CHAPTER 30 #2
Mrs. Gardiner entered with perfect propriety and a composure in which affection and caution had been arranged with some care.
Mr. Gardiner followed, good-humoured and sensible, but with that quick practical eye by which he seemed to know, before taking off his gloves, whether a room was well managed, a servant competent, and a dinner likely to disgrace nobody.
Elizabeth received them warmly and without explanation.
No reference was made to the interval since Mrs. Gardiner’s warning. None was needed. Civility, properly used, had a wonderful power of placing awkwardness in a chair and forbidding it to speak.
“My dear aunt,” said Elizabeth, “you are come in excellent time to approve or condemn everything before it is too late.”
“I shall do neither until I have dined,” said Mrs. Gardiner.
“Very wise. Hunger is a severe moralist.”
Mr. Gardiner laughed and looked around him. “You have made a fine room of it, Lizzy.”
“I had assistance.”
“So I understand.”
It was said mildly. Elizabeth heard everything beneath it, and let it pass. There were too many people in the room, and besides, dinner was a poor weapon for settling old anxieties. It was better used for feeding them into better manners.
The first quarter of an hour was then given, as such quarters must be, to the useful labour of making strangers less strange.
Elizabeth had known, when she made the invitations, that she was not merely bringing people to dinner; she was obliging several portions of her life to exchange bows and discover whether they could endure one another’s names.
Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Belwick were presented to the Gardiners with every propriety.
Miss Hall received Mr. Gardiner’s bow with the look of a woman who approved practical intelligence but would not say so prematurely.
Mr. Hartwood greeted the Gardiners with warmth enough to cover three new acquaintances, while Mr. Beaker gave them a civility so dry and exact that Mr. Gardiner appeared, for a moment, to be deciding whether it was praise, caution, or merely age.
Jane was introduced to Mrs. Hall’s circle and at once made them easier by looking pleased to know them.
Mr. Bingley, who possessed a genius for being delighted before he had quite learned why, declared himself happy in every new acquaintance with such sincerity that even Miss Hall was obliged to accept some portion of it.
Miss Bingley performed her civilities with polish, but Elizabeth saw her look twice at the older ladies, the professional men, the dog, and the servants moving under Mrs. Albright’s silent command, as if each new person added another piece to a calculation she had not expected to make.
By the time Mr. Darcy was announced, the company had already passed through enough introductions to make one more gentleman part of the evening’s general business rather than its whole object.
Elizabeth was conscious of him more sharply than she wished to be. The room, having already survived several introductions, did not behave as if anything remarkable had occurred. That was fortunate. Elizabeth was not certain she had done the same.
She received him with the same composure she had given every other guest, which was to say, with rather more care than ease.
Mr. Darcy entered with grave self-command, bowed first to Elizabeth as mistress of the house, and then lifted his eyes.
For one fraction of a moment, he saw her.
Not the room, not the company, not the candles, but her — claret silk and all.
Then the moment was gone. He bowed over her hand with every proper composure. It was only when he released it that Elizabeth noticed he had not immediately said anything at all.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, because apparently one of them must be useful, “you find the room in its first public attempt.”
“I do,” he said. His voice was perfectly steady, which was inconsiderate. “It appears to have been very well persuaded.”
She ought not to have been pleased by that. It was merely her own phrase returned to her. Yet there it was, and she could not do much with pleasure except pretend it had not arrived.
Mr. Darcy was then presented where presentation was necessary.
Jane received him with gentle civility. Mr. Bingley, who had not yet met a gentleman in a friend’s house without wishing to be pleased by him, bowed with immediate good humour and declared himself very happy to make Mr. Darcy’s acquaintance.
Mr. Darcy returned the civility with grave correctness, and Elizabeth had the absurd impression that Mr. Bingley’s goodwill had presented itself to him as something large, friendly, and not quite accounted for in the rules.
Mrs. Gardiner’s curtsey was perfectly proper; Mr. Gardiner’s bow perfectly civil. Elizabeth, who knew the difference between courtesy and ease, saw the small reserve in both and disliked that she could not resent it.
Miss Bingley’s glance rested on Mr. Darcy long enough to place him.
He was handsome, certainly, and gentlemanlike; but his coat did not announce fortune, and Mr. Hartwood and Mr. Beaker greeted him as a trusted useful man, not as a prize.
Miss Bingley’s interest cooled into classification.
Elizabeth saw it happen and almost admired the efficiency.
Then Mr. Darcy saw Pom-Pom.
He paused, but only very slightly.
“Lord Pomington,” said he gravely.
Pom-Pom, who had already endured several introductions without finding any of them worthy of remark, looked up with more interest.
“I am glad to find your lordship so well.”
This, because it was spoken as if no absurdity at all were involved, accomplished more for the evening than any compliment to the room could have done.
Mr. Hartwood gave a low sound of pleasure.
Mrs. Belwick turned away under colour of admiring the candles.
Even Mrs. Gardiner was obliged to settle her face before it settled itself.
Elizabeth thought the evening had begun better than it deserved.
Dinner was announced before the room could over-consider itself.
Once seated, the table performed the first office of all good tables: it made separate people temporarily less separate.
Mr. Bingley improved every neighbourhood into which conversation placed him.
Jane softened every exchange without appearing to manage it.
Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Belwick preserved the old social order of the room by simply remaining themselves.
Mr. Hartwood was merry from the first spoonful.
Mr. Beaker devoted himself to the meal with the concentration of a man who considered eating one of the few occupations in which silence might be not only forgiven but admired.
Miss Hall watched. Miss Bingley measured.
The Gardiners observed without appearing to observe.
Mr. Darcy spoke when conversation came to him and did not when it passed elsewhere.
Elizabeth, who had thought she was prepared for this, found that she had prepared for the wrong thing.
She had prepared for awkwardness. She had prepared for stiffness.
She had prepared, if necessary, to defend every guest from every other guest by placing between them some harmless subject like weather or curtains.
She had not prepared for success.
The first subjects were ordinary and therefore merciful: the roads, the weather, the inconvenience of winter calls, the astonishing speed with which tradesmen discovered new importance when a room was almost finished, and the still greater astonishment by which a newly married woman found herself addressed as if she had been a wife since birth.
“It is very odd,” said Jane, smiling. “I have been Mrs. Bingley for so short a time, and yet people speak to me as though Jane Bennet had been merely an early draft.”
Mr. Bingley looked alarmed. “Not an early draft. The approved original.”
“Charles,” said Miss Bingley, “you must not speak as if marriage were a publishing arrangement.”
“I should not know how else to describe improvement under Jane’s direction.”
“There,” said Elizabeth, “is a husband too newly married to be trusted near metaphor.”
Mrs. Belwick declared it charming. Mrs. Hall observed that many husbands would be improved by speaking only in metaphor, as it might prevent them from being understood too frequently. Mr. Hartwood laughed into his wine. Mr. Gardiner, perhaps from marital prudence, said nothing.
“It is a happy room,” said Mr. Bingley, looking about him with that simple certainty which made mockery difficult. “One feels it has been made ready for people, and not only for admiration.”
For a moment Elizabeth had no answer.
Then Miss Hall said, “A rare distinction.”
Elizabeth could have kissed her for making the reply unnecessary, though only on the cheek and under conditions of great provocation.
The food began to do what Elizabeth had asked of it.
Mrs. Hall approved the lighter dish without praise, which was praise.
Mrs. Belwick enjoyed it openly. Mr. Bingley liked everything with an enthusiasm so sincere it would have dignified bread and water.
Mr. Hartwood became warmer with every course.
Mr. Beaker gave no opinion, but he accepted a second helping of the dish Elizabeth had most hoped he would approve, and she took that as an affidavit.
Miss Bingley could find the dinner neither vulgar nor insufficient, which was as much triumph as any hostess should reasonably demand.
Elizabeth did not congratulate herself. There was no time.
A hostess, she was learning, must listen in six directions, notice the footman before he hesitated, see Mrs. Hall’s glass replenished without seeming to see it, encourage Mr. Hartwood only to the edge of anecdote, and prevent Mr. Bingley’s gratitude from becoming a public institution.
Mr. Darcy noticed the table.