CHAPTER 33 #3
“With Mr. Bingley,” said Elizabeth, “I imagine convenience must usually prevail.”
“Usually,” said Mrs. Pratt. “But his happiness is very loud through walls.”
Mr. Bingley laughed. “I shall endeavour to be quieter.”
“Do not,” said Jane softly, surprising them all a little. “I like you as you are.”
Mr. Bingley looked as if the rest of the opera had become unnecessary.
Miss Bingley closed her fan. “Jane, you must not encourage him in public. He is already impossible in private.”
Mrs. Pratt glanced from Jane to Bingley, took in the affection there, and did not soften sentimentally over it. Elizabeth liked her even more for that. Mrs. Pratt did not seem to resent happiness, but neither did she think it exempted anyone from sense.
When the Pratts withdrew, Mr. Pratt was still speaking of whether a song should begin with piano or voice, and Mrs. Pratt was telling him that if he began with either in the hall she would disown the work before its birth.
Elizabeth watched them go.
Jane leaned nearer. “I think you like Mrs. Pratt.”
“I do. She has opinions without designs. It is a rare economy.”
Jane smiled. “And Mr. Pratt?”
“Pleasant enough.”
“Only pleasant?”
“He is very musical.”
Jane looked amused. “You say that as if it were a warning.”
“It may become one in sufficient quantity.”
The second act began, and Elizabeth turned her attention to the stage.
The opera remained witty, elegant, and rather impertinent; and had Elizabeth judged only by the music, she might have been persuaded into admiration without reserve.
The voices were beautiful, the movement graceful, and the ensembles so delicately ordered that even confusion seemed to know its place.
The conclusion, however, did not satisfy her.
Deception was no stranger to comedy, nor was folly.
But there was something disagreeable in seeing injury so easily received back into affection, as if a beloved deceiver, by being beloved, acquired a right to be forgiven; as if the pain he had caused were not pain, but instruction.
The music made reconciliation sound natural. The story appeared to call it just.
Elizabeth could admire the first and refuse the second.
Jane enjoyed what was beautiful without needing to defend what was not.
Mr. Bingley enjoyed Jane’s enjoyment with such devotion that Elizabeth suspected him of preferring his wife’s profile to Mozart.
Miss Bingley preserved her dignity against the danger of pleasure.
Mrs. Hurst observed both stage and audience, and Mr. Hurst, having been assured of eventual refreshment, submitted to the remainder with greater resignation.
When the opera ended, there came the usual disorder of approval: applause, talk, standing gentlemen, turning heads, opera glasses raised for the last inspection of boxes more than performers.
Mrs. Hurst observed that the soprano had been much praised by people who wanted to be thought in the first rank of opinion.
Miss Bingley replied that wanting to be thought in the first rank was the one accomplishment universally attempted.
Mr. Hurst declared that the evening had gone on long enough to justify supper somewhere, if not everywhere.
Bingley was delighted with everything because Jane had been delighted with several things.
Jane was delighted because Elizabeth had come, because the music had been beautiful, because Charles was happy, and because Mrs. Pratt had invited them all with no appearance of burdening anybody.
Her happiness was a generous weather; it improved even crowded passages.
As they made their way out, Elizabeth felt again the theatre as a machine of motion and names.
Gentlemen stepped aside for ladies they had met once and ladies they hoped to meet.
Introductions were promised, remembered, exaggerated, refused.
A name crossed before her from one party to another and acquired, by the mere passage, a little more substance than it had possessed before.
It was not a thought she chose to pursue. The evening had been too lively, too cold, too crowded, and too agreeably absurd to be surrendered at its close to uneasiness.
The cold struck them at the doors. February had not been improved by Mozart.
The sleet had thinned into a bitter wet mist, and the pavement shone beneath the lamps.
Footmen called, horses stamped, cloaks were drawn close, and the brave feathers of the entrance now drooped with the consequence of display.
Mrs. Doddridge took her place in the carriage with relief so moderate that only long acquaintance could have detected it.
“You have endured the opera very well,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, miss.”
“Did you like it?”
“There was a great deal of singing, miss.”
“That is often considered desirable in an opera.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And perhaps safer than the plot.”
Mrs. Doddridge considered this. “Plots often are, miss.”
Elizabeth looked out as the carriage moved into the wet stream of traffic. Her head was full of chandeliers, music, Mrs. Pratt’s sharp eyes, Mr. Pratt’s possible song, Jane’s unguarded happiness, Miss Bingley’s candour, Mr. Hurst’s supper, and the peculiar bravery of silk in February.
The evening had answered no questions and solved no difficulties. It had done something almost as useful: it had reminded her that life, even under warning, continued to provide music, absurdity, and intelligent women in black silk.
Elizabeth was not sorry to have accepted.