Chapter 16
M iss Elizabeth had answered that she did not plan to leave London until the following Monday, which was convenient to her uncle who, most likely still believing he had failed her, could not be persuaded she did not need to be escorted home.
Our visit to Cheapside, which had been of the most ordinary kind, had been pleasant for my sister.
There was little awkwardness and even less commonality which would force her into making more conversation than was natural for her.
Mrs Gardiner was almost as lively as her niece, and they never once embarrassed Georgiana with flattery.
In this observation, I could not help but compare them to Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley.
In effect, my sister was not particularly special in their eyes and could be treated with reasonable, easy kindness.
Did this make her feel special? Oddly enough, I believe it did.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet is a most agreeable young lady,” my sister remarked to her companion over dinner.
“Is she? It is impossible to have too many pleasant acquaintances. Should you invite her to tea tomorrow?” Mrs Annesley suggested.
“Would she come, do you think?”
“I do not know why she would not. And if she makes some thin excuse as to why she cannot, then there you have it. She is not as agreeable as she seemed to be.”
I sat between my sister and her companion wondering whether I should feel dismayed or overjoyed.
My objective in introducing them had been only that they begin the exchange of polite notes, which is not unheard of upon introduction, and that Miss Elizabeth would then take the initiative and correspond with my sister more regularly thereafter.
The possibility of seeing Miss Elizabeth again after having thought I had done so for the last time was like having my arm broken—but slowly.
Did I want a clean break? I did not rightly know.
But there was nothing for it, for the decision to prolong the business of relinquishing her had not fallen to me.
And so, along with Mrs Gardiner, Miss Elizabeth—dressed prettily as ladies generally are when visiting one another—stepped into my house.
There was something so very momentous in her seeing where I live, to her laying eyes on the stairs I take ten times in a day, to her sitting in a room I use often, drinking out of a teacup I have myself likely used hundreds of times.
From my arrival in London, I had known that many months would have to pass before I could rightly put into perspective all that had happened to me since that regrettable day I stood on the roof of a folly and heard myself eulogised as an insufferable prig she could not love.
Had her opinion changed? It must have. It had to have.
It was as if we had no choice but to at least respect one another for what challenges we had met with what decency we could.
That would have to be enough. Truly, I could not—would not—ask for more. How could I?
A leopard cannot lose its spots, as they say.
I was not a different man and she was not a different woman than we were when we first met in Hertfordshire.
Her family was a hindrance to me, but I now knew that just as equally, my wealth and privilege were a hindrance to her .
Upon what equal ground could we rightfully meet?
The option which I had been very close to considering—that of condescending to marry down to have her—would have necessarily wounded her pride.
Why would she want to marry a man who would, in his heart, know he had rescued her from genteel poverty?
I wanted a wife, not a dog. I did not need her gratitude.
In fact, I would have learnt to hate it.
I needed only someone who could meet me with the confidence to force me to be a better man than I had been brought up to be.
Someone who could show me by her very presence when I was pouting, when I was being unreasonable, and when I needed to stop indulging myself and find something—anything—worth laughing at.
I had been sitting in my chair with my teacup suspended somewhere between my mouth and the saucer as these insights poured down upon me. Only the turn of the conversation could, and did, pull me out of my abstraction, for my sister had begun to speak of her looming presentation.
Though she tried to portray it as a simple matter, she could not help the impression she clearly gave of her hesitation, her wavering courage.
“My cousin has said he will squire me around, and I own I am glad of it because he knows everyone and will steer me only towards those he thinks I should know.” Georgiana must have then suddenly realised that in expressing such reliance on Fitzwilliam, she had painted me as utterly useless to her.
Flustered, and with pinking cheeks, she hastened to add, “And my brother will support me too. He will lead me out at every ball.”
“You could not be better attended then,” Miss Elizabeth said.
“Mr Darcy cuts fine a figure of foreboding to ward off impudent young men. You are lucky, for some men have no sense of when a lady might wish to be rid of a dandy. You will only have to glance at him with a slight look of consternation to have him glower away an idiot. I envy you greatly such a brother. And if you refer to Colonel Fitzwilliam as the cousin in question, I have met him, and he is the perfect bridge between social grace and good, hard sense. Well done, Miss Darcy,” she said.
And then, with a darting glance my way, she offered one last light remark to close the subject.
“I own I would be vastly curious to see such an affair as a formal presentation. I am incurably interested in human silliness, you see, and there would be no better stage for it than Queen Charlotte’s drawing room.”
“I could write to you about it—that is, if you really mean it?”
“Mean it? Of course I mean it, silly,” she said lightly.
“What raptures you would cause at Longbourn with a note to me about such a spectacle. My mother and sisters would have me read even the smallest remark about someone’s lace or pearls ten times in one day.
Do, please, write down every impression for my delectation.
” And then, in a more reasonable and even kinder voice, she added, “But only if you wish to and only when you have the time. A London Season sounds a tiring business though it is packed to overflowing with excitement.”
There, she seemed to say with one more glance at me. I smiled faintly at her, but I am sure my face conveyed my gratitude, and with that, I felt the last bone in my proverbial arm had been broken. They stood to go, we saw them to the door, and performed all the required pleasantries.
On the excuse I would walk to the mews to check on my horses, I stood on the street one last time and watched as a carriage in which this woman—this rare, exceptional woman—rode away.
Even after she disappeared into the distance, I stared at the unfilled space she left behind her.