Equal Ground
The post came earlier than Elizabeth expected, and with it a letter for her from Charlotte Lucas. The hand was unmistakable, and it brought a small pang for Longbourn, for Meryton, for Hertfordshire, for the nearness of all those lives which had once been within the compass of a morning’s walk.
Kitty saw the superscription and made a sound of impatience. “She might have written to us all,” she declared, though there was no real grievance in it, only curiosity. “Or to Jane, at least. But no, it must always be you.”
“It is only that Charlotte knows I will answer promptly,” Elizabeth said, and took the letter from the tray.
The seal was plain; the paper neatly folded.
Nothing about it suggested alarm, yet her fingers paused before she broke it.
Since their removal to Derbyshire, letters had carried a different weight.
The world now seemed determined to reach them in ink.
Neighbours, friends, and family, once so near, now came alive to them again only through letters, or when someone spoke their names.
Jane was at the window, mending a tear in one of Kitty’s ribbons with patient attention, small tasks treated almost like a kind of prayer.
Mary sat at the pianoforte with her music open before her, practising a simple passage again and again, determined that each note should be perfectly placed.
The repetition no longer irritated. It steadied.
Lydia was not in the room at all. She had left before breakfast with her bonnet tied under her chin and an expression of great consequence, announcing that she was to have another riding lesson, because she had been told she sat too lightly and could not endure a long day in the saddle.
Mrs Bennet had objected, then yielded, as she so often did, with a warning about mud and a reminder that propriety still existed even on horseback.
Elizabeth broke the seal and unfolded the sheet.
Charlotte’s hand ran on with its usual good sense, affectionate without excess, composed even when she was plainly pleased.
There were lines of gratitude for friendship, remarks upon comfort and settlement, and then, written with careful modesty, the news itself: Mr Collins had done her the honour of offering his hand, and she had accepted him.
Kitty gave a little cry, because an engagement must always feel like entertainment. Mary’s eyes brightened with immediate interest, and Jane’s needle paused in her hand as her gaze lifted to Elizabeth’s face.
Mrs Bennet, who had been listening with an air of strained patience that never promised peace, caught at the words the instant they were spoken.
“Accepted him,” she repeated, and her voice rose at once. “Charlotte Lucas has accepted Mr Collins.”
Jane made a soft sound of caution. “Mama.”
“No, Jane, you do not understand. Of course you do not understand.” Mrs Bennet pressed her hand to her chest, breathing hard, the room evidently grown too small for her.
“Mr Collins is not merely any man. He is Longbourn. And now she will be mistress there. She will sit in my parlour, and give directions in my kitchen, and receive callers in the house where I have spent all my married life, with the calmest assurance in the world.”
Elizabeth felt the familiar tightening return, sharp and immediate. She could picture it too clearly: Charlotte’s calm competence established in rooms that still, in Elizabeth’s mind, held her father’s voice.
“It is beyond bearing,” Mrs Bennet continued, gathering force.
“And I must go directly to Mrs Ashton. I cannot sit here and be expected to be quiet about it. If the neighbourhood is to talk, then I will speak first, and I will have a little sympathy, for I assure you I have had very little of it at home.”
She turned towards the passage with brisk determination. “Susan. My bonnet. I will not be kept indoors when there is news of this sort.”
Mary rose at once, dutiful, and Kitty jumped up with sudden importance to assist with the ribbons. Mrs Bennet swept out as soon as she was properly dressed, all nerves and purpose, bound for the village with so much haste that one might have thought speed could lessen the thought itself.
The door had scarcely closed before the room seemed to breathe again.
Elizabeth refolded Charlotte’s letter, though she had not the least need to read it twice. The sentences were sensible, the hand steady, the whole thing so very Charlotte that it ought to have been comforting. Instead, it sat upon her mind like a weight.
“How could she do it?” she said at last, and would perhaps have been ashamed of the sharpness if Jane had not been there to hear it kindly. “How could Charlotte Lucas accept Mr Collins?”
Jane’s needle paused. “Charlotte has always looked at life as it is,” she said softly, “not as we might wish it to be.”
“That is precisely what alarms me,” Elizabeth returned, vexation struggling with pain. “Must we admire it as wisdom when a woman persuades herself that a pompous man and a house not yet hers are enough to make her content?”
Mary, who had endured the discussion with the rigid patience of a person determined to be improving, lifted her head from the music with sudden resolve.
“If you are to have opinions,” she said, “I beg you will have them elsewhere. I cannot practise with this noise. Susan has only just ceased clattering in the passage, and now you must all talk at once.”
Kitty, who had been turning pages in her sketchbook with exaggerated patience, looked up at once. “Mary,” she said, injured, “we were going out. That was the whole plan. I was to draw, and Lizzy was to be cross in the open air, where it cannot do harm.”
Mary drew herself up. “Then go,” she returned, with dignity. “And leave me in peace to play.”
“If you put Mr Collins into my head,” Kitty added, rising as she spoke, “I shall sketch a great oblong figure with sermons for limbs, and then you will deserve any noise I make.”
In spite of herself, Elizabeth’s mouth twitched.
Kitty seized upon the smallest success. “Come, Lizzy. If you must scold Charlotte for being sensible, do it where there is a tree to hear you, not a pianoforte. I have been indoors long enough to become virtuous.”
Elizabeth gave a short sigh, more weary than angry. “Very well. I will walk.”
Jane set her work aside at once. “And I shall go with you,” she said, needing no justification.
Kitty was already on her feet, sketchbook hugged to her chest. “Excellent. I shall draw something improved by fresh air, and you may recover your temper by degrees.”
* * *
The Bingleys had arrived the day before, and Pemberley had not yet recovered its usual quiet.
Even at breakfast there was a sense of motion, the house itself seemingly persuaded into liveliness.
Bingley spoke with the ease of a man who could be perfectly content anywhere, provided there were company enough to share it; Mrs Hurst listened with languid amusement; and Miss Bingley looked about her with the bright attention of a person determined to miss nothing.
“You have contrived the most delightful situation in the world,” Miss Bingley said, and though her praise was addressed to Pemberley, her eyes were upon Darcy.
“One cannot be here and not feel that taste has been consulted at every step. I declare, I scarcely slept, for I kept thinking of your gallery and that long prospect from the south windows. You must show me everything properly this morning.”
Darcy’s mouth tightened a fraction. “You have already seen much.”
“Seen,” she repeated, with a little laugh that made the word an insult. “To see is nothing. One must understand. Besides, you are too modest about your own home. You speak of it as though it were merely a house.”
“It is, in fact, a house,” Bingley returned cheerfully. “A very handsome one, to be sure, but I dare say Darcy is used to it, and therefore cannot feel as we do.”
“I do not know how any man can be used to such a place,” Miss Bingley said, and for an instant her expression suggested that she meant the man as much as the place.
Mr Hurst, who had been silent long enough to be forgotten, put down his cup. “There is trout in the river, I suppose.”
“There are fish,” Darcy said, because it cost him less than indulging Miss Bingley’s enthusiasm. “If you wish to spend the day at the water, you may do so.”
Mr Hurst looked satisfied at once, his chief concern apparently settled.
Georgiana poured tea with steady hands. There was colour in her cheeks, but Darcy could see the care beneath it; she measured each movement, each word, expecting correction even when none came.
“You will not allow Mr Hurst to vanish entirely, Brother,” she said, attempting lightness. “He will return only for dinner, and then we shall not see him again.”
Mrs Hurst smiled, untroubled by the prospect. “He will be perfectly happy.”
“And we shall be equally happy,” Miss Bingley added, speaking as though the arrangement had been made for her comfort.
“Only you must not disappear too, Mr Darcy. I have a thousand questions. Your steward, your woods, your plans for the summer. You cannot imagine how little one hears of Derbyshire in town.”
Darcy took his coffee and said nothing. He had no wish to be managed at his own table, yet he knew that Miss Bingley’s attention, once fixed, was not easily turned aside.
“You must have a hundred schemes laid out for us,” she continued, all animation. “I will not be told that we are to sit quietly and admire the view for a fortnight. You have such grounds, such rooms, such a library. There must be plans.”
“If you mean plans for the day,” Darcy said, “I have none beyond what will please you best.”
“That is a very fine speech,” Miss Bingley returned, “but it is also a refusal.”