Chapter 1 #2
“That question,” he answered carefully, “cannot be settled by presumption. It would demand earnest conversation, undertaken with humility on both sides, and resolved not by authority alone but by mutual conviction. I would sooner face that difficulty openly than allow it to lie concealed until it breeds resentment. I do not seek uniformity imposed by strength; I seek agreement achieved by understanding.”
The silence that followed was longer than any before it, yet it carried less tension and more reflection. Father Munro’s expression, though still serious, had softened by a degree not immediately perceptible.
“You have given the matter more thought than many men of longer years,” he said, at last, with a restrained warmth that did not quite reach indulgence.
“You are not the first Anglican gentleman to address a Catholic household,” he said, a hint of dry recollection touching his voice.
“But you are among the few who have done so without condescension.”
“I should consider presumption a poor foundation for marriage,” Elias replied, the faintest trace of restrained humour tempering his earnestness without diminishing it.
That, unexpectedly, drew a brief and genuine warmth from the priest.
“Very well, Mr. Bennet,” Father Munro said, returning slowly to his chair, “that such a difference may be dismissed as insignificant. Yet neither shall we declare it insurmountable before inclination has even been tested. If my daughter’s heart inclines toward you, and if her judgment supports that inclination, we shall proceed with deliberation, and with the understanding that candour must govern every step. ”
Elias bowed with quiet gratitude, his relief contained within composure rather than displayed in triumph.
“That is all I would ask, sir—that nothing be obscured, and nothing undertaken lightly.”
Father Monro rose and walked a short distance toward the window, his hands clasped behind his back as he considered the words, his silence inviting reflection rather than immediate judgment.
When he spoke again, his tone was thoughtful rather than severe.
“You ask much, Mr. Bennet. My daughter was greatly shaken yesterday. She is young—and vulnerable. I would not hazard her happiness or her well-being.”
“I too am young,” Elias said gently, rising to his feet with respectful deference, his voice carrying a quiet earnestness that seemed to reach the priest across the room.
“But not untried in responsibility. I would not ask this if I were not prepared to guard her peace as carefully as my own conscience—and to prove that regard through patience and honour.”
The priest turned back to him, his expression reflecting a gradual softening as he weighed the young man’s sincerity. “And if Alice should decline your addresses?”
“Then I shall accept her decision without resentment,” Elias answered at once, his reply calm and unwavering, a faint smile touching his lips that conveyed both humility and hope. “Her comfort must outweigh my hopes, always.”
That, more than anything, decided the matter.
Father Monro regarded him for a long moment, then inclined his head with deliberate gravity, a quiet approval settling upon his features.
“You have spoken as a gentleman—and as a man fit for the Church. I will speak with my daughter. If she consents to your addresses, you shall have my permission to court her openly and honourably.”
Relief crossed Elias’s face—not exuberant, not triumphant, but profound and quietly joyful, his eyes warming with gratitude as he bowed deeply. “I thank you, sir,” he said quietly, his voice deepened by emotion. “For your trust—and for your care of her. It is a gift I shall endeavour to deserve.”
“There is one condition I shall add, Mr. Bennet,” Father Monro added, his tone firm yet kind as he extended his hand in a gesture of solemn accord.
“Name it, sir,” Elias replied, clasping the offered hand with respectful firmness.
“There will be no secrecy. No half-measures. If this proceeds, it proceeds in the open, with patience and propriety.”
Elias bowed again, his smile gentle and assured. “That was my intention from the first, sir.”
Father Monro returned the smile faintly, his hand lingering a moment longer in the clasp before releasing it.
“Then let us hope,” the clergyman said, his voice warmed by cautious optimism, “that yesterday’s folly may yet give rise to something steadier—and that two families may be spared further pain by honest conduct.
Pray wait here while I have a word with my daughter. ”
***
Miss Alice Monro sat alone by the small escritoire in her chamber, her hands folded tightly in her lap, though she had long since abandoned any pretence of writing.
The blank page before her bore no mark, yet it witnessed all the tumult of her thoughts far more faithfully than ink ever could, and almost seemed to reproach her by its very innocence, as though paper might remain spotless when a name could not.
She had taken up the pen twice, and twice set it down again, for there are griefs which resist the discipline of expression, and a heart in suspense cannot easily be persuaded to compose itself into sentences.
The window, left slightly open, admitted the warm summer air and the distant, ordinary sounds of Meryton moving on—voices, wheels, the faint call of a hawker in the street below.
That the world should proceed so calmly struck her with a quiet ache, as if it were an unthinking cruelty that life could appear unchanged when her own prospects felt so uncertain, so delicately shadowed by yesterday’s indiscretion, and when every common sound now seemed to carry its own small lesson—that the public has leisure for gossip because it never feels the wound it deals.
The scent of summer roses drifted in upon the breeze, incongruously sweet, as though nature itself were indifferent to the distinctions between a ruined morning and a peaceful one.
Alice had obeyed her father without protest the previous afternoon, maintaining her composure in the sacristy even as the weight of witnessing eyes pressed upon her.
She had not cried, nor pleaded innocence, nor attempted defence where defence would only sharpen attention.
She knew—had always known—that in such moments restraint was the only armour permitted a young woman, and that even virtue, if it grew eloquent, might be made to look like artifice.
Yet restraint exacted its price afterwards, and now, alone, what had been seen weighed more heavily upon her than what had been done.
For reputation, she understood too well, did not rest upon truth alone, but upon appearance, and appearance, once damaged, could not easily be restored, because the world prefers a simple tale to a faithful one, and takes a malicious certainty over an honest doubt.
The circumstance of her being a Catholic in the neighbourhood of Meryton, where such distinctions were quietly observed, made the matter graver still.
To be of a different communion was, in the eyes of some, already to stand a little apart; and to stand apart was to be more easily spoken of, more readily suspected, and less readily defended by those whose goodwill was conditional upon conformity.
Circumstanced as she was, indifference to public conjecture would have been impossible to any young woman.
She required no guilt to suffer its consequence.
The suggestion was enough. It did not matter how false it might be—what might have been possible was enough to place the blame upon her, for conjecture always found it easier to accuse the unprotected than to correct the unprincipled.
And Alice Monro, who had been raised to hold her conscience answerable to God rather than to neighbourhood opinion, found it a peculiar and bitter discipline to discover how little that distinction availed her in the court of common report.
From the window, she had seen young Elias Bennet approach.
She had risen instinctively at the sight of him, then checked herself, stepping back from the glass with a composure she did not entirely feel.
It was not his father, nor Laurence—who might have come to offer explanation, apology, or defiance—but Elias.
The brother who had always spoken little, but never lightly; who had looked at her—when he did look at her—not as something to be amused, but as someone to be regarded with quiet respect, and, she had sometimes dared to hope, sincere esteem, as though her understanding, not her novelty, was what engaged him.
He bore the air of a man who came with purpose rather than impulse, and that steadiness, more than any word he might have spoken, was what caused her breath to catch.
Alice did not go to the door. It would have been improper to listen. It would betray eagerness where composure was required, and she had already learned, in one cruel afternoon, how dearly a woman may pay for the smallest appearance of forwardness. And yet—
She stood quite still, her gaze fixed upon the floor.
At the same time, her heart betrayed her discipline entirely, beating with a rhythm born of long-held regard she had scarcely dared acknowledge even to herself, a regard that had grown quietly, like a flame kept from draughts, and therefore burning the more steadily for being concealed.
It was not a new feeling—she could not have named the season in which it had begun—but it was a feeling she had schooled herself to silence, as one learns to live beside a window that looks upon a prospect one cannot enter.