Page 22 of A Mismatched Compromise

She was still thinking about his offer, and his abrupt departure, when she came in sight of her home. There was a familiar figure standing before it, and as she approached, Elizabeth smiled at her friend.

“Hello, Charlotte,” she said warmly. “You are a very welcome sight. Come in and hear what occurred today and —”

“Elizabeth.” Charlotte looked up at her, and Elizabeth stopped at the resolute expression on her friend’s face. “I have some news as well. I hope — I hope you will be glad for me.”

Elizabeth looked at her, somewhat alarmed by the rather foreboding comment. She waited.

“I am engaged to Mr Collins.”

Elizabeth’s parcels fell to the ground.

Chapter 11

Christmas at Matlock House had always been an occasion that required a certain degree of fortitude to withstand. This year was no different.

Darcy could not have defined what exactly made his uncle’s house somewhat difficult to navigate at the festive season. It was not that the family was in any way unpleasant. Quite to the contrary: his aunt and uncle were warm and welcoming, his cousin Fitzwilliam was good natured and good company, and the house itself was comfortable, well-appointed, and a place where Darcy had always felt welcome. Even Lionel, his uncle’s heir who had always had a natural (to him) and infuriating (to others, particularly his younger brother and cousin) belief that the world and everything in it existed only insofar as it related to himself, was tolerable in small doses, and getting better as he aged. The difficulty, for Darcy, was rather that Matlock House at Christmas was loud, and cheerful, and eternally social, and Darcy was not any of those things. The events of the last few months had made it more difficult than ever to equal the intense level of sociability that a Christmas at Matlock House demanded.

Of course, he had never expressed any of this to anyone, and he had no intention of starting now. They had arrived the previous afternoon; Darcy had been more grateful than ever for Mrs Annesley’s warmth and good sense. Now that Georgiana finally had a companion who truly had her best interests at heart, his own silences and abstraction would not be such a hardship for his poor sister.

Then he had greeted his family with all appropriate warmth, had attended church with them this morning, had endured the carriage ride back with Lionel expounding on his doings since the last time he’d seen them, and had settled himself into the drawing room as the family assembled to open their presents. He was, he believed, behaving in a manner that anyone would view as quite cheerful and merry.

“You are brooding,” said Fitzwilliam, dropping into the chair beside him. He was holding a glass of port and looking entirely too amused. “I can tell, because you are making that face that you make when you have a problem that you feel ought to have been resolved already, and are unsure whom to blame that it has not been.”

“I do not know what face you are referring to,” said Darcy, uncomfortably aware that he was making the face. “And I am not brooding. I am merely enjoying the festive season.”

“I see,” Fitzwilliam agreed, politely and utterly insincerely. Across the room, Georgiana was helping the countess wind a length of ribbon, her face flushed with pleasure that she rarely let others see. Lionel was lecturing about his pocket watch, not realising or not caring that he himself was his only audience. Mrs Annesley sat near the fire, smiling as she watched Georgiana, clearly pleased to be included but making no demands on anyone.

Fitzwilliam’s gaze followed Darcy’s, and he smiled too. “Our ward seems to be doing better,” he said in a quiet voice.

“She is,” Darcy agreed warmly. Whatever else might be in turmoil, this, at least, was undeniably good. Georgiana had been steadier of late, and the promise of visitors at Pemberley in the new year had clearly given her something to look forward to.

With a slightly crooked smile, Darcy thought of the previous evening at Darcy House. Georgiana had stopped after the first bars of a piece and asked him, as he listened, to help her determine which pieces would be most appropriate to play for their guests. He had suggested that she simply play pieces she enjoyed, and the look of surprise on her face at this radical proposal had been…illuminating.

His uncle separated himself from his wife and niece and whatever was happening with ribbons, and crossed to room to settle himself into the chair on Darcy’s other side with the unhurried authority of a man who can be wherever he chooses to be, because everyone always makes way for him. The Earl of Matlock was not a large man, but he had a way of quietly filling a space. He picked up the cup of tea that had appeared at his elbow as though by magic, for the Countess of Matlock was as efficient in managing her domestic sphere as her husband was in directing the estate at large, and regarded the room with benign satisfaction.

“It is a good Christmas, I think,” the earl said.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Darcy agreed.

“Georgiana looks well.”

Darcy smiled. “She does, does she not?”

A brief silence fell. After a glance at his father, Fitzwilliam demonstrated the sharp instincts that had kept him alive and well through several military campaigns by suddenly finding that there was something he wanted on the other side of the room.

“Your sister looks well,” the earl repeated once his son was out of earshot. “But you look like you are attempting to appear well, and are finding it somewhat taxing.”

Darcy looked at him in surprise. His uncle looked back at him with the lack of surprise characteristic of a man who had raised two sons, sat in the House of Lords for thirty years, and had seen too much of the world to be bluffed by anyone.

“I am well,” Darcy said, somewhat stiffly.

“Indeed,” said the earl. Darcy knew from experience that this did not indicate agreement. It meant his uncle had catalogued what you had said and intended to discuss it further, in his own time.

Across the room, his aunt and Georgiana had yet another length of ribbon, and the winding operation had commenced again with great seriousness. Lionel had abandoned his treatise on his pocket watch and was needling Fitzwilliam, though without any real heat.

“Perhaps you will recall my friend Bingley,” Darcy said abruptly. “He has lately become engaged.”

He had not intended to begin there. He had not, in fact, intended to tell his uncle about the situation at all.