Chapter Seven
On the carriage ride back from Trawlings, I was flummoxed. “You would not let me speak!”
“You spoke far more than I think was wise,” said the colonel, looking thoughtfully out the window. It was not to be a long carriage ride back to our house.
“You started by having some stupid conversation about the weather and then you suddenly steered us right into a fierce argument,” I said.
“You are very stupid about conversation, are you not? That is how a conversation is conducted. You do not skip right to the thing you want to discuss. You must warm people up, gain their trust, show them you are not frightening. If you do not do this, they will find you a threat and they will not tell you what you want to know.”
I considered this. I had not ever quite thought about it that way, but I could see that he might be correct. “I wish you would stop saying that I was stupid,” I sulked.
“Stop being stupid, then!”
“Why are you here with me at all if you find my company so unbearable?”
He rolled his eyes. “You are womanish sometimes, Darcy, unable to take a bit of ribbing.”
“You have yet to explain why you provoked them both.”
“I was attempting to understand how this aversion to marriage works. We had heard that Lady Susannah was forbidding Miss Bennet to get married, and then we discovered this was false. But rumors like that often have some bit of truth nestled into them, and I wanted to see how deep it goes. In this case, it seems that Lady Susannah is quite the crusader for independent women, and she does seem to wish to mold Miss Bennet into her own image. I wanted to see how strongly such ideas had taken root in Miss Bennet.”
“Rather strongly, it seems,” I muttered.
“Yes,” he said.
“However, I know she is entertaining Mr. Wickham,” I said.
“How do you know this?” said Richard.
“Her brother came to speak to me last night,” I said.
“Her brother came to speak to you at night in secret?” said Richard. “Why?”
“To discuss Miss Bennet, primarily.”
“And whatever secret that you have about him that you don’t wish to tell me,” said Richard. He tapped his fingers on his knee. “I am going to guess.”
I let out a huff of air.
“I think that he had some inappropriate relationship with a woman, maybe a woman of high breeding, and—”
“No,” I said. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, I don’t know, I am just trying to think of what sort of things a man might like concealed, that is all,” said Richard. “I think it has something to do with Bingley, because he spoke of him in a way—or, no, you spoke of Bingley, said something about Bennet being too trustworthy.”
“Perhaps they are both too trustworthy,” I muttered, “but for different reasons.”
“They have some dreadful card debts?” Richard said. “No, that doesn’t account for it. It’s something worse than that, something prurient. I guarantee it has something to do with sex.”
I glared at him. “Why do you guarantee that?”
“Something about the way you both are about it,” he said. “Have the two of you both had congress with the same woman?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t that.” He sighed. “Why is it that we are here again? It’s so that you can marry this Bennet woman?”
“I cannot marry her!” I exclaimed.
“Right, we’ve chased her here and are following her around so that you’ll forget all about her,” said Richard with a little laugh.
“It was your idea,” I said. “You said—”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” he said. “She is very pretty. You were right about that.”
I huffed again.
“You know,” he said, “she may not be the sort of girl that you could marry, but I could, I think, if she’s going to inherit Trawlings.”
I sat up straight on the other side of the carriage. “No, you could not.”
“I think I could,” he said. “If she had an estate and some income, then I could.”
“If you could marry her, I could marry her,” I growled.
“Well, you, Darcy can marry positively anyone you like,” he said, grinning at me.
I sagged back into the carriage seat. “You dragged me into that.”
“Oh, you walked into it yourself,” said Richard. “You do wish to marry her, so just ask for her hand and let’s be done with it.”
“I cannot ask for her hand,” I said. “I cannot marry her. I do not even wish to be married. I am but eight and twenty. I have time to see to all of that, quite a bit of time.” A pause.
“Besides, if I were going to ask for her hand, I would have had to have spoken to her more often than I have. I barely know her.”
“Well, to get to know her, we are going to have to call upon her, which was what I said from the beginning, that we must call at the Bennet household and you said that we could not, but here we are.”
I glared at him. I wished I had not brought him along.
But on the following day, we found ourselves at the Bennet household, except Miss Bennet was not there. She was at Trawlings with Lady Susannah.
I immediately felt the excursion to have been for nothing, but Richard was quite keen on all of it, and we all sat down together in the small sitting room at Longbourn with Mr. James Bennet and his mother.
His father, the eldest Mr. Bennet, had come in to greet us and then excused himself, saying he had pressing business to see to, and he had fled before anyone could object.
“You must pardon my husband,” said Mrs. Bennet in her rich, deep alto of a voice. She was a very striking woman. “He and I do not spend a great deal of time in each other’s company, you see.”
“Mother,” objected Mr. Bennet. “Must we say such things to simply everyone?”
“Yes, I’m always hearing that criticism,” said Mrs. Bennet, chuckling. “I’m often being told that I must keep things to myself or filter this or hold back that. I am not that sort of person. Your father used to like that about me, you know.”
“And no one wishes to hear about that either,” said Mr. Bennet. “I suppose there is a reason for your calling today.”
“Just to be friendly,” said the colonel. “And for our own amusement.”
“Yes, why would two men like yourselves seek amusement here, in Hertfordshire?” said Mrs. Bennet, smiling at me as if the two of us were in a conspiracy together. “What is it that you find so interesting about this place?”
Mr. Bennet broke in. “You do not have to answer that.”
“Oh, James, always spoiling all my fun,” said Mrs. Bennet.
She sighed dramatically. “You know, I have only two children, and I must tell you, they are both entirely serious. I always thought I’d have a passel of them, all of them girls, all chattering and giggling and screaming out their joys.
I thought I’d have a house full of happy noise.
But it is just these two, ever so quiet, and my husband, who cannot stand me. ”
“Mother,” said Mr. Bennet firmly.
“I find it odd that no one ever asks why it is my husband cannot stand me,” said Mrs. Bennet.
“Because,” said her son, “you make them all frightfully uncomfortable with that sort of talk, and they have no interest in hearing you go on about things that are not their business.”
“Now I know this is not the case, in general,” said Mrs. Bennet. “I know that people are often quite drawn to hearing about things that are not their business. I think people rather thrive upon such things.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam spoke up. “Well, then, madam, why is it that your husband cannot stand you?”
Mrs. Bennet let out something like a giggle. “I don’t suppose he would like it if I told you that.”
“Mother,” said Mr. Bennet, huffing.
“But why have you called upon us?” said Mrs. Bennet. “I think you’re here looking for my daughter, is that the way of it?”
“No, of course not,” I said.
Mr. Bennet furrowed his brow at me.
Mrs. Bennet winked at me. “When I was carrying her, when she was but a babe growing within me, I used to rub my hands over my swelling belly—”
“Mother, this is not an appropriate tale to tell to company,” broke in her son.
“And think to myself that I hoped that if she was a girl, she was beautiful, for I knew there was little in the way of a dowry for her, and I knew she would not be sought after for anything else. But then Lady Susannah took her under her wing, and I was quite relieved, you know? Because the truth is, young girls are not at all very good at thinking of their future. Witness me, after all. When I was my daughter’s age—well, when I was her age, I was already married, of course.
But when I was younger than she, when I was still seeking a husband, I did not have to choose Mr. Bennet.
I had other options, and I turned them down, and do you know why I did that? ”
“No,” said Mr. Bennet. “And frankly, we are all rather horrified to hear whatever it is you are saying now. You must keep these things to yourself, I should think, Mother.”
“Love?” said the colonel.
Mrs. Bennet turned on him, smiling widely.
“Oh, you are quite the intelligent one, are you not, colonel? Yes, I loved him and he loved me, and you see how that turns out.” She laughed.
“If you fancy yourself in love with my daughter, either of you.” She pointed at both me and my cousin.
“Then I beg of you, leave her be. You will only bring down pain and suffering on you both. Marry someone you are mostly indifferent to. Indifference breeds tolerance, you see, and tolerance is what is best for a long association between people.”