Chapter 22
Officious Interference
Elizabeth walked in the park the next day, thinking furiously about her discussion. She eventually concluded he was an entirely vexing and confusing man, but somewhere between interesting and fascinating, when steps sounded behind her.
Unable to decide whether she looked forward to one last bout of verbal sparring with her nemesis, she turned, surprised to find Colonel Fitzwilliam bearing down on her with his typical vacuous smile, and assumed a similarly insouciant expression.
“I did not know before that you ever walked this way.”
“I have been making the tour of the park,” he replied, “as I generally do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?”
“No, I should have turned in a moment.”
Accordingly, she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together.
“Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?” said she.
“If Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases.”
“And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr Darcy.”
The colonel chuckled. Too late, she perceived how uncharitable she had sounded, and how probably unjust.
“Of course, while I have complete faith in Lady Catherine, I do believe she relies on your cousin for many things. It is equally likely other duties have arisen, so perhaps we should not be so hard on him.”
The colonel mostly ignored her amendment, which annoyed her.
“He likes to have his own way very well,” replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence.”
Elizabeth grew more vexed by the stupidity of the assertion, especially after staring true genteel poverty in the face, with no relief in sight a few months earlier.
Perhaps the soldier meant to be humorous, but his sense of his audience showed a certain lack of discernment.
She answered more sharply than was probably polite, little though she cared.
“In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?”
“These are home questions—and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like.”
“Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.”
“Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.”
By then, Elizabeth had endured as much of the man as she cared for. She was again reminded of Mary’s yapping cur and thought to examine her ankles for bites.
They spoke of Mr Darcy’s sister, who suffered the cousins as guardians, which frankly sounded like a terrible idea.
She desperately hoped there was a woman—any woman—somewhere in the mix, else the poor girl was likely to be completely unacquainted with how to live in the world.
However, Miss Darcy’s fate was no more her concern than Mr Darcy’s, so she let the subject drop.
The colonel prattled on for a few more minutes while Elizabeth’s thoughts went more and more to his cousin, who at least was interesting, vexing though he was.
The colonel swept a fallen branch from the path, and she said without thinking, “Thank you, Mr Bingley.”
No sooner had the words escaped her mouth than she gasped, “I beg your pardon, Colonel. Something occasionally fails betwixt my brain and my mouth.”
He laughed. “At least you did not call me Darcy. A man without his handsomeness or consequence does not like to be reminded of it, but Bingley I can endure. We are similar enough that the confusion is understandable.”
“You know the Bingleys?”
“I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man—he is a great friend of Darcy’s.”
“Oh! yes,” said Elizabeth drily; “Mr Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.”
“Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy does take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture.”
The gossip displeased Elizabeth, but, unable to contain her curiosity, she asked, “What is it you mean?”
“It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady’s family, it would be an unpleasant thing.”
“You may depend upon my not mentioning it.”
“And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.”
Elizabeth’s heart nearly halted at the inference. How many men could Mr Darcy possibly pry away from imprudent marriages? If he had interfered with Mr Bingley, that would be bad enough; if he did it often, it would be even worse.
Curious to get more details, or at least confirmation, she asked, “Did Mr Darcy give you reasons for this interference?”
“I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady.”
It would be just like the man to object to the lady’s family but blame the lady herself!
Nobody could possibly object to Jane, but as to the rest of the Bennet family, with emphasis on Mr and Mrs Bennet, or even her three younger sisters before the ball—well, anybody objecting to them would only be showing good sense.
Jane herself had supplied the argument, and if Mr Darcy’s arts in separating the couple amounted to repeating what Jane said a week later, Elizabeth could not necessarily fault him for it—but it still made her frightfully angry, because for all he knew, he could have condemned Jane to genteel poverty.
“And what arts did he use to separate them?” she asked.
“He did not talk to me of his own arts. He only told me what I have now told you.”
Elizabeth made no answer and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful.
“I am thinking of what you have been telling me. Your cousin’s conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?”
“You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?”
Elizabeth slowed her walk, trying to calm her temper before she answered.
“I do not see what right Mr Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend’s inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy.
But, as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him.
It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case. ”
“That is not an unnatural surmise—but it is a lessening of the honour of my cousin’s triumph very sadly.”
There was the phrase that told her all she needed to know.
‘My cousin’s triumph’. Was that how Mr Darcy saw it, or how the colonel—clearly not the cleverest of men—embellished the story?
The man beside her did not even properly know any of that sad play’s actors, nor any details, so he must be inventing those to fill the gaps and make the story more interesting.
The phrase smacked of condescension, and Elizabeth was having none of it.
She stopped abruptly, fuming.
The colonel stopped beside her. “Are you well?”
Her anger boiling over, Elizabeth remembered Mary’s advice that angry people are not always wise.
Her sister had advised her to do some arithmetic—any arithmetic—to calm down, so she occupied herself with the first dozen entries of the Fibonacci Sequence[xvii].
That almost did the trick; she added the first dozen prime numbers until her ire reduced to a manageable level.
Finally, she said, “I apologise, Colonel. I am not enjoying this conversation very much. Mrs Collins gave me some much-needed advice about how to refrain from reacting angrily, but it takes time.”
The colonel appeared to finally perceive his misstep. “Did my disclosures offend you? If so, I apologise for bringing up such a subject.”
Elizabeth lost her thin hold on her temper. “I see! You have no objection to gossip; you just object to being caught at it.”
“I do not understand.”
She stared down at her right boot peeking out from her dress, and growled, “I am using all my thin reserves of patience to keep myself from kicking you in the shins, so an explanation might prove painful.”
Looking increasingly contrite, he stammered, “If that would make you feel better, I suggest you let fly. I have clearly earned your displeasure. Now that I think on it, that is not a story I should have told, to you or anyone. You are correct. Such things are best left unsaid or unheard. However, your anger seems… ah… disproportionate to the offence.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, my understanding of the proportionality of the offence and the reaction does not add up. The equations are not balanced. From this, I must conclude that I do not possess all the information you have.”
“No sir! You do not.”