CHAPTER 47 #3
Kitty looked down. “I should like to draw something that is not a flower copied badly.”
“That,” said Mary, “would be a rational ambition.”
Elizabeth did not speak. If she spoke, Kitty might mistake pity for promise. Or worse, Elizabeth might make the promise before she had decided how it could be kept without becoming another family purse disguised as improvement.
Across the room, Mr. Darcy glanced at her once. Not inquiry. Notice.
She was grateful and irritated in equal measure.
After the gentlemen joined them, Mrs. Bennet began again — not loudly enough to require correction, but with that rising note which made the room prepare itself for distress.
Mr. Darcy did not come directly to Elizabeth. He spoke first to Mrs. Gardiner, then to Mary about music, then answered a question from Kitty with such gravity that Kitty forgot to be shy for nearly a minute.
Only when Mrs. Bennet’s voice sharpened did he cross to the tea table.
He took a cup from Jane before Jane could carry it herself and brought it to Elizabeth.
“Your tea,” he said.
Elizabeth looked at the cup, then at him.
She was not thirsty.
He knew she was not thirsty.
“Thank you,” she said.
The warmth of the china steadied her hands. Holding it gave her something to do besides answer.
Mrs. Bennet was saying, “If Mr. Darcy means to take Lizzy so entirely from us, he cannot wonder that a mother feels—”
“My dear,” said Mr. Bennet, from beside the mantel, “you speak as if Elizabeth had not been taken from us years ago.”
The room quieted.
Not dramatically. Not wholly. Lydia still moved; Bingley still breathed; somewhere a spoon touched a saucer. But the sentence had entered the room and could not be made to leave it.
Elizabeth looked at her father.
He had said it lightly enough to pass for correction. Perhaps he had meant it lightly. Perhaps he had not heard the confession inside it. Perhaps he would rather die than examine the sentence after it had done its work.
But there it was.
She had been taken from them years ago.
No. She had been given.
And he had let it happen.
Mrs. Bennet looked wounded and confused. “Mr. Bennet! How can you say such a thing?”
“Because it is true,” he said. “And because this is not the evening to discover grief where we once found convenience.”
That was more than Elizabeth had expected of him.
It was protection.
It was also late.
Mr. Darcy did not look at her. She was grateful for that too.
Miss Bingley, showing a delicacy Elizabeth would not have credited to her an hour before, asked Lydia whether she had yet seen the shops in Bond Street. Lydia seized the subject with enthusiasm, and the room moved, unevenly but gratefully, away from the precipice.
A little later, Mrs. Gardiner made her announcement.
“Lydia will remain with us for a little while,” she said, as if the matter were ordinary and already settled. “The children are very fond of her, and I shall be glad of her help while matters are unsettled.”
Lydia sat up with delight. “Oh! I should like that very well. I am excellent with children. They always do what I say when I am louder than they are.”
“Then we shall begin,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “by teaching you not to be.”
Mr. Gardiner coughed.
Kitty stared at Lydia, half envious, half relieved.
Mrs. Bennet looked about for the proper reaction and found three. “Lydia? Stay in London? Without me? Well! I am sure she will be a great comfort to you, sister, though I do not know how I shall bear another daughter away from me.”
“By remembering,” said Mr. Bennet, “that this daughter is not being married, only employed.”
Lydia laughed. “I am to be useful!”
Elizabeth saw Mrs. Gardiner’s expression and suspected usefulness would come upon Lydia with more discipline than she expected.
It was something. Not enough, but something. A girl removed from Longbourn’s noise into a house with rules, children, errands, and Mrs. Gardiner’s calm eye might become no worse. That was not a small hope.
Before departure, Elizabeth found Jane near the window, where her sister had gone under pretence of adjusting a curtain that required no assistance.
“You should not have had to do this,” Elizabeth said.
Jane did not pretend not to understand. “It was only dinner.”
“No. It was not.”
Jane’s smile trembled, then settled into something more honest. “It is easier here than at Gracechurch Street.”
“That is not the same as right.”
Jane looked toward the room: Mrs. Bennet receiving Mrs. Gardiner’s quiet attention, Lydia laughing with Bingley, Kitty listening to Mary, Miss Bingley tolerating all of them with remarkable form, Mr. Bennet speaking to Mr. Gardiner, and Mr. Darcy standing where he could see Elizabeth without making it visible to everyone.
“I thought if it were done here,” Jane said, “no one else would suffer it.”
Elizabeth took her hand.
“You are not no one.”
Jane’s eyes filled at once, which she would hate in public, so Elizabeth moved slightly to shield her from the room.
“I respect your care,” Elizabeth said softly. “I always have. But you do not owe it to anyone to make things nice, or comfortable, or easy to bear. Not even for us.”
“Lizzy—”
“And when Mr. Bingley takes an estate, make certain it is as far from Hertfordshire as possible.”
Jane gave a watery laugh. “Surely not so far.”
“Far enough that Mama must plan a journey before she can be overcome.”
Jane pressed Elizabeth’s hand. “You are severe.”
“I am fond of you.”
“I know.”
“You do not always behave as if you know what that permits.”
Jane looked at her then, and something in her face changed: not agreement, not yet, but recognition. That was enough for one evening.
Elizabeth left her by the window and found Bingley watching Jane with concern so open that she could not be angry with him in the way she had been prepared to be.
“Mr. Bingley,” she said, “may I speak plainly?”
“I hope you always will.”
She looked toward Jane. “Jane’s kindness is not indestructible.”
His expression changed at once. “No. I know it is not.”
“I do not think you know it yet in practice. You admire it, and you love her for it, and that is natural. But sometimes kindness needs direction. Sometimes it needs firmness. If Jane cannot protect herself from every claim made upon her, you must be able to do it for her.”
“From your family?” he asked, very low.
“From anyone who mistakes her gentleness for permission.”
Bingley’s gaze went back to Jane.
“I thought,” he said after a moment, “that if she could make everyone comfortable, she would be comfortable too.”
“That is what everyone thinks,” said Elizabeth, more gently. “That is why she is so often tired.”
He looked stricken.
Elizabeth touched his arm briefly. “Do not look so miserable. I am not telling you that you have failed her. I am telling you where to stand next time.”
“Beside her?”
“Nearer,” said Elizabeth. “And, when necessary, before her.”