Chapter 26
“MY DEAR GEORGIANA,
I write before breakfast because Bingley has embraced country hours and expects all of us to admire his discovery of dawn. Netherfield is in tolerable order, though its master is not. He has given up disguising his preference for Miss Bennet, though he never made much effort to conceal it.
In case you are wondering, I approve. She has a sweetness of temper and a steadiness that Bingley, for all his warmth, requires.
If she guards herself, I believe it is from modesty rather than calculation.
Her family presents greater difficulties.
Mrs. Bennet is everything you learned to dread in a mother; she possesses too much noise to manage anything well.
The younger girls are lively without judgment, while Miss Mary Bennet moralizes from books she has read with more diligence than pleasure.
With Miss Elizabeth Bennet, I find judgment more difficult.
She is quick, but not careless. Her wit contains more justice than indulgence, and she has given me cause to recognize the difference.
She grants me fewer advantages than I am accustomed to receiving, and neither rank nor consequence seems to influence her opinion.
Her devotion to truth sometimes makes her severe, though loyalty to those she loves often directs that severity toward their protection.
I have seen her command a working dog with more composure than many ladies command a drawing room.
The comparison would sound absurd in London, but at Longbourn it seemed fitting.
I know how this reads, so do not smile at me from your chair, because I am making no declaration.
She is a woman of sense, spirit, and feeling, and I have been slower than I ought to recognize their value.
If I praise her, it is because praise is due.
If I write of her more than I intended, you may blame the smallness of country society, where repeated acquaintance reveals more than it should.
I remain your affectionate brother,
F. Darcy”
Georgiana read the last lines twice before she folded the letter. The second reading did not change them. Her brother had not named affection, yet it appeared in every sentence.
She sat at the small writing table in her room at Rosings, with the morning light falling across the page while the house still slept.
Lady Catherine’s bell had not rung, Mrs. Jenkinson’s soft step had not begun its passage between sitting room and dressing room, and Anne remained asleep, or near enough that no one would ask anything of her.
For a short time Georgiana had the letter, the room, and her own thoughts.
She smiled, though not from amusement alone.
Her brother was spare with praise, and when he offered it, explanations and qualifications guarded against revealing more feeling than he wished to reveal.
This letter was no exception, but the care revealed the feeling.
He had noticed Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s wit, her severity, her loyalty, and her competence.
He had written of her as if every part required defense because he feared what the collection might confess.
Georgiana put the letter with the others in the drawer of her desk.
They lay tied with pale thread, not hidden, but private.
She had begun to value the packet more than she expected.
Darcy’s letters from Hertfordshire were not long by his usual standard, yet they contained more of the place than he seemed to realize, and more of Miss Elizabeth Bennet than he intended to admit.
She closed the drawer and turned the key. The lock would not resist a person determined to open it, but it marked a boundary, and Georgiana had come to understand that boundaries mattered most when other people considered them inconvenient.
At breakfast, Lady Catherine was displeased, which was not unusual. Displeasure sat with her like a cushion at her back, and she arranged the household around it.
“The post is late,” she said, though it had arrived at its usual hour. “There is no steadiness in country service. I have said so for thirty years.”
Mr. Collins, the clergyman at Hunsford and a cousin of Bennet, joined them for breakfast after riding over on a parish matter.
His marriage to Charlotte Lucas had given him recent knowledge of Hertfordshire, and Lady Catherine soon discovered that his visit might serve a greater purpose than the errand that brought him.
“We receive your ladyship’s judgment on service and every point of domestic regulation as instruction. I have observed the same deficiency among persons of lower station, though I trust that, under your ladyship’s guidance, my own humble establishment has avoided the most shocking examples.”
Lady Catherine accepted this as no more than her due. “Your establishment requires constant vigilance, Mr. Collins. Charlotte is a sensible young woman, but sense without direction is of little use. She is fortunate in my attention.”
“Most fortunate,” Collins agreed. “My dear Charlotte declares it often, and when she does not declare it, I am certain she feels it.”
Georgiana lowered her eyes to her plate.
Collins had come with news. News, in his hands, tended to acquire ornament, but this morning it served Lady Catherine better than he knew.
He had received a letter from his father, whose temper improved little with age and whose pen remained active when grievance required an audience.
The elder Mr. Collins had heard, through a cousin connected to a tradesman in Meryton, that Netherfield Park saw frequent calls at Longbourn, that Mr. Bingley admired the eldest Miss Bennet, and that Mr. Darcy had not kept himself so separate from the family as his station might suggest.
“I mention it with the greatest reluctance,” Collins said, which meant he had waited all morning for the chance, “because reports from a market town often grow through vulgar repetition. Still, when discussing a family connected to one’s future expectations, even at a distance, one feels some concern. ”
Lady Catherine set down her cup. “What family?”
“The Bennets of Longbourn, your ladyship. My father writes that they are much noticed at present, on account of Mr. Bingley’s residence at Netherfield. A legal circumstance, which I have always considered with humility, entails Longbourn upon me, as your ladyship may remember.”
“I remember every circumstance worth remembering. What has Darcy to do with them?”
Collins hesitated, and pleasure at being important struggled with terror of saying too much. Pleasure prevailed.
"People say, your ladyship, that Mr. Darcy is often in company with them. I would not credit idle tales and indeed, I rebuked myself for the thought. But my father writes that the second Miss Bennet is much admired in the neighborhood for her liveliness, and that she possesses a dog of some utility among sheep, which circumstance has, it seems, been the occasion of more than one meeting with gentlemen from Netherfield.”
Georgiana’s hand closed around the edge of her napkin.
“You have heard of this dog.”
It was not a question. Georgiana could have denied nothing without sinking into falsehood, and she had no talent for that.
“My brother mentioned Miss Elizabeth’s dog in a letter.”
“Your brother mentioned a country girl’s dog.”
“He mentioned several things from Hertfordshire.”
Lady Catherine’s gaze sharpened. “Did he mention the girl?”
Georgiana drew herself straighter in her chair. “He wrote of persons he has met.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I can give.”
Collins looked from one lady to the other with the startled delight of a man who found himself present at a family matter and feared being dismissed before it ripened.
Lady Catherine did not pursue the subject at breakfast. She questioned Mr. Collins, drawing from him every scrap of Hertfordshire rumor he possessed, and he was eager to oblige. Mr. Bingley’s sisters were elegant, Miss Bennet was called beautiful, and Mrs. Bennet was considered foolish.
The younger daughters were much in the society of officers, while the second daughter had a sharp tongue that some excused as wit. Mr. Bennet was negligent, indolent, and clever enough to make correction difficult, and the dog, from all accounts, enjoyed unusual liberty.
“Liberty,” Lady Catherine repeated. “That word explains much.”
Collins nodded. “Young women are often better with proper guidance than too much freedom.”
“And for dogs, I dare say,” Anne said from her end of the table.
Georgiana looked at her cousin in surprise. Anne’s expression was calm, but Mrs. Jenkinson bent over the tea urn to hide a smile.
Lady Catherine accepted every report as confirmation. “I shall hear no defense of such disorder. If Darcy has entered this circle, someone must intervene.”
Mr. Collins blinked. “Intervene, your ladyship?”
“There are matters young men of fortune choose not to see. I must act before folly becomes public.”
Georgiana’s appetite left her.
The rest of the meal passed under Lady Catherine’s questions.
Collins, encouraged by the attention, described Longbourn, though he had never seen it.
He spoke of his future obligation to improve the estate when Providence placed it in his hands, his compassion for the daughters who would one day leave it, and Charlotte’s good fortune in having married a man prepared for such responsibilities.
Lady Catherine dismissed him after breakfast with advice on his sermon, his poultry yard, and Charlotte’s management of the linen. Collins withdrew in a glow of obligation.
When he had gone, Georgiana rose. “May I be excused, Aunt?”
“In a moment. Sit down.”
Georgiana sat.
Lady Catherine turned to Mrs. Jenkinson. “Take Anne to the morning room.”
“I prefer to remain,” Anne said.
“Nonsense. You are fatigued.”
“I am always fatigued. It cannot be an argument for every removal.”
Anne held her shawl around her shoulders and did not move. After a pause, Lady Catherine dismissed Mrs. Jenkinson.
The door closed.