach had ridden beside him all day. By now, she would know only that he had gone south on urgent business. Mrs Reynolds would soften it. Mrs Annesley would excuse it. Georgiana, with that miserable gentleness which made every failure worse, would be more distressed by the want of explanation than by the business itself. Reproof, one could meet. Patience left a man no shelter at all.

He set the writing slope on the table by the fire and opened it. Then he unscrewed the traveling inkpot and laid out a sheet of paper.