Already Decided #2
“Well,” she began, glancing round to measure what had been restored and what had not, “I am very glad to be at home again. One is grateful for kindness, to be sure, but it is not natural to be forever in other people’s way.”
Then, almost before she had sat down, she added, “Though I must say, Mrs Harding manages everything so excessively well. With a house properly staffed, nothing is ever wanting.”
“And that is what I cannot help thinking of,” Mrs Bennet continued, warming to her subject.
“It is not extravagance, Jane, to have things done as they ought. A family cannot be expected to live decently with so few hands. At Highfield the breakfast appears by magic, and there is never any running up and down stairs, and no one looks as though she has been up since dawn.”
Her eyes went, not unkindly but pointedly, towards the back passage.
“I am sure,” she added, lowering her voice with the air of charity, “that another maid would make all the difference. And a cook—only think, a proper cook. We should not be forever depending upon plain dishes and chance.”
Mrs Bennet’s gaze shifted, and fixed at once upon Elizabeth with the triumph of a woman who had found evidence.
“My dear Lizzy,” she exclaimed, “what have you been doing? There is flour upon your cheek.”
Elizabeth lifted a hand and felt it at once, a pale smudge she had not known was there.
“There,” Mrs Bennet went on, the matter proving, in her mind, the whole argument.
“That is exactly what I mean. At Highfield you would never have been obliged to go into the kitchen at all, much less come out looking as though you had been baking with your own hands. It is not proper, I am sure. A little more help, and you would be kept as you ought to be.”
“And consider, Lizzy,” Mrs Bennet added, lowering her voice into something almost confidential, “what impression it makes.”
Elizabeth met Jane’s eye for a moment and saw her patience brace itself.
“Mr Ashton may call at any time,” Mrs Bennet continued, as though the thought had been waiting on her tongue since she woke.
“And though he is the most obliging young man in the world, one cannot expect a gentleman to admire disorder, or to see you with flour upon your face and think it signifies nothing. A young lady must appear as she means to be.”
Her look flicked, quick and satisfied, from Elizabeth to the table, to the room itself. “It will not do to have people suppose we cannot manage our own house.”
Mrs Bennet’s voice softened, turning from complaint into airy planning, like a woman speaking of a move already fixed upon the calendar.
“For when you are married, Lizzy, and settled at Willowbank, it will be quite another thing. A gentleman’s wife cannot be running into kitchens, nor making herself look as though she belongs there.
You will have tenants to see, visitors to receive, servants to direct, and a table to keep with propriety. ”
Her eyes swept the room, taking them all in. “And your family must be sensible of it too. We must not drag you down by looking ill-managed. If people are to look at you as mistress of an estate, they must be made to see you as such.”
Mrs Bennet did not let the subject of another maid and a cook drop, no matter how often Elizabeth tried to talk reason to her, and Mary explained that they did not have the money for it.
She returned to it as though repetition might make it true, the right arrangement of words enough to summon a household back into being.
Jane endured it in silence for a day, then another, until even her patience seemed to tighten into something firmer.
When Mrs Bennet began again, sighing that no gentleman’s wife could manage without proper servants, Jane set down her cup and looked up.
Jane did not contradict her at once. She tried first to turn the talk, to ask after Susan’s work, or Lydia’s horse, or the weather that promised rain.
Elizabeth attempted it too, offering agreement in all that did not matter, and hoping her mother might tire of the subject if no one opposed her too directly. Mrs Bennet did not tire.
When that failed, Jane spoke of necessities in a voice as gentle as her manner.
“If we engage a cook, Mama, we must part with something else,” she said.
“We cannot have all things at once. We would give up tea, or candles, or the butcher’s meat, and I do not think you mean us to live in darkness for the sake of being waited on. ”
Mrs Bennet stared as though Jane had proposed a crime.
Mary set her cup down with a precision that made the sound distinct.
“Jane is correct,” she said. “If Mama wishes to speak in particulars, we may.” She drew a small book from the workbasket at her elbow and opened it upon her knee.
“Our rent alone is fifty pounds a year. Susan must be paid, and fed besides. Coal and candles do not lessen because we are in mourning. If we add a cook, we add her wages, and we feed eight instead of seven. It is not only a question of propriety, but of means.”
Mrs Bennet’s colour rose, and her hand went at once to her chest, as though Mary’s figures had struck her there.
“Upon my word,” she said, drawing a breath meant to be faint, “I am quite overcome. To be told I must count candles and butcher’s meat, as though I were a tradesman’s wife.”
She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes a moment, waiting for alarm to gather round her. Kitty sprang up at once.
“Smelling salts,” she cried, and hurried from the room with all the haste of a fire alarm.
Lydia laughed under her breath, but Jane did not move.
Kitty returned with the bottle and pressed it upon her mother with anxious devotion. Mrs Bennet lifted it, inhaled once, and sighed with the air of martyrdom restored.
“There,” she said, opening her eyes, “you see what you do to me. I have no one to consider my nerves.” She sat upright with sudden vigour.
“Very well. Keep your figures, Mary. Keep your economies, Jane. I shall call at Willowbank this afternoon. Mrs Ashton will understand that a young lady cannot be expected to ruin her hands in a kitchen, and perhaps she will speak sense where you will not.”
Her eyes brightened at the thought of an ally.
“For I am not unreasonable,” she added, as though the point must be granted.
“I asked for a maid and a cook because that is what a family of any consequence requires. But if you will only be obstinate, let us have a cook at least. A cook would keep the kitchen in order, and spare you these degrading employments. And as for a manservant, I say nothing of it, though every respectable house has one.”
Mary’s mouth tightened. “A manservant,” she said quietly, “is beyond us.”
Susan appeared at the parlour door, hands folded hard against her apron. “Ma’am,” she said, curtsying a shade too deep, “Mrs Ashton’s carriage is at the gate.”
Mrs Bennet’s face brightened at once, the house itself offering proof, in her mind, that she was right. “Yes, yes,” she said, already reaching for her gloves. “I told you I should go. One must keep up proper connections.”
Elizabeth’s stomach tightened.
“Lizzy, you must come and see Willowbank again,” Mrs Bennet said, pulling on her gloves and checking her appearance in the mirror. “It is a shame it must be a winter wedding.”
Mrs Bennet swept out as though she carried the future with her.
The mirror caught one last flash of glove and ribbon, and then the parlour was left to damp air and quiet resentment.
Elizabeth stood very still, afraid movement might let the thought catch more firmly.
Jane said nothing; she only reached for her work again, and Mary’s book closed with a soft, decisive sound.
Outside, the rain continued with patient insistence.
It was a small thing, a weather that ought not to signify, and yet it seemed to press the cottage closer round them, until even the sky appeared to approve of being shut in.
The rain had not properly stopped for days since their return from Pemberley.
It eased at last late the next morning, but the light that followed was thin and uncertain, and the paths remained slick beneath the hedge.
Elizabeth found herself thinking, not of company, but of air and room: of wide gravel walks that did not turn to mud, of lawns that seemed to breathe, of a sky that had held its blue without apology. Here, even fair weather felt borrowed.
When the Ashton carriage drew up that afternoon, the sound of wheels on the gravel seemed to settle the rooms even more firmly. Mrs Bennet stepped down with renewed spirits, and Mr Ashton handed her to the path with practised care, the step itself made almost ceremonial.
He followed her in without hesitation, bowing to Jane and Mary, enquiring after their health and then turning to Elizabeth with that same attentive ease. His concern was impeccable. It was also, somehow, general.
“I am glad to find you quite restored to your own rooms,” he said, taking the chair Mrs Bennet indicated. His gaze travelled with easy approval over the neatness Jane had made inevitable. “A cottage asks different habits than a larger house. One must contrive more for oneself.”
Mrs Bennet declared that comfort was impossible without servants. Mr Ashton smiled, humouring what had plainly become a familiar complaint.
“And when the weather has been so ill,” he added, “one loses half one’s habits without meaning it.
I have missed my walks to Ivy Cottage, and I am glad of an excuse to resume them.
” His glance went, briefly, to the window, where the light was at last steady.
“When I learnt Mrs Ashton had sent her carriage for Mrs Bennet, it seemed an excellent opportunity to return her safely home, and to enquire how you are all managing after your stay away. I hope you will not think me neglectful if I come oftener now.”
Elizabeth spoke then, because silence would have looked like sullenness. “You are very good to come,” she said. “We are quite restored, as you see. The cottage only makes a fuss of wet shoes.”
Mr Ashton smiled and said that rain made small houses smaller. Mrs Bennet declared that a proper staff prevented such inconveniences entirely. Elizabeth answered her with a look that begged restraint, then turned back to him.
“You were kind to accompany Mama,” she said, because it was safer than asking why he had come at all. “Mrs Ashton is very attentive.”
He agreed at once. “Indeed she is,” he said, with easy warmth.
“She has taken the greatest pleasure in Mrs Bennet’s company.
My mother speaks of her as a dear friend, and when she sent the carriage I could do no less than see Mrs Bennet safely home.
It gave me, besides, an excuse to make my own enquiries after you all, which I have too long neglected. ”
“There is to be a music evening at Pemberley next week,” he said, after a moment, in the tone of someone recalling a minor point.
“I believe invitations were sent this morning. I trust you have received yours?” He made it sound the most natural thing in the world.
“Mr Darcy has engaged a singer from Matlock, and a gentleman who plays the violin exceedingly well. It is meant to be quite small.” He glanced towards Jane with polite attention, then back to Elizabeth.
“If you mean to go,” he added, “you must not trouble yourselves about the road. I can call for you. The carriage will be out in any case, and it will save you the inconvenience of arriving damp or late. My mother would be distressed to think you had suffered for want of it.”
Mrs Bennet’s countenance softened into immediate approval, the matter settled already in her mind.
Then her expression shifted, pleasure and regret contending together.
“I cannot go,” she said, with a sigh that invited sympathy.
“It would not be proper.” She touched her sleeve, and the black itself seemed to confirm it.
“But the girls may. Young people must not be buried alive because their elders are.” Her gaze went to Elizabeth with renewed purpose.
“You must go, Lizzy. It would look odd to refuse.”
Mr Ashton inclined his head gravely. “Indeed. A quiet musical evening need not offend the strictest observance.”