CHAPTER 44
The Price of Quiet
Mrs. Gardiner had ordered the front parlour fire made up earlier than usual.
Jane’s note had been brief, affectionate, and entirely proper. She and Lizzy wished to call that morning, and Mary would accompany them if it did not inconvenience her aunt.
It was the sort of note that said nothing except that something had already been decided.
Mrs. Gardiner therefore expected news. She did not expect distress.
Jane, since her marriage, wrote with a happiness too new to be careless of other people’s comfort; Mary’s present stay in London had filled two letters with music, books, and Mrs. Pratt’s variations; and Elizabeth, when she had nothing to say, did not usually bring two sisters to assist her in saying it.
The fire was made up. The tea things were set ready. Mrs. Gardiner put aside her sewing and waited.
When the three young women were shown in, Jane came first, smiling and anxious; Mary followed with the grave importance of a person trusted with intelligence; Elizabeth came last, composed enough to make Mrs. Gardiner immediately distrust the composure.
After the first greetings, Jane sat near Elizabeth rather than beside Mary, and Mary accepted her chair with unusual care, as though a wrong movement might disturb the order of events.
Mrs. Gardiner looked from one niece to another.
“Well,” she said, “I find I am to be told something.”
Elizabeth drew off her gloves.
“Yes,” she said. “I have come to tell you myself, before the matter grows noisier elsewhere. Mr. Darcy and I are to be married.”
For a moment, Mrs. Gardiner heard only the fire.
Mr. Darcy.
She had been prepared for news. She had not prepared herself for that.
It was not that the name was impossible.
Mrs. Gardiner had seen enough at Portman Square to know that Mr. Darcy was not indifferent to Elizabeth, nor she to him.
But there was a great distance between attention and marriage, and Elizabeth had crossed it without appearing in the least thrown by the journey.
Jane’s eyes shone with the relieved tenderness of one who had known the news and wished it well. Mary sat very straight, as if still considering whether joy ought properly to be expressed before or after reflection. Elizabeth alone looked calm.
That calm troubled Mrs. Gardiner more than blushes would have done.
“And you are certain?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Of him, or of your own mind?”
Elizabeth’s eyes softened.
“Both, I believe. But certainly of my own.”
That answer did not remove Mrs. Gardiner’s concern, but it altered it. This was not girlish haste. It was decision.
“You know,” Mrs. Gardiner said carefully, “that I have heard some reports.”
“Yes.”
“And not from persons who intended malice.”
“I know.”
“Derbyshire speaks strangely of him.”
“Derbyshire has been taught to speak strangely of him.”
Mrs. Gardiner stilled.
It was the first answer that did not merely reassure; it opened a door, and then closed it again before she could see far into the room beyond.
Elizabeth folded her gloves together.
“I cannot tell you everything that is not mine to tell. I can say that Mr. Darcy has been more injured by report than guilty of what report has made of him.”
Mary’s eyes shifted quickly from Elizabeth to Mrs. Gardiner. Jane’s head bent. Mrs. Gardiner understood from that small silence that Jane had been told something, or enough; and that Mary had not, but had sense enough not to ask.
“Has he told you enough of his circumstances?” Mrs. Gardiner asked.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “More than rumour ever troubled itself to learn.”
“And your trustees?”
At that Elizabeth’s expression changed; not into levity, exactly, but into a dryness Mrs. Gardiner knew well enough to be comforted by it.
“My trustees are the most suspicious men in London, Aunt. Mr. Darcy has had the misfortune to receive their approval.”
Jane laughed softly, in relief.
Mary looked impressed.
Mrs. Gardiner could not help herself; she smiled.
“Mr. Hartwood and Mr. Beaker both?”
“Both. Mr. Hartwood with questions enough to humble a bishop, and Mr. Beaker with an expression that would make a fortune apologize for existing.”
“That is a severe court.”
“I thought so. Mr. Darcy survived it.”
“And accepted it?”
Elizabeth’s face changed again, more quietly.
“Yes.”
That did more to satisfy Mrs. Gardiner than many protestations would have done.
A man might admire Elizabeth’s fortune, or be dazzled by her independence, or persuade himself into affection because affection came so advantageously attended.
But a man who could stand before Hartwood and Beaker, accept restrictions, submit to caution, and not resent the woman whose protection required it—that spoke better than romance.
“You do love him,” Mrs. Gardiner said.
Elizabeth looked at her directly.
“Yes.”
The word was plain. It did not plead. It did not decorate itself. It had more force for being so unadorned.
Jane’s hand went again to Elizabeth’s, and this time Elizabeth let it remain.
Mrs. Gardiner rose then and kissed her cheek.
“My dear girl,” she said softly, “then I wish you joy.”
Elizabeth’s composure wavered for the first time.
“Thank you.”
Mary cleared her throat. “I believe,” she said, “that where serious affection is joined to prudence, there is less danger of regret than where either is left alone.”
Jane turned to her with a grateful smile.
Elizabeth’s lips curved. “A very handsome conclusion, Mary.”
“I had not prepared it.”
“Then it does you greater credit.”
Mary looked pleased, and tried not to.
Mrs. Gardiner was about to say that her husband would be sorry to have missed the news, and would expect to hear it from Elizabeth herself when he returned from business, when the front bell rang with a violence rarely produced by friendship.
Jane started.
Mary turned her head.
Elizabeth did not move, except that one hand, resting upon the arm of her chair, closed once and opened again.
Mrs. Gardiner looked toward the door. In Gracechurch Street, callers did not usually arrive as if the house had personally offended them.
A moment later the servant entered, his face arranged with difficulty into proper neutrality.
“Mrs. Bennet, ma’am. From Longbourn.”
“From Longbourn?” cried Jane, already half risen.
But Mrs. Bennet had followed too closely upon the announcement to allow anyone the useful interval between news and consequence.
She entered with bonnet ribbons askew, pelisse creased from travel, cheeks flushed, and all the air of a woman who had been wronged by every mile of road between Hertfordshire and London.
“Well!” she cried. “Here you all are, and very fortunate too, for I declare I had no strength left to go rattling all the way to Portman Square and ask admission of my own daughter like any common caller.”
Mrs. Gardiner went forward at once, because hospitality, like fire, must be attended to before it spread.
“Fanny, you have travelled without notice.”
“And what notice had I?” cried Mrs. Bennet, accepting her sister’s kiss with the air of a martyr receiving insufficient tribute.
“What notice had I of anything? To have such intelligence sprung upon me at Longbourn, and Mr. Bennet sitting there with his letter as calm as if daughters were married every day before breakfast! Such usage! Such secrecy! Such a blow to a mother’s nerves! ”
Jane reached her. “Mama, you must be tired. Come and sit by the fire.”
“Tired! Oh, Jane, you may well speak of tiredness. You are married and settled and know nothing of what it is to be a mother with five daughters and no one to tell her anything until all is arranged.”
Jane coloured painfully. “Lizzy meant no unkindness.”
“Lizzy always means exactly as much kindness as suits her own way,” cried Mrs. Bennet, turning at last upon Elizabeth. “And now her own way is Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth rose.
“Good morning, Mama.”
The quietness of it struck Mrs. Gardiner more than any protest.
Mrs. Bennet did not seem to feel the warning.
“Good morning! Yes, I dare say it is a good morning to you, when everyone is to be told except your mother, and your poor father is to receive letters as if the matter were one of his books or taxes or whatever else gentlemen pretend to understand better than women.”
“I wrote to Papa,” said Elizabeth, “because the formal notice belonged to him.”
“Formal notice! Am I to be comforted by formal notice when my daughter is throwing herself and her fortune away?”
The room altered.
Jane’s face went scarlet.
Mary sat very still.
Mrs. Gardiner, who had been prepared for nerves, noise, tears, reproaches, and every ordinary excess of Fanny’s imagination, felt something colder move beneath the familiar absurdity.
Elizabeth did not answer immediately.
Mrs. Bennet took her silence for permission.
“You might have done very well, Lizzy. Very well indeed. With your fortune, and your house, and all those men of business about you, you might have had any gentleman properly situated. A man with a settled estate, a family pleased to claim him, and no need to be assisted by his wife.”
“Fanny,” said Mrs. Gardiner sharply.
Mrs. Bennet waved her off.
“No, sister, I must speak. Who is to speak if not her mother? Everyone else may flatter her, but I know what it is to think of the future. Mr. Darcy may be a gentleman, and a very clever one too, for anything I know; but if he is making his own way in town, and not settled upon some estate of his own, what is Lizzy about? She has fortune enough to choose security, not to become security herself. And if her money is to maintain a husband, and then children by that husband, what is to become of me? What is to become of Kitty and Lydia?”
There it was.
Not hidden. Not softened. Not even understood by the woman who had said it.