Chapter Three
To add insult to injury, the next day brought us a visit from all of the Bennet sisters. I don’t think I had been aware there were ever so many of them.
It was quite normal to have a family so large, of course, and I supposed it all made sense, because all of them were female, and they must have kept trying for a boy child. It was common enough for there to be ten or twelve children in a family. The Queen herself had thirteen children.
Perhaps it wasn’t so many sisters in the end.
Perhaps it was only that they were all so very loud.
And shrill. And with the giggling and the talking over each other, and the discussion of balls.
They were like a cavalcade who could all be turned towards one desire and then they would demand such a thing in orchestrated cacophony until it seemed that someone would bend to their will.
Which Bingley did easily enough, all smiles. “Oh, yes, I should love to give a ball here at Netherfield,” he said.
I caught Elizabeth making pained, embarrassed expressions when members of her family spoke, and this only made me like her more.
I had to own that I had a number of ridiculous relations myself, and I knew what it was to be mortified to be related to the person who was uttering that.
Perhaps now is the point in time when we must, however, deal with Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s mother.
At the ball in Netherfield, the dreadful ball, the one in which I did not dance and sat in the shadows thinking to myself that I didn’t know why I had allowed myself to be dragged here by Bingley at all, at that ball, Mrs. Bennet was overheard saying a number of things that would indeed mortify any sensible relation of the woman.
She was overheard by practically everyone, mostly because she said all the things she said rather loudly.
She made a number of comments about incomes, for one thing.
She announced, practically to the entire gathering, how much money she thought that Bingley was bringing in each year, and she made it known how favorably she found it.
“Yes, Jane is dancing with that one, the one who has five thousand a year!” she may have shrieked, at the top of her lungs, or something like that, anyway, if I haven’t gotten the turn of phrase entirely accurate.
This would have been quite enough, but she also made comments about someone’s dress very loudly, so loudly that the person—I don’t recall this woman’s name—heard and reacted and Mrs. Bennet was all the time entirely oblivious, even as the offended woman was looking on in horrified shock.
Additionally, she was overheard talking about her own daughters and ranking them in terms of their relative charms. Though, however, I cannot reproduce her ranking, for, at the time, I had not paid much mind to the girls’ names, and I did not connect any of the names she said to anyone.
The point of recounting is not so much to wonder if she had the ranking of her daughters’ attractiveness accurate, or if we would agree with it, only that a mother should not say such things, especially not loudly, especially not so that a large gathered company of others could hear it.
At any rate, Caroline had seized upon Mrs. Bennet as a source of endless delight and ridicule, for the woman was far too easy to poke fun at.
Mrs. Bennet did almost all of the work herself.
I had joined in with Caroline on a number of occasions, I am afraid to say, especially after that ball, which I had regarded as punishing, a sort of gauntlet I had run.
So, anything I could do to point out how absolutely awful it had been, I was quite happy to do.
But now I felt foolish for having done so, and a bit ashamed of myself, too.
It was small behavior to make fun of others. I was not a small man.
I resolved that I would do better in the future.
Especially considering that Mrs. Bennet was very cold towards me.
She seemed predisposed to dislike every word out of my mouth.
I made a comment—I should have kept my mouth shut, I think.
At any rate, we were discussing the benefits of the city versus the country, and I said that there were a greater variety of people to associate with in the city, and Mrs. Bennet got very huffy and acted as though I had personally attacked her.
Of course, I… had. On other occasions, I had said positively unflattering things about the woman, to Caroline, and to the others in the party here at Netherfield, but never in public, I did not think.
However, at this point, I could only conclude that somehow, it had gotten back to her. I was not certain how.
There had been little contact between us and them, but the Bingley sisters had called at the Bennets several times.
Well, perhaps at the Lucas dinner, perhaps I might have said something loud enough then that might have been overheard? I remember chortling rather too loudly when Caroline said that if I married Elizabeth, I should have such a mother-in-law.
At any rate, this must be why Elizabeth Bennet did not like me. It all made sense now. I had insulted her mother, and she was protective of her mother, as a person absolutely should be. Even if one’s mother is horrid, one always comes to one’s mother’s defense. That is simply the way of it.
Also, what Elizabeth must think of my character!
And she would be correct, in fact, that it was an appalling thing to do, to speak ill of people behind their backs. I would swear it was not something I had engaged in except with Caroline Bingley, and how I had allowed myself to be pulled into such a demeaning sort of practice, I could not say.
But it was all over now.
For one thing, I must never say anything to make Caroline think I was interested in her, so this would negate my agreeing with her about any of her little mean-spirited jokes. And for another, I would rise above that. It was truly beneath me.
By the time that the Bennets had left, I was resolved in it.
Caroline seemed to have hoped that the Bennets would have taken Elizabeth with them, but they had left her here, and I was not certain how it was that I felt about that.
Part of me wished to repair the bad opinion this woman had of me to some degree.
But part of me knew there was little reason to expend the effort.
I would likely never see her again, and if she hated me, it was really her own business.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t actually deserve it, also, and I didn’t know how I would convince her otherwise without having to perhaps apologize to her mother.
I did not wish to engage in any sort of one-on-one conversation with Mrs. Bennet, I had to admit. The idea of it made my entire body cringe in such a fashion as to be entirely unbearable.
That evening, I determined that I should spend the evening catching up on writing letters, not interacting with anybody at all.
It seemed the safest course of action at this point, considering that Miss Bennet hated me and Miss Bingley was trying to get me to pay her mind, and I thought I should take myself entirely out of the situation whilst still being in the room.
It seemed a brilliant idea.
Alas, Caroline was not the least bit pleased by it. When she saw that I was off to one side of the room, writing letters, she came over to inquire to whom I wrote, and when I told her it was a letter to my sister, she became even more interested.
When I did not engage with her, but adhered only to writing my letter, Caroline became more desperate. “You write uncommonly fast,” she said, in a voice of someone who was admiring such a thing.
I could not have that. “You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.” I didn’t think that I wrote fast or slow, truly, sort of medium speed, but the thing of it was that I must not agree with Caroline.
“Oh, how many letters you must write in the course of a year,” she said, leaving the statement dangling.
I said nothing, staring at the page in front of me.
“Not only to your family members and friends, but also letters of business as well!” she exclaimed.
This did not seem to need a response either. I did not give one.
“How odious I should think them,” she said.
I should have kept my mouth shut. Instead, I said, a bit sarcastically, “It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.”
She winced, stung.
Good, perhaps she’d leave and be done with me.
“Do tell your sister I cannot wait to see her again.”
“I have already done so once, at your desire.”
She looked me over. “I think your pen needs mending. Give it to me. I mend pens remarkably well.”
I looked at my pen. “Thank you. I mend my own.” There was nothing wrong with my pen.
She leaned in. “How can you write so evenly? I am all amazement.”
I must say, whatever I had done to encourage this woman, it was not to the degree that she should feel comfortable here, lavishing praise on the evenness of my handwriting.
I did not know what to say. At this point, I felt the exchange had gone past anything rational and into a state of sheer discomfort and awkwardness.
I should ignore her, I thought, and say positively nothing no matter what she said.
But she kept going. “Do you always write such charmingly long letters, Mr. Darcy?”
I said, “Will you give me leave to concentrate on writing for now?”
Finally, Bingley rescued me, sort of, because he was teasing me, saying that not only did I write long letters, I made sure to use the biggest of words available to me additionally.
“I am certain Darcy sits about, staring into space, and thinking, ‘Drat, that word has only three syllables, I must have one with four.’”
I sighed, but was glad enough that someone else had joined the conversation.
Caroline began to speak about her brother’s inability to write letters well, and Bingley obligingly agreed with her, saying that he could not keep up with the flow of his ideas and that sometimes, his letters conveyed no ideas at all.
It was a joke. We laughed.
Elizabeth said, archly, “Your humility, Mr. Bingley, must disarm reproof.”
And this, you see, was far too familiar a situation. It was the way it usually was, Caroline and me against Bingley, but this was Elizabeth and me against Bingley, and perhaps I thought to win some favor with her by taking her part, I did not know.
I said, “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility, especially when it is actually a concealed boast.”
“And what am I boasting of?” said Bingley, laughing.
“Because you really think it is not a defect to write letters that make no sense. You think, at the very least, your rapid thought and careless execution, makes you interesting. You are proud of being quick and changeable. You said that thing to Mrs. Bennet this morning about how quickly you would change your mind to quit Netherfield, and you meant that as a virtue, even though it means only that you are not a particularly dependable person.”
I saw my error right away. I had cut too deep, gone too much to the essence of him. I had hurt him, even as we were meant to be having a lighthearted conversation.
“Well,” he said tightly, “we can not all be as great and tall a person as Mr. Darcy, can we?”
I knew he wasn’t referring to my height.
“Indeed, Mr. Darcy does enjoy throwing his height around, does he not?” said Elizabeth, lifting her chin, her bright eyes dancing.
Damnation.
“Perhaps,” she said, “he had better finish his letter.”
I took her advice, and finished my letter.