Chapter 16 #2
He immediately regretted the bluntness of his words when Bingley’s expression fell.
His friend was accustomed to easy attachments and easy recoveries, but this interest seemed deeper, more reflective.
Darcy softened his tone. “It is early days yet. Perhaps Miss Bennet does not yet know her own heart.”
The consolation was imperfect, and Darcy knew it. Still, Bingley seized upon it with characteristic optimism.
“Yes. Yes, that is just so,” he said, a hopeful smile returning. “Thank you, Darcy.”
Darcy inclined his head, but his thoughts were less sanguine.
Do not thank me yet, he reflected. In his judgment, Miss Bennet was not merely reserved; she was content.
Indifference, not uncertainty, marked her demeanor.
It would take time for Bingley to see it clearly, but at least now he might proceed with caution.
Darcy took his next shot in silence, the click of ivory on wood punctuating the unspoken truth between them.
Elizabeth was seated at the small escritoire in her chamber, sealing a letter she had half-written and rewritten twice over, when a light knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” she called, already suspecting who it would be.
Jane entered quietly and closed the door behind her. She did not sit at once but lingered near the window, hands folded, her posture betraying a restraint that Elizabeth had learned to read with precision.
Elizabeth set the letter aside. “You have something on your mind.”
Jane smiled faintly. “I always forget how well you know me.”
Elizabeth rose and crossed the room. “Sit,” she said gently, drawing Jane toward the small sofa by the hearth. “Now—tell me. Is this about Mr. Bingley?”
Jane nodded, her composure wavering just enough to be honest. “Yes. I believe it must be.”
Elizabeth waited.
“I like him a great deal,” Jane said simply. The words seemed carefully chosen, weighed and measured before being allowed to exist aloud. “He is kind, attentive, and unfailingly good-natured. I enjoy his company exceedingly.”
Elizabeth felt a quiet satisfaction at hearing it said so plainly. “And yet?”
Jane exhaled. “And yet I find myself wondering whether I am…expressive enough.”
Elizabeth lifted her brows slightly. “Expressive?”
Jane twisted her fingers together. “I cannot help thinking—perhaps I ought to give him greater encouragement. He seeks my company whenever possible. He looks for me when we enter a room. He speaks to me with such warmth that I fear my own reserve may be mistaken for indifference.”
Elizabeth considered this. “Do you feel indifferent?”
“No,” Jane said at once. “Quite the opposite. But politeness—propriety—dictates that a gentleman must declare himself first. I have always believed that a lady should not presume upon a man’s intentions.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “That belief is not without foundation.”
Jane’s voice softened. “I do not wish to place him in an awkward position. If I appear too eager, too encouraging, he may feel obliged to pursue an attachment he has not fully examined. I would never wish to pressure him.”
Elizabeth studied her cousin’s face—so open, so earnest, so entirely free of calculation. How different, she thought, from the assumptions others make.
“You are behaving with perfect propriety,” Elizabeth said firmly. “No one who understands decorum could fault you. You are attentive without being forward, warm without being indiscreet.”
Jane looked relieved, though uncertainty lingered. “And yet—”
“And yet,” Elizabeth continued gently, “it would not injure your dignity to allow your pleasure in his company to be seen. There is a wide space between indifference and boldness, Jane. You already occupy it more gracefully than most.”
Jane smiled, though it was tinged with hesitation. “I shall try,” she said. “But I must remain true to myself. I cannot manufacture feeling where it does not naturally rise.”
Elizabeth reached for her hand. “Nor should you. If he values you—as I believe he does—he will value you precisely as you are.”
Jane was quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Elizabeth…do you think he is raising expectations?”
Elizabeth considered carefully. “He is paying you a great deal of attention,” she said honestly. “Enough that others have begun to remark upon it. Enough that certain expectations—reasonable ones—have formed.”
Jane’s brow furrowed. “And that troubles me. What if he feels compelled to continue because others expect it of him, not because he truly wishes it?”
Elizabeth’s expression sharpened slightly. “Jane—listen to me. The burden of that decision rests upon the gentleman. Always.”
Jane looked uncertain. “But—”
“No,” Elizabeth said gently but decisively. “A man who allows himself to be carried into an attachment by expectation alone has only himself to blame. You are not manipulating him, nor are you concealing yourself. You are not encouraging him beyond what your feelings justify.”
She paused, then added quickly, “It is not a lady’s duty to diminish her own worth to prevent a gentleman from acting foolishly.”
Jane laughed softly at that, though it held little mirth. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is not simple,” Elizabeth admitted. “But it is just.”
Jane leaned back against the cushions. “I sometimes think—perhaps men imagine the world works differently than it does. As though affection must announce itself boldly, or it does not exist at all.”
Elizabeth smiled wryly. “Some would say it prudent to do so—Charlotte, for example. She claims men are accustomed to such displays. There are those who despise overt encouragement in women—who find it vulgar, unbecoming—yet are equally dissatisfied when a woman behaves with quiet reserve. It is a contradiction born of self-importance.”
Jane considered this. “You mean they wish to be pursued without believing themselves pursued.”
“Precisely,” Elizabeth said. “They wish for admiration without the discomfort of acknowledging it. And when a woman refuses to perform affection in the manner they expect, they conclude she feels nothing at all.” Aunt Caroline had taught her as much.
Jane frowned. “That seems most unfair.”
“It is,” Elizabeth agreed. “And it is why your instincts are sound. You are neither performing nor withholding. You are simply being.”
Jane sighed. “I only wish matters were clearer.”
“They will be,” Elizabeth said with confidence. “Mr. Bingley is not blind, nor is he proud to the point of imagining feelings where none exist. If his affection deepens, he will declare himself. And if it does not—then you will have lost nothing of yourself in the process.”
Jane smiled at that, a genuine, steady smile. “Thank you. I needed to hear it said aloud.”
Elizabeth squeezed her hand. “You are doing nothing wrong. Remember that.”
Jane rose then, her spirits visibly steadier. “I shall endeavor to be a little more open,” she said. “But no more than feels honest.”
“That is all anyone may ask,” Elizabeth replied.
As Jane moved toward the door, she paused. “Elizabeth?”
“Yes?”
“I am very glad you are here.”
Elizabeth smiled. “So am I.”
When Jane had gone, Elizabeth returned to the escritoire and sat once more, her thoughts unquiet.
So much certainty, she reflected, built upon observation rather than experience. How easily some judged the conduct of women without ever troubling to understand the constraints under which they acted. How readily they condemned reserve as indifference and boldness as manipulation.
She thought again of a certain gentleman’s confident assertions—of how he presumed to interpret behavior according to rules shaped entirely by his own position.
Flawed logic, she thought. And worse—selective.
Elizabeth took up her pen once more, resolved that if Jane’s happiness depended upon patience, honesty, and quiet strength, then she would defend those virtues against any doctrine that sought to diminish them.
Elizabeth sat for some time after, the letter before her forgotten, her thoughts circling back to the quiet strength Jane possessed so effortlessly.
There was courage, she reflected, in refusing to play a role merely because others expected it.
Jane’s restraint was not weakness; it was integrity.
How strange that society so often mistook one for the other.
She rose and crossed to the window, looking out over the familiar sweep of Longbourn’s lawn.
The world here moved at a gentler pace than London, yet the same judgments followed women everywhere—spoken softly in drawing rooms or loudly in ballrooms. A lady must be pleasing but not eager, engaging but not encouraging, sincere but never demanding.
It was an exhausting balance, and Elizabeth felt a surge of protectiveness toward her cousin for navigating it with such grace.
And though she had little experience with moving about the first circles of the ton, she had participated in London society at her aunt’s side.
Those she met through her aunt Caroline had been her proving ground.
Limited though it might be, she had a vast deal more experience than Jane.
If Mr. Bingley is worthy of her, she thought, he will learn to read what is not loudly proclaimed.
Affection, after all, did not always announce itself with grand gestures or practiced smiles.
Sometimes it revealed itself in constancy, in attention freely given, in the quiet choice to return again and again.
Elizabeth turned back to her desk with renewed resolve.
Whatever came of Jane’s attachment, she would not allow her cousin to doubt herself because of another’s uncertainty.
The fault, should there be one, would never lie in Jane’s gentle honesty.
And if the world insisted otherwise—well, Elizabeth had never been inclined to accept the world’s judgment without challenge.