CHAPTER 20
The Uses of Relations
Elizabeth liked her new breakfast room extremely.
It had the rare merit of justifying trouble after the trouble had been taken.
The pale paper held the winter light; the green chairs looked neither new nor old, but right; the fire behaved as if it had always belonged there; and Pom-Pom had accepted the best cushion with the solemnity of a creature receiving lands unjustly delayed.
The room even improved Elizabeth’s appetite, which was no small recommendation. She ate one roll, considered the matter, and then ate another in honour of good paper, clean stone, and chairs that did not reproach the human form.
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the fire with her sewing.
Pom-Pom, having conquered the cushion, had gone to sleep upon it in the attitude of a monarch who had found government fatiguing.
Outside, the square was pale with old snow and a thin morning sun; inside, the room had warmth enough to make weather a tolerable subject rather than an oppression.
The post was brought in before the chocolate had cooled.
Jane’s hand lay uppermost.
Elizabeth knew before she broke the seal that Jane would be happy. She had known it, desired it, and sent bluebells in silver to honour it. All this did not prevent her from taking one extra moment before opening the letter.
My dearest Lizzy,
You may now congratulate me, for I am Mrs. Bingley. I write the name slowly, that I may persuade myself it is true; but Charles says it so often, and with such pleasure, that I begin to think him a very good authority.
Elizabeth smiled, and went on.
The ceremony was beautiful — or so I am told.
I remember chiefly Charles’s hand, Mama’s tears, and Papa looking pleased in spite of himself.
Your tea service was much admired. Charles says the bluebells are exactly like you, which I do not understand, except that he meant it kindly, and therefore I like it very much.
Near the end, Jane added:
You were much missed. I hope that does not pain you to hear, for I mean it kindly.
Elizabeth paused over that sentence longer than she had expected.
It was gentle. It was generous. It was also an effort. Jane was trying to make a bridge without laying claim to the other side.
Elizabeth honoured the attempt. She folded the sheet carefully and set it beside her plate.
Mary had enclosed a page of her own, folded with great severity.
Dear Elizabeth,
Mr. Lorrimer has now attended four times. He says my time is tolerable and my touch severe. I am endeavouring to accept both observations with humility, though I had not before understood that humility required so many scales.
Elizabeth laughed aloud.
Mrs. Doddridge looked up.
“Miss Mary, miss?”
“For once.”
“Yes, miss.”
Mary continued by observing that practice was not, as she had formerly supposed, the proof of diligence, but the correction by which diligence became less offensive to the ear.
Lydia had compared one exercise to a cat being instructed in repentance.
Mary had informed her that repentance would be of use to her.
Lydia had declined repentance if it required scales.
A wavering postscript from Kitty announced that Lieutenant Carter’s horse had now been drawn three times.
The first had resembled a table, the second a horse that had received bad news, but the third had nearly the proper number of legs.
Lydia, in a larger and less patient hand, requested that if London masters could improve everything, Elizabeth would send one in flirtation, as dancing had made her feet cleverer but had not supplied better partners.
“Now Miss Lydia,” said Mrs. Doddridge.
“I am afraid so.”
“Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth answered them before the tenderness of the morning could harden into business. She congratulated Mrs. Bingley sincerely, praised the good sense of a husband who admired bluebells, and said that she was glad to have been remembered with affection on such a happy day.
Mary received encouragement, music paper, and a practical request that Mr. Lorrimer’s recommendations be sent before Papa could reduce them into opinions.
Kitty was asked for the third horse, ears and all.
Lydia was told that any master in flirtation would certainly overcharge, underperform, and be dismissed without a character.
By the time the letters were sanded and sealed, the breakfast room had done all it could for her.
Its fire was still bright, its paper still charming, and Pom-Pom’s cushion still held by a conqueror unwilling to negotiate; but Elizabeth had begun to feel that satisfaction, if left too long in one place, might grow idle.
Mrs. Albright arrived as if summoned by the thought.
“The drawing room, miss.”
Elizabeth looked up. “Has it rebelled?”
“Not yet, miss. But the chairs have made a beginning.”
It was a relief, after so much careful affection, to be told that two chairs had failed morally and structurally.
The drawing room had always been respectable.
It had the kind of respectability which discouraged easy breathing and made even sunbeams behave as visitors.
It was not ugly. That would have been a relief.
Ugly things might be condemned. The drawing room was well made, well kept, and oppressive with the virtue of things too good to be blamed.
Mrs. Albright conducted the inspection with professional severity.
“The two rosewood chairs must go, miss. The backs are not sound.”
“That is plain treachery under polish.”
“Yes, miss. The carpet will serve another season if the sofa is moved. The pier table wants polishing. The cabinets are excellent. The drapes may be cleaned and relined.”
“How fortunate,” said Elizabeth, looking round the room, “to be surrounded by so much excellent melancholy.”
Mrs. Albright turned her head by half an inch.
“I beg your pardon, miss?”
“No, you are quite right. The chairs must go. A broken chair may be condemned without philosophy. Good drapes require an argument.”
Mrs. Albright waited.
Elizabeth crossed to the window and took one heavy fold between her fingers. The stuff was excellent: warm, expensive, obedient, and oppressive.
“If the chairs are to be replaced,” said Elizabeth, “we may as well consider whether they ought to be replaced in obedience to the present gloom, or in correction of it.”
“The room is respectable, miss.”
“That is not quite the same thing as being agreeable.”
“No, miss.”
“The breakfast room did not suffer from admitting a little lightness.”
“No, miss. It improved under it.”
“Then the drawing room may perhaps consider some refinement in the same direction. Not youth. I have no wish to make it giggle. But a little air. A little grace. A colour which does not behave as if it were mourning a person it never knew.”
Mrs. Albright looked again at the drapes. “They are serviceable.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “That is their chief offence.”
The silence after this was not disagreement. Mrs. Albright had the housekeeper’s respect for good material, proper maintenance, and the wickedness of replacing what could serve. Elizabeth honoured all three principles. She only found, lately, that they were not enough.
“Everyone who enters this room will think I am a widow.”
Mrs. Albright was silent.
“I have grieved in her rooms,” Elizabeth said. “That was natural. But I do not mean to go on living in her grief merely because the furniture is too good to reproach.”
Mrs. Albright looked once more at the drapes, this time not as a housekeeper defending serviceable cloth, but as a woman considering where grief might be made useful without being allowed the best window.
“There is a back parlour that wants heavier curtains, miss. They would not look melancholy there. Only warm.”
Elizabeth smiled a little.
“Then let them become warm.”
“Yes, miss.”
Pom-Pom, who had followed them in and was standing with delicate suspicion near one of the condemned chairs, sneezed.
“You see?” said Elizabeth. “Even Pom-Pom rejects them.”
“He rejects most things, miss.”
“With judgment.”
Mrs. Albright did not dispute it.
The chairs remained the practical difficulty. A new colour could not be balanced until there was something new to balance; and two chairs, though small in the general history of grief, were large enough to embarrass a drawing room.
For one absurd second, Elizabeth thought of Mr. Darcy, who would certainly have known whether a chair was sound, overpriced, or merely pretending to be old.
Then she shut the thought away.
Chairs were not official business.
“My aunt and uncle Gardiner may know someone suitable,” she said. “My uncle has dealings enough among London tradesmen to distinguish a chair from an imposition.”
“That would be useful, miss.”
Useful. Yes. Usefulness was a comfort. One could write to usefulness. One could arrange it to call at noon.
She wrote to Gracechurch Street before she could change her mind.
Mrs. Gardiner replied with cheerful promptness. She and Mr. Gardiner would come the next morning. Mr. Gardiner did indeed know a respectable cabinet-maker who might suit the room without making the whole room look newly furnished.
Elizabeth read the reply twice, though there was nothing in it to require interpretation.
“Aunt Gardiner writes very kindly,” she said.
Mrs. Doddridge, who was mending another of Pom-Pom’s garments and had never in her life mistaken kindness for intimacy, replied, “Yes, miss.”
Elizabeth folded the letter.
The Gardiners had always been kind. That had never been the difficulty.
They arrived shortly before noon the next day.
Mr. Gardiner entered Portman Square with the steady good humour of a man at ease among invoices, children, nieces, and weather. Mrs. Gardiner was warm, handsome, and observant, with Derbyshire softness in her speech and London sense in her eyes. She kissed Elizabeth with affection.
Elizabeth returned the embrace with real pleasure and the instant uncertainty of a person who knew the proper degree of affection better than the habitual one.