Chapter 10
CAROLINE PREPARED NETHERFIELD’S morning room for guests.
She ordered the tea service placed on the low table near the eastern windows and fresh daffodils arranged on the mantel.
Two green damask chairs stood at an easy angle to one another, while a third occupied the window, where the light favored its occupant without encouraging a lengthy visit.
Satisfied, she surveyed the result. The room was neat, fashionable, and a visible improvement on the drawing room, whose upholstery she had disliked since their arrival.
She took her place near the door, her back straight, her hands at rest, and her expression warmth that one practices in a glass before showing it to one’s neighbors.
Louisa sat by the hearth, embroidery in her lap; Caroline approved of the arrangement, as it made her sister look receptive and unguarded, two qualities Caroline seldom risked.
The Bennet party arrived on time, though Caroline did not suppose this was an act of discipline.
She heard Mrs. Bennet’s voice through the door before she saw her, the words carrying: “Such a beautiful avenue! The limes are just coming into leaf, do you see, Jane? I declare, no one would think the hedgerows could look so fine after the winter.” The rest of the sentence vanished as the footman opened the door, admitting them in a rush of shawls and bonnets.
Jane entered first in a pale green gown almost the color of the morning-room chairs, passing through the doorway without breaking her step. Her curtsy was low and unhurried, her hands folded at her waist, and she greeted Caroline loud enough for everyone to hear.
Caroline was prepared to forgive the lack of fortune, the mother, and even the rumored disorder at Longbourn, but Jane required none of it.
Behind her came Mrs. Bennet, shawl trailing and bonnet tilted left, her cheeks flushed from either the journey or eagerness to fill the room with her own voice.
She launched her greeting as soon as her foot crossed the carpet.
“Miss Bingley, you are too kind, too very kind, to have us. The road was dreadful with mud, and it is a miracle we arrived without losing a wheel. But what a prospect! From the lane, Netherfield looks as fine as any house in Hertfordshire.”
Caroline received this with a smile. Mrs. Bennet’s elevation of Netherfield among the finest houses in the county required no correction.
Lydia burst in next, her curtsy extended to the point of collapse. The move sent a ripple through her skirts, which she steadied with one hand. “Is that a real pianoforte? Mary should have come, but she would not leave her new piece.” She was already halfway across the rug toward the instrument.
Kitty hovered a moment too close to the tea table, her fingers touching the edge of a saucer before she retreated to the settee. She glanced at Lydia, then toward the window.
Elizabeth took the chair beside Jane and looked across the tea service at Caroline, who did not look away.
Caroline sat and poured Mrs. Bennet’s tea first, asked after the journey, then offered the biscuit plate to Jane, who took a small one and thanked her. Louisa asked if the road had been passable, and Jane answered that the avenue was much improved by the new gravel, which set Mrs. Bennet off again:
“I am forever amazed at what a few weeks’ attention can do to a house. I tell Mr. Bennet he ought to see what a man of means can accomplish, and perhaps he will mend our hedgerows before sheep and pigs overrun us.”
“Or by officers,” Lydia said. “They march through the mud in shoes worse than ours. Sir William says there will be another assembly before the month is out. I hope to see them there, with clean shoes.”
Kitty knocked a teaspoon against her cup. Elizabeth, silent, watched the cup settle, then looked at Kitty as if to ask whether she might spare the teaspoon.
Caroline smiled at Elizabeth, who returned it and lifted her cup.
“Do you not find the country dull after a time?” Louisa asked Jane. “Town offers more variety.”
“I have visited London, but I have never lived there.”
“Then perhaps you have not remained long enough to appreciate it.”
“Perhaps not,” Jane said, smiling. “Though I believe I should still prefer the country. It changes with every season.”
“Then you must see London in the spring,” Louisa said. “The parks are not to be rivaled.”
“I hope to judge for myself one day.”
Caroline had expected shyness or tedious modesty, but Jane offered neither.
Mrs. Bennet resumed, “I told my girls this morning that Netherfield would put them all to shame, and I believe I am proved right. It is not only the setting I am considering, but the company, and I see at once that Miss Bingley is as accomplished in hospitality as in taste.”
Caroline nodded, offered another biscuit, and said, “You are too generous. We are delighted to receive you.” Jane ate little, and Elizabeth accepted tea, holding the cup with both hands.
The conversation moved to the subject of the last assembly, with Mrs. Bennet eager to recount every dance, every compliment, and the number of times Mr. Bingley had looked at Jane.
She made it clear that the entire evening centered on her eldest daughter, though she disguised the assertion in the language of concern: “Jane is too modest to say so, but I am sure you noticed she was quite the favorite. All agreed on it, and Lady Lucas said as much to me not an hour after the set.”
Lydia interrupted: “But Mr. Darcy did not dance, and stood by the wall the whole time. He looked as though he might say something and then thought better of it.”
Mrs. Bennet shushed her with a hand, “Lydia, you are not to discuss the manners of gentlemen in such company.”
Kitty, perhaps emboldened by Lydia’s incaution, asked, “Is it true, Miss Bingley, that Mr. Darcy has ten thousand a year? Or is it only a story?”
Caroline’s smile remained fixed. “I could not say with any precision, but he inherited Pemberley from his father, and it is the finest estate in Derbyshire. I have seen it myself, and I am sure you would admire it.”
Kitty’s color rose, and Elizabeth said, “Some prefer smaller houses with lighter windows and less formality,” her voice so even that Caroline at first missed the diversion.
Mrs. Bennet, after a moment’s pause, followed the new subject. “Our own parlor is dark, and the ceiling low, but I believe that makes it warmer in winter. Mr. Bennet will not hear of altering the house, though I have said it is no disgrace to follow the fashion if it improves comfort.”
Louisa said, “Mr. Hurst would agree with you. He cares for nothing so much as a warm room and a hot meal.”
Lydia, unable to keep silent, said, “Last winter we held a dinner in our smallest room, and the windows froze solid. Papa had to chip them open with the poker before we could see outside.”
Mrs. Bennet, scandalized, said, “That is not a story for company, Lydia.”
Elizabeth glanced at Lydia, then at Caroline, as if to say she could do nothing about Lydia, and one must accept her as she came.
The conversation rolled and broke like this for twenty minutes. Caroline directed the tea, asked the expected questions, and received the expected answers, but Jane’s presence and Elizabeth’s restraint called for different responses than Caroline had rehearsed.
Where she expected to lead, she had to follow: Jane rarely voiced an opinion, but when she did, it left no room for contradiction; Elizabeth’s silences reflected patience, not awkwardness.
Caroline studied Jane, who spoke with Louisa as if they had known one another for years. Elizabeth sat with her cup at rest, following each speaker. Neither would be as easy to manage as Caroline had expected.
The talk turned to the regiment in town, with Mrs. Bennet describing the effect of officers in the neighborhood as “most enlivening,” and Lydia adding that they were “handsomer and better dressed than any in Town.” This provoked a lecture from Mrs. Bennet on the dangers of daughters praising officers in company, but Caroline detected no conviction behind the warning.
Their mother took too much pride in her daughters to correct them with any force.
It was at this moment, as she declared, “The officers are a credit to Meryton, but I hope my girls will be content with gentlemen of more settled income,” that Kitty, in her eagerness, upset her teacup, sending a thin wave of tea across the linen.
Jane caught the cup and righted it before the liquid reached the edge of the table.
Elizabeth dabbed the spill with her napkin, and Lydia stifled a laugh.
Caroline watched, her hand closing on a fold of her skirt, the movement invisible to anyone but herself.
The minor disaster passed with murmured apologies, and Caroline commended Jane’s quick hands. “I have had considerable practice,” Jane said. “Lydia and Kitty are forever in need of rescue from their own enthusiasm.”
“Do you play, Miss Bennet?” Louisa asked.
“A little, though not well.”
“Jane is too modest,” Elizabeth said. “Her playing is always pleasant and never showy. She believes music should give pleasure, not demand admiration.”
Caroline shifted her attention to Elizabeth. She found nothing to dislike in her, which made her more cautious. Elizabeth sat at ease, unimpressed by superior fortune or fashion. Any contest would be with her, not Jane.
“I see you have the crocuses in bloom, Miss Bingley,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Our own beds are just starting, though I believe the frost was harder at Longbourn this year.”
Caroline nodded. “The gardener says the south wall protects them. I hope you will walk the grounds before you go.”
“I would like that very much,” Jane said.
Elizabeth said, “It is always instructive to see what thrives under new management.”
The conversation returned to flowers, and the topic held long enough to allow for the second pouring of tea and the biscuit plate to empty.
After the third cup, Mrs. Bennet lowered her voice. “You may not know, Miss Bingley, that Longbourn is entailed away from my daughters. We have no son, and when Mr. Bennet is gone, the estate goes to a cousin whom none of us can tolerate.”
Caroline replied, “That is very hard, and I am sure Mr. Bennet will see to it as best he can.”
Mrs. Bennet brightened. “It is my only anxiety, and I hope it will not trouble me forever. For the rest, I count my daughters’ health and happiness as blessings.”
Jane said, “Mama is always happiest when we are together. She fears nothing so much as seeing one of us lonely.”
This, Caroline thought, was the most dangerous thing Jane had said: it was impossible to contest, and made her mother’s faults almost endearing.
She glanced at Elizabeth, who had said almost nothing in the past fifteen minutes. Elizabeth heard Jane speak and Mrs. Bennet seize upon a new subject. At last, her gaze went to the window, where the sun touched the farthest hedge and turned it silver-green.
Caroline tried to recall a single word Elizabeth had spoken that was not a response or a redirection, but could not.
At last, the visit neared its end. Caroline called for the servant to bring the coats, and Louisa asked whether the family would care to see the library or the gardens. Jane answered that she would love to walk the grounds, and Louisa offered to lead them.
They left the morning room in much the same disorder as they had entered it: Mrs. Bennet calling for her shawl, Lydia already halfway down the hall toward the garden door, Kitty in tow, and Jane and Elizabeth walking together. Louisa led the way, her embroidery forgotten.
Caroline lingered in the doorway. The room was warm from the tea and the sun, and the daffodils on the mantel stood at a more flattering angle than before. She crossed to the table and straightened the teacup Jane had used, though it needed none.
The visit had gone better than she expected, and worse. Jane was more than she expected, but it was Elizabeth who unsettled her. Not for being easy to dislike, but because she was not.
She considered the arrangement of the chairs and decided to have them reupholstered after all. Something in blue, perhaps, to cool the room.