Calls & Conclusions #2
Mrs Bennet, however, sat a little straighter than she had done all morning, colour warmed by attention and by the knowledge that she had endured it.
“How did it all come about so suddenly?” she asked Jane, then looked at Elizabeth, certain the true answer must be drawn from her. “Mr Darcy, with his sister, and Mr Ashton besides.”
“It was chance,” Elizabeth said.
“Chance,” Mrs Bennet repeated, considering it with suspicion. “Mr Darcy is remarkably attentive to his sister. It is very proper. Very respectable.”
“And Mr Ashton,” she continued, the thought seeming to follow of itself, “is so obliging. Just the sort of neighbour one may rely upon.”
Elizabeth felt it then, as clearly as a change in weather. Comfort in her mother’s mouth had begun to take the shape of intention.
Mrs Bennet pressed her handkerchief to her lips, thoughtful.
“I must call upon Mrs Ashton,” she said at last. “It will be proper. One cannot live so near and take no notice. It would be remarked upon.”
The next morning, Mrs Bennet set out to call upon Mrs Ashton with the language of duty and the manner of a woman who meant, by duty, to secure her place.
Elizabeth watched her mother dress for it with more care than she had given to any errand since leaving Longbourn.
The bonnet was adjusted twice. The gloves were pulled on with a determination that suggested dignity might yet be restored by force.
Susan, nervous at having so few hands in the house, hovered with the shawl, and Jane offered help that Mrs Bennet refused at once, assistance appearing, in her eyes, almost an insult.
“It is neighbourly,” Mrs Bennet said, and then, after a fraction’s pause, as though neighbourliness alone were not quite enough, “and it is proper.”
She had barely gone when there was a knock at the back door.
Elizabeth and Jane looked at one another in confusion. Nora had been only the day before, and Susan, hovering with the breakfast things as though tidiness might prevent calamity, went still with alarm.
“I will see,” Elizabeth said, because someone must.
She opened the door to a man in a plain coat, his cap in his hand, and another behind him with a narrow case and a bundle of tools.
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” the first said, with the careful respect of a tradesman unused to addressing gentlewomen without an introduction. “We were sent about the pianoforte.”
“The pianoforte?” Elizabeth repeated, though she already knew which one they meant; there was only one in the cottage, and it was the smaller of the two that had belonged to Longbourn.
“Aye, ma’am,” he said. “Out o’ tune, they told us. Been moved, likely. I can set it right, if you please. Should not take long.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on the edge of the door. She had not sent for them. Jane had not sent for them. Susan certainly had not.
Jane came forward to the threshold, her expression composed and her eyes questioning.
“Who sent you?” Elizabeth asked, keeping her tone even.
The man hesitated, and for a moment Elizabeth thought he might refuse to say; but tradesmen were not trained for secrecy, only for civility.
“Mr Booth came in, ma’am,” he said at last. “He paid beforehand. Said it was to be done quiet. No fuss. Only to put it to rights.”
No fuss. Done properly. The words fitted too neatly to be chance. And Mr Booth: Mr Darcy’s steward.
Elizabeth heard Jane draw a small breath beside her, reaching, no doubt, the same conclusion and choosing not to name it.
“Very well,” Elizabeth said, stepping back. “You may come in.”
Susan hurried forward, flustered by work she understood better than visitors, and led them through with all the earnestness of a woman prepared to solve any problem with a cloth and goodwill.
Elizabeth watched them pass and felt, absurdly, that Pemberley had found some quiet way into the cottage.
Later, when Mrs Bennet returned, she was pale with fatigue and bright with triumph, which was a combination Elizabeth had begun to recognise as dangerous.
“She rose to receive me,” Mrs Bennet said at once, before Elizabeth had even poured her tea.
“She should not have, of course, but she would. Very proud. She will not have people think her helpless. She can walk to bed, she says, and she will do it if it kills her, for she will not be carried about like a child.” Mrs Bennet sighed with feeling. “It is very affecting.”
Elizabeth heard the admiration beneath the pity. Mrs Bennet understood pride in illness better than she admitted.
“She worries about Matthew,” her mother continued, lowering her voice, worry suddenly becoming a secret shared between mothers. “Not because he is wanting, for he is steady and dutiful, but because he has too much upon him. She is always thinking of what burdens a son will not confess.”
That was the first day.
By the third, Willowbank’s carriage began to arrive at the cottage with such regularity that it seemed almost to belong there.
A neatly folded note came with it, affectionate and insistent, urging Mrs Bennet not to walk in sharp air, not to fatigue herself, to allow a neighbour the comfort of being useful.
Mrs Bennet read the message aloud with offended delight and went at once.
A quarter of an hour became daily.
The week filled itself around those visits.
The little pianoforte held its tuning, and Mary played more often in the evenings, with an air of private satisfaction Elizabeth could not mistake.
Lydia’s riding lessons continued, and she spoke of a mare and a new foal with an ardour that made Kitty laugh and Mary look faintly resigned.
When Mary, Kitty, and Lydia returned from Highfield, they came not only with news that Mrs Harding’s sons were expected in Lambton within the week, but with fresh particulars besides: Georgiana had listened while Mary played and had spoken of music like companionship, and Kitty, to her own astonishment, had found herself showing drawings without feeling ridiculous.
Then one afternoon Mrs Bennet came back from Willowbank glowing with satisfaction dressed as gratitude.
“My dears,” she said, settling herself in a way that seemed to bring the firelight home with her, “Mrs Ashton is all kindness. She insists that you must dine at Willowbank, and she will not have it small. The Hardings are to be there, for their sons are expected in Lambton within the week, and she says it will be a pleasant thing to have young gentlemen again at the table. And she has asked Mr Darcy too.”
She paused, and added with a careful air of principle, “I shall not go. It is too soon. But you must. One cannot refuse such civility, and it will do no harm for you to be seen.”
Mrs Bennet smiled as she said it, generosity presented as the only motive in the world.
Yet Elizabeth heard, beneath the warmth, the unmistakable pleasure of arranging what she could not yet attend.
A larger table meant more eyes, more judgement, more opportunity.
It meant Jane would be observed, that Mr Ashton would continue to offer Elizabeth his careful attentions; and it meant, too, that when Mrs Bennet was able to appear again, there would be another dinner, larger still, at which everything might be confirmed with proper splendour.
Elizabeth smiled when she must, and felt, faintly, the tightening of a net made of kindness and routine.
* * *
The Ashton carriage came for them at dusk, as if it had always been the proper thing that Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth should be fetched.
Mrs Bennet received the message with the satisfaction of a woman whose consequence had been remembered, declared at once that she would not yet appear in company, and then insisted, with all the energy she could command, that her daughters must not keep the carriage waiting.
Susan was set to fastening cloaks before either could gather a proper objection.
Jane offered, gently, that perhaps they ought not to go; Elizabeth offered to send their regrets; and Mrs Bennet refused both with brisk determination, as if refusal would be remarked upon in a way she could not bear.
Willowbank was bright with lamplight when the carriage drew up, and warm with the comfortable confidence of a house accustomed to company.
Mrs Ashton received them in the front room, not quite in her chair, but not quite free of it either. She rose when they entered, and for a moment her hand tightened upon the armrest as if she meant to defeat her own body by will alone. Her smile never faltered.
“My dear Miss Bennet. Miss Elizabeth.” Her tone was brisk with welcome, as if fatigue were a thing beneath notice. “You are very good to come. I had almost persuaded myself the weather would keep you from me.”
“It is a very fair evening,” Jane replied, taking the hand she offered.
“And I am not so obliging as to let weather govern my comfort,” Mrs Ashton said, with a small glance toward her son.
Matthew Ashton stood a little back, attentive without intruding. He bowed, first to Jane and then to Elizabeth, and the composure of the room altered almost imperceptibly, as though everyone became aware at once of where each person stood in relation to the others.
The Hardings were there already. Mrs Harding, all cheerful authority, welcomed the sisters as if they had come to rescue the evening from dullness. Mr Harding rose from near the hearth with his usual solid good humour. Beside them stood their sons, newly returned.
Mr Henry Harding stood nearest his father, composed and observant, his attention steady without being forward. Mr Samuel Harding, a little less grave and a little more alive to amusement, had the air of a man who could speak easily to anyone without feeling he had done something brave.
They were introduced, and both looked at Jane with immediate respect, as if her quiet composure had answered a question they had not yet asked.
Mr Samuel Harding was the first to speak to her, with a simple remark about the road and the season that asked little and offered ease.
Mr Henry Harding said less, but when Jane replied, his gaze rested upon her with a seriousness that did not wander.
Across the room, Mr Darcy was present. He did not approach Elizabeth. He did not place himself near her, yet his attention found her all the same, steady enough that, when their eyes met by chance, she gave him the smallest smile and then looked away.
Mr Ashton offered Elizabeth his arm with practised civility, and the evening, without anyone naming it, began to arrange itself.
Elizabeth found her mother the next morning already settled by the fire, her black gown arranged with care and her handkerchief folded as if she meant to receive a report.
She asked after Mrs Ashton’s health, after the rooms, after the company, and then, with an air of perfect accident, after who had been placed near whom.
Elizabeth answered as steadily as she could.
Mrs Bennet received every particular with the calm of a woman who understood the value of particulars.
Mr Ashton had been attentive. Mr Darcy had spoken little.
Mrs Ashton had watched everything and said very little, which Mrs Bennet pronounced “exactly what one expects from sense”.
When Elizabeth mentioned, as if it were nothing, that Mr Ashton had offered her his arm, her mother’s satisfaction sharpened into something almost serene.
“Very proper,” Mrs Bennet said. “Very natural. One must have some gentleman to take care that you are not jostled about like tradesmen’s daughters.”
Only when Jane’s name was drawn into it, did Mrs Bennet’s tone grow lighter, not louder, but warmed as if the subject pleased her in spite of herself.
“And Mr Samuel Harding?” she asked at last, smoothing her hand over the fold of her gown. “He is returned from town with all the advantages of it, I dare say. He has very good manners, has he not?”
“He has very good manners,” Mrs Bennet said, as though she were merely taking notice of character. “And an open countenance. One may see at once that he is not the sort to trifle. It is a comfort, Jane, to have a sensible young gentleman in a neighbourhood, after all we have endured.”
Jane coloured and smiled, and insisted she thought him only civil.
Mrs Bennet agreed at once and excessively, and then offered counsel that sounded like tenderness rather than design.
Jane must not over-fatigue herself. Jane must sit where the candle did not strike her eyes.
Jane must wear what became her, because there was no virtue, Mrs Bennet insisted, in neglecting one’s appearance when one wished to be thought well of.