Chapter Eight #5
“Then your brother has had a narrow escape, and you have done him a considerable service by speaking up.” Elizabeth glanced toward the door through which Mr. Darcy had departed.
“Now, I suspect he will spend the next several hours reviewing every interaction he has ever had with Miss Bingley and feeling quite mortified.”
“Good,” Georgiana said, then looked shocked at herself. “Is that terribly uncharitable of me?”
“Probably,” Elizabeth said. “Yet entirely understandable nonetheless.”
Unaccountable Fancies
Darcy House, London
March 1811
Rosings Park
Kent
My dear nephew,
It is upon a most serious subject that I now address you, and I insist upon your immediate attention.
I have been informed of a most distressing occurrence which has so unseasonably confined your sister.
Though I sincerely lament the inconvenience to my own family, I cannot but remark that such disorders are best overcome by firmness, not by giving way to every nervous sensibility.
It is incumbent on you to restore her without delay to that composure which her station requires, and to prevent this trifling indisposition from deranging those plans which have so long, and so properly, united my daughter’s future with your own.
I must also complain, with all the frankness which our near relationship authorises, of your late neglect of Rosings.
Your prolonged absence from myself and from Anne is wholly inconsistent with the duties you owe us.
You are well aware of the expectations of your family, and I rightly look to you for that attention and support which are due to your nearest relations.
The expenses attendant on my rank and my care of Anne are, I need not say, very considerable.
Your uncle’s settlements, though respectable, were not equal to the claims of our situation.
I therefore rely on your proper sense of what is owing to your aunt and cousin, that you will lose no time in remitting such pecuniary assistance as I require, and in arranging your affairs to attend us at Rosings without further delay.
I expect a prompt reply, informing me what steps you have taken with respect to your sister, and when I may look for your arrival. I need not add, that any interference with the plans formed for you at Rosings would be highly improper, and could not fail to give me the greatest offence.
Your affectionate aunt,
Catherine de Bourgh
The Netherfield study offered, at last, a measure of quiet. The candles on the desk had burnt low. The fire was more embers than flame, and the muffled sounds from the billiard-room below only served to mark the difference from the long, talkative evening.
He had borne the evening with such composure as he could.
Mrs. Bennet’s fluttering gratitude, Lydia’s shrill protest at every lost trick, Kitty’s incessant giggle, even Mr. Bennet’s dry indolence, had tried his patience more than he liked to own.
Yet Elizabeth’s presence had gone some way towards making it tolerable.
More than once, she had interposed a word or a look that turned her mother from greater folly, or drew her younger sisters back from some fresh indiscretion.
The quiet firmness with which she did so had fixed itself unpleasantly in his mind.
It was no part of her duty, at not yet-twenty, to supply the want of sense in those who should have guided her.
He thrust the recollection aside and turned to the small table where his correspondence been placed earlier.
Letters from town had arrived whilst they were abroad.
Among the familiar directions of his steward and agents, one packet in his London butler’s hand enclosed a larger cover, the seal bearing an armorial crest he knew too well.
His aunt’s hand was unmistakable. He would have preferred to leave it unopened, yet delay was useless. He broke the seal and unfolded the sheet.
The phrases marched down the page in her well known, imperious hand.
She lamented Georgiana’s “most distressing occurrence,” not for the pain it had inflicted on the girl herself, nor for any danger escaped, but for “the inconvenience to my own family,” for the interruption it gave to “those plans which have so long, and so properly, united my daughter’s future with your own.
” Georgiana’s present seclusion was a “trifling indisposition” which he must “hasten to terminate,” as if illness could be dismissed upon command.
He was conscious of folding the sheet more narrowly between thumb and forefinger.
Her complaints of his “neglect” of Rosings followed, and with them a demand for money as if it were his responsibility to underwrite the uselessly fine folderol of his aunt’s insatiable appetite.
She had no word for Georgiana beyond the necessity of “restoring her without delay to that composure which her station requires.” Of concern for his sister’s supposed illness, there was nothing.
The whole letter treated Georgiana’s ill health as a vexation to be overcome, an obstacle in the way of Anne’s consequence and Lady Catherine’s ease.
There rose, unbidden, another image: Mrs. Bennet, a few hours before, all gratitude and agitation, exclaiming on Mr. Bingley’s goodness in coming to play cards with her girls, her foolish speeches checked—though not always in time—by Elizabeth’s quick, warning glance.
She had been ridiculous enough, yet in all her flutter he remembered nothing that was not honestly meant.
He could not deny the generosity of her table, her evident desire to offer the best of hospitality and see to his sister’s comfort.
Her satisfaction in Bingley’s attentions had been for Jane.
Her anxiety, when the post had been late that morning, had been for Jane as well.
He thought, too, of Elizabeth beside Georgiana in Longbourn’s parlour, drawing a chair nearer, lowering her voice, contriving with a few quiet questions to make his shy sister speak and even smile.
No one had instructed her to take such pains.
It had been done as naturally as breathing.
The memory of their first encounter on the road returned to him with unwelcome force—her prompt denial of all knowledge, the cool deflection that had, at the time, enraged him.
It began to wear a different aspect now.
That refusal, which he had taken for impertinence and falsehood, was of a piece with the same fierce loyalty and instinct to shield a frightened girl which now watched over Georgiana.
He looked again at his aunt’s neat, uncompromising lines.
A displeasing heat gathered at his collar.
That he, who had long excused Lady Catherine’s rudeness as the privilege of birth and habit, should now find himself supplying, even in thought, a sort of defence for Mrs. Bennet—Mrs. Bennet, of all women—was a reflection he would have been glad to avoid.
Yet he could not wholly banish the contrast. His aunt regarded young women as pieces upon a board, to be moved as convenience and consequence required.
Mrs. Bennet, for all her folly, fretted herself ill over the comfort and prospects of her daughters.
If one must be ashamed of a relation, he began to suspect there was more cause in the former than in the latter.
The letter lay open on the table. His gaze rested on the closing demand for his attendance at Rosings, then drifted, in spite of himself, to the dark window and the direction beyond it where Longbourn lay.
Somewhere under that roof, Elizabeth was likely still awake, bearing with her mother’s schemes and her sisters’ noise as patiently as she had borne it in company.
It was an unaccountable fancy, to imagine her released from such burdens, free to employ that steadiness of mind in a quieter house. He dismissed the thought at once. It did not, however, entirely leave him.