CHAPTER 30 #3
Elizabeth knew he noticed it because he did not praise it too soon.
His eye took in the portions, the order, the variety, the manner in which Mrs. Hall was not oppressed, Mr. Hartwood was not deprived, and Mr. Beaker was not made to converse with anything jellied.
Then, when the subject turned to improvements and the difficulty of making a house behave, he entered the conversation with exactly enough attention to show that he had been listening.
“Improvements,” said Miss Bingley, “are never content to alter rooms. They draw half the professions after them.”
“Only half?” said Elizabeth. “I must have been badly served. Mine drew all of them.”
Mr. Hartwood said, “And very right too. Any improvement attempted without legal advice, accounts, measurements, and at least three contradictory opinions is mere vandalism.”
“Then I have escaped vandalism at great expense,” said Elizabeth.
Miss Bingley turned to Mr. Darcy with polished convenience rather than flirtation. “You have been much employed in Miss Bennet’s improvements, I understand, Mr. Darcy.”
“In some of the papers attending them.”
“How fortunate for Miss Bennet.”
“It was certainly fortunate for the papers,” said Elizabeth.
Mr. Darcy’s mouth moved slightly. “They had been in need of discipline.”
“And do men of business,” said Miss Hall, who had hitherto let others spend their wit first, “usually stand on the side of preservation or innovation?”
Elizabeth saw at once that the question interested her less for rooms than for the person answering it.
Mr. Darcy did not answer quickly. That was one thing Elizabeth had come to value in him. He did not throw words before him merely to prove he had them.
“On the side of what serves the purpose best, I hope,” he said. “That is the nature of business, properly understood. One must first discover what is needed. The rest is only method.”
Miss Hall regarded him. “Then you do not begin with a preference?”
“Not if I mean to be useful.”
Elizabeth looked down at her plate.
There was nothing in the answer which ought to have touched her.
It was practical. It was moderate. It belonged perfectly to the subject.
Yet she heard beneath it all the Thursdays, all the papers, all the small and large ways in which he had entered her life under the safe title of usefulness and then quietly altered the meaning of the word.
Mr. Gardiner, who had been listening, said, “And do you find, Mr. Darcy, that young owners are more often cheated by tradesmen or by their own impatience?”
It was lightly said. It was also not nothing.
Mr. Darcy turned to him with no sign of offence.
“By haste, I think. A tradesman may overcharge once; haste teaches him whether he may do it twice.”
Mr. Gardiner’s expression changed by almost nothing.
“Very true,” he said.
“And tenants?” asked Mr. Hartwood. “Where do you place them in this scale of human injury?”
“Much higher than tradesmen when they are wronged,” said Elizabeth, “and much lower when they are lying.”
Mrs. Belwick laughed. “My dear, that is severe.”
“It is experience. Severity is when I refuse to hear the difference.”
Mr. Darcy said quietly, “The story usually tells you, if you let it be questioned.”
Mr. Gardiner looked at him again.
“How so?”
“Dishonest people grow more particular when pressed. Unlucky ones only grow more tired.”
There was a small pause; not an awkward one, but the kind in which a general remark has accidentally become exact.
Elizabeth felt Mrs. Gardiner’s attention move from Mr. Darcy to herself and back again. She did not defend him. She did not need to. The answer had been given; it could stand or fall without her assistance.
Mr. Gardiner nodded.
“That is tolerably observed.”
Mr. Darcy inclined his head, neither pressing the advantage nor disclaiming it.
Conversation moved on, because well-bred people do not leave a useful silence lying too long in public.
Mr. Bingley, who had no idea that anything of consequence had occurred and therefore did the entire party a service, began describing his own recent defeat at the hands of a curtain rod, two upholsterers, and his sister’s superior taste.
“I was not defeated,” said Miss Bingley.
“No, but you presided over my defeat with great elegance.”
“I prevented calamity.”
“You see?” said Mr. Bingley to the table. “That is what I mean. I thought myself choosing curtains. Caroline knew I was endangering civilization.”
“Curtains are often the beginning,” said Mrs. Hall.
“Of civilization?” asked Mr. Hartwood.
“Of its decline.”
By the time the cloth was drawn, Elizabeth had begun to believe the evening might truly be brought off.
Lord Pomington, served in due order with small portions of chicken and broth, had behaved with better dignity than at least one Christian gentleman of Elizabeth’s acquaintance and considerably better than most children.
Mr. Bingley had admired him without attempting to touch him.
Miss Bingley had accepted his presence as one of Miss Bennet’s arrangements, not to be understood, perhaps, but also not to be defeated.
Mrs. Gardiner had looked at him once, then at Elizabeth, and said nothing at all.
If her relations were to be received at Portman Square, they might as well be received there as it was.
After dinner, the drawing room seemed softer for having survived the dining room.
The candles there had settled into that deeper glow by which even excellent rooms begin almost to consent to pleasure.
Conversation loosened. The older ladies took their preferred seats.
Mr. Hartwood misplaced his gloves and found them immediately beneath his own hand.
Mr. Beaker sat down with the air of a man who had fulfilled his duty to dinner and would now observe dessert at a moral distance.
Music was proposed by Mrs. Belwick, inevitably; and because Jane was known to play, Miss Bingley had the air of a woman who would not forgive being overlooked in any proper accomplishment, and Elizabeth was hostess in a house which possessed an instrument, the matter arranged itself.
Jane was asked first.
She played with sweetness rather than brilliance, and with that want of display which made every simple thing she did seem kinder than it had any obligation to be.
Mr. Bingley turned pages for her with an air of such earnest devotion that Elizabeth wondered whether he would have regarded the turning of pages as one of marriage’s sacred offices if Jane had told him so.
When Jane finished, Mr. Bingley applauded with the restraint of a man who remembered himself in a drawing room only just in time.
Miss Bingley was next.
Elizabeth asked her with the proper warmth due to a guest whose accomplishment was already visible in her posture.
Miss Bingley accepted with proper reluctance and immediate readiness.
She played very well. Elizabeth had known she would.
Miss Bingley’s accomplishment was not one of those flimsy social ornaments which survive only in conversation.
Her touch was polished, her taste correct, her execution clean, and if she knew all this, she at least gave the room reason to know it too.
Elizabeth admired her sincerely, which was inconvenient, as sincere admiration leaves dislike with fewer conveniences.
Mr. Darcy happened to stand nearest the instrument when she arranged her music.
“Mr. Darcy,” said Miss Bingley, with the easy command of a woman accustomed to making gentlemen useful where usefulness did not threaten them, “you are nearest. Would you be so good?”
He bowed and turned for her.
There was nothing in it. He stood at the proper distance, anticipated the pages with quiet attention, and gave Miss Bingley precisely the assistance she had requested — no more, no less.
Elizabeth observed this with perfect composure and admired Miss Bingley’s playing with only moderate moral effort.
Then Mrs. Belwick said, “Now Miss Bennet must favour us.”
Elizabeth had known this would come. Hostesses who ask other women to play have no honourable means of escape. She rose with all the ease she could summon and took her place at the instrument.
Mr. Darcy was still beside it.
For one suspended moment, the arrangement announced itself to them both.
He could retreat, of course. She could ask Mr. Bingley, but Mr. Bingley had returned to Jane’s side with the immediate loyalty of a compass needle finding north.
Mr. Hartwood would have obliged her if requested, but at great risk to the music and possibly to the instrument.
Mr. Beaker looked like a man who considered page-turning a young man’s burden and had escaped it by seniority.
Mr. Darcy remained.
“May I?” he asked, quietly.
It was the same office he had just performed for Miss Bingley.
It was not the same thing at all.
“Thank you,” said Elizabeth, and opened the music before her.
One may play before a room. One may even play before one’s relations. But to play while the very person one most wishes not to feel stands close enough to anticipate each page without error is a different trial altogether.
She began carefully.
That was a mistake. Care called attention to itself.
After the first page she forgot to be careful and remembered only the music, which was worse.
Miss Bingley had played with more finish.
Elizabeth knew it, and did not resent it.
Finish, however, was not the same thing as feeling; and feeling, once admitted, had an unfortunate habit of behaving as if it had been invited.
Mr. Darcy turned the page exactly when needed.
His hand appeared, withdrew, and did not touch hers. He did not lean too near. He did not breathe a word of praise. He did nothing that could be called attention by anyone disposed to be just.
Elizabeth was not disposed to be just.