Chapter Five #3
“To do otherwise would be beneath you. Remember, in your condition you must always be grateful to those who support you, and especially to your sister. You shall always be a severe burden upon her. You could not expect her to be happy if you ignored matters of conscience and duty. You owe those around you to do the utmost that you can do.”
“Yes, sir.”
This speech had brought to Elizabeth that familiar surge of resentment towards Jane. It somewhat undercut the strange, almost giddy feeling, that she had at Fitzwilliam writing that he had the utmost confidence in her.
What he wrote had been undeserved. Elizabeth knew that. She had half decided to pretend nothing had happened.
But if Fitzwilliam believed in her, she would do what her conscience demanded, no matter how much she hated doing so.
That evening Elizabeth knocked on Jane’s door and entered without waiting for a reply.
“Lizzy!” Jane pushed a chair back. Its legs scraped loudly against the wooden floor. She approached Elizabeth with light footsteps.
Elizabeth clenched her fists together.
She thought about Fitzwilliam’s words: I always have the highest confidence in you.
Elizabeth spoke in a very fast voice. “I don’t hate you. I don’t. I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize. I shouldn’t have. I don’t.”
Elizabeth trembled as she stood in the midst of the room. Her breaths came rapidly. And then Jane threw her arms around Elizabeth and hugged her tightly.
The conversation which followed involved many tears, many explanations, a great deal of reminiscences, always followed by more tears.
Jane explained to Elizabeth how she had believed that Elizabeth must hate her and that she had blamed herself for what happened because she had not been honest in her last letter to home before the fire.
Elizabeth told Jane about how many times she’d heard people saying that Jane would have been better off if she had died.
Elizabeth told Jane the story of the night of the fire, as she remembered it, and what it had been like while she was full of the fever and expected to die.
Jane sobbed to hear that, and told Elizabeth that she was so very, very happy that Lizzy had lived.
I wish I might say that after this the closeness between the sisters was greater than ever before, that they both were wholly happy with their connection, and that no unhappiness, cause for distress, or frustrations existed betwixt them.
This is nearly how it felt for Miss Bennet. She was happy to have her sister truly returned to her, and that there was a member of her family alive, and that she was not alone, for she had felt quite alone since Elizabeth had come to Pemberley.
But Elizabeth had changed so much, and the anger at Jane had been allowed to sit inside her for a long time.
She could no longer see Jane as the dearest sister in the world.
She certainly could not tell Jane everything that was in her mind.
And she knew that Jane pitied her, and saw her as a burden, and she did not like that.
This was established for Elizabeth when Jane said to her, “You need not ever worry about the future, no matter how much of a burden it is to care for you, I shall be happy to bear it.”
This speech, naturally, did not please Elizabeth, though the two sisters were in such a mood when Jane said it, that it was impossible for Elizabeth to feel the proper offence that had been natural to her of late.
Instead, she said, “No, no, I shall not be a burden. You see that I am not so difficult to have about, and what money I have shall defray any additional expenses. We equally have the fortune from our parents; it is you who shall be a burden on me. There is no reason to be unhappy about my presence.”
“Dear, dear Lizzy,” Jane replied. “If you prefer to think about it in such a way, I shall not argue.”
“I mean it. I am not so difficult, and I will not be. If you do not wish my presence, I will go elsewhere.”
“I am well ready to always have you about,” Jane replied.
“No, do not be angry. Please, I do not wish you to be angry. I merely wish to say that you need not worry. You need not be scared of causing difficulties for me—Mr. Darcy always tells you to fear that. But do not worry. I do not care. You may cause however many difficulties, and you will still be my sister who I love to care for.”
“I would rather be the one who cares for you,” Elizabeth replied. “And I hate this notion that I am useless. I can be useful. Being blind does not make a body useless.”
Jane did not reply, as she had been made accustomed to thinking of Lizzy as useless in all important respects due to her infirmity, and she had made a solemn determination to never again tell a small lie for the purpose of making others happy.
The sense that having done so had caused the deaths of her family had not yet abandoned her.
“I will not be useless—I will be like Henry Fielding’s brother, or that professor Mr. Darcy spoke about, or Milton, or…or Homer. A loss of sight does not make a person useless.”
“But Lizzy,” Jane replied reasonably and sweetly, “those are all men. They had duties in the world to pursue. But you are useful in the way that a woman should be; it makes me happy to see you happy, and happy to converse with you.”
This reply certainly did not please Elizabeth, but as her chief distaste with it did not point towards Jane but rather the arrangement of the world, it led to no further argument.
Perhaps it would have been better if it had caused argument, for often it is through dispute that people become closer to each other.
At least it allows them to understand one another.
That is, of course, when argument does not push them apart.
From this point Elizabeth had vague notions swirl about in her head of one day performing music for public crowds or earning additional money by composing books of poetry and saying clever things upon command like Priscilla Pointon had despite her blindness.
Something that while not respectable would be useful by increasing the income of the house.
These ideas, she was sure, were the sort of thing that Mr. Darcy would despise, since they would not add to his consequence, or increase the luster of Jane’s beauty.
That summer when Fitzwilliam Darcy returned to Pemberley, he was greeted most enthusiastically by Georgiana and Lizzy.
After Georgiana hugged him, to his surprise, Lizzy also awkwardly threw her arms around him when he stepped near her for the greeting.
The awkwardness was because she’d clearly guessed that he stood about three inches to the side of where he was.
She said, “There, if Georgiana shall hug you, I will too. We have decided that we are like sisters, you know.”
Darcy did know, as both girls had informed him of this in their letters to him.
In addition to his happiness at seeing the closeness between his sister and Lizzy—a connection that he believed was greatly to the benefit of both of them, as any close friendship ought to be—he was also pleased to see that the relations between Jane and Lizzy were almost what ought to subsist between two sisters.
Only almost.
Darcy knew Lizzy well enough to see that she had reserve and occasional cautiousness when she was in conversation with her sister.
As for whether there was any similar feeling on Jane’s part towards her sister, Darcy could not tell. He did not know Jane particularly well, and most of Jane’s time was monopolized by George Wickham.
Darcy’s cousin Richard Fitzwilliam spent three weeks that summer with them, enjoying the last of his leave before he shipped off to India.
It made Darcy happy to see the kindness which his cousin showed Lizzy.
Though he did not consciously realize it, how he saw people treat Lizzy was becoming a chief part of Darcy’s judgement of their character—the half-hidden contempt with which George Wickham treated her when he could do so without offending Jane was a chief reason that Darcy had begun to think ill of the character of his childhood friend.
Richard took Elizabeth seriously, told her stories about his military service, and said that he certainly did not think that every man who was blinded was useless.
He knew several very capable persons who had been blinded by cannon blasts and who had found—with the help of their friends, of course—useful professions in which their excellent memories and other abilities were put to good use.
The summer was particularly pleasant for Darcy, and he did not think he had felt so well at Pemberley since Mama had died.
His father kept him around very often, and made him meet with the tenants, the neighbors, and all persons of importance round about.
Papa spent a great deal of time riding about with him over their lands.
He was made to memorize facts of importance about all of the fields, woods, and meadows owned by the family.
He would be regularly quizzed to ensure that he had done his work to engrave this knowledge on his mind, and the expression of disappointment on his father’s face when Darcy could not answer a question aright was terrible to behold.
But when he was at home, there was enough time for him to let Lizzy and Georgiana drag him into their games.
Papa did not keep quite so busy with his studies as he always would before he’d gone to university. This was right. Darcy was leaving childhood behind and becoming a man. He must begin to depend upon himself to decide what was the most fitting and right use of his time and talents.
Occasionally Darcy helped Elizabeth climb to the lower limbs of trees.
When he’d spoken to Lizzy about her improved relations with her sister, Lizzy replied, “I hardly think I could have made myself apologize without you telling me that you believed I would. I could not bear to disappoint you.”
“You would have spoken to her no matter what,” he replied.
Lizzy shook her head. “I became so angry. At everything. You never would think ill of a person without reason, or hold an unreasonable grudge, but I know that I can.”
“What matters is what you do with what you are given. Your feelings come from the animal substance that every man is composed of. What matters, Lizzy, what is of importance is that you can overcome them. You are not only body, but also spirit.”
“I don’t want to be a burden. I won’t be. I won’t be useless.”
“Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy replied, rather surprised at hearing her suggest such a notion, “there are few people who are more useful creatures than you are. Simply focus upon being true to yourself.”
“And then I can be false to no man?” Lizzy replied, laughing.
As they had this conversation they were on the lawn, and she had taken off the ribbon over her face.
She was lying on the grass and staring sightlessly up at the sun.
Darcy observed the scars over her cheeks, with a raised line down her neck, and the mottling around her eyes.
The scarring had settled and whitened out; it was enormously improved in appearance from when Darcy had retrieved her from Meryton nearly a year past. One eye had sunken in, while the other was still alive, but with a whitish cloudiness over the pupils.
“Simply act as your best instincts tell you that you ought,” Darcy said.
“But if you need to know that you are useful, I depend enormously upon your letters, and I worry far less about Georgiana to know that you are present, and that you are her friend. I think that the loneliness she would feel if she were alone with Papa would not be easy for her, or help to properly form her character.”
“Oh no, she is still shy by tendency, and Jane is too much older than her, and too…well, I do agree she has needed me.”
“Papa is a great man,” Darcy said contemplatively. “One of the greatest gentlemen about. But he is not easy. And he has no tolerance for the weaknesses of childhood.”
Elizabeth had heard enough of how Mr. Darcy spoke to Fitzwilliam and Georgiana to think that he expected far too much of his children. She could not say whether he was a particularly great man, but she was glad that he was merely her guardian, and not her father.
After a period of silence, the sun shining on Elizabeth’s face and body, warming her pleasantly, Elizabeth said, “Yes but…I ought to do something of use. Not simply be a child who plays with another child. Jane thinks it absurd. But she also thinks I am useless.”
“I doubt that very much,” Darcy said. “She clearly feels strongly for you.”
“Jane is all goodness. Too much goodness. She likes the idea of sacrificing herself. The more useless I am, the greater the sacrifice. I think she would like it more if I was the greatest burden possible than if I was healed by miracle. I do not wish to be sacrificed for. I wish to—I wish I could have an active life, to go about in the world, to do something of worth that does not require easy sight. You must be shocked by this notion. I know your father would hate it.”
“Papa has notions about what girls ought to do,” Darcy said, hoping that Lizzy could hear the smile in his voice. “But I repeat what I said already; be true to yourself.”
“It always amuses me how that line is often repeated as sensible advice, and yet in the play Polonius spoke ridiculously, and in the most hackneyed, everyday, and sententious manner.”
“It is a common everyday thing to say, because it is good advice.”
“No, it is useless advice, for you must determine what it means to be true to yourself before you can act upon it.” Elizabeth then frowned. “And what would you say if I wished became a singer upon the stage? The famed blind singer of Haymarket.”
Darcy laughed, “Quite shocking, and I do not believe that the stage is nearly so remunerative as you imagine. You already have more in your own fortune than can be easily earned in such a way. But if you determine that is what you must do to be true to yourself, I would be a hypocrite to tell you that you cannot.”
“I hardly know. Only I know that when I am of age, and we have finished our education, I shall not stay long with her. Not if she is determined to think me a burden. Not even though Jane will have married some worthy fellow—Lord, I hope it is not George, I know he would wish for that.”
That notion made Darcy laugh. “No, no, it could not be George. He will not be of an age to receive a living and marry until he is twenty-four. He could not marry until then. And besides,” Darcy shrugged. “I see no likelihood of that, no matter how much they hang about each other now.”
They laughed, and fell silent, and lay with the warm sun on their faces. Both Elizabeth and Darcy felt the strength of the ties of friendship that bound them to each other.