CHAPTER 24
Only a Few People
By the middle of January, the drawing room had ceased to look as if it were waiting for Mrs. Marwood to return and disapprove of company.
It was not finished. Elizabeth would not have seated a guest there yet, and Mrs. Albright would have considered tea among uncovered chairs a personal defeat.
But the old paper had come down, the walls had been properly prepared, and a warm rust-coloured pattern now held the winter light with a richness that made the room seem deeper, less severe, and altogether less resigned.
Mrs. Gardiner stood just inside the door, her muff still in her hands, and looked about with evident pleasure.
“It is very handsome already.”
“Already is the important word,” said Elizabeth. “If you praise it too much, the upholsterer will hear of it and delay another week from vanity.”
“Then I shall praise it in moderation.”
“Aunt, you have always been a friend to tradesmen.”
The fireplaces had been cleaned and fitted with new grates; the marble showed its veining again, and the floors, newly polished, reflected the windows in long pale strips.
Several chairs stood in holland covers. Two others were absent altogether.
The curtains had not yet come, and a small table had been moved into the middle of the room, where it looked as if it had been caught in wrongdoing.
“That table must go,” said Mrs. Gardiner.
“I am relieved. I thought I had become unreasonable.”
“No. It has the look of furniture that knows too much of another household.”
“That is exactly my objection, though I expressed it less handsomely.”
“Where will it go?”
“Mrs. Albright says the back parlour.”
“Mrs. Albright is merciful.”
“Economical,” said Elizabeth. “It is often mistaken for mercy by furniture.”
Mrs. Gardiner laughed, and the sound did the unfinished room good.
They did not remain there. No one remained long in unfinished rooms unless paid to do so. Elizabeth led her aunt back to the breakfast room, where the fire was established, the chairs had already learned their duties, and tea could be taken without consulting a workman.
The breakfast room had altered less dramatically than the drawing room, but more intimately.
Its pale paper, cleaned stone, renewed grate, and recovered chairs had the air not of a room prepared for visitors, but of one restored to daily use.
Mrs. Gardiner admired it with almost as much feeling, though she said less.
That was another of her more dangerous habits.
She sometimes understood a room without requiring Elizabeth to explain it.
Tea was brought in. Mrs. Gardiner removed her gloves; Elizabeth poured; and for several minutes they spoke of ordinary matters.
Mr. Gardiner’s cold had not prevented him from going to business, which proved it was not serious, though it had not prevented him from considering himself ill-used, which proved it was a cold.
The children had entered the new year with energy enough to make Gracechurch Street feel narrower than usual.
Jane’s letters from Netherfield were gentle, grateful, and so full of quiet happiness that even her attempts at moderation betrayed her.
Mrs. Gardiner had been in Portman Square nearly half an hour and had not once mentioned Derbyshire.
This was not accident. Mrs. Gardiner could be careless about ribbons when one of her children had hidden scissors, but she was never careless about subjects she had once judged delicate.
She had warned Elizabeth before that certain things were said of Mr. Darcy in Derbyshire.
Now she asked after paper, curtains, fireplaces, Jane, the children, and Mr. Gardiner’s cold, but not whether Mr. Darcy continued to assist in any of Elizabeth’s affairs.
Elizabeth noticed the omission, and, being quite capable of silence herself, did not repair it.
“We missed you at the wedding,” said Mrs. Gardiner.
Elizabeth looked down at the teapot. “Jane wrote that I was missed.”
“You were.”
“I am glad of it, though I do not know that I should have made the day easier.”
“You would have made Jane happier.”
That was hard to answer.
Elizabeth passed her aunt the sugar.
Mrs. Gardiner accepted it, but did not use it at once. “Your mother was in great spirits.”
“I am sure she was.”
“And very much disposed to feel herself injured.”
“That also I am sure of.”
Mrs. Gardiner’s eyes rested on her, kind and searching. “She wrote to us, before the wedding, that there had been disappointment. That you had disappointed what she called a very proper hope for the family.”
Elizabeth gave a short laugh.
“A very proper hope. Yes. That sounds like Mama.”
“We did not know it had become so unpleasant.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “Mama would not have described it so. In her account, I daresay Mr. Collins was generous, I was obstinate, and Longbourn was injured by my want of feeling.”
Mrs. Gardiner did not deny it quickly enough to be convincing.
“Something of that kind,” she admitted.
Elizabeth looked into her tea. “Then she omitted the arithmetic.”
Mrs. Gardiner was silent.
“Jane was secured,” Elizabeth said. “Mr. Collins was heir to the estate. I had money enough to sweeten the arrangement. If I married him, Longbourn’s future distress became less distressing to everyone else. My own future was not considered part of the account.”
“Your mother is very afraid, Lizzy.”
“I know.”
“Five daughters and an entail make fear very persuasive.”
“I know that too.”
“Then perhaps—”
“No,” said Elizabeth.
It was not loud. It did not need to be.
Mrs. Gardiner stopped.
The fire shifted in the grate. Somewhere below, a door closed, and a servant’s step passed along the hall.
Elizabeth drew one breath, then another.
“I know Mama was afraid. I know Longbourn is not secure. I know my sisters’ futures are not a jest merely because Papa makes them sound like one.
I know all this. But I will not be made the answer to a household that surrendered me when I was inconvenient and remembered me when I became useful. ”
Mrs. Gardiner said nothing.
Elizabeth looked up then, and her expression softened, though her voice did not.
“I have not abandoned them. The lessons may continue. Mary may write to me. Kitty may write. Lydia may write, though I reserve the right to be alarmed. Jane knows I love her. But I do not intend to go to Longbourn merely to prove that I can be hurt there with good humour.”
“No,” said Mrs. Gardiner quietly. “I see that we did not understand it.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened once around her cup. “I would rather not discuss it more.”
Mrs. Gardiner accepted the boundary, because she was Mrs. Gardiner and not Mrs. Bennet.
“Very well.”
That might have ended the matter, had Mrs. Gardiner been a less determined woman. Instead she looked around the breakfast room — warm, orderly, restored — and seemed to decide that if Elizabeth would not be carried back into family, she must be drawn outward into company.
“And how did you spend Christmas, my dear?”
Elizabeth looked at her aunt with suspicion. “That is not quite a change of subject.”
“No,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “But it may be a safer one.”
“Very respectably, then. Mrs. Doddridge and I went to church. The servants were cheerful. Pom-Pom wore his red stone at dinner, and Cook produced a pudding of such consequence that it ought to have been announced.”
Mrs. Gardiner’s cup paused halfway to her saucer.
“You were here?”
“Yes.”
“All day?”
“Where else should I have been?”
Mrs. Gardiner set down her cup.
Elizabeth perceived, too late, that pudding had not done its duty.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “you spent Christmas Day at home?”
“With Mrs. Doddridge.”
“And Pom-Pom.”
“Certainly with Pom-Pom.”
“And no one else?”
“The servants were here.”
Mrs. Gardiner’s expression did not improve.
Elizabeth sat a little straighter. “Aunt, pray do not look as if I had been discovered under a hedge. I was perfectly comfortable.”
“I do not doubt the comfort of this house.”
“That is generous. The chimneys have worked hard for your confidence.”
“Lizzy.”
It was said softly, which made it unfair. Elizabeth could have resisted alarm, fuss, or even reproach. She found it much harder to resist tenderness.
“I ought to have thought of it,” Mrs. Gardiner said.
“There was nothing to think of. You have your own family.”
“You are my family.”
“I know that.”
“Then let me be of some use to you.”
Elizabeth reached for her cup again and discovered she did not particularly want tea. “You are already useful when you come to Portman Square and question my furniture.”
This earned a small smile, but not surrender.
“I thought,” Mrs. Gardiner said slowly, “that you had some arrangement. With Mrs. Hall, perhaps, or Miss Hall. Or perhaps—” She stopped, and did not mention Longbourn again.
“No. I did not think. That is the truth of it. I remembered how capable you are, and forgot that because you can manage a house, you are not therefore a household.”
Elizabeth was very still.
“It was not miserable,” she said at last.
“I am glad.”
“I mean it. I was not sitting in ashes, composing elegies. I had church, and music, and letters to write, and Mrs. Doddridge was as present as propriety could require. Cook made an excellent pudding.”
“Pudding,” said Mrs. Gardiner, with feeling, “is not society.”
“It is more reliable.”
“Not in the same way.”
“No,” Elizabeth allowed. “It does not ask questions afterward.”
That produced another reluctant smile, but Mrs. Gardiner was not diverted.
“You have done very well here,” she said. “But doing well is not the same as being less alone.”
Elizabeth looked toward the window. January lay pale and thin beyond the glass, the trees in the square black against the afternoon. “Miss Hall said much the same thing, though with less family guilt.”
“Then Miss Hall is a sensible woman.”
“She is a terrifying woman.”
“Those qualities are often found together.”