“It will take years, but I look forward to seeing it complete one day, funding complications notwithstanding. I might even pay the toll to stroll across it.”
Miss Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Darcy, for explaining this to me. I suppose the roads and bridges you built in the army were of a less monumental nature?”
He barked out a laugh. “Indeed. All function and no form, I am afraid. However, they did not take years to erect.”
“Or cost a half a million pounds to construct,” she added slyly.
“Indeed not.” He was about to toss the drawing in the fire, but Miss Elizabeth placed a hand on his arm and gestured to the paper.
“May I keep that?”
“Of course,” he told her, and handed it over.
Miss Elizabeth’s pleasure was evident in the way her countenance glowed as she took possession of the sketch.
Darcy considered himself a rather traditional man in many ways, but part of his difficulty with polite society were the rigid rules he thought damaging. First and foremost, he believed that people ought to be encouraged to pursue any talents they might possess. It was a pity that women were not allowed to study whatever discipline intrigued them. It seemed a terrible waste to deny them an education when England required every resource at its disposal. Not that many women were interested in engineering, but then, neither were many men. And he had fought too long, seen too much, to dismiss anyone’s interests or abilities out of hand. He wondered, at times, whether he might have been a different man had he remained in London and become a barrister, studying, working, living with men whose lives were just like his. What would he have been like had he always known that Pemberley would be his?
“Darcy,” Bennet said, appearing in the open doorway, “you must be parched after your discourse. I would have asked Mrs. Hill to bring you some wine, but I am afraid you put me to sleep.”
Darcy grinned when Miss Elizabeth reprimanded her father for being ungrateful.
“After all, Papa,” she concluded, “if it had not been for Mr. Darcy, I would have asked you to struggle through it with me. He has saved you hours of architectural torture.”
“And supplied me with an excellently soporific lecture. I agree, Lizzy. I thank you, Darcy, for your . . . service.”
“You are incorrigible, Papa,” Miss Elizabeth said. She swept out of the study and directly across the hall into the room where her sisters sat. Darcy’s eyes followed her departure.
“A rather grand exit,” Bennet said affectionately after she was gone. He turned to face Darcy and lowered his voice. “I do thank you. Lizzy is not a bluestocking in the strict sense of the word. She enjoys pretty fripperies as much as any woman and is often found in places other than my book room. However, she has some interests that are not considered feminine. You know I do not believe in that balderdash, but it can make things difficult for her.”
“It was my pleasure, sir.” It had been a very great pleasure indeed, watching Miss Elizabeth’s fierce interest spark and flame in those fine eyes. “I rarely find a willing conspirator in matters of bridge-building.”
Bennet laughed aloud. “I wonder why. Come, Jane is pouring out the tea.”
Elizabeth briefly clasped Mr. Darcy’s sketch to her breast. How refreshing it was to discuss such things with a man who did not dismiss her questions but merely answered them—who knewhowto answer them!
Mama had not approved of her learning more about mathematics than she would need to keep the accounts and prevent merchants from cheating her. Her mother had felt her daughters’ time would be better spent learning to speak French and Portuguese, improving their stitching, and nursing the ill or injured, a part of which was learning to work in a still room. When they arrived at Longbourn, Mrs. Quimby had required them all to learn either the pianoforte or the harp, both instruments the estate already owned.
These were all valuable accomplishments, and Elizabeth could never regret knowing them, but her sisters had their interests, and she had hers. Kitty and Lydia had discovered art, and Mary music. Jane grew an astounding garden that furnished them with food and medicines the whole year round. Elizabeth played the pianoforte and helped in the garden, but she loved mathematics. She saw numbers in everything—the proportions in art, the rhythms in music, the exact measurements for a bountiful harvest. Papa taught her what he knew, and it was not inconsiderable, but he was more engaged by literature and philosophy, as his cousin had been. Mr. Darcy was not only enthusiastic, but he had also accepted her interest without ceremony, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her to wish to know the mathematical foundations and architectural details of a bridge that would one day span the Thames. That easy acceptance would forever endear him to her.
She placed the sketch on a table near the window and took a cup of tea from Mary. She sat on the settee near the fire, where Mr. Darcy would have ample room to settle nearby. Instead, when he and Papa entered, he looked over at her and then selected the chair farthest away. His cousin sat next to him, and the two men engaged in conversation.
Elizabeth knew she could not expect to have all of Mr. Darcy’s time or attention to herself, but she felt a twinge of disappointment. She thought he had enjoyed their conversation just as she had, but perhaps he had only been accommodating Papa.
She turned to Jane and began to speak about her sister’s plans for the garden. When she considered Mr. Darcy’s behaviour, she was sorry for it, but in the end, it did not matter. She had her sisters and her father, and the promise of a visit to the Gardiners in London in the spring. She was content.
It surprised her to realise that she was not. Not really.
Darcy and Fitzwilliam were studying the survey lines on a map Bennet had provided. The older man was still atop his horse, an amused expression on his face as they worked together to determine where the boundary between two of the tenant farms ought to be. Darcy and his cousin were accomplished at reading maps and determining troop movements but determining the precise line between two properties was a different sort of skill, one that would be very useful at Pemberley. In fact, the estate’s steward Mr. Ralston had already written of just such a dispute.
It took them some time, but they accurately identified where the line ought to be, and then rode on to several of the fields to discuss what the tenants had planted and how the harvest would proceed.
“They planted leeks and parsnips in the late spring,” Bennet explained, “but those are winter crops. It adds a bit of money to the coffers for everyone in the leaner months. You must determine whether it is too cold for such things in Derbyshire and make your plans accordingly.”
“It is rather a precarious life, to depend always on the mercy of the weather,” Fitzwilliam commented.
“This notion of winter crops,” Darcy said, “does it extend to creating additional sources of income for the estate?”
Bennet nodded. “You take my point, Darcy. My cousin was an excellent farmer.” He smiled. “Perhaps that is where Jane has come by her love for growing things. He relied primarily on the tenants and the crops to support the estate, and he did well by them. But I wish to make the estate as self-reliant as possible so that even in years with poor yield, it is a matter of cutting back, not selling out.”