Chapter Four
Though Mr. Darcy felt no particularly strong attachment to Elizabeth Bennet, he was determined to fulfill his duty as her guardian to the greatest extent that his abilities would allow.
While he had still had some hope that his business might resolve itself within proper time for him to retrieve her himself, Mr. Darcy had made inquiries through his man of business and at bookstores in the local market towns, in addition to sending letters to shops in Derby and London for texts and information about how to rear blind children.
He received a copy of Valentin Haüy’s Essai sur l’éducation des aveugles and read the short tome through twice the next evening.
Mr. Darcy at first liked the idea of purchasing a library of the books with raised texts described in it, but inquiries about their purchase informed him that such books were extremely difficult to make, and cost twenty times what ordinary books did, and as a result almost no such texts had been printed in English, and almost all of the ones that had been produced in French had been produced by Haüy’s school for its own use.
Though stymied in this matter, Haüy’s book had also informed Mr. Darcy that the blind were highly capable of memorization. It was wholly reasonable to require Elizabeth to acquire all of the knowledge of history, geography, and languages that schoolgirls were ordinarily taught.
He also learned about famed blind persons and recalled himself several most eminent examples of those who suffered in this way.
The notion that Elizabeth’s life must be an unfortunate one of suffering became substituted for the notion that she could have a tolerable life.
The unfortunate matter was that he could not imagine that a girl who was both blind and scarred would ever marry in a way that would do honor to him.
No matter what he did, she would be likely to be a permanent burden upon Jane and her resources, but she could find ways to be of some use and value to her sister.
A tablet was described in Haüy’s book for helping blind children learn to do their sums and to do multiplication, and Mr. Darcy determined that he would have one made, though he could not quite understand how it was to be made from the description in the book.
No matter.
It was not his own task to prepare it. When Mr. Darcy gave the book to Georgiana’s governess, who would now take on Elizabeth as an additional pupil to join with the lessons that she already gave Jane and Georgiana, he particularly instructed her to have one of them constructed.
Miss Wilson had no understanding of the instructions either, but she copied out by hand the paragraph of ambiguous instructions to give to the carpenter. After several attempts he created something which may or may not have been the object described by Haüy, but which served the purpose.
A frame was also made by the carpenter in which a piece of paper could be placed and which had pieces of string laid under the paper that would provide lines to guide Elizabeth’s hand as she wrote.
Mr. Darcy assigned a woman who had been in service to the family for more than ten years to be Elizabeth’s maid.
Sarah Brown had been terribly scarred by smallpox when she was a child, and as a result had no expectations of marriage, and seemed determined to remain as a servant her whole life.
Her younger brother had been struck blind by the same epidemic of smallpox, and she had been the one to principally care for him until he died five years later.
This suggested that she would likely be well suited for the role.
Additionally, she could read well, as could all of Mr. Darcy’s servants—he chiefly hired from amongst the children of tenants who attended the parish grammar school that he supported.
She was known for spending any time free from her duties reading novels about rakes and fantastical adventures from the library of cheaper editions that Pemberley house had established for the use of servants and tenants.
Upon assigning her to the role, Mr. Darcy gave her instruction to guide Elizabeth about the house, to make sure she knew about every stair, fireplace, and other dangerous place that she might fall into, and to read to her for however long the girl wished, except of course when Miss Elizabeth ought to be about her studies or otherwise occupied.
What Haüy wrote about how the blind were peculiarly talented at music struck Mr. Darcy very strongly. The governess, Miss Wilson, was a noted pianist, and Mr. Darcy intended to see Elizabeth properly trained in that skill.
When Mr. Darcy recollected that Mr. Bennet had enjoyed having Elizabeth sing, he engaged the most noted vocal master in the county to come up to Pemberley for two weeks to intensively train Elizabeth after her arrival, and to afterwards come at regular intervals to give her further lessons.
When Miss Elizabeth arrived, Mr. Darcy felt a sense of dissatisfaction at her appearance.
The scarring was exceedingly bad, and it would make her ugly into adulthood.
A beautiful blind woman would be a better ornament to society than one whose face must inspire pity mixed with disgust in all who beheld the unfortunate object.
The scarred and clouded eyes that stared intently in a direction that was not quite at the person with which Elizabeth spoke made a shiver go down Mr. Darcy’s back.
He decided that she must always wear a cloth over her destroyed eyes and face, for the sake of those around her.
Elizabeth would remain in Jane’s household for her whole life—which Mr. Darcy had every reason to hope would be shared with George Wickham—and he now thought more was a pity that his poor goddaughter must bear such a burden.
The next morning Mr. Darcy introduced Elizabeth to Miss Wilson and before he sent her off to her lessons, he made the following solemn speech: “Miss Elizabeth, you must feel the loss of your sight most keenly, and you may see yourself as profoundly limited by this. You should not, however, consider this affliction in such a light. There are many who have achieved the greatest prominence whilst lacking the use of their eyes. John Milton, the greatest English poet since Shakespeare, composed Paradise Lost after he had gone wholly blind. Sir John Fielding, the blind beak of Bow Street, was the greatest magistrate in our capital during the century which recently ended. In my university days, one of the many glories of Cambridge was the bust of the great mathematician Nicholas Saunderson, who was a worthy successor to the Lucasian professorship that Isaac Newton had held. If these persons could excel, be of high consequence, and provide additional glory to their names and connections, despite an infirmity of the eyes, I can expect nothing less from you. You have a clever mind, an excellent memory, and an ability to apply yourself. I expect excellent reports.”
Rather despite herself Elizabeth was inspired by this speech. She had not even known who Sir John Fielding was, despite having been a great enthusiast for the novels of his brother Henry Fielding.
Naturally upon being reminded of him, Elizabeth wished to reread his works.
It however transpired that the maid assigned to Elizabeth refused to read either Shamela or Tom Jones to her, and instead referred the matter to Mr. Darcy, who informed Elizabeth that despite Mr. Bennet’s leniency in the matter, such books were not appropriate for young ladies.
Mr. Darcy was one of the early gentlemen with the sort of notions about female nature, morality, and ideal education that would become prominent over the course of the century.
He had been aware, in a sense, that his friend Mr. Bennet put very few barriers between his favorite daughter and learning anything that might take her fancy, no matter how improper.
This would not continue.
Elizabeth sobbed, begged, and barely kept herself from a desperate childish rage upon receiving this refusal to let her reread the novel.
A partial reason that Elizabeth did not descend into a complete tantrum was that Mr. Darcy’s manner promised that he would not indulge her nor be amused by her antics in the way that Papa would have.
Elizabeth desperately missed Papa—but she refused to think about him. It hurt too much.
But also, of greater importance, was the presence of Fitzwilliam.
Over the course of the days on the road Elizabeth had become determined to act in a manner that would let him think well of her.
There was something inside of Elizabeth that simply refused to behave in a particularly shameful manner in front of him once more.
Elizabeth was left to long for the day—a day that was many years distant—when she would be independent, able to hire her own servant, acquire her own copy of Tom Jones, and order the servant to read it to her.
She correctly assumed, without asking, that Tristram Shandy was also lost to her, since it began with a passage that even more bluntly referred to matters that gentle girls should know nothing about.
After Elizabeth gave up attempting to convince him to let her read more widely, Mr. Darcy sent her off, after sternly reminding Elizabeth that she was to be a burden and dependent upon her sister all of her days, and that how she behaved would reflect upon Jane even more than upon herself, and that she must do better.
Elizabeth stiffly smiled at that consideration, nodded, and promised that she would never become a difficulty for Jane.
For his part Mr. Darcy was satisfied that Elizabeth was tolerably obedient and not possessed of an overly fierce spirit.
In that, he wholly misunderstood his ward.