Chapter 18
No ball can be properly considered over until every detail of the evening has been thoroughly examined, weighed, and dissected the day after the event; and it was a sign of how much there was to discuss that breakfast was barely cleared away at Longbourn when a party of Lucases arrived to begin the discussions.
“You began the evening well, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Bennet. “You were Mr. Bingley’s first choice.”
“Yes—but he seemed to like his second better.”
“Oh,” declared Mrs. Bennet, with an unconvincing attempt at surprise. “You mean Jane, I suppose? Because he danced with her twice? To be sure, it did seem as if he admired her.”
“Indeed he did,” continued Charlotte. “In fact, as I think I told you, I heard him mention that he thought her quite the prettiest woman in the room.”
“You may have said so,” agreed Mrs. Bennet, “but I am glad to hear you confirm it. I believe he remarked that ‘there could be no two opinions on that point.’ He did say so, did he not?”
Charlotte agreed those had indeed been Mr. Bingley’s words.
Mrs. Bennet did not attempt to disguise her satisfaction that her eldest daughter had been so publicly preferred to Charlotte; she looked from her to Lady Lucas with unconcealed joy.
Although she watched her carefully, Mary could not detect any waver in Charlotte’s fixed smile, no crack in her expression of mild, good-natured resignation.
“My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Lizzy,” Charlotte continued playfully. “Poor Eliza! To be considered ‘only tolerable’!”
“It is a great snub,” agreed Elizabeth with mock gravity. “But I must endeavour to bear it.”
Mrs. Bennet was not so easily placated. She could not regard the disparagement of her daughters as anything other than a grievous insult; but what was to be expected of a man whose behaviour had attracted such universal disapproval?
Mr. Darcy had shown himself to be disagreeable, everyone had said so.
It was obvious to all that he was an unpleasant man, haughty, cold, reserved, and eaten up with pride.
Mrs. Bennet declared Lizzy was to take no notice of him.
“If you were to meet again and he asked you to stand up with him, I hope you would say no.”
“I believe, Mama, I may safely promise I will never dance with him!”
The conversation ran back and forth, with Mr. Darcy’s person, manners, and character all weighed up and found wanting. It was some time before Mrs. Bennet was ready to return to the more gratifying topic of Jane’s success with Mr. Bingley, but before she could do so, Mary spoke.
“I wonder if we are quite fair to condemn Mr. Darcy as quickly as we do. There is a difference, you know, between pride and vanity. One is much more to be condemned than the other. The vain man wants others to think well of himself, regardless of his virtues. Pride relates more to our honest opinion of ourselves.”
She looked around searchingly at her listeners, hoping for a reply; but no-one, it seemed, had anything to add to her remark.
“Is it not possible,” she persisted, “that Mr. Darcy has some justification for his self-belief? Perhaps he has a right to be proud.”
Mrs. Bennet threw up her hands in exasperation.
“Really, Mary, none of us needs a lecture on what to think of that man. We have all made up our minds, and don’t require any further direction from you.”
Mary blushed, realising she had once again struck the wrong note. There was silence, until a young Lucas brother, who had reluctantly accompanied his sister and mother to Longbourn on the promise of cake, which had not yet been forthcoming, piped up.
“If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy, I should not care how proud I was! I should keep a pack of foxhounds and drink a bottle of wine every day.”
Mrs. Bennet assured him that if she were to see him at it, she would take away his bottle directly—he said she should not—she insisted that she would—and soon the level of talk was as loud and as lively as it had been before Mary had spoken.
When the Lucases finally took their leave, Charlotte stopped for a moment by her side.
“Our interventions are only welcome if they are agreeable,” she murmured, “and by that, I mean that they reflect what everyone else thinks and are delivered with a most submissive smile.”