CHAPTER 73 #4
Elizabeth let them settle before she said anything. That, she had learned from Mrs. Marwood, was half of instruction. A person could not be expected to understand a matter while still wondering whether she stood accused.
Mrs. Reynolds entered with a small packet of papers.
“I have chosen only ordinary matters, madam,” she said. “A request from one of the undermaids for leave to visit her sister; the bookseller’s account for the east room; and the Lambton school subscription.”
“That will do very well.”
Georgiana looked from Mrs. Reynolds to Elizabeth. “Are we to decide them?”
“Not alone,” said Elizabeth. “And not all today.”
Mrs. Reynolds set the papers on the table with neat hands. “A large house is not governed by deciding every matter oneself, Miss Darcy. That would be vanity, not order. But one must know which matters cannot be left to habit.”
Georgiana leaned forward a little despite herself. “How is one to know the difference?”
Mrs. Reynolds considered. She did not answer quickly, which was perhaps the first lesson.
“If the matter spends money, changes a servant’s duty, admits a stranger, alters an old custom, or uses a name no longer able to answer for itself, I ask for more information.”
Mary’s pencil was already moving.
Kitty looked at her. “Are you writing that down?”
“It is useful.”
“It is very long.”
“Useful things often are.”
“That has not been my experience with biscuits.”
Jane smiled into her sewing.
Mrs. Reynolds took up the first note. “This is from Susan, one of the undermaids. Her sister is ill in Lambton, and she asks for leave tomorrow afternoon and the loan of half a crown against her wages.”
Jane’s face softened at once. “If her sister is ill, surely she should go.”
“Perhaps, ma’am,” said Mrs. Reynolds.
Jane looked surprised by the hesitation, and Kitty looked almost offended by it.
Mrs. Reynolds did not rebuke either of them. “A sad story may be true, and still not be complete.”
Georgiana looked down at the note again.
“What more should we ask?” Elizabeth said.
Mary, after a moment’s thought, said, “Whether the sister is truly ill.”
“That is one question,” said Mrs. Reynolds. “Though we must ask it carefully, or compassion becomes insult.”
Georgiana said, “Whether Susan has duties tomorrow which cannot be spared.”
“Yes.”
Kitty frowned. “And whether another maid must do them?”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Reynolds. “Kindness to one servant must not become unfairness to another without acknowledgement.”
Jane looked down at the note again, less certain now, but not less sorry.
“But if the matter is truly distressing,” Georgiana said, “ought we not to answer quickly?”
“Sometimes,” Mrs. Reynolds replied. “If there is illness, hunger, fire, or danger, delay may be cruelty. But haste is not the same as compassion.”
Elizabeth looked at Georgiana. “Compassion tells us that a thing deserves attention. Sense tells us what attention may safely do.”
Georgiana’s fingers rested on the edge of the paper. “Then we ask how long she must be gone, who can cover her work, and whether the money is an advance.”
“And if the need is real?” said Elizabeth.
“Then we help her.”
“Yes.”
“And if part of it is not?”
“Then we may still help,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “but not under a false account.”
Georgiana sat back, thoughtful.
Kitty looked dissatisfied. “That is much less simple than I expected.”
“Most useful things are,” said Mary.
Kitty glanced at her. “You are becoming very severe since playing duets.”
Mary ignored this because it was not wholly unjust.
The bookseller’s account was easier: three books charged, two ordered, one requiring inquiry before payment. Georgiana named the difficulty more quickly this time, and Mrs. Reynolds approved.
The last paper was the Lambton school subscription.
Mrs. Reynolds placed it before Georgiana with more care than the others. “The school has long been supported by the family. Lady Anne took particular interest in it.”
Georgiana’s face changed at her mother’s name, but she did not withdraw her hands.
Elizabeth did not rescue her from the paper. That would have been another kind of insult.
Mary read the request silently over Georgiana’s shoulder and frowned. “It asks for an increase because Lady Anne Darcy was always generous, and because Mrs. Darcy will surely wish to honour her memory.”
“No,” said Kitty, with sudden indignation. “That is not fair.”
Georgiana was very still.
Elizabeth waited.
“It uses my mother’s name,” Georgiana said at last, “to make inquiry feel unkind.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth.
Jane looked distressed. “But the school may truly need it.”
“It may,” said Mrs. Reynolds.
Elizabeth took up the letter. “The school may deserve support, and the letter may still deserve correction. One fault does not cancel the need; one need does not excuse the fault.”
Jane looked at the paper again, as if it had become a more difficult object than before.
“If the school needs the money,” said Mrs. Reynolds, “we should know for what purpose.”
“And if the need is real,” Elizabeth said, “we may meet it.”
Georgiana looked down at the subscription paper again. “Then we ask for the accounts?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Reynolds.
“And the present number of children?”
“Yes.”
“And whether the increase is for books, or repairs, or the master’s salary, or something else?”
Mrs. Reynolds smiled. “Very good, Miss Darcy.”
Georgiana flushed.
Kitty leaned nearer. “And if it is only because Lady Anne was generous?”
“Then,” said Georgiana, more slowly, “we may still be generous. But not because someone else has used her name to decide for us.”
Elizabeth’s heart moved. She did not allow it to show too much.
Mary, who had been frowning at the subscription request, said suddenly, “It is like accompaniment.”
Everyone looked at her.
Mary coloured, but persisted. “One must support the air without surrendering the whole piece to it.”
Georgiana smiled first.
“That is very good, Mary,” she said.
Mary looked startled, then pleased beyond all proportion.
Kitty whispered, “Another examined compliment.”
“Hush,” said Jane, smiling.
Mrs. Reynolds gathered the papers, but did not remove them. “Shall I have the particulars requested, madam?”
Elizabeth looked at Georgiana.
Georgiana looked down at the subscription again, then up.
“Yes,” she said. “Please.”
It was only one word. Not a refusal, not a command, not a grand assertion of independence. Only a direction, given after thought, and received as if it mattered.
Mrs. Reynolds inclined her head. “Yes, Miss Darcy.”
Georgiana sat very still after that.
Beyond the window, September held Pemberley in a clear, forgiving light it had not earned and perhaps did not need to earn all at once.
Mary and Georgiana bent together over the music again, speaking in low voices about the same passage that had troubled them before.
Kitty asked whether compliments could be answered like subscriptions.
Jane looked down at Susan’s note once more, less ready than she had been to call hesitation unkind.
Elizabeth’s hand rested low over the child.
She did not wish to harden any of them.
She meant to make them harder to steal.