FOUR
Longbourn
Elizabeth
The following morning , Elizabeth came down to breakfast to find her father already at the table with his paper, entirely undisturbed by the events of the previous evening.
He had slept through the return of his family, looked rather well rested, and appeared not the least curious about what he had missed.
Mrs. Bennet did not allow this to stand for long.
The report began before the tea had finished pouring and covered the assembly in exhaustive detail, with especial attention given to Mr. Bingley, who was declared everything charming, everything agreeable, and entirely captivated by Jane.
“He danced with her twice, Mr. Bennet,” said Mrs. Bennet triumphantly. “Not once, as common civility requires, but twice.” Mrs. Bennet spoke as though the matter were now all but settled.
“I am glad to hear it,” said Mr. Bennet. “Had he stood up with her a third time, I suppose we should have been obliged to order wedding clothes at once.”
Half the table burst into laughter, which subsided only under the force of Mrs. Bennet’s pointed glare.
Mrs. Bennet gave an impatient little huff. “You may laugh if you choose, Mr. Bennet, but I know very well what I saw.”
Lydia took over from there and launched into an account of several newly arrived officers in Meryton who had attended the assembly, at a volume more suited to a parade ground than the breakfast table. Kitty agreed with everything Lydia said.
“You cannot form a reliable opinion of these officers’ character from a single evening's observation,” Mary said, setting down her toast. “To do so is the province of the hasty mind.”
“Thank you, Mary,” said Mr. Bennet.
“I have more.”
“I am certain you do.”
Elizabeth attended to her breakfast and said nothing. She was aware of her father's gaze finding her across the table and looked up.
“And what did you make of it all, Lizzy?”
She considered the question. “A very lively evening,” she said at last. “Mr. Bingley is everything reported and perhaps a little more besides.” She reached for her cup. “His friend is rather less so.”
“Mr. Darcy,” said Mrs. Bennet immediately.
“Yes. He sat there the entire evening without speaking to anybody. Pushed about in that chair by his manservant, staring at the room as though we were all beneath his notice. Very strange indeed. Ten thousand a year and not the smallest civility to recommend him. I cannot think what Mr. Bingley sees in him.”
“I thought him guarded,” said Jane quietly. “Not unkind, precisely. There is a difference.”
“One cannot judge a person entirely by their conduct in company,” said Mary. “Particularly one who has evidently suffered a great deal. To form conclusions without sufficient knowledge is neither rational nor charitable.”
“Mary has been reading again,” said Lydia.
Elizabeth had her own thoughts on the matter but they were not, at present, fit for the breakfast table.
The recollection of Mr. Darcy’s words was still with her, sharp and unwelcome, and she found she could not set it aside as cleanly as she had intended.
Yet she could not wholly dismiss Mary's argument either, and that irritated her almost as much as the man himself.
The table continued around her, Lydia still on the subject of the officers, Kitty in faithful agreement, Mrs. Bennet returning at intervals to the excellence of Mr. Bingley.
Elizabeth attended to her breakfast and let it all pass over her.
She had nearly succeeded in putting Mr. Darcy from her mind when she caught her father's eye above the edge of his paper.
There was something in it — a gleam, quietly held — that she had learned over the years to treat as a warning.
He folded the paper with deliberate care and set it down.
“Speaking of gentlemen none of us yet know what to make of,” said he, “I have received a letter from my cousin, Mr. Collins.”
The effect was immediate. Mrs. Bennet set down her cup with such force that Elizabeth feared for the china.
“Mr. Collins?” she repeated in strong displeasure. “And what can he possibly want?”
“What do you think?” said Mr. Bennet.
“Has the man not the decency to wait until you are in your grave before he begins making himself at home at Longbourn?”
“It appears not,” said Mr. Bennet with a smile. “Though I confess I find the honesty refreshing. Most men possess the politeness to conceal how patiently they await another’s death. Mr. Collins, it seems, is of a more direct character.”
“It is not amusing, Mr. Bennet.”
“On the contrary, I find it exceedingly diverting.”
The name itself was not unfamiliar to Elizabeth.
Mr. Collins was the Bennets’ nearest male relation and heir to Longbourn by entail, a circumstance Mrs. Bennet had lamented so often that Elizabeth could hardly remember when she had first learned it.
Yet for all the years his name had circulated through the household, none of them had ever met him.
To Elizabeth, Mr. Collins had always seemed less a relation than a distant inconvenience attached to the future of Longbourn.
“What does he say exactly?” demanded Mrs. Bennet.
“That he wishes to visit us.” Mr. Bennet reached into his coat and withdrew the letter. He held it for a moment before extending it across the table.
Mrs. Bennet’s hand moved at once to receive it, but Mr. Bennet placed it instead before Elizabeth.
She picked it up at once and, at her father's slight nod, unfolded it.
The handwriting was elaborate and heavily ornamental, while the letter itself appeared considerably longer than strict necessity required.
Elizabeth read silently for several moments, her expression altering more than once despite her efforts at composure, before at last locating the portion most likely to interest the table.
“He opens,” she said, “by expressing a wish to heal the long estrangement between our families, which he considers a matter of some regret.” She glanced further down the page.
“He then informs us that he has been most fortunate in the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whose generosity in granting him the living of Hunsford he considers among the greatest blessings of his life.”
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” said Mrs. Bennet, turning the name over thoughtfully. “That sounds a very distinguished connection.”
“It is indeed,” said Mr. Bennet. “Pray continue, Lizzy.”
“He is also,” said Elizabeth, “a clergyman.” She paused. “He mentions this after Lady Catherine, which I think tells us something about the order of his priorities.”
Mr. Bennet's eyes brightened. “It tells us a great deal.”
Elizabeth returned to the letter. “He is sensible, he writes, of the hardship his inheritance must occasion to the daughters of Longbourn and wishes to make every possible amends.” She glanced up briefly. “He proposes to visit next Monday and expects to remain a fortnight, at the very least.”
The table absorbed this in collective silence.
“A fortnight,” repeated Mrs. Bennet faintly.
“At the very least,” said Elizabeth.
Lydia groaned openly. Kitty echoed the sound a moment later with less conviction but equal feeling.
Elizabeth lowered her eyes again to the letter. “He further expresses a strong desire to make the acquaintance of his fair cousins, whose reputed accomplishments and amiable manners he hopes soon to admire in person.”
“Oh Lord,” muttered Lydia.
Kitty dissolved into laughter at once.
Mrs. Bennet’s attention, which had until then wandered between indignation and complaint, fixed suddenly upon Elizabeth.
“Admire?” she repeated slowly. “He wishes to admire them?”
“So he writes,” said Elizabeth.
“All five?” said Mrs. Bennet.
“He does not specify.”
Mrs. Bennet sat back in her chair with an expression that suggested she was already making arrangements in her head. “Well,” she said at last, with great composure. “Perhaps Mr. Collins is not entirely without merit after all.”
“High praise,” said Mr. Bennet, “from a woman who five minutes ago wished him back in his grave.”
“I wished no such thing,” said Mrs. Bennet. “I merely questioned his timing.”
Even Jane smiled at that.
Elizabeth continued. “He closes by expressing that he comes in a spirit of Christian charity and conciliation, and trusts that his visit will prove agreeable to all parties.” She set the letter down.
“Indeed, he appears to consider Lady Catherine's approval of the visit among its chief recommendations.”
Mr. Bennet held out his hand for the letter. “Then the correspondence improves upon further acquaintance. I begin to think Mr. Collins a man of extraordinary resources. He has managed, in a single letter, to mention Lady Catherine de Bourgh no fewer than four times.”
“Five,” said Elizabeth.
“I stand corrected,” said Mr. Bennet, with great satisfaction. “I look forward to studying the arrangement more closely when he arrives.”
“You would,” said Mrs. Bennet darkly.
“I would,” Mr. Bennet agreed cheerfully, and retrieved his newspaper.
Elizabeth glanced toward him. He did not return the look, though the slight movement at the corner of his newspaper suggested he found the morning considerably more entertaining than he intended to admit.
The table soon resumed speculation upon their approaching guest. Lydia declared him certain to be intolerably dull, Kitty agreed immediately, and Mrs. Bennet appeared unable to decide whether Mr. Collins ought to be resented for the entail or encouraged for his admiration of her daughters.
Elizabeth returned quietly to her breakfast and said little further herself, though her thoughts had already begun arranging themselves around the arrival of a man none of them had ever met, yet who stood, by law, to inherit everything around them.
And, rather against her will, they wandered once or twice toward another gentleman she had met only the evening before, but whose reserve still resisted every conclusion she attempted to form of him.
* * *
Netherfield
Darcy
Darcy woke earlier than usual. The curtains were still drawn and the room was grey and quiet.
He lay still for a moment, as was his habit, taking stock before the day began.
His legs were their usual weight, that deep settled heaviness he had long since stopped calling pain and had learned instead to simply account for.
He pushed himself upright. It took longer than it once had. He was accustomed to that also.
The room bore very little resemblance to his chambers at Pemberley.
It had once been a study, or perhaps a small drawing parlour, situated upon the ground floor at the back of Netherfield where the light arrived late and the ceiling sat lower than he was accustomed to at Pemberley.
It had been altered for his convenience shortly before his arrival, the doors widened sufficiently for the chair and the furnishings rearranged with practicality rather than symmetry in mind.
His bed stood where no bed had originally belonged.
Rugs had been removed where the wheels caught.
Shelves and washstands lowered. Everything within the room had been adapted toward ease of movement, though the temporary nature of it remained evident beneath the adjustments, as though the room itself understood it had once been intended for an entirely different purpose.
He had learned, these past two years, to measure rooms by sufficiency rather than preference. It no longer particularly mattered to him.
About ten minutes later, Marsh appeared. He set the basin on the stand, laid out the towels, and looked at Darcy with the brief assessing attention he gave him every morning.
“Good morning, sir. Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough,” said Darcy.
Marsh nodded once and assisted him through the morning's washing with the practised ease of long habit. Neither of them spoke of the assistance. They had not spoken of it for some time.
The washing done, Marsh moved to the clothes laid out the night before and worked through the business of dressing with his customary focus. The silence between them was easy. It always was.
“What did you make of last night?” said Darcy, without particular preamble.
Marsh did not look up from the cravat. “The room was well attended, sir. The neighbourhood seemed in good spirits.”
“Bingley was pleased with it.”
“Mr. Bingley is generally pleased, sir.”
“He is,” said Darcy. After a brief pause, he continued. “Judging by the fact that he danced with the most handsome lady in the room, one would expect such from him.”
“Miss Bennet is indeed very beautiful, sir.”
“She is.” Darcy was quiet for a moment. “I suppose his happiness is why he thought it proper to press her sister’s acquaintance upon me.”
Marsh made a small adjustment to the linen and said nothing.
“He meant well,” said Darcy after a moment. It was neither quite a defence of Bingley nor entirely a criticism, merely an acknowledgment offered in the absent tone of a man following a thought without any particular intention of arriving anywhere with it.
He looked toward the window. The Netherfield grounds were taking shape in the early grey light, the lawn emerging slowly from the dark.
After a moment of silence he said, “She did not look away.”
Marsh waited.
“When I said what I said. She had turned and was looking directly at me and she did not look away.” He paused. “Most people look away.”
“Yes, sir,” said Marsh. “They do.”
Another long stretch of silence settled between them before Darcy continued. “Do you suppose she was angry.”
“I suspect she was, sir. She concealed it admirably.”
“She did not show it. Not at first.” He paused again. “Her eyes are — not easily forgotten.”
Marsh's eyes lifted briefly, a barely perceptible movement, and though he stepped back to assess the cravat without a word, Darcy caught the slight rise of his brow.
“I did not say I found her handsome,” said Darcy, mildly surprised to find himself explaining it.
“No, sir,” said Marsh. “You said her eyes were not easily forgotten.”
“Which is a different observation entirely.”
“Entirely, sir.”
Darcy reached for his gloves and drew them on with the careful deliberateness that mornings required of him.
“Tell Bingley I will not be down for breakfast,” he said.
Marsh stopped. He did not move toward the door. He stood for a moment, carefully choosing his words.
“Sir,” he said at last. “You did not eat last evening either.”
Darcy said nothing.
“Nor the evening before.”
“Marsh.”
“Sir.”
The word held everything Marsh would not say directly and everything Darcy would not hear.
The silence between them stretched, and then Darcy turned from the window and looked at him, and whatever Marsh saw in his face settled the matter.
He inclined his head once, very slightly, and moved toward the door.
He left the room quietly.
Darcy remained at the window long after Marsh had gone, watching the slow arrival of morning across the grounds below.