CHAPTER 72
By What Right
By ten o'clock the following morning, Pemberley was preparing for guests with that grave efficiency by which a large house proves hospitality to be less an impulse than an army properly supplied.
Elizabeth had no reason to think the matter extraordinary.
Mrs. Bingley was coming because Elizabeth had asked for her; Mr. Bingley because he rarely went anywhere Jane did not wish him to go; Mary because she had been staying with Mrs. Bingley in London, and to send her back to Longbourn now, when another sister's house stood ready to receive her, would have been cruelty disguised as neatness; and Miss Bingley because civility, curiosity, and prudence had reached an agreement and called itself a visit.
There were rooms to be aired before the heat gathered, blinds to be lowered where the afternoon sun struck hardest, water to be set in guest chambers, flowers to be cut late enough that they would not droop before dinner, and questions of comfort to be answered before any guest could discover a deficiency and be too polite to name it.
Elizabeth, who had once thought Portman Square a considerable establishment, had learned that Pemberley could turn even an ordinary arrival into a campaign of linen, lamps, footmen, and silver basins.
Mrs. Reynolds brought the final arrangement of rooms while Elizabeth stood in the passage with one glove on and the other confiscated by Evans.
"Mrs. Bingley's room is ready, madam. The windows were opened early and the blinds lowered again on the south side."
"Very good."
"Mr. Bingley is placed beside her dressing-room passage. Miss Bingley has the blue chamber. Miss Mary is in the east room, where there is a small pianoforte in the adjoining sitting-room. It was tuned last month, but I have sent to have it looked over again."
"That is wisely done. Mary will forgive many hardships before she forgives a false note."
"The principal instrument is in order, madam."
"For Georgiana's sake, I should hope so."
Mrs. Reynolds's face softened. "Miss Darcy would know if it were otherwise."
"Then we are all preserved."
Mrs. Reynolds received this with the composed air of a woman who had not kept house at Pemberley for thirty years by inquiring too closely into the moral nature of pianofortes.
Fitzwilliam found Elizabeth there and looked first at her face, then at the glove in Evans's possession.
"I see I am not required."
"You may yet be useful. Mrs. Reynolds has subdued the house, Evans has subdued my hands, and Mrs. Doddridge has threatened a chair. But Mr. Bingley may require reassurance that Derbyshire roads do eventually end."
"He is not easily discouraged."
"No. But he may be confused by the number of windows."
Fitzwilliam smiled. "He has seen windows before."
"Not in battalions."
That smile lingered a moment longer than the joke deserved, and Elizabeth was glad of it. The morning had another purpose beneath all this proper hospitality, and she had learned that a little foolishness was often the best way to approach serious duty without letting it consume the whole room.
For before the arrivals, before Mrs. Bingley could be embraced and Miss Bingley received and Mary delivered to whatever instrument she meant to examine, Georgiana was to be told what had happened at Rosings -- not every particular, not every ugliness, but enough.
Enough to understand that Anne de Bourgh had not been poor, friendless, or without consequence, and yet had still been managed into a marriage before those who loved her could prevent it.
Enough to understand that ignorance was not innocence when other people had been willing to exploit it.
Enough to understand what had been attempted around herself.
Elizabeth did not dislike the lesson. Mrs. Marwood had begun such lessons early, and Elizabeth had never been anything but grateful for them.
She had been taught how a bill might lie, how a servant might be pressed, how a recommendation might conceal a claim, how a hurried confidence might become a trap, and how a young woman might ask, with perfect propriety, by what right a thing was demanded.
Mrs. Marwood had not frightened her with the world.
She had made the world less able to frighten her.
No, Elizabeth disliked only the necessity. Georgiana should not have needed fear before she was given tools.
"Your father is below?" she asked.
"He is attempting breakfast."
"Attempting?"
"With more opinion than appetite."
"That sounds like recovery."
"It sounds like my father."
"Then let us go before he defeats Mr. Grant entirely."
George Darcy had lately begun coming down for short portions of the day, under restrictions which he obeyed badly enough to reassure the household that his temper had not been permanently altered.
That morning he had been permitted tea, toast, a boiled egg, and twenty minutes in the smaller breakfast parlour.
By the time Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam entered, he had eaten half the toast, ignored the egg, and was listening to Georgiana read aloud from a book she had selected because it contained no alarming scenes, no sudden illnesses, no treacherous servants, and very few fathers.
Kitty sat near the window, pretending to mend a ribbon and not pretending very successfully that she was not listening.
Mrs. Doddridge occupied a chair at a prudent distance from the table, with Pom-Pom arranged at her feet in a posture of injured dignity.
He had been denied toast and considered the household fallen.
Georgiana sat near her father, her face turned toward the page, but Elizabeth saw how often her eyes lifted to him.
Not in fear. Never that. Georgiana loved him with the stubborn tenderness of a girl who had spent too many weeks afraid of losing him and now counted every ordinary complaint as a sign he remained.
"You are late," George Darcy said, though they were not.
"You are eating," Fitzwilliam replied, though he was not.
Georgiana smiled down at the book. Kitty bent over her ribbon with suspicious industry.
George Darcy gave his son a look of austere displeasure, and then, because his strength did not yet permit him to sustain austere displeasure at proper length, surrendered to the chair behind him.
"Your guests are expected soon," he said to Elizabeth.
"They are."
"Mrs. Bingley will be anxious for you."
"Jane is always anxious kindly."
Georgiana closed the book upon one finger. "Is Mrs. Bingley very like you?"
Elizabeth considered this. "No."
Georgiana looked surprised.
"We are sisters," Elizabeth said, "but we were not raised to the same habits. Jane is gentler than I am, and more ready to think well where I have already begun counting exits."
Kitty looked up. "Jane thinks well because she is usually right to do so."
"An excellent defence," said Elizabeth. "And spoken like a sister who has not recently been corrected by her."
Kitty coloured, but laughed.
Georgiana looked down at the book. "Will she like me?"
Elizabeth's heart moved a little.
"Very much, I think. But she will not require you to be lively in order to deserve it."
Georgiana seemed reassured.
Pom-Pom chose that moment to sigh as if no one had ever liked him without toast.
Mrs. Doddridge looked down at him. "You are observed, sir."
"He is neglected," said Elizabeth.
"He is enormous in his own opinion," said Mrs. Doddridge, and folded her hands again.
Mrs. Reynolds appeared in the doorway with the delicate firmness of a woman sent by Mr. Grant and determined not to return defeated.
"Mr. Darcy, sir, Mr. Grant desired me to remind you that twenty minutes was the agreement."
George Darcy looked at the clock with deep disapproval.
"The clock is fast."
"It is not, Papa," said Georgiana.
"It has joined the conspiracy."
Georgiana kept the book closed upon her finger. "You promised to rest."
"I promised to close my eyes."
"That is often how sleep begins."
"I shall consider the theory."
Elizabeth rose with Fitzwilliam. "We shall see you settled, sir."
George Darcy looked as if he meant to object, but the effort of rising gave him more immediate enemies. Fitzwilliam offered his arm. After one moment's proud hesitation, his father took it.
The pace toward his chamber was careful, the distance not long, and nobody remarked upon either fact.
Georgiana remained in the breakfast parlour with the book still in her hands. Kitty had moved nearer to her, under pretence of showing Mrs. Doddridge a ribbon Pom-Pom had no right to admire. It was kindly done, and perhaps not wholly accidental.
At the door of his sitting-room, George Darcy released his son's arm with relief too dignified to be called relief.
"You will speak to her before the carriage comes?" he asked, once they were private.
"Yes," said Fitzwilliam. "If you still think it right."
"I do." His mouth tightened. "I do not wish her frightened."
"Nor do we," said Elizabeth.
"But she must understand. She knows her cousin has married, and that Lady Catherine is distressed. That is not enough."
"No."
"Tell her I wish it. Tell her that if any person speaks in my name to command secrecy, haste, or obedience against her own safety, that person does not speak for me."
Fitzwilliam bowed his head slightly.
"And tell her," George Darcy added, more quietly, "that I am mending. She will care more for that than for my wisdom."
Elizabeth thought that the truest thing he had said all morning.
They left him there, not asleep, as he immediately informed them, but sufficiently settled that even he could not call it defeat.
A little later, Georgiana found Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam in the small morning room beside the library, still carrying the book in her hands.
She held it clasped against her middle, one finger marking the place where she had stopped reading. Elizabeth noticed because Mrs. Marwood had taught her to notice hands before faces. A face might be trained. Hands were less accomplished.