Chapter 23
Big Boxes
When they were gone, Elizabeth accepted a light meal from Hannah and retired to the parlour to read and think.
The former consisted of rereading Jane’s last letters.
She was happy that Jane and Mr Jameson were coming together nicely, if in fits and starts.
They were both such private people that they had difficulty communicating, but Elizabeth was glad she was not in London.
If she were readily available, Jane might enlist her help, and Elizabeth was of the firm opinion that her sister needed to start managing her own life.
Mr Jameson seemed in no danger of going away, and there was plenty of time.
As for thinking, she tried to sort in her mind exactly what she thought about the ever-perplexing Mr Darcy. Her anger with the colonel had cooled; it was time to look at the man objectively for once.
The only new intelligence was that the colonel believed, most likely correctly, that Mr Darcy somehow participated in Mr Bingley’s departure, and told his closest cousin of it only vaguely.
He did not divulge the names of the parties, so the colonel’s gossip was at least half speculation.
It was probably accurate speculation, but still.
Whatever his other faults, Mr Darcy was not trying to sink the Bennet family’s reputation.
With some effort, to be both charitable and rational, she must disregard the gossipy aspects of the story altogether and take the colonel’s assertion that Mr Darcy helped in the separation as an unproven, though likely true, fact.
That left what she already knew, along with the supposition that Mr Darcy might have advised Mr Bingley against an alliance.
What did that mean for Mr Darcy’s character?
Mr Bingley was a lost cause, and she was thoroughly indifferent to the colonel after her ire cooled; but she was still trying to sketch the Derbyshire gentleman’s character. Was this a stain on it or not?
To aid her thinking, and hopefully remove excess emotion, she tried an exercise that replaced certain characters with others. It was a useful trick she sometimes used with her sisters to weed out bias. She had to choose between using well-known people and strangers, and chose those she knew.
She sat down in a comfortable chair, closed her eyes, and sent her memory back to the Netherfield ball, which seemed to be the event all others orbited. The relations between all parties changed dramatically the next day, so that seemed a good place to start.
Elizabeth imagined Jane as a wealthy heiress and Mr Bingley a nearly penniless fifth son. She made Mrs Bennet the mother of the penniless gentleman, and ran her mother’s exact words through her mind, replacing Mr Bingley with Miss Bennet, and Jane with Mr Down-on-His-Luck.
As Jane had emphatically asserted, had Elizabeth, as an objective observer, heard the exchange, she would have been appalled.
Mrs Down-on-His-Luck would have gone on and on about how her son had captured the elusive Miss Bennet, and how their alliance would certainly throw her other sons into the path of rich heiresses.
Hearing the words thus transposed, Elizabeth started to feel nauseous.
For the coup de grace, she imagined Charlotte listening to the exchange, while Mr Down-on-His-Luck’s brother hissed repeatedly at his mother to be silent, only to be chastised with the clear statement that nobody cares what Miss Lucas hears.
Charlotte would have dragged Jane from the ball by force and locked her in her room until the fortune hunter went away.
From that perspective, Mr Darcy’s point was clear, especially if Mr Down-on-His-Luck was someone who kept his emotions well-hidden and did not show apparent affection for Miss Bennet.
Charlotte would, at the very least, suggest the couple consider the matter carefully, and much to Elizabeth’s chagrin, if Jane abandoned the relationship, Charlotte would rejoice in her success.
She imagined Charlotte making a trip a few months later with Louisa Goulding.
Would Charlotte scruple in telling her good friend about the incident, at least in general terms?
She would not. Louisa might have more sense than the colonel, like most donkeys, but could she be certain?
She had heard enough gossip from the Meryton ladies to doubt it.
If she set aside her family’s attachment, she found no real fault with Mr Darcy.
Oh, she was perfectly happy to dislike Mr Bingley until the end days, but was it Mr Darcy’s responsibility to make his friend take his leave?
Was it his job to explain his friend’s absence?
Was it his task to make up for his friend’s either fickle or sensible nature, depending on her mood?
Did Elizabeth even know what he suggested to Mr Bingley?
For all she knew, Mr Darcy simply advised caution, and Mr Bingley followed his sister’s advice.
Or perhaps he suggested taking his leave, and Mr Bingley, lacking fortitude, delegated the task to his sister.
In the end, Elizabeth could assign little real blame to Mr Darcy.
They had enjoyed several conversations of a more intimate nature than was usual between unmarried people, but where could either of them have reasonably brought up the Bingleys or what had happened at Netherfield?
How would one even start the conversation, and, more importantly, why?
She could not even fault the gentleman for acting as if the whole affair had never happened.
Was that not what she had done? Had her tongue not slipped, she never would have brought up the name to the colonel or anyone else.
All this thinking, followed by an almost verbatim recall of Jane’s raging set-down of her parents, led her to one inescapable conclusion: Based on all she knew, Mr Darcy was probably a good man, though rough around the edges.
Being of similar temperament, Elizabeth did not see where she could criticise him for that.
In the matter of Mr Bingley, aside from the minor breach of failing to take his leave, Mr Darcy was faultless.
He advised a good friend to the best of his ability, and what more could be demanded?
Once that was done, she worked her way back to the first assembly, step by step, considering every meeting.
As in her previous discussion with Mary, she could not find fault enough to condemn him.
The man had endured a bad night and said some unfortunate things.
She did the same occasionally, and her father made a sport of the practice.
When Elizabeth considered all Mr Darcy actually did, setting aside everything she assumed he had done, and Mr Wickham’s probable lies besides, there was little fault.
To be certain, his manners were not as engaging as some, and he was nervous and unapproachable in crowds, but those did not seem terrible offences by any stretch of the imagination.
More importantly, she had no proper frame of reference, unless she were willing and able to spend a decade stalked by the husband hunters of the ton. It was impossible to judge Mr Darcy’s state of mind accurately from her own experience.
All in all, Elizabeth was prepared for whatever the morrow brought regarding Mr Darcy. She was finally satisfied she understood him. He was a good and admirable man who probably held her in some modest affection, who would almost certainly never act.
If, by some wild chance, he did act upon it, he had made very clear that he never did anything precipitously, so she would have plenty of time to work out how to respond.
Should he ask to call on her or court her, she liked him well enough to allow it. He seemed worth knowing better, and perhaps she could help him with his more awkward behaviours, or even satisfy the insufferable colonel by helping him with his sister.
Elizabeth settled back against the sofa. Lightning was very unlikely to strike, but on the off chance it did, Mary and the colonel had left her well placed to respond appropriately.
Elizabeth’s mind was made up. She did not love the man, or even esteem him particularly, but she liked him well enough to give serious consideration in the unlikely event it became necessary.
Her mind fully satisfied, she sighed over a difficult decision properly made.
~~~
Elizabeth rose to pour a cup of tea from the pot Mary kept on the fireplace, when the doorbell rang. She met Hannah, the maid-of-all-work, at the front door.
Outside stood two carters. “Delivery for Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Elizabeth smiled and identified herself.
The two men returned to their cart and brought in an enormous pasteboard box.
Amused and inordinately curious, Elizabeth directed them to the parlour and helped Hannah clear a space.
She took coins from her reticule for the men’s trouble, sent everyone from the room, and set out to discover what was what.
The box was so large it barely passed through the door sideways. Its exterior was green pasteboard, painted with a lovely park scene. Did that have any meaning beyond decoration? She was unlikely to find out if she did not get on with it.
The box resembled a giant hatbox. With anxious fingers, Elizabeth untied the twine and lifted the top.
Inside lay a second box of red pasteboard with its own lid.
It was an inch smaller and wedged in place with spacers near the bottom.
With even more excitement, Elizabeth opened the second box and, to her delight, found yet a third inside.
The final box revealed a beautiful and intricately carved dollhouse.
The gable of the roof had a small handle on top, with a note attached that read simply, ‘Lift me’.
With a delighted giggle, Elizabeth lifted the handle carefully, and the entire roof came off in one piece. The construction was exceptionally fine, made of light-coloured lacquered wood and beautifully crafted.
She knelt before the house itself and gasped. It had properly constructed interior walls like any well-made dollhouse, but they formed an intricate maze.
In one corner stood a blond doll in a beautiful dress, and in the other, a bearded gentleman in elegant evening clothes.
In the centre of the maze waited a shorter doll with brown hair and a dress that looked suspiciously like hers, holding a roll of paper.
With trembling fingers, she unrolled the tiny scroll. It bore the oldest mathematical equation in the world.
1 Woman + 1 Man = 1 Family
With a most unladylike scream, Elizabeth jumped up and danced around in absolute delight, even emulating her mother by crying, “Two sisters married!” She was overjoyed, and wondered when she might welcome Mrs Jameson?
She danced around the room once more and knelt to admire the fine construction. She would write to Jane at once, after spending a few minutes admiring the craftsmanship and dwelling on her sister’s happiness.