Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The next day, Mr Bennet was rather better after his first good night’s sleep in almost a week, the return of the brighter weather lifting his spirits as it normally did.
Elizabeth brought him his morning coffee and read the newspapers to him until Mr Lester, the new steward, arrived.
After checking that her father was not too tired, Elizabeth allowed him in to her father’s room to discuss a little estate business.
Although it felt disloyal, she had to admit that the estate was currently in a more prosperous condition under Mr Lester’s management than it had ever been under her father’s less exacting regime.
It was all the more unfair that this would probably accrue to the benefit of her father’s heir rather than to his closer family.
The sudden illness that had struck him down at such a comparatively young age had quickly proved how sadly improvident that regime had been.
When the seriousness of his illness had first become apparent, her father had instituted a regimen of retrenchment and economy, but after many years of indulging his own whims and those of his wife, it had proved difficult to lay aside more than a few—a very few—hundred pounds.
However, the sun was out, the dull drizzle that had depressed everyone’s spirits had lifted, and Elizabeth was determined to seize the opportunity for an hour’s walking in the woods about her home.
The autumn leaves had all fallen, and the paths were sadly muddy, but she knew the area so well that she could predict with some certainty those walks where the footing would be sound.
So she headed for the higher ground, threading her way between a stand of gloomy pines.
From her vantage point high about Longbourn, she could look towards Netherfield and indulge herself in a few moments of happy daydreaming.
Perhaps Mr Bingley would fall helplessly in love with Jane and all their troubles would be over.
The rest of them could settle in a little house in the neighbourhood, and gradually they would all find respectable, provident husbands—though she resolutely refused to imagine what such a man would want with Kitty or Lydia—and live happily, or at least contentedly, ever after.
Below in the water meadows, she could see a group of men on horseback approaching, the tall upright figure of Captain Darcy in front.
He rode rather well for a sailor, but surely, two accompanying grooms was a little excessive.
She remembered reading somewhere that a ship’s captain was treated as an absolute monarch aboard his ship; obviously, the gentleman liked a certain state.
The three horsemen galloped past, but while the two grooms touched their hats, the rider in front made no acknowledgement.
Bolt upright, green spectacles flashing in the sunlight, he towered over her and was gone.
She dropped a mocking curtsey to his retreating back and continued her walk, the daydream dispelled by a sudden excess of reality.
She set her mind to the more immediate problem: Mr Bingley.
He was by far the most promising candidate to present himself.
How to contrive further meetings? Her poor father could not be expected to call, and since he was known to be unwell, it was doubtful the Netherfield party would call on him.
Moreover, it was unlikely that the ladies at Netherfield would be eager to extend their acquaintance in the country, having appeared quite determinedly above their company.
Somehow, Elizabeth decided, she would have to contrive to call.
If it had been a case of calling on any other neighbour, she would simply have walked.
Lizzy Bennet’s strange habit of perambulating about the countryside was too well known now to attract any attention locally.
However, it would never do to appear eccentric or unmindful of the proprieties in such an important case, so she resolved to approach Mr Lester for the loan of a pair of horses.
Their carriage was old-fashioned but in good condition, and if she could but arrange to leave her mother behind, an afternoon call would be an excellent start to what, she hoped, would soon become a closer acquaintance.
Unfortunately, wishing for her mother’s absence was much easier than securing it.
Mrs Bennet seized upon the idea of a call with all her usual intemperate enthusiasm.
She would call with Jane, and Lydia could come too, “for we cannot as yet be sure that he has finally decided, and Lydia is such a lively young girl.” Elizabeth and the other girls could go call upon their aunt Philips and gather the local news instead, “for your father is resting and must not be disturbed.”
Mrs Philips was, as usual, pregnant with news, her maid Sukey being a particular friend of Mrs Needham, the housekeeper at Netherfield.
Mr Bingley had bought supplies for at least another two months; his sisters were demanding, disobliging sorts of women; Mr Hurst was drunk every night as soon as the ladies retired from dinner; and Captain Darcy’s valet, Mr Starkey, was a real live sailor with a wooden leg and a pigtail and everything.
If this were not enough excitement, Mr Bingley himself arrived to visit Mr Philips, and he was brought in to take tea with the ladies.
He proved himself just as pleasant and conversable as he had been the previous evening.
The men were the pleasantest group of fellows he had ever met, the ladies the kindest and prettiest. He was devastated to learn he had missed Mrs Bennet and would make sure his sisters returned the call as soon as ever they could so he could accompany them.
So much good humour was not perhaps evidence of a penetrating intelligence, but there was no folly to weary or ill manners to disgust, and really, he would be the perfect match for Jane—or for Jane as she had been before they had all been obliged to learn the sterner truths of their situation.
Elizabeth wondered whether the new Jane would find this unwearying good humour irksome but then chided herself.
If any of them had nothing worse to worry about in a husband than that, they would be obliged to give thanks on their knees.
Mrs Philips’s house was a general resort for the young people of the town for, as she herself expressed it, “I do so like to have a cheery group of people around me.”
Elizabeth was exchanging pleasantries with young Mr Catteral when Mr Bingley came up to speak to them, asking about pleasant walks and rides in the area.
“I am afraid neither of my sisters is a great one for spending time outside, but Darcy and I are hoping to ride out and see something of the countryside. I have been asking your uncle, Miss Bennet, about hiring a steward who knows the area to show me my business, for I know I shall have to get to know the land and the tenants too.”
Seizing her opportunity with both hands, Elizabeth pretended to consider while Jack Catteral chattered away about coveys and good runs with the local hunt.
When he had wound down, she said, “It is a pity my father has not been able to call at Netherfield. You have probably heard that he is rather unwell.” Mr Bingley bowed.
“For he has a set of particularly fine maps of the area that he had made by a surveyor from town, an old friend of my uncle Gardiner, which I am sure you would find most helpful.”
Mr Bingley was all interest. “I would not disturb Mr Bennet for the world, but if your mother would not mind receiving Darcy and me, a look at those maps would be most helpful.”
“Captain Darcy?” Elizabeth was rather startled.
“Oh goodness me, yes, I am no hand at all with a map. But Darcy, well, Darcy reads them like I read a book. Told me once he did some surveying himself as a boy—naval surveying, rocks and shoals and such—but I dare say it is all the same sort of thing.” He grinned unselfconsciously.
“They tried to beat mensuration into me at school. No use at all. Gave up on me in the end. So, Miss Elizabeth, if Darcy is well enough, poor fellow, I shall do myself the honour of calling at Longbourn tomorrow.” With that, he bowed to the company and took his leave of Mrs Philips.
As Elizabeth watched him go, she wondered whether Captain Darcy was often unwell.
Old Mr Catteral was often ‘unwell’ too, and she wondered whether it was the same malady: too much port.
Then suddenly she realised just how very uncharitable she was being.
The poor man had served his country with distinction and no doubt hoped to do so again.
A wound or illness contracted at sea was far more likely to be the cause of his absence.
It would not do; it really would not do.
She was allowing her own situation to cloud her judgment of her fellow man.
Merely because people in Meryton were beginning to fight shy of their acquaintance, for fear of appeals for assistance when the worst occurred, was no excuse for ascribing the worst of motives and reasons to other people’s actions, and to a stranger at that.