CHAPTER 4
An Heir With Opinions
Mr. Bennet complained, on the fourth morning after the parcels were opened, that Elizabeth’s benevolence had made his library uninhabitable.
This was unjust in several directions, but not wholly inaccurate.
A piano tuner from Meryton had been shown into the little parlour by ten and was making the instrument confess, note by note, every neglect of the last several years.
Mary stood near the door with her hands folded, pretending indifference and failing sufficiently to make Elizabeth look away from her.
A parcel of drawing-paper and chalks had arrived for Kitty, who regarded them with pleasure, alarm, and a new uncertainty as to what drawing actually required.
Lydia had discovered that dancing lessons, when properly taught, might involve correction, and was already less devoted to improvement than she had been when improvement was theoretical.
Mrs. Bennet, armed with addresses, estimates, and maternal injury, had invaded the library twice before noon.
Mr. Bennet took refuge in the breakfast parlour and found Elizabeth there with a letter from Mr. Hartwood open beside her and Lord Pomington asleep in her lap.
“You have made my household industrious,” said Mr. Bennet. “I cannot forgive you at once.”
“I had hoped only to make it slightly less neglected.”
“My dear Lizzy, when a young lady writes from London offering money for four sisters’ improvement, a father may be forgiven for considering whether she has been too generous.”
“A father may consider anything,” said Elizabeth. “He must sometimes also answer letters.”
Mr. Bennet looked at her over the rim of his cup. His expression was dry, amused, and not quite easy.
“I had thought to spare your money.”
“You were very kind to spare my money, sir. I wish you had been equally tender of my intentions.”
“That is a harder office. Intentions are apt to become noisy when encouraged.”
From the little parlour came a long, protesting note from the pianoforte, followed by another that suggested the instrument had been harbouring grievances for years.
Mr. Bennet winced.
“There,” said he. “You hear what improvement sounds like.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “Long overdue.”
He gave her one of those looks by which he had often, in earlier years, invited her to share the joke of the household rather than become one of its subjects.
Elizabeth had once found such looks irresistible.
She found them less so now. Amusement was a poor substitute for action, though it had long contrived to pass as gentleness at Longbourn.
“I do not deny,” said Mr. Bennet, “that Mary may benefit from a master, provided the master survives her principles. Kitty may draw, if she can be persuaded not to ask Lydia whether a tree is pretty before she attempts it. As for Lydia’s dancing—”
“As for Lydia’s dancing,” said Elizabeth, “I believe instruction can do no harm, and uninstructed enthusiasm has already done what it can.”
“Poor Lydia. You would make even delight submit to terms.”
“Only in public.”
Mr. Bennet smiled, but before he could answer, Jane entered with a note in her hand and that careful face by which she always attempted to conceal happiness from people who loved her.
Elizabeth saw it at once.
Mr. Bennet saw it too, and, being Mr. Bennet, chose to enjoy it rather than help it.
“Ah,” said he. “Netherfield writes.”
Jane coloured. “It is only Miss Bingley. They mean to call this morning, if it is not inconvenient.”
“Inconvenience,” said Elizabeth, “has already been admitted in several forms. Netherfield may as well join the party.”
Jane smiled despite herself.
Mrs. Bennet received the intelligence as if it had been a proposal, a settlement, and a grandson all at once.
The household, already unsettled by improvement, was thrown into an agitation more pleasing and more consequential.
Mary was called away from the pianoforte to look as if music had never interested her.
Kitty’s chalks were removed from the sofa.
Lydia was ordered not to mention dancing lessons, officers, or anything likely to make Miss Bingley think Hertfordshire ungoverned, which gave her three new subjects to consider.
Hill was told to bring the good tea, then the other good tea, then both, for no one could say what elegance might require.
The Netherfield party came before luncheon, in a carriage much too handsome for the state of Longbourn’s gravel and with faces arranged, in three cases out of four, for endurance.
Mr. Bingley sprang from the carriage as if Longbourn were precisely where he had wished to be all morning.
Miss Bingley descended after him in pale green silk, very fine, very costly, and not forgiving to her hair.
It was a degree too splendid for a country morning call, especially before a young woman still in mourning; but Miss Bingley wore impropriety expensively enough to make objection look provincial.
Mrs. Hurst followed, a darker redhead than either her brother or sister, with fur at her throat and a sharpness about the face which made Elizabeth think, before she could prevent it, of a handsome fox grown comfortable indoors.
It was not an unhandsome effect; indeed, it suited her better than Miss Bingley’s paler brilliance.
But there was something watchful and dissatisfied in it.
Mr. Hurst emerged last with the expression of a man who had been promised tea and meant to hold somebody to it.
“My dear Mr. Bingley!” cried Mrs. Bennet, in a tone which received him, approved him, and nearly married him to Jane before he had crossed the threshold.
Mr. Bingley, being incapable of seeing Jane without looking happier than prudence allowed, made his bow to Mrs. Bennet, his bow to the room, and then his way to Jane with such natural haste that Miss Bingley’s smile tightened before she had removed her gloves.
Elizabeth watched all this from near the window, Pom-Pom settled against her arm in a sober little coat of brown wool trimmed with black braid.
He had greeted the party with suspicion, as was proper, but upon discovering that Mr. Hurst neither admired nor attempted him, he had allowed that gentleman to exist unchallenged.
Mrs. Hurst placed herself near the fire with the air of a woman who had consented to be civil and wished the world to know the expense of it.
She was handsome in a fuller, heavier way than her sister, and dressed with all the costly ease of a woman whose maid had suffered that others might admire.
Yet Elizabeth, watching the small complaints beneath the polish, thought there was some distant kinship of temperament between Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Bennet.
Not in rank, dress, or manner; those were all arranged differently.
But give Mrs. Hurst five daughters, a smaller income, and twenty years of not being obeyed quickly enough, and the likeness might become alarming.
Mr. Hurst attached himself to a chair near the hearth and appeared content to let the visit proceed without him.
Miss Bingley took in the room, the sisters, the signs of recent activity, the parcel of drawing-paper not quite hidden from view, and the faint sounds of the piano tuner from the little parlour.
“How industrious Longbourn is this morning,” she said.
“Oh, yes, we are all improvement now,” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Lizzy has been so thoughtful. Masters and music and drawing and dancing — all very improving, I am sure, though I confess I never knew a family could be improved in so many directions at once.”
Miss Bingley’s eyes moved from Mrs. Bennet to Elizabeth.
“How very generous,” she said. “Miss Elizabeth must have formed a most serious opinion of her sisters’ accomplishments, to take such pains for their improvement.”
Jane looked distressed.
Elizabeth smiled.
“A serious opinion, yes. But not an unkind one.”
“Improvement is seldom unkind.”
“No. Though comments upon it may be.”
Mr. Bingley, who had been listening with only half an ear because Jane was sitting opposite him and therefore more interesting than any subject under discussion, looked suddenly from his sister to Elizabeth as if he had arrived late to a duel and wished everyone well out of it.
Miss Bingley’s smile did not alter. “You are very quick, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Only when invited.”
Mr. Bingley laughed then, a little too readily, and attempted to restore the room by praising the weather, which had done nothing to deserve such assistance.
Mrs. Hurst’s manner to Jane was less energetic than Miss Bingley’s, but Elizabeth did not mistake laziness for warmth.
Mrs. Hurst found Jane very pretty, very sweet, very much admired by Mr. Bingley, and therefore inconvenient.
Her manner was civil, even affectionate in phrases, but there was a soft refusal to be warmed which Elizabeth noticed because Jane did not.
“You must take great care not to overexert yourself, Miss Bennet,” said Mrs. Hurst. “My brother would never forgive us if your recovery were interrupted.”
Mr. Bingley turned at once. “Indeed, I should not. Are you fatigued? Is the room too warm? Shall I—”
Jane laughed softly. “No, indeed. I am perfectly well.”
“You see?” said Elizabeth. “She survives inquiry.”
Mr. Bingley smiled at her, then at Jane, then forgot that anyone else had spoken.
Miss Bingley attempted twice to draw him into general conversation. Mr. Bingley obeyed both times with perfect good humour and returned, by some natural law of his present condition, to Jane before the effort had acquired consequence.
Mr. Hurst stirred only once before tea, when Kitty, in a flutter of spirits and no great command over relevance, mentioned Lieutenant Carter and his family’s horses.
At this, Mr. Hurst looked nearly alive.
“Carter?” said he. “What Carter?”