Chapter Sixteen #3
Elizabeth knew all that Georgiana did not say—the humiliation and distress of confessing her ordeal to her brother—and the man who had carried so much of that responsibility and sorrow. “He suffered greatly for you,” she said.
“Yes,” Georgiana answered, in a low voice.
“I only hope I may, in time, make him as easy as he has tried to make me. He always wished to comfort me, as if he were the one to blame. If ever I could be half as good a sister to him as he has been a brother to me, I should be satisfied.” She hesitated, then added, with a timid glance at Elizabeth, “Since I have known you and Miss Mary I have felt—” She broke off, as if afraid of saying too much.
“I have felt less afraid of other people.”
It had long been impossible to think of him as the proud gentleman she had once condemned.
Pemberley and those who depended on him had corrected her first opinion more forcibly than any defence he might have offered.
She felt gratitude—and shame at the lightness with which she had once spoken his name.
“You are already a very good sister,” she said at last. “He cannot but be proud of you.”
Their conversation turned to lighter subjects.
Elizabeth, however, carried the impression of that walk with her long.
Jane’s hopes, Pemberley’s order, Georgiana’s affection—all combined to give a new direction to her own reflections.
She felt gratitude—and shame at the lightness with which she had once spoken his name.
She began to consider what it might be to be truly worthy of a gentleman’s esteem, and to receive a regard as steady as the character from which it sprang.
Enough
Darcy’s fortnight at Rosings might be summed up, in his own mind, as a race between duty and endurance.
He rose early, wrote later than was his habit, and despatched so many letters to stewards, solicitors, and London agents that even the Hunsford post-boy began to eye Pemberley’s frank with awe.
Every day brought him some new packet from Derbyshire and some fresh enquiry from town.
Every evening left a little more of the tedious business cleared away.
If he could not be at Pemberley, he was resolved at least to have Pemberley so ordered, when he returned, that no consideration should again oblige him to be long absent.
Colonel Fitzwilliam bore this application with composure. He had seen Darcy work himself half to death before now.
“You will have the whole estate folded up and put in your pocket before the week is out,” he remarked one morning, finding his cousin surrounded by maps and papers in the small sitting-room they shared. “I do not know that it will travel any the better for such squeezing.”
“It will travel the better for being settled,” Darcy replied, without looking up. “Once these matters are agreed and the timber contract concluded, there will be nothing to detain me after Easter.”
“Surely nothing to detain you in Kent, either,” Richard observed, dropping into a chair. “You mean to flee the moment my aunt releases you. I only hope she does not observe it.”
“She will observe nothing that does not flatter her,” Darcy said shortly. “If I leave the accounts unfinished, your father will be the one to hear of it. I am doing you a kindness.”
Richard laughed under his breath. He had, by now, learnt when to talk and when to let Darcy’s ill-humour expend itself upon the inoffensive head of paper.
Lady Catherine, unfortunately, had not.
She demanded their attendance upon her after breakfast that day, awaiting them in the drawing-room with an air which plainly declared that she conferred a favour of the first magnitude.
The room, with its heavy curtains drawn against a moderate sun and its chairs ranged at exact angles, had the same air of solemn discomfort it had worn since his earliest recollection.
“Nephew,” she began, without prelude, “this is quite insupportable. Here am I, with a hundred matters of consequence upon my mind, and you shut up like a clerk over your accounts. I did not send for you to see you buried alive in figures.”
“These are matters which cannot be postponed,” he said. “There are arrears to be cleared, leases to be adjusted, tradesmen to be satisfied. If they are not concluded this week, you will be in difficulties again before the spring is out.”
“All this drudgery over figures is quite unnecessary,” Lady Catherine declared.
“I send for you to set every thing right at Rosings, not to be for ever curtailing my expenses and talking of economies. Your business here is to make my income answer, not to plague yourself about farms as if you were a common man of business. Pemberley gives you more than enough. You need not be so very nice about what is laid out for Kent.”
“I am endeavouring to prevent Rosings from exceeding its income,” he replied. “Nothing more.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “When you are properly established with Anne, and Pemberley and Rosings are united as they ought to be, you will understand that this place was meant to be enjoyed, not pinched and pared. You know very well that I have always intended you to be of consequence in this county. Sir Lewis would have done it, had he lived. What signifies a few debts, when your connexions require your presence and your support?”
Richard, seeing the storm gather, interposed quietly.
“My dear aunt, you cannot expect my cousin to set up as a regular manager of your steward’s blunders. Even for Rosings there must be some limit.”
“You are talking of what you do not understand,” she returned.
“Your profession leads you to think every thing must give way to camps and regiments. You cannot comprehend what is due to family. My nephew does. He knows that, when I desire his attendance, he ought not to bury himself in leases and drains.”
A familiar pressure grew at Darcy’s temples. He had borne these last days lectures upon the misconduct of the parish, admonitions on the discipline of his servants at Pemberley, and hints, increasingly broad, as to the expectation of his marrying Anne. His patience was nearly spent.
“Aunt,” he said, with a restraint which cost him no small effort. “I am perfectly sensible of what I owe to my family. My father taught me that one who neglects what is in his charge has no right to meddle with the concerns of others.”
Lady Catherine drew herself up.
“Your father,” she said, “had the greatest respect for my judgement. He would not have contradicted me in so extraordinary a manner.”
“My father,” Darcy answered, more firmly, “would not have wished me to be idle where my duty was clear. I have duties which must be fulfilled. I cannot remain in Kent beyond the time I have already promised, and I cannot spend all that time in your drawing-room. If that displeases you, I am sorry for it, but it cannot be helped.”
Richard’s brows rose very slightly. Lady Catherine stared at Darcy as if he had taken leave of his senses.
“This is extraordinary!” she cried. “To be spoken to so, in my own house! You forget yourself, Mr. Darcy. I am not to be lectured on duty by a young man who has never yet done anything I did not first approve.”
“On the contrary,” he said, and now his voice was calm.
“I recollect perfectly to whom I am speaking. I respect your situation, but I must be allowed to govern my own conduct and my own concerns. I will dine at your table, attend you when you require it, and pay my respects to my cousin. Beyond that, I must be master of my own time.”
Richard’s mouth remained still but his eyes betrayed him. Lady Catherine was for a moment too much astonished to reply. That moment was fatal to her dignity, for Mr. Collins chose it to enter the room. He advanced, bowing and apologising alternately.
“Your ladyship will pardon—my dear Mr. Darcy—your honoured cousin. Colonel Fitzwilliam! I was not aware—Her ladyship’s carriage being, as I was given to understand, on the point of being ordered, I hastened to enquire whether your presence was to be graced—whether you meant to honour Rosings Park with your company on a drive, that is to say, or whether your engagements—your most important engagements, no doubt—required your remaining here, in which case I should, with the greatest respect—”
“Mr. Collins,” said Lady Catherine, turning upon him, “you are talking nonsense. I have not ordered my carriage.”
“Not ordered—? Dear me! I must have misunderstood. Perhaps it was only Miss de Bourgh’s chair which was mentioned. I entreat your ladyship’s pardon. I should not presume—”
“You should not presume anything I have not condescended to tell you,” she replied.
“You are perpetually taking liberties with my arrangements. I have repeatedly desired that you would not trouble yourself about my carriage. You have no more understanding of what becomes it than you have of what becomes the pulpit.”
Mr. Collins, struck dumb by this reproof, looked from one gentleman to the other, as if seeking shelter.
His eye fell, unhappily for him, upon his wife, who had followed him as far as the door.
Young Mrs. Collins was scarcely out of the schoolroom in appearance or understanding.
She stood admiring her gloves and giggling under her breath.
Her figure rounded in a way that could not be wholly concealed, ought to have sobered her.
“As for your wife,” her ladyship continued, her ire finding fresh fuel, “I must tell you, Mr. Collins, that I am entirely dissatisfied. A clergyman’s lady, in my parish, ought to think first of her duty and her usefulness.
She should not be falling into the way to increase her family before she has learnt how to manage a household.
I did not choose a rector merely that his house might be full of babies. ”
Mrs. Collins tittered and coloured without in the least comprehending the reproof. Mr. Collins swelled with mingled pride and alarm. “