CHAPTER 18
Official Correspondence
In the week after Mr. Terling’s dinner, everything proceeded.
This was vexing, because Mr. Darcy did not.
Portman Square had rarely known such movement.
Men came to the breakfast room with steps, paste, cloths, brushes, tools, and opinions; Mrs. Albright became so accustomed to being asked whether a man might enter with a ladder that she began to answer before the question was finished; and Pom-Pom, whose sense of domestic order had been grossly insulted by the removal of several objects formerly under his jurisdiction, stationed himself in the passage and barked at every person carrying anything larger than a tea tray.
The breakfast room had reached that curious stage of improvement in which everything had been decided and almost nothing had returned.
The old paper was gone; the new, a pale peach so near cream that even Mrs. Albright had ceased fearing vulgarity, held the morning light with unexpected gentleness.
The fireplace stone had been cleaned, the grate restored to proper blackness, and the floor, newly sanded and lacquered, reflected the windows in long, soft panes.
The old mahogany sideboard, which had escaped alteration by possessing both merit and weight, looked darker and more handsome against the new walls than Elizabeth had ever known it to look before.
But the carpet had not yet been laid, and the chairs remained absent at Mr. Larkin’s, where they were being recovered in sage-green stuff chosen after three mornings of comparison, two arguments with samples, and one violent objection from Pom-Pom to a stripe which Mrs. Albright had privately considered unsuitable even before his lordship expressed himself.
The room was no longer melancholy. It was merely under-furnished, which Elizabeth found a much less oppressive fault.
“It asks for its chairs,” she said, standing in the doorway on Monday morning while the smell of polish still hung in the air.
Mrs. Albright, who had come to inspect the floor and see whether any man had dared leave dust where dust had no business being, folded her hands.
“It will look very well when they return, miss.”
“Yes. That is the difficulty with almost everything lately. It promises to look very well when something returns.”
Mrs. Albright, being a housekeeper of sense, made no answer to what did not require one.
On the table in the morning-room, where Elizabeth was obliged to breakfast until the other room recovered from reform, lay three letters. One was from the silversmith in Bond Street. One was from Mr. Beaker. The third was in Mr. Darcy’s hand.
His handwriting had become almost domestic. This was not the same thing as himself, and Elizabeth was cross enough to know the distinction very well.
She opened Mr. Darcy’s letter first, because she was not in the least eager to do so.
Miss Bennet,
I enclose Mr. Terling’s first report respecting Cotton Lane, together with the revised form of agreement for such tenants as are not under fixed lease.
Mr. Beaker has, I believe, received the repair estimates separately.
I would advise that no new agreement be signed until the schedule of necessary repairs has been entered clearly against each house.
Mr. Terling appears to have understood the limits of his authority and the necessity of reporting facts without ornament. I see no present reason to regret the trial.
Your obedient servant, Fitzwilliam Darcy
It was an excellent letter. Elizabeth wished it were worse.
Mrs. Doddridge, seated near the window with a small heap of pale ribbon and a piece of flannel intended, apparently, for Pom-Pom’s winter dignity, looked up only when Elizabeth folded the letter with more precision than necessary.
“There is news, miss?”
“There is business.”
“Yes, miss.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No, miss.”
Mr. Beaker’s note contained figures, which were generally less offensive than feelings.
The first charges for Mrs. Bell’s damp were reasonable; a drain estimate required checking; and one roofer had submitted, in Mr. Beaker’s dry phrase, “a charge which appears to include either unusual materials or unusual imagination.”
Cotton Lane, having resisted order for several years, had begun to experience it in written form.
Mr. Terling did not make it orderly. No one expected miracles in the first fortnight.
But he made its disorder arrive folded, dated, and legible, which was nearly as useful.
He inspected when instructed, wrote down what he had seen rather than what he supposed, distinguished repairs from complaints, and did not promise money merely because a tenant had spoken with feeling.
Mr. Beaker approved his receipts. Mr. Darcy approved the order of his reports and the absence of invention. Elizabeth approved him because Mr. Harding’s yard, Mrs. Bell’s damp, Mr. Greeves’s arrears, and every questionable hinge and gutter now arrived as a bundle rather than a swarm.
Mr. Hartwood’s business was narrower and more solemn.
He had the titles to Seventeen and Eighteen under examination, and his letters, though cautious as only a lawyer’s could be cautious, contained no immediate alarm.
The owners, finding ready money more persuasive than delay, had become almost reasonable.
Mr. Hartwood did not yet rejoice; Mr. Hartwood would not have rejoiced if an abstract of title had arrived borne by angels. But he conceded that matters proceeded.
The new agreements were Mr. Darcy’s province now. Mr. Hartwood had handed that business over with the air of a man relieved to see another gentleman willingly enter a thicket, and Mr. Darcy, being Mr. Darcy, had begun cutting paths through it with ink, clauses, and offensive competence.
Elizabeth signed what required signature, made a note for Mr. Beaker, and set aside the repair estimate requiring suspicion.
Then she opened the letter from Bond Street.
The tea service was finished.
For the first time that morning, she smiled without resentment.
She had ordered it complete, because half a present seemed to her a poor blessing for the beginning of a household.
There were eight cups and saucers of fine white porcelain, with small plates to match, all painted with a delicate border of pale bluebells; and the silver had been chosen with them rather than added afterward — a teapot of excellent weight, a cream jug, sugar basin, tongs, teaspoons, and tray, each engraved with the same slender flower.
The tray bore Jane’s new initials within a wreath of bluebells so lightly cut that even Mrs. Bennet could not call it plain without exposing herself.
It was generous, beautiful, and useful; which Elizabeth considered the only defensible form of extravagance.
“Jane’s service is ready,” she said.
Mrs. Doddridge looked up again. “Very good, miss.”
“It is very good. I am almost immoderately pleased with myself.”
“Yes, miss.”
“You might tell me I have done handsomely.”
“You have done handsomely, miss.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You are a comfort, Mrs. Doddridge, when properly instructed.”
“Yes, miss.”
By noon the whole had been examined, wrapped, packed in baize, straw, and paper, sealed twice, and placed in Elizabeth’s own carriage under James’s care.
A present meant for Jane’s future table was not to be abandoned to common carriers, weather, or Mrs. Bennet’s first assault of admiration.
James was instructed to deliver it directly into Jane’s hands if possible; if not possible, to secure a written acknowledgment before the boxes were surrendered to anyone else’s enthusiasm.
With it went Elizabeth’s note.
My dearest Jane,
The tea service is finished at last, and I send it now so that it may be with you before the wedding.
Pray do not let Mama persuade you that it is too pretty for ordinary mornings.
Pretty things are wasted if they are only admired.
I chose the bluebells because they seemed to belong to you, and I hope they may sit upon a very happy table.
Yours affectionately, E.
She sealed it before she could add anything else. Elizabeth had a horror of letters that tried to feel more than they could carry. Jane would understand. Jane nearly always understood what was kindly meant, even when others had made nonsense of it.
The carriage went off after luncheon. Pom-Pom watched from the window and barked with deep suspicion, either because he objected to valuable goods leaving the house without his permission or because James had not asked his advice on packing.
“You cannot have a view on porcelain,” Elizabeth told him.
Pom-Pom sneezed.
“I beg your pardon. You may have a view on anything. That has always been your position.”
James returned the following afternoon with the carriage, the written receipt Elizabeth had required, and a note from Jane which made the receipt look particularly cold by comparison.
Jane’s gratitude was warm, tender, and almost apologetic in its delight.
She promised to write soon with a full account of the wedding preparations, declared the bluebells more beautiful than anything she had expected, and added that Mr. Bingley admired them exceedingly and hoped they might be used on the first morning in their own house.
Elizabeth read that last sentence twice, folded the letter carefully, and was pleased enough not to pretend otherwise.
Other notes followed during the week. None were long.
None were warm. One concerned the order in which notices ought to be served; another corrected a tradesman’s phrase which might, if left unchallenged, have made a repair sound like an improvement; a third recommended that Mr. Terling be allowed to authorize small urgent work without waiting upon Portman Square every time a hinge, tile, or length of gutter discovered its mortality.
All were sensible. All were useful. All required Elizabeth to be grateful in exactly the manner she least enjoyed.