CHAPTER 2 #2
“I sent her because there was no carriage to spare and because your sister chose to go, and because I am the most misunderstood woman in England. Jane took cold, as anybody might, and was nursed with every civility; and if Mr. Bingley liked her the better for being under his roof, I am sure I cannot answer for the consequences of illness.”
Elizabeth looked again at Jane, who smiled and tried not to look either happy or guilty, thereby managing both.
“And is she quite recovered?”
“Recovered enough to be looked at,” said Lydia.
“Lydia,” said Jane again, and this time could not quite keep from laughing.
Mrs. Bennet pressed Elizabeth into a chair near the fire, then immediately seemed to repent placing her where the light did not fall most advantageously on her gown.
“You must be fatigued. Hill, tea directly. No, not the small pot. Lizzy has come from London and is accustomed to everything handsome now, though I am sure she remembers we are her family. Kitty, do not touch that ribbon on the dog; if Lizzy has brought ribbons for Christians, you need not rob his lordship. Mrs. Doddridge, ma’am, I hope you find yourself well.
Hill, where is Mrs. Doddridge to sit? We are quite overrun, but in the happiest way. ”
Mrs. Doddridge accepted a chair with her usual air of having been placed by Providence where she had always expected to be.
Elizabeth removed her gloves slowly, because gloves, unlike feelings, can be managed finger by finger.
Longbourn’s parlour was warmer than Portman Square’s morning-room and less orderly by half.
The fire smoked a little when the wind turned.
The curtains were good but drawn unevenly.
Music lay open on the pianoforte with a workbasket upon it, though Mary, by the look she gave the basket, considered the arrangement a personal injury.
Kitty’s ribbons had colonised one sofa. Lydia’s bonnet occupied a chair as if it had paid rent.
Jane moved among these small confusions with the habit of one who mended what she could and endured what she could not.
Elizabeth felt, sharply and unwillingly, the old double sensation: irritation at the disorder, tenderness toward those trapped inside it, and a foolish wish that anyone might once have missed her enough to set something right before she came.
Mr. Bennet appeared only when tea had arrived, which was to say when the labour of welcome had already been left to the women and the rewards of observation were at their ripest. He was a gentleman in his early fifties, still lean, still well enough looking in the dry, careless way that had once made indolence pass for ease, and with eyes too intelligent ever to excuse his inaction entirely.
“Lizzy,” said he, with a smile that had lost none of its old power to please and too little of its old power to excuse him. “You come upon us in splendour. A carriage, servants, a companion, and a nobleman in flannel. I tremble for the consequence of my house.”
Elizabeth rose and kissed him.
“Then you may be easy, sir. His lordship’s consequence is too delicate to survive long exposure to family life.”
“I am told you have brought me books.”
“I have brought you three.”
“Then I forgive the dog, the carriage, and half the consequence.”
“Only half?”
“My dear Lizzy, I must keep something in reserve until I learn whether the books are good.”
“They are not improving enough to alarm you.”
“Then they are already better chosen than most gifts.”
Mr. Bennet looked toward Pom-Pom, who had taken possession of the hearthrug and was glaring at everyone from within his merino. “I see he has the true aristocratic constitution.”
“Papa,” cried Lydia, “only think of his meeting Miss Bingley. They shall compete for who is better dressed.”
“Then Miss Bingley must exert herself,” said Mr. Bennet. “His lordship has the confidence of one who has never paid his own milliner.”
Mrs. Bennet cried out that Mr. Bennet was impossible, Lydia laughed, Kitty asked whether Pom-Pom truly had a milliner, and Jane looked down into her cup to hide a smile.
Elizabeth had forgotten, or had taught herself not to remember, how easily his wit could make neglect seem harmless.
He saw everything. That had never been the defect.
He saw Mrs. Bennet’s fluttering use of Elizabeth’s London consequence; he saw Jane’s blushes; he saw Kitty’s eager eyes upon Elizabeth’s pelisse; he saw Lydia’s appetite for noise.
He would understand, very likely before dinner, half of what Elizabeth felt in returning.
And then he would do with that understanding what he had always done with uncomfortable truths: turn them until they glittered, and leave them where they lay.
By evening she was tired enough to see the absurdity of Longbourn without yet being entertained by it.
The house was full of Bingley, Netherfield, Jane’s cold, Miss Bingley’s gowns, the contents of Elizabeth’s boxes, and Mrs. Bennet’s certainty that Providence had at last remembered her daughters.
Elizabeth went early to her room, where Pom-Pom collapsed at the foot of the bed as if he had been asked to govern a nation, and Mrs. Doddridge, in the adjoining chamber, unpacked his garments with the calm concentration of a woman laying out vestments.
The room assigned to Elizabeth had once been more familiar than beloved.
The wallpaper had faded unevenly where a picture had been moved; the grate gave more promise than heat; the dressing-glass stood at an angle which allowed no woman to see herself without distrust. Her London maid, after one silent inspection, acquired the restrained expression of a servant discovering that civilisation is not universal.
Elizabeth nearly laughed, and then did not.
She slept badly. Longbourn made noises Portman Square would never have permitted: steps overhead, doors shutting too hard, Lydia laughing somewhere when she ought not, Mrs. Bennet’s voice rising and falling through walls as if maternal anxiety were a weather system.
Once, near dawn, Elizabeth woke from a dream of Mrs. Marwood’s morning-room and found herself instead beneath the low ceiling of her old family house, listening to rain strike the window.
The next morning brought no improvement in the weather, but a distinct improvement in the household’s excitement.
Jane looked more beautiful for having slept, Mrs. Bennet more important, Lydia more lawless, Kitty more ready to be led into lawlessness, and Mary more prepared to disapprove of dancing before it had even been proposed.
Elizabeth had been at Longbourn scarcely twenty hours when a servant entered the breakfast-room to announce that Mr. Bingley and Miss Bingley had called to inquire after Miss Bennet’s health.
The effect was immediate. Mrs. Bennet half rose, half sat, and then rose completely.
Lydia clapped. Kitty exclaimed. Jane coloured.
Mary composed her face into an expression intended for seriousness and obtained only suspense.
Pom-Pom, who had been seated in Elizabeth’s lap in a fresh morning wrapper of pale green flannel, began to growl.
“They come upon the very thing,” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Jane, my love, sit where the light is best. Kitty, if you fidget so I shall send you upstairs. Lydia, do not laugh before they are in the room. Lizzy, pray do not look too much as if you have come from London merely to despise us all.”
“I shall try to despise only where necessary.”
“That is exactly the sort of thing I mean. Hill! Show them in.”
Mr. Bingley entered first, with all that ease of countenance and manner which made him seem less like a man arriving at a house than good humour assuming bodily form.
He was fair-skinned, open-faced, and red-haired in that warm, cheerful shade which made his whole person seem designed for candlelight, hunting mornings, and being pleased wherever he went.
His face, upon seeing Jane, altered so immediately for the brighter that Elizabeth forgave him a great deal before he had said a word.
He had, she thought, exactly the look of a man who had spent the morning devising decent reasons for calling and found all of them insufficient to conceal delight.
Miss Bingley followed with that polished composure which belongs to women long practised in seeming pleased with what they cannot wholly approve.
She shared her brother’s red hair, but in her it had been arranged, disciplined, and made to signify consequence.
Everything about her was expensive, finished, and a little too conscious of its own success: the gown chosen to survive country daylight, the gloves immaculate, the smile correct, the eyes already calculating what must be admired, what endured, and what quietly corrected.
Introductions followed. Mr. Bingley bowed with warmth.
“Miss Elizabeth,” said he, “I am very happy indeed to have the pleasure of knowing you at last. Your sister has spoken of you often enough to make the delay quite unreasonable.”
Elizabeth returned what civility was due and thought him, at once, exactly the sort of man one must either like or distrust with deliberate effort.
Miss Bingley smiled with correct sweetness.
“We have heard of you, Miss Elizabeth. It is very pleasant to see you at last. I had not understood you were so lately come from town.”
“Only yesterday.”
“From London?” Miss Bingley asked, with the lightness of one who asks nothing at all.
“Yes.”
“How pleasant. I own I always think a London winter gives one habits very difficult to satisfy elsewhere. Are you much in town?”
“I live there.”
That altered Miss Bingley’s attention by the smallest degree.
“Indeed? In what part?”
Elizabeth smiled. There are questions which arrive dressed as civility and wearing calculation underneath; Mrs. Marwood had taught her never to mistake the gown for the body.
“Portman Square.”