CHAPTER 5 #3
Once, during a set in which Elizabeth danced with no one at all, he stationed himself within conversation distance and smiled as though her sitting down had been arranged for his encouragement.
She moved away before he could speak; he bowed after her retreat with all the gravity of a man who believed patience a courtship.
A little later, Elizabeth had retreated to the edge of the room after a country dance, intending only to breathe, when she saw him begin to cross toward her again. There was something unmistakable in his solemnity. Mr. Collins never moved by accident where intention might make him ridiculous.
Elizabeth looked for an escape and found only a fern, two matrons, and a young gentleman already claimed by his mother.
Across the room, Jane saw it too.
Jane said something low to Mr. Bingley. Elizabeth could not hear the words, but she saw their effect: concern first, then resolution, then that bright good humour by which he made even interference look like hospitality.
“Miss Elizabeth,” said Mr. Bingley, arriving just before Mr. Collins could secure the ground, “you must save me from disgrace. I have been boasting that you promised me a dance, and if you deny me now, your sister will think me very ill-used.”
Elizabeth looked from him to Jane, whose eyes were full of anxious apology and something warmer still — not fear, not mere gratitude, but trust in the man she had asked to help.
“Then I must preserve your character,” said Elizabeth, giving Mr. Bingley her hand.
Mr. Collins bowed, checked, and was obliged by the laws of civility to remain where he was.
Miss Bingley saw enough of the manoeuvre to dislike not only its success but its origin. That Miss Bennet should be beautiful was inconvenient; that she should begin to command Mr. Bingley’s assistance was far worse.
It was the first time Elizabeth had seen Mr. Bingley’s good nature sharpen itself into action, and she valued him the more for it.
The dance did not make Mr. Bingley clever, but it made him very amiable company, which was better suited to the occasion. He spoke of the room, the music, the pleasure of seeing everyone gathered, and then, with the artlessness of sincerity, of Jane.
“I hope your sister is not fatigued,” he said.
“I believe she is happier than fatigued.”
His face changed so immediately that Elizabeth had to look away.
“She is very good,” he said, as if the words were insufficient and yet the only ones he could trust himself with.
“She is.”
“I know I have no right to say so to you yet.”
“Yet?”
He coloured. “I beg your pardon. I only mean—”
“I know what you mean, Mr. Bingley.”
He looked so relieved that Elizabeth nearly laughed.
When the dance ended, he returned her to Jane with no appearance of strategy and every appearance of having accomplished exactly what he had been asked to do.
Jane thanked Elizabeth with a look and Mr. Bingley with another, and Elizabeth understood, all at once, how far beyond liking her sister had already gone.
Jane trusted his kindness, yes — but she also wished to see it employed, wished to be proud of him, wished him to be exactly as good as she believed him.
That was love, even if Jane had not yet said the word.
At supper, the thing was nearly done.
Mr. Bingley, having achieved that particular kind of happiness which prevents all patience, disappeared for a quarter of an hour in the direction of Mr. Bennet. Mrs. Bennet did not notice at first. Elizabeth did. So, a moment later, did Jane.
Their eyes met across the room; Jane looked down at once, the colour rising in her face before certainty had even reached her.
Elizabeth, who had spent part of her life doubting nearly everyone and nearly everything with reasonable skill, was not above wishing, at that moment, to be proved right by joy.
Mr. Bingley returned.
He came back with a look so wholly unlike concealment that concealment ceased to be conceivable.
Mr. Bennet followed more slowly, with that dry composure by which he often veiled feeling when he chose not to part with it publicly.
Mrs. Bennet, seeing her husband’s face and then Mr. Bingley’s, gave one small gasp and sat down again as if her knees had entered into a private treason with triumph.
Mr. Bingley went straight to Jane.
Whatever he said was spoken too low for general hearing; but the answer, though equally low, seemed to settle the matter.
Jane’s eyes filled, not with distress but with that fuller feeling which even she could not wholly school into mildness.
There was no dutiful submission in her face, no gentle yielding to a happiness arranged by others.
There was wonder, yes, and modesty, and tears; but beneath them all was warmth so unmistakable that Elizabeth felt her own throat tighten.
Jane loved him.
Quietly, sweetly, with all her careful heart — but truly.
By the time the company rose from supper, Hertfordshire knew.
Mrs. Bennet wept. Lydia embraced Kitty, who squealed.
Mary said, with justice, that the event, however expected, must be regarded as important.
Mrs. Philips, who had not been present to see the first of it but arrived at the knowledge by the ordinary magic of assemblies, congratulated everyone with indiscriminate fervour.
Miss Bingley was all grace and sisterly felicitation, and so perfectly composed that Elizabeth almost admired her for making disappointment look like breeding.
Mrs. Hurst kissed Jane’s cheek with cool correctness and retreated before warmth could become contagious.
Mr. Bingley concluded the night in a happiness so complete that it had almost the appearance of innocence.
He had danced, proposed, been accepted, and obtained every consent required by honour, affection, and domestic impatience.
That the rest of the Netherfield party did not share his satisfaction in equal measure was a circumstance he was either too happy or too generous to perceive.
Miss Bingley’s felicity was expressed with all the elegance of suffering well concealed. Mrs. Hurst was kind in the manner of a woman determined not to be detained by kindness. Mr. Hurst, whose spirits had been supported by supper, bore the engagement with admirable fortitude.
Jane, in the midst of it, looked only what she was: overwhelmed, grateful, and too gentle to carry triumph well.
Elizabeth kissed her cheek when she could get near enough.
“My dearest Jane.”
Jane pressed her hand. “I can hardly believe it.”
“That is because you have spent your whole life deserving things too well to expect them.”
Jane’s smile trembled.
If the evening had ended there, it would have been one of those family nights later remembered with more light than any number of ordinary seasons. But Longbourn and its connections did not possess the gift of keeping happiness pure when absurdity could still be added to it.
Mr. Collins approached Elizabeth while congratulations still swelled round Jane like music after the dancing had ceased.
“I must allow myself,” said he, drawing near with an air at once solemn and confidential, “to feel particular satisfaction in an event so highly advantageous to the family; and I trust, Miss Elizabeth, that the felicity of one sister may prepare the way for a second arrangement no less advantageous.”
Elizabeth looked at him with complete stillness.
“Indeed?”
“Yes. A most happy beginning. A family doubly united — the estate soothed in one quarter, affection secured in another — there would be something singularly complete in such an arrangement.”
She could scarcely have believed him capable of saying it so soon, had he not already been Mr. Collins for several days.
“No, sir,” said she, “there would not.”
But Mr. Collins, warm with his own delicacy, smiled as though she had only shown the modest reluctance he had by now learned to value in her above encouragement itself.
The ball ended. The carriages were called.
Jane returned home engaged. Mrs. Bennet spoke the whole way back as if she feared the happiness might vanish if not continually named aloud.
Kitty and Lydia repeated every look, every bow, every possible inference.
Mary maintained that the evening, though lively, had perhaps run in parts too much to noise.
Mr. Bennet said little. Jane sat in that species of quiet wonder which even joy can make more solemn than grief.
Elizabeth sat beside her in her own carriage, with Mary opposite and the lamps casting soft, uneven light over Jane’s face. She took Jane’s hand once, unseen by the others, and held it until Jane turned her fingers in answer.
“You are happy?” Elizabeth asked quietly.
Jane’s eyes shone.
“Yes.”
There was nothing safe or dutiful in it now. Only happiness, trembling and real.
The other carriage reached Longbourn first, and by the time Elizabeth’s followed, Mrs. Bennet had passed from triumph into arrangement.
Breakfasts, settlements, dinners, wedding-clothes, Netherfield, Meryton, lace, congratulatory calls, and the proper order of female destinies crowded upon her so thickly that one might have thought Providence itself scarcely equal to the management of it without her help.
Mr. Collins descended with the family party looking entirely pleased with the world.
Elizabeth, going upstairs later while Mrs. Doddridge received the evening things and Pom-Pom, restored to her arms, sniffed at the candlelight with distrust, thought only that one true happiness had declared itself that night, and one false scheme had become bolder.
She had no fear for Jane.
For herself, she had every expectation of annoyance before breakfast.