Chapter 8: Van Drecht Calls on Mr. Hartwell

Van Drecht arrived at Longbourn at precisely half past ten on a Tuesday, which was, as Cecilia observed from the upper landing, twenty-nine minutes after the earliest permissible hour for a morning call and therefore either a calculated display of restraint or evidence that he had been standing in the lane since ten o'clock working up to it. She could not determine which from the angle of the staircase. She returned to her room, retrieved the 1703 volume from beneath her winter stockings, and locked it in the writing desk.

She was downstairs again before Perkins had finished taking his coat.

Mrs. Hartwell, with the unerring instinct of a woman for whom all social events were potentially matrimonial, was already in the hall.