Chapter Nine #2
James set down his cup and was quiet for a moment longer, looking at the fire with the composed deliberation that those who knew him well recognised as the outward form of a mind working through a problem with methodical care.
He was not, by nature, a man easily persuaded by the opinions of others, nor one who placed excessive weight upon the recommendations of the great.
He had come to Kent because Collins’s letter had suggested that something of substance was at stake, and because he had learned, in the years since his father’s illness had placed Longbourn’s management upon his shoulders, that it was generally wiser to understand a situation before dismissing it. He had not come prepared to be managed.
And yet. The young lady was of excellent family.
The fortune was substantial. Lady Catherine had taken a personal interest. And Collins, for all his circumlocutions, had said one thing that James found himself returning to: circumstances which render an early resolution desirable.
That phrase, in his experience, rarely meant what it appeared to mean on the surface.
“Very well,” he said at last, rising from his chair with the unhurried composure of a man who has reached a decision and sees no reason to dramatise it. “I am not fatigued. If Lady Catherine is prepared to receive us, I am prepared to call.”
Collins sprang to his feet with an alacrity that sent his own teacup rattling in its saucer. “Excellent! Excellent, indeed. Charlotte, my dear—will you send Mary to Rosings at once, to inform her ladyship that Mr. Bennet has arrived and that we shall present ourselves within the hour?”
Mrs. Collins rose with quiet efficiency, and within a few minutes the parsonage maid had been dispatched up the lane toward Rosings Park, carrying a note in Collins’s hand that James suspected contained rather more expressions of gratitude than the occasion strictly required.
He stood at the parlour window while the preparations were made, looking out across the lane toward the park wall beyond, above which the upper storeys of Rosings were just visible through the trees.
He remembered that the house was large—considerably larger than Longbourn—and built in a style that made no effort to conceal its owner’s wealth.
It was, by any measure, an impressive establishment.
James Bennet was still looking at it when Mrs. Collins appeared at his shoulder, her voice low and her manner carrying, for the first time, something beyond the careful neutrality she had maintained throughout the interview.
“James,” she said—she had known him long enough to use his Christian name without ceremony—“Our maid has returned. Lady de Bourgh is waiting upon you and Mr. Collins. Whatever you may hear this afternoon, I hope you will remember that the decision is only yours to make.”
He turned to look at her. She met his gaze steadily, without apology or elaboration, in the manner of a woman who has said precisely as much as she intends to say.
“I will remember it,” he replied.
She nodded once and returned to her domestic arrangements, leaving James to his thoughts and the view of Rosings through the autumn trees.
***
The gates of Rosings Park stood open, as though the estate had been expecting them, and James and Mr. Collins rode through with the composed attention of a man who is making careful note of everything he sees without allowing it to show upon his face.
The park was extensive and well-ordered, its avenues of oak and beech in the full amber and copper of early autumn, the lawns still green beneath the fallen leaves.
It was the kind of property that announced itself without apology—not merely large, but deliberate, every prospect arranged to remind the visitor of the consequence of its owner.
Mr. Collins, riding beside him, had been providing a running commentary since they left the parsonage lane, touching upon the history of the park, the improvements Lady Catherine had made to the south terrace, the superior quality of the gravel on the approach road, and the remarkable condescension her ladyship had shown in having the gates oiled that very morning.
James listened with the patience of a man who has learned that the most efficient response to Collins is silence, and kept his eyes upon the house as it came into view through the trees.
The facade was as he remembered it from the Rosings assembly—formal, symmetrical, built to impress rather than to invite—and the steps leading to the main entrance were broad enough to accommodate a considerable party without inconvenience.
A barouche with a pair of horses stood waiting at the foot of those steps, the coachman seated upon the box, the animals’ breath rising in small clouds in the cool morning air.
They were well-matched, a grey and a dark bay, harnessed neatly and displaying the particular patience of horses accustomed to standing at the door while their occupants concluded whatever business detained them within.
James noticed the horses before he noticed anything else. He noticed them because they meant that someone was about to depart, and that the timing of his arrival—which Collins had arranged with Lady Catherine’s approval—was therefore not accidental.
James Bennet dismounted at the foot of the steps.
He followed Cousin Collins up toward the entrance, where a footman of impressive height and expressionless composure had already opened the great door.
A stable boy hurried to take their horses.
The gentlemen were shown into the entrance hall without delay, and it was there, in the moment before his eyes had fully adjusted from the brightness of the morning to the cooler light of the interior, that James took in the scene before him.
Three ladies stood near the base of the great staircase.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, he knew at once—she stood a little apart from the other two, with the upright composure and measured authority that James had known since the Rosings assembly, and which had not diminished in the interval.
Beside her, in a fine dress of rich burgundy, stood a handsome woman of perhaps forty-five whose dark eyes went to James the moment he entered—frank, appraising, and immediately satisfied by what they found.
And a little to the left of them both, evidently in the act of preparing to depart, stood a young lady.
She was not tall, but she carried herself with a natural ease that made the question of height irrelevant.
Her dress was suitable for a morning drive—a travelling gown of pleasant green cloth, well cut and plainly trimmed—and she was in the act of drawing on her gloves while a maid behind her held a small riding hat that had evidently just been removed from its bandbox.
Her dark hair—almost black, with the faintest suggestion of warmth in it where the light from the high windows caught it—was arranged, a few strands having escaped the neatness of the arrangement in the haste of departure.
Her complexion was clear and lightly touched by the sun, her features fine without being severe, and her expression, as she concentrated upon the second glove, was one of quiet, private amusement—as though some thought had occurred to her that she found pleasant and saw no reason to share.
There was something in that expression—not merely cheerfulness, but the composed self-possession of a person whose thoughts were very much her own—that caught James’s attention before he had quite determined why.
The young lady finished with the glove, glanced up as James and Collins were shown across the hall, and inclined her head with the easy civility of one accustomed to strangers in large houses.
The civility was perfectly correct, yet not mechanical; and James had the brief impression—formed and dismissed in the same instant—that she was observing him with as much curiosity as he felt toward her.
Then the footman announced them, and she looked up fully.
Her eyes were grey—a clear, steady grey, not cold but thoughtful, the kind of eyes that take in what they see without immediately declaring what they make of it.
They moved from the footman to Collins, acknowledged him with a brief, polite recognition, and then came to rest upon James with an expression of composed curiosity that lasted precisely as long as good manners required before she dropped her gaze again, a faint colour rising to her cheeks that she made no effort to conceal, as though she considered concealment more conspicuous than the thing itself.
“Mr. Collins,” she said, her voice low and pleasantly clear, with the careful enunciation of a young woman who has been well taught and has not yet lost the habit of attending to her own speech. “Good day. I believe you are expected.”
“Miss Eliot,” Collins replied, with a bow of such depth that it seemed to require a moment’s recovery. “Indeed, we are—most graciously expected, I may say, by Lady Catherine herself, whose kindness in receiving us at this hour is a condescension I shall not easily —”
“Mr. Bennet.” Lady Catherine’s voice carried across the hall with the calm authority of a woman who has never needed to raise it.
She came forward a step—not hurrying, but with the decisive movement of a woman whose time is her own and who allocates it accordingly—and looked at him with the frank, comprehensive attention of a woman accustomed to forming rapid and accurate judgements of character.
Whatever she found appeared to confirm a conclusion she had already reached.
“I am glad you have come. You are punctual, which is a quality I esteem. All men of sense have it.”
James nodded in agreement, with the quiet composure of a man who is being assessed and sees no reason to object to it.