CHAPTER 11 #2
“From Mr. Collins, miss.”
Elizabeth laughed again, but this time it did not quite warm her.
“Yes. From Mr. Collins.”
The rest, of course, was another question.
Longbourn was not cruel. That was one of its inconveniences. Cruel houses could be condemned with spirit. Longbourn was affectionate, disorderly, careless, noisy, needy, and full of people who would be astonished to learn that wanting Elizabeth’s love did not entitle them to her obedience.
Jane would be kind. Jane would be pleased to see her.
Jane’s happiness with Mr. Bingley, if it advanced as it surely must, would soon make Longbourn softer, brighter, easier.
Mama would cry, forgive, accuse, rejoice, and remember the settlement of five daughters in whatever order best served the speech of the hour.
Papa would retreat, laugh, and think himself indulgent because he had not forbidden what he had never taken the trouble to direct.
Mary would improve the occasion. Kitty would want ribbons. Lydia would want everything.
And Elizabeth, after three days, would be expected to fit into the old disorder as if Portman Square, Mrs. Marwood, and twenty years of forming her own judgment had been a temporary excursion.
No.
Not yet.
Perhaps not soon.
She drew paper toward her.
“My dear Papa,” she began.
She paused, considered, and then wrote with a firm hand.
My dear Papa,
I thank you for your intelligence. Pray offer Miss Lucas my congratulations, if it may be done without too violent an injury to sincerity. I wish her more happiness than Mr. Collins, if such a thing can be achieved.
As for my return, I have no present intention of visiting Longbourn. My nerves, though they have never received Mama’s distinction, have lately discovered their limits; and I do not find them equal, just now, to more quarrelling, proposals, or explanations under the same roof.
I remain very comfortably in town. Lord Pomington is safe from clergymen, and I am safe from being reasoned into gratitude for what I did not desire.
Give my love to Jane and my sisters.
Your affectionate daughter,
Elizabeth
She read it over.
It was affectionate enough. It was not dutiful enough to be mistaken for surrender. That was the necessary balance in writing to a father who preferred wit to responsibility: one must answer in the language he understood, without allowing the language to swallow the injury.
She sanded and sealed it.
For some minutes afterwards, she did nothing.
Mrs. Doddridge hemmed.
Pom-Pom snored faintly from his basket, recovered from law and weather.
At last Elizabeth reached for another paper, but did not begin a letter.
There was no one else at Longbourn to whom she could write without creating some fresh claim.
Jane would answer with gentleness, which Elizabeth loved and did not feel equal to receiving.
Mama would answer in nerves. Mary would answer in improvement.
Kitty and Lydia would not answer at all unless there was a question of ribbons or scandal.
And Miss Lucas — no.
Elizabeth would not write to Miss Lucas. They had not that intimacy, and congratulations offered too near a refusal might carry the smell of condescension no matter how carefully wrapped. Better that Mr. Bennet convey what must be conveyed, and that Elizabeth keep her reflections to herself.
She rose again and went to the mantel, where Mr. Darcy’s card still lay in the little porcelain tray.
She had not put it away.
This had been an oversight.
Possibly.
She picked it up.
Fitzwilliam Darcy.
The letters were plain. The card was plain. It gave nothing that it need not give, and yet, like the man himself, seemed to contain more resistance than blankness. His chambers, his profession, his name. No ornament. No plea.
Longbourn asked to be forgiven for what it had allowed.
Mr. Darcy had looked at the papers before he looked at her.
It was not gallantry. It was better than gallantry. It was attention directed where she had placed importance. He had understood that Cotton Lane was not a pretext, and because he had understood that, the pretext became unnecessary.
She touched the edge of the card against her finger.
“You are smiling, miss,” said Mrs. Doddridge.
Elizabeth put the card down.
“Am I?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Then it must be because Longbourn is safe from proposals.”
“Yes, miss.”
“You do not believe that.”
“No, miss.”
Elizabeth turned, and this time the laugh came freely.
“Mrs. Doddridge, you are growing dangerously expressive.”
“No, miss.”
That settled the matter.
Elizabeth returned to the table and drew the Cotton Lane notes toward her.
The packet itself remained with Mr. Darcy, but she had copies enough to follow the matter, and memory enough to supply the rest. Harding, she recalled, had become too comfortable.
Mrs. Bell had waited too long to complain of damp because she disliked being troublesome.
Old Mr. Greeves paid late and always with shame.
The yard behind number seven was being used by someone who had not paid for the privilege and probably justified the theft by calling it habit.
Cotton Lane was not pretty. Cotton Lane did not ask whether she belonged to it.
Cotton Lane made no claim upon affection before permitting usefulness.
It simply existed, with doors, roofs, ledgers, complaints, and consequences, and if she attended to it badly, people would be inconvenienced in ways more substantial than wounded vanity.
That was comforting.
Mrs. Marwood had understood that comfort of the practical.
After sorrow, there must be accounts. After disorder, inventory.
After foolishness, a list. Not because lists healed everything — they did not — but because a woman who put one matter into order had at least proved the world had not made itself entirely unmanageable.
Elizabeth took out a clean sheet.
“Mrs. Doddridge.”
“Yes, miss.”
“We shall inspect Cotton Lane.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Not immediately. Mr. Darcy must have time to discover whether the lane is as disagreeable as Mr. Beaker believes.”
“Yes, miss.”
“But soon.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And Pom-Pom will require his grey coat.”
Mrs. Doddridge looked at the dog, then at the weather beyond the window.
“It shows less mud, miss.”
“Precisely.”
Elizabeth dipped her pen.
There was no need to write to Mr. Darcy yet. He had the papers. He had accepted the work. He would write when he had questions, unless he was more stubborn than she supposed, in which case she would write first and be proved right in thinking him stubborn. Either way, Cotton Lane had begun.
Longbourn was safe, if she required it.
Elizabeth looked from her father’s folded letter to the Cotton Lane notes, and then to the neat square of Mr. Darcy’s card.
She did not require it.