Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Not being able to see the poverty of her sister’s dress, it was only several months after she’d returned to Pemberley as its mistress that Mrs. Darcy learned of the depth of the difficulties that her sister faced.
After this Mrs. Darcy approached the merchants around town and told them all that shipments of food and coals should be charged to her account, that the cost for clothes that Jane purchased for herself should likewise be charged her accounts.
Further Mrs. Darcy directly hired several respectable women to serve as Jane’s servants.
It was only after this that Wickham seriously harbored a wish to beat Mrs. Wickham. These women were spies. If he beat his wife now, it would be immediately reported to Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, and Darcy would find some means to hurt him for hurting his wife’s sister.
Mr. Charles Bingley had been an intimate of Mr. Darcy since they both attended Eton.
This young gentleman of fortune had greatly admired Mrs. Wickham when he met her before accompanying Darcy for his shortened grand tour, when she was still ‘Miss Bennet.’
His infatuation likely would have faded following her marriage if it had been a happy marriage. However, anyone who saw Mrs. Wickham in a room with her worse half could see that he was sneering and contemptuous. Her behavior, while everything that was proper, lacked real affection.
When Bingley visited Darcy at Pemberley, which he did more frequently than he would have without his hopeless affection for Jane Bennet, they met at assemblies, at church, and at dinners.
Bingley was a person who Wickham particularly liked to play cards with for two reasons.
The most important reason was that Wickham was delighted to watch gentleman helplessly admire his wife, looking at her from the corner of his eyes.
It was not in Jane’s character to ever betray him.
In that he had chosen his wife very well.
And for Wickham the chief benefit of a wife was so that other men could wish to have what he possessed.
But Wickham also liked to have Bingley visit, because that gentleman was not unhappy when he lost money to Wickham.
Mr. Bingley was aware of the poor state of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham’s finances, and he incorrectly believed that losing some ten or twenty, or even a hundred guineas on one occasion to Wickham would in some small way benefit the woman who was the standard against which he measured all other women.
Bingley generally let Wickham succeed in his bluffs when the stakes were high, even though he had known since they were both at Eton about Wickham’s poorly hidden tells.
In the autumn of 1811, shortly after Mrs. Darcy reached her twentieth year, Mr. Bingley hosted the Darcys and their child for a long stay at the estate that he had just leased.
Bingley’s estate of Netherfield was situated in the same neighborhood that Elizabeth had spent her early childhood in, and it was located only three miles from Longbourn.
Elizabeth found much delight in her return to the neighborhood of her childhood, even though she found the determination of Bingley’s younger sister to convince her and Georgiana to be the best of friends with her tiresome.
This was especially the case as Miss Bingley insisted on constantly commenting upon how impressive anything Elizabeth did—even going to the chamberpot—was due to her blindness.
The weather was pleasant enough that Elizabeth spent a great deal of time walking around with Georgiana, her son, and her husband.
She was particularly eager to do so much walking as she was with child once more.
Elizabeth remembered from the first time that exercise had become both more necessary and more difficult in the final months.
A chief delight was in hearing Fitzwilliam describe old sights and seeing how well they matched up to her memories.
Upon seeing her again, now named as Mrs. Darcy, her less beloved aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were very obsequious to Elizabeth.
She felt deeply uncomfortable the first time that she sat in Mrs. Phillips little parlor and listened to her aunt and uncle paint her with praise and declare that they had always been sure that it would be a very good thing that God had spared her.
She had avoided coming back to Meryton when Mr. Gardiner went each Christmas to visit the house that he had been born in and that his surviving sister occupied.
She’d excused herself by saying that the memories would be painful, but what Elizabeth now realized was that she had not wished to be resident again with Mr. and Mrs. Phillips.
“We had known that the scars would not be so bad, even though everyone said they would be,” Mrs. Phillips said.
“And look at you! You are a lovely woman. I always thought that you would marry better than Jane. She did not have the same fire you do—and that spirit is what truly will attach a man of worth.”
They sounded so sincere about their delight in her, and all of it was because she had married much better than Jane.
“Lizzy, you look as though you must have some fresh air—you know that in her condition she cannot be kept too much indoors.” Fitzwilliam’s pleasant voice interrupted her increasingly frustrated thoughts.
“Of course,” Mrs. Phillips replied. “You take such good care of her. You must hope for another son.”
“I shall be happy in either case, so long as both my wife and the babe are healthy,” Fitzwilliam replied, drawing Elizabeth up and walking her to the door.
Before she left, Elizabeth adopted her now familiar role as Mrs. Darcy to say some gracious parting words to her aunt and uncle. The way in which she spoke to them was the general manner she used with those who were inferior to her, and with whom she was in no way intimate.
From the cheerful sound of their replying voices, they were not at all offended by her manner or by her ending the call early.
As soon as they were out of the house and around the street corner, Fitzwilliam pulled her into a long embrace.
She rubbed her face against his light coat. “I am happy that it was a son for the first.”
“I rather hope for a daughter this time,” Fitzwilliam said. “One with your smile.”
“She was awful to me. I hardly remember the exact details, but it was a terrible time when I was dependent upon them both.”
“I remember. You spent half the time on the carriage ride up to Pemberley ranting about your aunt, and how she wished that you had died.”
Elizabeth laughed. “I must have been most tiresome.”
“Never. You were always charming.”
“No, be serious, what did you think of me? I do clearly remember that my appearance shocked you. The first words from your mouth were, ‘Jove, how did you live?’”
He kissed her forehead. “I am sure I said nothing of the sort.”
“And I am sure you did.” She grinned up at his face in a way that invited her husband to kiss her, which he did.
“Well, your appearance now certainly lacks nothing. And I find it easiest to remember that which I love.”
“I remember that I had a terrible tantrum when we first left the carriage. I think I was upset that you did not wish to let me take a walk.”
“You fell and scraped your hands. But I never thought ill of you on that account. You were chiefly unhappy, I think, that you had little say in how your time would be used or in what you would be permitted to do when in your aunt’s house.”
“No wonder I was so unhappy to return to this house.”
“She was unkind to you.”
“While you were always exceedingly kind to me. You always talked to me as a fellow human, not as a blind, pitiable creature—I sobbed for half an hour when you left for your university.”
“I had no notion,” Darcy replied. “I recall thinking that you had borne up under the parting very well.”
“Of course I did. Your father was watching. I seldom dared to cry in front of him.”
“I never did,” Darcy replied. “I hope Bennet will always…it is not that I wish him to cry easily. But I wish him to know that there is nothing unmanly in doing so. And to always know that I am proud of him. I have told you how Papa told me that he was proud of me, when he was dying. But he only said that after I convinced him that I did not depend upon his approval. Jove, what a mess he made of rearing us. George most of all, for he really was a second father to Wickham.”
“Your father had a great mix of good and bad features,” Elizabeth replied. “But the good features predominated.”
“I am not so certain—I hope to never be too satisfied with myself, to be more confident than I ought that my features are chiefly good. One must always be aware that it is possible to be wrong, and to make mistakes in matters of importance. Perhaps—I will face a test someday, when I may fall into an error like my father did with promoting your sister’s marriage to Wickham.
I hope to pass that test, but I cannot expect to do so. ”
“You will,” Elizabeth said confidently. “Even though it will be in a case where all courses seem bad or perhaps they all seem good—what matters most is that you seek to accept others as they in fact are, rather than wishing them to be something different.”
“I shall at least depend upon you to love me, even when I am in error. And to tell me.”
“Oh, you may certainly depend upon me telling you when you are in error—do you mind if we simply walk the whole way to Netherfield? I feel the need to stretch my legs.”
“Two miles, Mrs. Darcy? While in the family way?” Darcy said in mock shock.
His wife laughed, and they walked the whole way back, talking and laughing. And when they returned, Bennet had just woken from a nap and ran to embrace first his mother and then his father.