Chapter 11 #6
Hill’s entrance, announcing Mrs. Long, sent her hurrying to the door in a bustle of welcome and exclamation.
Mrs. Bennet was in raptures over Mrs. Long’s new cloak, and in the midst of her exclamations remembered her manners.
“La, I am forgetting myself. Mrs. Long, you must allow me to present Miss Darcy, Mr. Darcy’s sister, who is so kind as to honour our poor house.
Miss Darcy, this is Mrs. Long, who has been our neighbour these twenty years. ”
Civilities having been exchanged, Mrs. Long’s eyes, which had already taken a rapid survey of the room, came to rest for a moment on Mr. Darcy, and narrowed almost imperceptibly before returning to his sister.
“Miss Darcy must find our confined and unvarying society a sad change from what she is used to.” Mrs. Long smiled in a way that made the words no compliment.
“We can offer her nothing but the same few faces and the same small parties, over and over again. I dare say she has seen company and fashions in London that make poor Meryton appear quite rustic. We cannot offer the polish of town, but we do produce a good deal of noise.”
Georgiana coloured and murmured that she was very well pleased to be where she was.
“So pale, to be sure. I am certain Mrs. Hill is at sixes and sevens managing two more ladies in the house. Miss Darcy, you must not let your brother keep you shut up here forever. Young ladies who are too much confined are apt to grow fanciful, and quite overset by the least little thing.”
There was a slight movement on the sofa where Georgiana sat. Darcy stiffened at her side. Quick colour rose in his face. Elizabeth knew, from the sudden stillness of his hand upon the arm of his chair, that he meant to speak.
Before he could do so, Mrs. Bennet, who had been in a flutter ever since Mrs. Long’s entrance, burst forth.
“La, Mrs. Long, you talk as if Miss Darcy must be quite miserable amongst us,” Mrs. Bennet cried.
“I am sure she is not so fine as to despise her neighbours. We may not have London to show her, but we know how to make a little company cheerful. I dare say she will not be more tired of our visits than your Penelope is, and Penelope is never at home. She is always running from card party to card party. One would think a quiet evening at Longbourn would be a rest to her.”
Mrs. Long coloured and gave a little offended laugh. “You are pleased to be severe, ma’am. My Penelope has only been a little lively.”
“Lively, to be sure,” Mrs. Bennet agreed complacently.
“No one can accuse her of being shy. I am sure she talks enough to cure any young lady of being fanciful. Do you not think so, Miss Darcy? One could never be overset in company where Miss Penelope is, for she does not give one a moment’s peace to think. ”
Georgiana, rallied by the absurdity of this picture and by the open good humour in Mrs. Bennet’s tone, managed a small smile. “I dare say I should find her very entertaining, ma’am,” she said.
Darcy’s hand relaxed upon the chair. Mrs. Long, thus diverted from her point, turned to expatiate on her niece’s prospects, and the conversation passed on.
Elizabeth, catching his eye for a moment, saw in it a mixture of gratitude and astonishment that Mrs. Bennet, of all people, had been the one to turn the shaft aside.
The next morning, Longbourn seemed overfull.
Between Georgiana and Mrs. Annesley’s extra linens, and the stream of callers from Netherfield who must be received, Mrs. Hill seemed to be in three places at once.
Elizabeth, crossing the hall to go for a walk, nearly collided with a girl staggering under a slopping pail.
The pump in the yard had been in use since before dawn and still the water must be carried in, bucket by bucket.
A footman in a familiar livery and a maid dressed in work clothes were just then admitted.
He placed a folded note on Mrs. Bennet’s salver.
Mrs. Hill, wiping her hands on her apron, delivered it to Mrs. Bennet who broke the seal, her lips moving as she read.
First her brows rose, then her mouth curved.
By the time she reached the end she gave a little flutter of the hand that sent the paper crackling.
“Well! Mr. Darcy will have his own way,” she cried. “Here is a man to stand at our pump, and his great Netherfield laundress to help with the washing, because his people are doing nothing at all. Hill, you must not keep them idle a moment longer. Send Betsy to show the man where to go.”
Hill’s lined face relaxed at that, and Elizabeth saw Betsy’s shoulders drop as she hurried off, her apron already splashed from the morning’s pails.
Mrs. Bennet laid the note beside her on the table, smoothing it with evident satisfaction, as if a sheet of Darcy’s hand could lighten the whole house’s work.
Mrs. Bennet, far from taking offence, was quite delighted with the notion of any one’s servants being idle on her account.
Elizabeth, reading the note aloud, could not but feel that he had seen more of their household bustle than she had supposed.
It was done so that no one need hang her head for being overworked.
The labour was acknowledged and eased, but not exposed.
Georgiana was well wrapped in cloak and shawl, her arm linked through Elizabeth’s, as they paced the gravel path behind Longbourn. The winter sun was pale but bright, and the frost on the fields gave a curious beauty to the hedgerows.
“I am glad my brother returns to-day,” Georgiana said. “He wrote that he was impatient to be back at Longbourn.” She hesitated. “He spoke of you, too.”
“Of me?” Elizabeth smiled. “In what terms, I wonder.”
“In… very particular terms,” Georgiana replied, colouring. “He said that, without you, he should scarcely have known how to act these last weeks. I believe he feels himself much obliged to you, Miss Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth laughed, though warmth rose in her own cheeks. “Obligation is Mr. Darcy’s favourite state. He would rather be in debt to the world than permit the world to be in debt to him. You must not imagine, from a few civil expressions, that he means anything more.”
Georgiana’s blush deepened. “I did not say that he—”
“No, that was my own wickedness,” Elizabeth said lightly. “Do not distress yourself. Your brother and I understand one another very well. I know how far his gratitude extends.”
Before Georgiana could answer, the sound of hoof-beats interrupted them. They turned to see Darcy riding into the stable-yard. Georgiana’s face lit. Elizabeth’s heart, to her own annoyance, quickened.
He joined them a few minutes later, having consigned his horse to the groom. He bowed to Elizabeth and kissed his sister’s cheek.
“You are well?” he asked Georgiana.
“Very well. We have been walking. I would have stayed indoors, but Miss Elizabeth insisted I was equal to the air.”
“I am persuaded Miss Elizabeth knows you do not always require to be guarded from the weather,” Darcy said, with a faint smile. “She only knows too well how much you are valued.”
“Lizzy never guards me from anything,” Georgiana said fondly. “She only teaches me how to endure it.”
“You make me sound cruel,” Elizabeth replied. “If you have forgiven me, Mr. Darcy, for sending your sister out in the cold, perhaps you will allow me to return her to the house before Mrs. Annesley discovers I have endangered her.”
Georgiana, with a look half shy, half mischievous, said, “I shall tell Mary that you are come, Fitzwilliam. She will be delighted to know you kept your word.” With that, she turned back towards the house, leaving them on the path.
Elizabeth watched her go, then looked back at Darcy. “Shall we walk a little further? The air is brisk, but the path is tolerably dry.”
He offered his arm. She took it. They walked in silence to the end of the shrubbery, where the view opened over the frozen fields.
“I have seen to every thing in Town,” Darcy said at last. “Wickham is buried. Mrs. Younge has been paid off and bound, as far as such a woman can be bound, to silence.”
“I am glad to hear it is concluded,” Elizabeth said. “For Georgiana’s sake, and for yours.”
He inclined his head. “You have borne a heavy share in this, Miss Elizabeth. I know very well that these last weeks have not been easy to you.”
“They have not been easy to any of us,” she said. “But I do not repent my share in them.”
“Nor do I,” he answered quickly. “If I were to live a hundred years, I could not forget what you have done for my sister.”
“Pray do not talk of it as though it were some extraordinary service,” Elizabeth replied. “I have only done what any friend would do, in such circumstances.”
He stopped, obliging her to stop also, and turned so that she must look at him.
“Any friend,” he repeated. “There are very few, I believe, who would have done as much. You opened your home to her, you watched over her, you guided her when I was unequal to it myself. My regard for you has grown with every proof of your goodness. You stood by her when the hardest truth had to be told. You have, in short, done more for my peace of mind than any being has ever done.”
Elizabeth, disconcerted by the intensity of his gaze, attempted levity. “You make me out a worker of wonders, Mr. Darcy. I assure you, my talents do not extend so far.”
“They extend far enough,” he said, with an earnestness that would not be laughed away.
“I have thought a great deal, whilst I was in London, of all I owe you. Gratitude, respect, a confidence I have rarely given any one—if gratitude and esteem are any foundation for… for deeper attachment, I have more cause than most men to—”
“To be grateful,” Elizabeth finished, rescuing him with a smile that was too bright. “And I am happy that you should be so. You must not speak as though you were more obliged than the case warrants. I cannot like to be thought of as a sort of creditor, holding a claim upon your future happiness.”
“A creditor!” He looked genuinely startled. “That was the last thing—”
“Indeed, what you say is excessively kind,” she went on, determined to keep the tone light, “but gratitude is an uncertain basis for any lasting connexion. It is all very well in sermons, but in life, people are seldom happy when they are conscious of being under a perpetual obligation.”
He coloured slightly. “You suppose that I spoke only of gratitude.”
“What else could you speak of?” Elizabeth said, half playfully, half in earnest. “Your esteem I am terribly proud to have gained. Your gratitude is most flattering, but if you were to let either of these persuade you into any attachment which your heart did not fully approve, I should never forgive myself.”
There was a pause.
“You imagine,” he said slowly, “that I could be drawn, from gratitude, into an engagement my heart did not approve.”
“What other inference can I make?” Elizabeth replied, still smiling, through a curious flutter at her breast. “You talk of debts and obligations and what you owe me. I cannot but suppose you are anxious to discharge them.”
His answer came out more quietly than before. “If you believe that mere obligation could ever induce me to—” He broke off, as if mastering himself. When he spoke again, the irony in his voice was gentle. “It seems I have expressed myself very ill. I had hoped to convey something rather different.”
The look that accompanied the words discomposed her more than the words themselves “Then you must forgive me. I am a sad misinterpreter,” Elizabeth said lightly. “In any case, I beg of you, do not allow any supposed debt to weigh upon you. I have done nothing that need be repaid.”
He looked at her a moment longer, his eyes still wounded though his mouth held the shadow of a smile. “You are determined that I shall owe you nothing, Miss Elizabeth.”
“I am determined that you shall feel yourself quite at liberty,” she answered, matching his tone. “Liberty, I am told, is of great value to gentlemen of fortune.”
“Liberty,” he repeated. “Yes. I am learning, however, that some ties, when they are rightly formed, do not feel like bonds at all.” He glanced away, as if dismissing the subject.
“We should return. Georgiana will be wondering what has become of us, and I am under strict instructions to be punctual.”
“Your punctuality is already the wonder of Hertfordshire,” Elizabeth said, falling into step beside him.
“Is it?” he asked, recovering a little dryness. “Then I take care not to disappoint the county.”
She laughed, but as they walked back towards the house, her thoughts were less easy than her tone. He had spoken of gratitude, of esteem, of attachment, and she had, quite deliberately, set all under the head of obligation.
It was not, she told herself firmly, a bad thing to do. A man in Mr. Darcy’s situation might well mistake a strong sense of thankfulness for warmer feelings. Better to check such a mistake early than to let it mislead them both.
Yet the look with which he had withdrawn from the subject returned to her mind more than once that evening, and she found herself unaccountably disturbed by the idea that she might, in sparing him, have wounded him instead.