A Different Understanding
Elizabeth had not worn the gown in a year.
When she took it out that morning, she looked at it first with surprise, and then with something nearer reluctance.
It was only a simple morning dress, white, with a small printed pattern in soft colour; yet after so long in black and grey, it seemed to her almost unfamiliar.
When at last she was dressed and stood before the glass, she paused.
The face that met her there was her own, yet not quite the same as when she had last worn such colours.
She had altered, though she could not have said precisely how.
She looked at herself a moment longer, and thought, not for the first time, that grief altered more than countenance.
It had not made her older exactly, though perhaps more aware of being no longer quite young in the thoughtless manner she had once been.
Her father was with her in that moment, as he had been in all the quiet turns of the year behind her.
Loved, missed, and never to be forgotten.
That had not changed, nor would it. Only the form of remembrance must alter now, as everything else had altered, whether one wished it or no.
She turned from the glass to find Jane already watching her. They had dressed in the same room so long that there was nothing unusual in the silence between them, nor in the way each observed what the other would not immediately say.
Jane smiled first.
“It feels different,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Elizabeth answered. “It does.”
Together they made the last small adjustments, and then went down to breakfast, where Susan was still setting the table in haste, placing the toast rack, the butter, and the small dish of preserves with the careful attention of one who was determined to have everything right, and not yet certain that she would.
Jane went at once to assist her, while Elizabeth moved to straighten what had been set a little awry.
At that very moment, Lydia screamed.
Jane dropped the spoon she had just taken up, and Susan started so violently that the preserves very nearly went over.
“Good heavens!” cried Jane.
Elizabeth was already at the door. In another instant they were in the passage and hurrying upstairs together, with Susan close behind, pale and uncertain whether to follow or stay.
Elizabeth reached the stair first, and Jane was close behind her.
As they came out upon the passage, Mary was already descending from the floor above, her face sharpened with alarm.
At the same moment Mrs Bennet’s door opened, and she appeared upon the landing in evident distress, calling Lydia’s name before she was fully in the passage.
Elizabeth reached Lydia’s door first and opened it without ceremony.
Lydia was standing before the looking-glass, one hand pressed to her bosom and the other gathering up her skirts, her face flushed with excitement rather than fear. Kitty stood on the other side of the room looking startled.
“For heaven’s sake, what is it?” cried Jane.
“There is nothing the matter,” Lydia said, breathless. “Only look at me.”
She turned towards them with a sort of radiant impatience, as if their alarm were merely in the way of the admiration due to her. The gown, though simple enough, had enough colour in it to transform her completely; and after so long in mourning, the effect was startling even to Elizabeth.
“Well?” she cried. “Is it not astonishing?”
Mrs Bennet, who had followed more slowly and now reached the doorway quite breathless, pressed her hand to her chest.
“Lydia Bennet! You have frightened me out of my senses.”
“But only look,” Lydia returned, turning back to the glass. “I had forgotten I could look so much like myself.”
On the following Thursday morning, Mr Darcy’s carriage came for them at ten o’clock.
Lydia, Kitty, and Mary had plans of their own, and were to spend the morning with the Hardings; Lydia, in consequence, was in spirits too high to envy anybody, since she was to see Apricot, and had spoken of little else from the moment she came downstairs.
Mrs Annesley received Jane and Elizabeth with her usual composure, and Georgiana made room for them at once, while Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, already mounted, waited only till the ladies were seated before the little party set out.
No one, however, was very explicit as to their destination; and though Mr Bingley spoke of a drive and of the fineness of the morning, Elizabeth thought there was more intention in the day than he professed.
The morning was mild, with that soft brightness peculiar to early autumn, when the air had lost nothing of gentleness, though the year itself was plainly turning.
Georgiana, who had not yet wholly acquired ease in a carriage, seemed more composed than usual between Mrs Annesley and Jane; and Mr Bingley, riding near the window, exerted himself to keep every thing cheerful with such good humour that even Elizabeth, though she suspected him of concealment, could not be severe upon it.
They had not gone far before the road began to leave familiar objects behind, and Elizabeth became more certain that this was no common drive.
At length the carriage turned in at a gate which Elizabeth was sure she had never passed before, and proceeded by a short approach towards a beautiful old house, irregular in form and full of character.
Its grey stone and towered outline were softened by age, while the park about it, with its fine trees and quiet sweep of ground, had a settled loveliness that made explanation unnecessary.
The carriage stopped. The gentlemen dismounted, and a footman opened the door and handed the ladies down. Mr Bingley came forward at once, his satisfaction very ill concealed.
“Haddon Hall,” he said. “Well—what do you think of it?”
She had not expected to be moved by a house.
Yet there was something in Haddon Hall that acted upon the senses before the mind could arrange an opinion of it.
It was not grand in the way that Pemberley was grand, not so ordered, nor so complete in its effect, but older, and in some ways more quietly commanding for it.
The stone was worn where feet had passed for centuries, the rooms low and particular, each one bearing the marks of long habitation.
Nothing here seemed arranged for display.
She followed the others through the great hall, where the light fell in long oblique shafts across the flags, and felt, without quite knowing why, that this was a place in which people had lived rather than resided.
Mr Bingley spoke with animation of the proportions, the aspect, the condition of the roof. Jane listened with the careful attention she gave to everything that mattered, her colour a little heightened.
Elizabeth fell a little behind.
Mr Darcy came to walk beside her without remark, and for some minutes they moved through the rooms in a silence that required no explanation.
“This was not what I expected,” Elizabeth said at last.
“No?” he returned.
She looked about her once more before answering. “I had thought to admire it only because Mr Bingley wished me to. But it is very beautiful.”
Mr Darcy glanced at her, though only for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “It is.”
There was something in the simplicity of the agreement that made further praise unnecessary.
Ahead of them, Mr Bingley had gone on into another room with Jane, still pointing out every advantage as if he feared one might escape her notice.
Elizabeth, seeing this, began to suspect that admiration was not the chief purpose of the day.
At length she said, “He means to take it.”
“I believe he does,” Mr Darcy replied.
“He has not said so.”
“No.”
She glanced toward him. “And you have known this was his intention.”
“For some time,” he said, without apology.
Elizabeth looked ahead, to where Mr Bingley was drawing Jane’s attention to a window that commanded a long view of the park. Jane said something in reply, too low to be heard, and Mr Bingley turned toward her with an expression that required no interpretation.
“It is very well managed,” Elizabeth said.
“He thought it the simplest way.”
“It is not simple at all,” she returned. “It is extremely deliberate. He has brought her here to see herself in it.”
Mr Darcy was silent a moment. “Yes,” he said. “That was the intention.”
She considered this. The house settled around them, its quietness not empty but inhabited, as if the weight of the centuries in it were companionable rather than oppressive.
“And does it answer?” she asked.
He looked toward Jane and Bingley, now paused in the doorway of the next room, the light falling across them both.
“I think it does,” he said quietly.
Elizabeth did not reply immediately. She was aware of standing very still in a very old room, with the sound of the others’ voices just audible ahead, and of something in the quality of the silence beside her that she did not immediately examine.
At that moment Georgiana called to them from the further end of the gallery, and the little pause between them was at once dissolved.
Jane and Mr Bingley turned back, Mrs Annesley resumed her place, and whatever remained to be seen of the house was seen with less particular attention from Elizabeth than before.
She did not hear Mr Bingley speak, nor Jane answer, on the return to the carriage; yet by the time they were again upon the road, she was no longer in doubt that something had passed between them which had altered every thing.
That evening, when they were at last alone, Jane came to her with a composure that had held all day only because it was so deeply felt.
“Lizzy,” she said, and then smiled in a way Elizabeth had not seen in many months. “You were right to think there was more in it than was said. Mr Bingley has taken the house, if I will have him in it. And I have told him that I will.”
Elizabeth caught her hands at once.