Chapter 12 #2
“French!” Lydia clapped her hands. “Kitty, it is French. We must learn French embroidery. Mary, did you hear? French.”
“I heard.” Mary’s voice carried from the doorway where she had stepped through silently.
“Elizabeth.” She acknowledged me with a nod, then turned to Georgiana with the frank, appraising look that made Mary simultaneously the most uncomfortable and honest of my sisters. “You are Miss Darcy. Elizabeth wrote that you play Haydn.”
“Yes. I have been studying the sonatas.” The reserve had returned with this new addition.
“Which one?”
“The F major. Number 23.”
“I have attempted it twice and failed.” Mary set down the sheet music. “The development section is beyond me. My fingers are adequate for the notes but not for the feeling.”
This was the most personal admission I had ever heard Mary make, and the honesty of it—the straight, unvarnished acknowledgment of the difference between technical competence and musical soul—seemed to catch Georgiana off guard.
She looked at Mary the way one looks at an unexpected exhibit in a gallery: with the startled recognition of encountering a kindred soul.
“The development section is difficult,” Georgiana acknowledged.
“But the difficulty is the point. Haydn puts the feeling in the hard places, where your fingers have to think and feel at the same time, and if you separate them—if you play the notes without the sentiment, or feel the development without the precision, it falls apart.”
“Would you show me?” Mary asked, hope coloring her usually stoic tone.
“I should like that very much,” Georgiana replied with growing warmth.
We followed the pair, their heads bowed over the sheet music, to the parlor where our old Broadwood sat, scratched and aged—its tuning varying with the weather as effectively as a barometer.
With Georgiana occupied at the piano, demonstrating a passage and guiding Mary’s fingering, Mama motioned me to the stillroom where she dried lavender and bottled preserves.
“How long has she been this thin?” Mama asked, without preamble.
“Likely for some time. She eats, but not enough. She takes in sustenance, yet seems to lack nourishment—both in body and spirit.”
Mama sorted lavender stems, her hands requiring occupation while her mind worked. “What happened to her, Lizzy?”
“I’m uncertain. Something significant, no doubt. Her brother is exceedingly protective.”
“Yes, I’ve observed his protectiveness. I also noticed a young woman incapable of distinguishing between genuine kindness and strategic maneuvering.
I have a few thoughts about young men who believe that locking a door keeps the draught out when it merely keeps the girl in.
” She set a bundle aside. “But that is his business. Tell me about Bingley.”
The pivot was so swift I nearly lost my footing. “What about Mr. Bingley?”
“His constancy, Lizzy. Mrs. Long tells me there was a broken gig near Meryton, and that her pug was very nearly run over. She supposes this is why Mr. Bingley did not call the day before. But I should like to hear your account. Has he asked after Jane?”
“He asks after her constantly, speaking of her with warmth.”
“Warmth is not constancy, Elizabeth. It is merely convenient, a fire anyone may bask in. Constancy is a man who braves a downpour to tend that fire. Has he written? Has he undertaken any action that required effort or inconvenience?”
“I can offer no reassurances,” I admitted. “He is agreeable and undoubtedly fond of her. But I cannot discern whether his fondness is particular to Jane or merely his general disposition, which he shows to everyone. He smiles, is cheerful and warm by nature.”
Mama studied me intently, the lavender turning slowly in her fingers.
“Then a dinner is imperative,” she said, with the finality of a woman who has moved past reconnaissance and into operations. “I shall invite the Bingleys and the Darcys to dine at Longbourn, where I can observe Mr. Bingley directly and to what lengths he might go to secure Jane’s affections.”
“Mama—”
“It is a dinner, Elizabeth. Not a siege. Though the preparations will be similar. I shall write to Miss Bingley, since she is the lady of the house in the absence of a wife, and I shall include Miss Darcy in the party, naturally, as she is already acquainted with us, and it would be discourteous to exclude her. Mr. Darcy shall come because his sister is invited, and I suspect that Mr. Darcy, whatever his deficiencies with drainage and the classification of one’s neighbors, will not permit his seventeen-year-old sister to dine without him at a house he has not inspected. ”
“We will have to include Mr. and Mrs. Hurst, too, as they go wherever Miss Bingley goes,” I reminded her.
“Indeed. Mrs. Hurst, being Bingley’s elder sister, would have an opinion on his marital status.
Their presence, as well as Mr. Bingley’s hosting of both Darcys, suggests a strategy of social advancement.
While Darcy is purportedly instructing Bingley on estate management, I do not see Mr. Bingley applying himself beyond smiling at young ladies and driving a gig so fast that it might have silenced Mrs. Long’s pug prematurely. ”
What could I say? Mama’s insight as a tradesman’s daughter cut sharper than any gentleman’s education, reading ledgers and people with the same unflinching eye, and she was rarely wrong about either.
I returned to the parlor, where Georgiana patiently guided Mary through Haydn’s development section.
Darcy’s sister had opened like a window to Lydia’s questions, Mary’s plea for help, and to Mama’s biscuits and careful probes.
But not to Jane. And I could not help wondering whose hand had latched that window shut tight.
Whatever the dinner brought, at least Mama would see it clearly. Which was more than I could promise myself.