Chapter 6
After Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy dined at Longbourn, the house became intolerable.
Mrs. Bennet had acquired hope in quantities unsafe for domestic use. She spoke of Mr. Bingley at breakfast, luncheon, and dinner, with additional remarks inserted between meals in case providence had not been listening. Jane bore it with grace. Elizabeth bore it by leaving rooms.
Mr. Darcy called twice with Bingley.
On the first occasion, he spoke to Mr. Bennet about estate improvements and received a series of answers so dry they might have preserved fruit.
On the second, he endured Lydia's complaint that officers were scarce and Mary's opinion that scarcity improved moral discipline.
He did not flee. Elizabeth noted this against her will.
She was in the shrubbery on the third afternoon, pretending to inspect a rosebush that had done nothing to deserve the intensity, when Darcy found her.
"Miss Elizabeth."
"Mr. Darcy. Have you come to apologize to the shrubbery too?"
"If I have injured it."
"It has been silent on the matter, which in this house counts as forgiveness."
He almost smiled. The almost was modest and therefore more dangerous than his former smiles, which had often looked like judgments taking exercise.
"May I walk with you?"
"You may walk beside me. With me suggests agreement."
"I accept the distinction."
They moved along the path. For several steps neither spoke. Elizabeth refused to assist him. A man who had once proposed by listing objections could be trusted to locate words under pressure.
"I owe you more apology than I can make at once," he said.
"That is true."
He looked at her.
"I mention it only to establish common ground," she said.
"I have deserved your severity."
"Careful, Mr. Darcy. If you become too agreeable, I shall suspect illness."
This time he did smile, briefly. "I was wrong about your sister."
The words, plain and unadorned, stopped her more effectively than eloquence could have.
He stopped too.
"I was wrong," he repeated. "I saw composure and called it indifference because that answer suited my objections. I concealed her presence in London from Bingley. I justified it to myself as protection. It was interference."
Elizabeth studied him. "Have you told Mr. Bingley?"
"Yes."
"All?"
"Enough that he knows the fault was mine and the choice must be his."
"Enough is a flexible word in gentlemanly hands."
"All, then," he said, with a little pain. "I told him all that concerned his attachment and my part in separating him from it. I did not speak of matters private to others."
Wickham, she understood. Georgiana.
"Good."
They resumed walking.
"And my family?" she asked.
He inhaled slowly. "I have judged them ungenerously."
"That is the first item. The list beneath it is longer."
"Your mother's behavior alarmed me."
"It alarms us all. Continue."
"Your younger sisters appeared ungoverned."
"They often are."
"Your father's indifference seemed dangerous."
"It can be."
He looked at her with sudden frustration. "You agree with me and yet condemn me."
"Because you mistook our faults for permission to despise us."
He had no immediate answer.
Elizabeth turned toward him. "I know my family, Mr. Darcy.
I know every absurdity. I have been embarrassed by my mother, exasperated by Lydia, disappointed by my father, and bored into Christian suffering by Mary.
You are not wrong because you noticed. You are wrong because you converted noticing into superiority. "
The words struck him. She saw the old pride rise, meet something newer, and retreat with poor grace.
"That is just," he said.
"It is also generous. I might have said you were insufferable."
"You have said it before."
"Yes, but I enjoy variety."
He laughed then. Not much. Enough.
The sound unsettled her. She preferred him grave. Gravity made him easier to accuse. A Darcy who laughed at himself, even a little, was a complication.
"At dinner," he said, "you gave me an opening."
"I gave you a test."
"I know."
"You nearly failed."
"I know that too."
They had reached the edge of the shrubbery. From there they could see the front of the house, where Kitty was chasing a ribbon blown from Lydia's bonnet and Mrs. Bennet was directing a footman with the urgency of a military campaign.
Darcy watched the scene. Once, Elizabeth knew, he would have seen only vulgarity. Today his expression was more difficult to read.
"I cannot make your family other than they are," he said.
"No one has asked you to work miracles."
"Nor can I pretend all conduct is equal."
"I would distrust you if you did."
"Then what do you require of me?"
The question was direct. It deserved a direct answer, though direct answers had a way of revealing more than one intended.
"Respect," she said. "Not admiration for every foolishness.
Not blindness. Respect. If you think my mother vulgar, remember she is a woman with five daughters and no secure future for any of them.
If Lydia is silly, remember no one with authority has troubled to guide her.
If my father laughs when he should act, do not punish Jane for it.
Do not punish me. And never again call interference protection because the woman harmed was too gentle to object where you could hear her. "
Darcy's face had gone very still.
"You ask much," he said softly.
"No. I ask what you would have given anyone you already considered your equal."
The difference stood between them.
He bowed his head.
The gesture was not theatrical. That made it worse. Elizabeth felt her anger lose one of its favorite supports.
"I will try," he said.
"Do better. Trying is what people say when they wish to be thanked before the work is done."
"Then I will do better."
From the house, Mrs. Bennet called Elizabeth's name with enough force to alarm livestock.
Elizabeth turned. "I am summoned."
"Miss Elizabeth."
She looked back.
"I cannot undo my first proposal."
"No. It will remain a remarkable document in the history of offensive romance."
Pain crossed his face, but so did acknowledgment. "If I ever speak again on that subject, I will remember."
"See that you remember before speaking. It saves time."
She left him there, beneath the soft green of the shrubbery, and walked toward the house with the uncomfortable sensation that justice had become less simple.
Inside, Mrs. Bennet seized her arm. "Lizzy, why must Mr. Darcy always find you in the shrubbery? If he means nothing by it, it looks odd; if he means something, it looks odder still."
"I shall endeavor to be poorer company."
"Do not be pert. Mr. Bingley has asked Jane to walk tomorrow."
Elizabeth's heart lifted despite everything. Across the room, Jane stood by the window, cheeks delicately colored, hope no longer able to disguise itself as composure.
Perhaps, Elizabeth thought, some repairs did not begin with grand gestures.
Perhaps they began with one person telling the truth to the person he had misled, and then getting out of the way.
It was not enough.
But it was not nothing.