CHAPTER 35 #2
Mr. Pratt, still inclined to think her conversation one of the evening’s better prospects, approached again during this interval with two gentlemen and a lady of his acquaintance.
One gentleman spoke of the violinist, another of the crowd, and the lady of a soprano who had sung too high in another room on another evening and might, from the account, never be forgiven.
With them came a man whom Elizabeth had not yet seen.
“Miss Bennet,” said Mr. Pratt, after the usual civilities had been exchanged, “I think you do not yet know Mr. Wickham.”
Elizabeth bowed.
Mr. Wickham bowed lower.
So this was George Wickham.
He was polished and very nearly likable.
The difficulty was that his likability seemed determined to be noticed.
He smiled as if the world had rewarded him handsomely for doing so, and perhaps, in most rooms, it had.
His person was agreeable, his address easy, his eye quick in finding what might please.
Yet there was something in the whole performance a little too eager, a little too smooth, as if charm had been put on before a glass and adjusted twice.
There was brandy in him too. Not enough to make him coarse, not enough to drive him from company, certainly not enough to excuse whatever he might say; but enough to loosen the neat stitching of his manners. His confidence had spread a little beyond its proper seams.
He said a civil thing or two upon the music, to which Elizabeth replied with sufficient civility and no encouragement. Mr. Pratt, being summoned almost immediately by his mother over some mislaid part for the next performers, excused himself with a look of real regret and went away.
Miss Hall stood at no great distance, appearing to listen to Mrs. Belwick’s opinion of the first singer’s vowels. Mrs. Doddridge was seated a little behind Jane, in the respectable attitude of a lady who neither invited conversation nor missed much of it.
Wickham glanced after Mr. Pratt, then turned back to Elizabeth.
“I have heard of you, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth looked at him over the rim of her undrinkable tea.
“Indeed? And through what channel have my affairs become so obliging as to introduce me where I have not introduced myself?”
He smiled, as if the answer must reassure her. “Through concern for an old friend. I had heard that Mr. Darcy was much in Portman Square, and I confess it troubled me.”
“Your concern seems to have travelled a good distance for so new an acquaintance.”
“My acquaintance with Mr. Darcy is not new. I knew him before the world knew him as it knows him now. Before disappointment, pride, and worse counsels led him down a darker path.”
“A darker path,” repeated Elizabeth.
“You will forgive me, I hope, if an old family connection makes me speak with more frankness than our acquaintance would otherwise justify. I could not be easy in my conscience if I said nothing.”
“That is a dangerous beginning, sir.”
He gave a small laugh, as if her coolness amused him and did not deter him. The brandy had done him no favours. A sober man, perhaps, might have marked the edge in her voice and retreated. Wickham only mistook resistance for innocence.
“You cannot have the resources to judge a man like Mr. Darcy properly—indeed, how could you?”
Elizabeth stilled.
“My resources, sir?”
“I mean no offence. Indeed, quite the opposite. A lady of fortune, independent, generous, accustomed perhaps to think well of those she employs, may be too ready to trust gravity for honour. Mr. Darcy has always understood the advantage of appearing grave. It makes people suppose there must be principle beneath it.”
“And you suppose yourself able to supply the defect?”
“I know the family,” he said. “I know the history. I know what Mr. Darcy would prefer forgotten.”
There it was.
Not concern. Not even slander only.
Management.
Mr. Wickham had known her for scarcely five minutes and had already concluded that she required guidance, correction, and rescue from her own judgment. He had placed himself, with astonishing ease, in possession of her understanding, Mr. Darcy’s history, and the proper use of both.
Perhaps with another young lady the performance might have succeeded.
A little old connection, a little lowered voice, a little injured regret, and the whole might have passed for care.
There were women who would have heard him and thought themselves protected.
There were rooms in which he had likely been rewarded for just such a manner.
But Elizabeth had been managed too often by people who called it affection, instructed too often by people who called it prudence, and improved too often by people who had not troubled to ask whether she wished to be improved.
Mr. Wickham had mistaken her.
He thought he was warning her.
He was making up her mind for her.
“You are very free with Mr. Darcy’s name,” she said.
“Only because I must be. You need not answer me now. Indeed, I should advise you not to decide anything while under his influence. Only allow me to be of use. You are very young, Miss Bennet. You cannot be expected to know—”
The tea left her hand.
Mr. Wickham had just time to look surprised before the whole cold force of the society’s unfortunate brew struck him full across the face.
The shock of it, in such a room and from such a hand, produced an instant’s perfect stillness. Wickham stood motionless, wet and disbelieving, one drop descending from his jaw with a deliberation almost too comic for the gravity of the scene.
Elizabeth did not apologize to him.
She did not even look at him.
Instead she turned at once to Miss Hall and said, in a voice amply sufficient for the surrounding company to hear, “My dear Miss Hall, Mr. Wickham had begun speaking of that lady’s bosom with such confidence and so little delicacy that I could only conclude him in his cups and in need of cooling.”
She indicated, with the faintest motion of her hand, a stout lady in violet satin who, being safely across the room and wholly unaware of the honour done her, continued discoursing upon the violinist.
Miss Hall, who did not so much as turn her head, answered only, “A prudent remedy.”
That settled it.
Not because everyone believed Elizabeth precisely.
Society is seldom so obedient to truth. But the room understood, at once, which version of the offence could be repeated, and which could not.
Mr. Wickham was no longer a gentleman unfairly assaulted by an eccentric lady.
He was a man who had somehow managed, at a respectable musical society, to provoke Miss Elizabeth Bennet into throwing tea at him and Miss Hall into approving it.
Mrs. Pratt came through the parted company with the expression of a woman who had organized three tenors, two quarrels over precedence, and one late harpist, and would not now be defeated by a wet gentleman.
“Miss Bennet?”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “Mrs. Pratt, I regret that the society’s tea has been put to a use not mentioned in the programme.”
Mrs. Pratt’s eye passed from Elizabeth to Wickham, whose face, coat, and dignity had all suffered in unequal degrees. That glance did him no good.
Mr. Pratt appeared behind his mother, aghast and fascinated. “Napkins,” he said to nobody in particular. “There must be napkins.”
Mr. Bingley was heard saying, “Good God,” with honest amazement and no utility whatever.
Jane had gone pale. Miss Bingley, electrified to the very last thread of her elegance, looked as if she had not enjoyed herself so much in months and was perfectly aware that she ought not to show it.
Mrs. Hurst had lifted her glass to see better.
Mr. Hurst, roused from conversational torpor, appeared almost cheerful.
Wickham at last found enough command of himself to say, “This is insupportable—”
“Very likely,” said Miss Hall. “But you should perhaps have reflected upon that sooner.”
The effect was fatal.
Whatever explanation Wickham had intended now appeared merely defensive.
To deny the accusation with heat would oblige him to linger over a lady’s bosom.
To laugh would be odious. To insist he had spoken only from concern would make him seem more officious and more deeply entangled in Miss Bennet’s hearing than any decent man ought to be.
Mrs. Pratt turned to him with committee calm.
“Mr. Wickham, this is a musical society, not a tavern.”
“Madam, I must protest—”
“I am sure you must. But not here.”
His face altered. For the first time, Elizabeth saw anger beneath the polish, and calculation beneath the anger. He looked from Mrs. Pratt to Miss Hall, from Miss Hall to the watching company, and understood, perhaps, that the room had been taken from him before he could seize it.
He bowed. The movement was stiff, wet, and ill-rewarded.
“I see I have been misunderstood.”
“Then you will wish to repair that misfortune elsewhere,” said Mrs. Pratt.