CHAPTER 2
A Visitor, Not a Dependent
Elizabeth arrived at Longbourn in the middle of an autumn afternoon, with Mrs. Doddridge, Lord Pomington, two maidservants, a moderate quantity of luggage, and that degree of inward composure which usually precedes disappointment.
The journey had not improved her. Hertfordshire had received the carriage in a succession of damp lanes, thinning hedgerows, copper beeches, and fields from which the last warmth of the year seemed to have been drained by rain.
London soot had given way to the smell of wet earth, fallen leaves, and smoke from distant cottages; but air, Elizabeth found, was not made consoling merely by being rural.
Pom-Pom had objected to every change in the road, Mrs. Doddridge had endured his objections with the patience of an established martyr, and Elizabeth had spent the last mile arranging her face into the expression proper to a woman returning to her family by choice.
It was one of the advantages of travelling in one’s own carriage that one might approach a house in the quality of visitor rather than dependent. It was one of the disadvantages of approaching Longbourn at all that the distinction was not always perceived by those within it.
The carriage itself assisted the distinction.
It was not new — Mrs. Marwood would have considered newness, where no improvement of function was involved, a failure of judgment — but it was of excellent make, dark, well-sprung, well-kept, and preserved with the quiet arrogance of things that had been paid for properly once and never permitted to decline.
The horses were matched bays, chosen not for flash but for soundness, temper, and the disciplined agreement of pace Mrs. Marwood had once called the only tolerable vanity in a carriage pair.
Nothing about the equipage asked to be admired.
Everything about it assumed it would be understood.
Before the carriage had fully drawn up, Kitty was visible at an upper window, bouncing with intelligence and leaving, Elizabeth had no doubt, the mark of both hands on the glass.
Before the steps were properly put down, a servant had flung open the door without first discovering whether anyone stood ready to descend.
Before Elizabeth had set one foot upon the gravel, Mrs. Bennet’s voice sounded from within with that peculiar triumph of tone by which she announced joy, inconvenience, anxiety, and self-importance all at once.
“My dear Lizzy! Good heavens, there she is at last. Hill, no, not that box, the other. Jane, my love, do come. Kitty, if you lean upon the window so, you will mark it. Where is the dog? Has she brought that disagreeable little creature? I am sure she has. And two maids! Well, I always said your aunt would make you very grand.”
Mrs. Bennet came forward as she had always done, in motion before thought and feeling before arrangement.
She was in her early forties, though nerves, noise, five daughters, and a house governed chiefly by alarm had done their best to make the number ungenerous.
There remained, however, enough of the handsome woman she had been to make her present flutter more provoking than pitiable: fair hair still abundant, blue eyes still bright when not enlarged by anxiety, and a figure that would have looked well in repose if repose had ever been offered to it.
Elizabeth, who had meant to be moved by the first sight of the house, found herself instead correcting, in imagination, the angle at which her trunk was being dragged from the carriage.
“She has brought his lordship, ma’am,” said the footman with calm accuracy, for Pom-Pom was at that moment refusing all negotiation with the world and being carried beneath Elizabeth’s arm in a travelling wrapper of dark blue merino trimmed with black braid.
Mrs. Doddridge descended behind them with the air of a woman alighting not from a vehicle but from a principle long held.
The welcome was noisy, imperfect, and, in its way, sincere. Mrs. Bennet kissed Elizabeth, lamented the coldness of her cheek, admired the quality of her mourning, and wondered aloud whether London dressmakers had become very dear since she had last had occasion to be offended by them.
Nor had Elizabeth come empty-handed. Mrs. Marwood would have considered such neglect a confession of bad breeding, and Elizabeth, whatever her private feelings toward Longbourn, had not been trained into meanness.
Among the boxes were parcels not strictly necessary to her own comfort: muslin, cambric, sprigged cotton, and light wool enough to make at least two gowns for each of her sisters.
There were ribbons in colours chosen with care, lace for caps and collars, gloves, silk stockings, reticule clasps, worked handkerchiefs, and little packets from London shops that Kitty and Lydia would value first for their novelty and only later, perhaps, for their quality.
For Jane there was pale blue ribbon and muslin of a softness Elizabeth had not been able to resist; for Mary, sober fabric of a better quality than its colour deserved; for Kitty and Lydia, brighter stuffs calculated to produce immediate delight, rivalry, and misuse.
She had brought books for her father and lace for her mother as well, because civility required parents not to be forgotten. But the true abundance was for her sisters. Elizabeth had not returned to Longbourn with an open heart; still less with an empty carriage.
Kitty, who had enough of Jane’s features to promise prettiness and not enough of Jane’s stillness to fulfil it, embraced her with abrupt affection and whispered, before any higher feeling could intervene, “Are any of the boxes truly for us?”
“Several,” said Elizabeth. “Enough, I hope, to prove that London has not ruined me entirely.”
“Oh, Lizzy,” cried Kitty, already looking toward the luggage with shining eyes, “I never thought that.”
“I did,” called Lydia from the stairs. “But I am willing to be corrected if there is pink ribbon.”
Mary greeted Elizabeth with solemn propriety, her face arranged in that look of improving attention which suggested that, if left uninterrupted, she might soon make grief instructive.
Lydia then shouted that the dog had attempted her destruction the last time he visited and was likely to renew the campaign if encouraged.
Jane said only, “Lizzy,” and smiled.
It was so little, and so much more than the rest, that Elizabeth’s prepared hardness gave way for half a minute.
Jane’s beauty had deepened since Elizabeth had last seen her; not altered in kind, for Jane had always been fair-haired, gentle, and formed to look as if every candle in a room wished her well, but softened now by an inward happiness she did not yet know how to hide.
There was a bloom under the paleness of recent illness, and a light in her eyes which explained Mrs. Bennet’s letter better than any number of under-housemaids.
Elizabeth kissed her.
“You look better than I was led to fear.”
Jane coloured. “I am quite well now.”
“She is recovered enough to be admired,” said Lydia, coming down two stairs at a time in defiance of safety, modesty, and the dignity of almost fifteen.
She was already tall — taller than Kitty, nearly Jane’s height, and giving every promise of overtopping them all — with bright fair hair, dark eyes, and a look of such fearless appetite for amusement that one could almost hear future trouble fastening its gloves.
“Which is the principal thing,” Lydia added.
“Lydia,” Jane said gently.
Lydia laughed and dropped a curtsey to Pom-Pom. “And your lordship is not to bite me. I have outgrown being attacked by household curiosities.”
Pom-Pom, who had been set down upon the hall rug with every expectation of gratitude, produced a low growl toward the house in general and fixed Lydia with one beady eye of hereditary distrust.
“He does not consider you outgrown,” said Elizabeth.
“Then he has no taste.”
“Very little. But strong opinions.”
The hall had not changed, and yet Elizabeth noticed at once how much it lacked.
Nothing was broken; nothing was disgraceful; no one could have called Longbourn ill-kept without being unfair.
But after Portman Square, where Mrs. Albright’s keys could subdue a landing before breakfast, Longbourn seemed to move by accident and recovery.
A shawl lay where no shawl ought to lie.
A maid waited with a bandbox because no one had told her where to take it.
Hill, red in the face from divided duties, tried to command two footmen, one trunk, Mrs. Bennet’s nerves, and Lydia’s curiosity at once.
The whole house had the air of a family forever surprised by its own possessions.
And yet it was alive.
That was how it made its first claim.
Portman Square received one properly. Longbourn engulfed.
“My dear child,” Mrs. Bennet cried, drawing Elizabeth toward the parlour while still looking back to be certain the luggage followed, “you are come at the most fortunate moment in the world. We are all agitation, all delight, all expectation. Jane is but just returned, and Netherfield has been in a perfect flutter, and Mr. Bingley is the most amiable creature alive, and I declare if anything now goes wrong it will be the greatest cruelty ever committed against a mother.”
Elizabeth looked at Jane. “You are but just returned?”
“Only yesterday.”
“She had been there nearly a week,” Kitty said eagerly.
“Five nights,” corrected Mary.
“Because of the rain,” said Lydia. “And because Mama sent her on horseback when the sky was black as ink, which was very clever, though she pretends now it was not planned.”
Mrs. Bennet gave a cry of denial so conscious as almost to amount to confession.