CHAPTER 15 #2
Mrs. Marwood had been gone these some months, yet the breakfast room remained so exactly itself that her absence seemed less like nature than neglect.
She ought to have been at the head of the table, objecting to the coffee, regretting London bread, and inquiring why servants always understood a cold morning less readily than their masters.
Instead there was Mrs. Doddridge, who said “Yes, miss” with such composure as to make silence appear a branch of household order; and Pom-Pom, in a little morning wrapper of striped stuff, standing upon a chair and glaring at the toast as if personally offended by its delay.
Elizabeth looked from the curtains to the carpet, from the carpet to the chairs, and then, unfortunately, thought of Cotton Lane.
Cotton Lane, disagreeable as it was, had possessed the civility to show its defects plainly. Portman Square was more subtle. It behaved impeccably while making her miserable.
She was arranging for roofs, gutters, damp walls, arrears, and badly remembered yard rights to be corrected in Cotton Lane. Meanwhile, in her own breakfast room, the curtains had been permitted to mourn for months without supervision.
This could not do.
She set down her cup.
“This room,” said she, “has become impossible.”
“Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Doddridge.
“It is not the room’s fault exactly. It is only that it has been allowed to continue too long in the same condition.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Cotton Lane is to have an agent, new leases, repairs, proper records, and perhaps two additional houses. It would be unjust to grant so much attention to Cotton Lane and leave my own breakfast room to tyranny.”
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth looked again at the curtains, the carpet, the arrangement of the chairs, the whole settled gravity of the place.
There came back to her, with provoking distinctness, one of Mrs. Marwood’s maxims, delivered years before on the subject of a widow in Upper Brook Street who had sunk, according to her aunt, into pious gloom chiefly because she would neither open a shutter nor replace a very ugly screen.
When life becomes stagnant, change something one can command.
It was exactly the sort of thing Mrs. Marwood had always believed: that sorrow might be borne, but should never be permitted to grow stale; that one need not honour the dead by breakfasting forever in discomfort; that if life would not move of itself, one must push at some manageable corner of it.
Not Mrs. Marwood’s dressing room, Elizabeth thought at once. Not the private cabinet. Not the drawers and shelves and little domestic territories still too entirely Eleanor Marwood to be approached without pain.
But this room—this room might be altered without sacrilege.
“One may be melancholy,” said Elizabeth, half to herself, “but one need not be upholstered in it.”
“Yes, miss,” said Mrs. Doddridge.
That settled the matter.
By noon Elizabeth had decided that the breakfast room should be attacked first, the drawing room to follow if the first operation did not produce ruin.
By half past twelve she had determined that such an undertaking required prudence at the outset or folly all the way through.
By one o’clock a note had been written to Mr. Darcy.
She paused before sealing it.
Mr. Darcy,
I am afraid I require your urgent consultation on a matter of household consequence. Pray call when you are able.
E. Bennet
It was, Elizabeth reflected, a perfectly truthful note. The matter was household. It was of consequence. The consultation was urgent, at least to anyone who understood the domestic tyranny of curtains.
She sealed it.
Mrs. Doddridge, who had observed the whole with no expression at all, said, “Shall James take it, miss?”
“Yes. Immediately.”
“Very good, miss.”
Elizabeth told herself this was prudence. It was unbecoming in a lady to quarrel with tradesmen; she would much rather arrange matters so that all quarrelling occurred in advance, on paper, and preferably in Mr. Darcy’s hand.
Besides, Mr. Darcy had the troublesome quality of serving several purposes at once. He might be consulted with profit, fed with satisfaction, and observed with an interest Elizabeth did not at present intend to examine. Worse still, he had a habit of being right.
He came within the hour.
Elizabeth had not intended to be pleased by that fact. It was, after all, exactly what one hoped for in a solicitor.
It was also exactly what one hoped for in a man.
He was shown into the small morning room where she had removed herself, for she had decided not to sit again in the breakfast room until supported by professional opinion.
He entered with the look of a man prepared for misfortune: not flustered, not dramatic, but alert in that quiet way of his which made alarm feel almost orderly.
“Miss Bennet,” said he, after the first civilities, “your note gave me some concern.”
“Yes. I am sorry for that.”
“Has anything happened at Cotton Lane?”
“Not at Cotton Lane.”
His attention sharpened. “Then where?”
“Here.”
“Here?”
“In the breakfast room.”
There was a pause.
“The breakfast room,” said he.
“Yes. It has become insupportable.”
“In what particular?”
“Curtains. Paper. Carpet. Several chairs. Possibly the fireplace. I am not yet certain whether the table is guilty or merely in bad company.”
He looked at her.
Elizabeth looked back with perfect seriousness.
“I find myself upon the brink of domestic reform,” said she, “and wish to know how not to be ruined by it.”
Something in his expression changed. Not alarm exactly, nor amusement exactly, but the look of a man who sees the ground alter beneath him and resolves, as far as possible, to remain gentlemanlike while it does so.
“I had not understood,” said he, “that my profession extended so far.”
“It must enlarge itself. You have shown such unexpected judgment in silver, cheese, and Cotton Lane that I begin to suspect you may have an opinion on upholstery.”
“That is a reputation no prudent man should encourage.”
“Too late.”
He lowered his eyes briefly. Elizabeth was almost certain he did so to conceal amusement. She found concealment, in that instance, unnecessary but charming.
“I do not mean to debate paste, paper, and labour with strange men in aprons,” she continued. “Mrs. Albright may admit them, Mrs. Doddridge may witness their samples, and you, Mr. Darcy, may tell me whether their written terms are honest.”
“You have given the matter some structure already.”
“Naturally. I only require you to make it harder for anyone to cheat me.”
“That, at least, remains within my profession.”
“Excellent. I knew you would be useful.”
His gaze returned to her then, and for a moment Elizabeth thought usefulness was not the word he had heard, or at least not the word to which he had most safely attended. But he said only, “If I can assist, I am at your service.”
“You speak too soon. Come and view the injury.”
The breakfast room received him with all its accustomed gravity.
In the clearer light of afternoon its defects were almost more apparent: the curtains too dark, the carpet too weighty, the whole air respectable to the point of oppression.
Elizabeth stood in the middle of it and turned slowly, as if presenting evidence.
“You see,” said she, “what I endure.”
Darcy glanced round with composure. “I see a room by no means beyond hope.”
“That is civil of you.”
“It is very solid.”
“It is melancholy.”
“It is dark.”
“It is determined,” said Elizabeth. “My aunt disliked a room that looked as if it might form dangerous acquaintance with frivolity.”
There was a pause.
Elizabeth had not meant to introduce Mrs. Marwood so soon; but one could not stand there and speak honestly of the room without her. Mrs. Marwood was in every curtain, every chair-leg, every careful arrangement of objects intended to last twenty years and improve by resisting fashion.
Darcy did not offer condolence.
She was grateful to him at once.
“She had, I think,” said he after a moment, “the sort of judgement which dislikes change for its own sake.”
“Yes. She believed most alterations to be confessions of weak character.”
“But not all.”
Elizabeth looked at him.
“No,” said she. “Not all. She held that when life became stagnant, one must change something one could command.”
His expression altered a little; not softened into anything loose or pitying, but made more grave.
“A very good principle.”
“I thought so this morning. I am less certain now that I perceive it may involve an upholsterer.”
“The upholsterer may perhaps be endured if the principle is sound.”
Mrs. Albright was summoned and received the announcement of domestic reform with the expression of a general hearing that an enemy had crossed a border she had long expected him to approach.
“The breakfast room, miss?”
“Only the breakfast room at first.”
“That is wise, miss.”
“You think so?”
“I think, miss, that any assault upon the drawing room should wait until we have measured the casualties below stairs.”
Darcy’s mouth compressed.
Elizabeth looked at him with delight. “You see? Mrs. Albright entirely understands reform.”
Mrs. Albright inclined her head. “Entirely, or in part, miss?”
Elizabeth blinked. “That is exactly the sort of question I feared.”
“The curtains, miss, must come down if the paper is to be changed. If the carpet is removed, the boards beneath should be inspected. The chairs may be recovered, but the frames are sound. The table wants polishing. The fireplace stone would be improved by cleaning. The grate wants attention. The sideboard is excellent and should not be touched.”
Darcy looked at Mrs. Albright with something very like respect.
“You see, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth. “The enemy has been surveyed.”