CHAPTER 44 #2
Mrs. Gardiner had excused much in Fanny Bennet: nerves, disappointment, five daughters, no son, an estate that must pass away, and a husband too amused by folly to prevent it from becoming ruinous.
Yet those excuses, gathered over many years, suddenly looked very small beside the present fact.
Fanny had heard that Elizabeth was to marry and had not asked first whether she was loved, whether she was safe, or whether she was happy.
She had asked what would be left.
Jane went to her mother’s side. “Mama, you must not speak so. Charles and I would never let you or my sisters be homeless. You know we would not.”
Mrs. Bennet clutched Jane’s hand at once.
“Dear Jane, you are all goodness, and Mr. Bingley is the best of men; but you have your own house now, and his sisters, and his estate, and there is no knowing what may happen. A mother must think. If Lizzy had chosen as she ought, if she had made a connection that strengthened us all—”
“To us all?” said Elizabeth.
The words were mild. Mrs. Gardiner heard the danger in them.
Mrs. Bennet did not.
“Yes, to us all! What is the use of fortune in a family if it is to be swallowed by a husband who has none secure of his own? I am sure I never thought, when Mrs. Marwood took you, that you would be raised so high only to forget the claims of your own blood.”
Mary rose.
She did it awkwardly, as if surprised to find herself standing, but once upright she remained so.
“Mama,” she said, very pale, “I am in London because Elizabeth did not forget us.”
Mrs. Bennet turned toward her with impatience. “Oh, Mary, music lessons are very well, and I am glad you should have them if they do not make you more solemn than before, but music will not keep a roof over one’s head.”
“No,” said Mary. “But neither will insulting the person most willing to help us.”
Jane made a small sound of distress.
Mrs. Gardiner looked at Mary with new respect. There was nothing elegant in the speech. It was stiff, blunt, and had all the polish of a prayer-book dropped upon a table. But it was true.
Mrs. Bennet stared at her.
“You too, Mary? I am opposed by all my daughters today. I suppose it is very natural. Girls never understand what mothers suffer until it is too late.”
“Perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “because mothers do not always call suffering by its proper name.”
Mrs. Bennet gasped. “Lizzy!”
Mrs. Gardiner saw Elizabeth’s anger then. Not heat. Not mortification. Nothing so youthful or so easily comforted. It was colder than that, and built on knowledge Mrs. Gardiner did not possess.
“You know very little of Mr. Darcy’s circumstances,” Elizabeth said. “And nothing that gives you leave to speak of him as an expense.”
“Expense!” cried Mrs. Bennet. “I speak only of prudence. Lydia will need something one day, and Kitty too; and if everything is swallowed up in Mr. Darcy’s establishment—”
“Then you and Papa should have made provision before you needed my happiness to repair the want of it,” said Elizabeth. “Kitty and Lydia’s future is not Mr. Darcy’s debt.”
Jane turned pleadingly. “Lizzy, Mama is frightened.”
“I know,” said Elizabeth. “But fear has not made her ask whether I am loved. It has made her ask what my marriage will cost her.”
Jane’s eyes filled. She looked from Elizabeth to Mrs. Bennet, and for a moment Mrs. Gardiner saw the old Longbourn habit moving in her: soothe Mama first, then tend the wound afterward.
Mrs. Gardiner remembered then a conversation some time before, when Elizabeth had spoken of Mr. Collins with a lightness so dry and comic that even indignation had arrived wrapped in absurdity.
Mrs. Gardiner had understood that Fanny had overstepped.
She had understood pressure, impropriety, mortification.
She had not understood the principle beneath it.
Mr. Collins had been acceptable because he would have kept Elizabeth useful to Longbourn. Mr. Darcy was objectionable because he would not. The two events were not opposites after all, but the same claim turned in different directions.
And, with that recognition, Elizabeth’s choice made a sharper kind of sense.
Whatever Mr. Darcy’s difficulties, whatever pain or uncertainty he brought with him, he had not come before Hartwood and Beaker demanding to be believed, obeyed, or enriched.
He had submitted himself to scrutiny. He had accepted caution.
He had not, so far as Mrs. Gardiner could see, approached Elizabeth’s usefulness before her person.
Mrs. Bennet had begun to cry.
It was not wholly false. That was the difficulty with Fanny. Her tears were real. Her fear was real. Her selfishness was real too, and none cancelled another.
“You are very hard,” she said. “Very hard and unfeeling. I have lain awake night after night thinking what is to become of us all, and now my own daughter tells me I must not speak. Perhaps when your father is gone, and I am turned out of Longbourn, and Kitty and Lydia have nowhere to go, and Mary is too accomplished to marry anybody—”
“Mama,” said Mary faintly.
“—then perhaps you will remember that your poor mother warned you.”
Elizabeth’s face did not change.
“I will not see you or my sisters homeless, Mama, if such a day should come. That is my assurance, and you may rely upon it.”
Mrs. Bennet’s sob caught. She looked up.
Jane pressed a handkerchief to her lips.
Mary stared at Elizabeth.
Mrs. Gardiner did not move.
“But hear me clearly,” Elizabeth continued. “If you continue to speak of Mr. Darcy as a burden upon my fortune, or if you raise this subject before him, any provision I make for the future will exclude you. My sisters shall not suffer for your words. You shall.”
“Lizzy!” cried Jane.
“No, Jane.” Elizabeth’s voice was quiet. “I will be generous. I will not be insulted.”
Mrs. Bennet stared as if Elizabeth had struck her.
Then, because she was Mrs. Bennet, injury overtook comprehension.
“To be threatened by my own child!”
“To be warned,” said Elizabeth.
“I am your mother.”
“Yes.”
There was no cruelty in the answer. That made it worse.
Mrs. Bennet trembled with indignation. “And Mr. Darcy is to come before me?”
Elizabeth’s expression altered then, very slightly. Mrs. Gardiner, watching closely, thought it was the first moment of the scene in which Elizabeth was near losing command.
“Mr. Darcy is not before you in my duty,” she said. “He is before you in this discussion because you have chosen to insult him. That is all.”
“You cannot expect me to say nothing!”
“I expect you to say nothing that requires me to act.”
Mary looked down.
Jane was weeping silently now.
Mrs. Gardiner stepped in before Mrs. Bennet could find a new injury large enough to ride.
“Fanny,” she said, “you had better not answer at once.”
Mrs. Bennet turned to her. “Sister! You hear how I am spoken to?”
“I do.”
“And you say nothing?”
“I say that Elizabeth has spoken plainly, and you would do well to believe her.”
Mrs. Bennet opened her mouth, shut it, opened it again, and then burst into tears with a violence that at least had the advantage of stopping speech.
Jane moved at once to comfort her. Mary remained standing, useless and miserable. Elizabeth did not move for several seconds. Then she drew a breath, picked up her gloves, and said, “Aunt, I am sorry this has disturbed your house.”
Mrs. Gardiner went to her and took both her hands.
“My dear Lizzy, my house is not so delicate as that.”
Elizabeth’s mouth curved, but the smile did not reach her eyes.
Jane looked up. “Lizzy, please do not go in anger.”
“I am not angry with you, Jane.”
Jane flinched because that left all the rest where it belonged.
Mary came forward.
“Lizzy,” she said, then stopped. Her face worked with feeling and embarrassment. “I am sorry.”
Elizabeth’s expression softened.
“You have done nothing to be sorry for.”
“I have often thought myself neglected,” Mary said, with grave difficulty. “I did not always consider that you had been made useful where you ought to have been loved.”
Mrs. Gardiner felt her throat tighten.
Elizabeth looked at Mary for a long moment.
“Then we are both improving,” she said gently.
Mary nodded once, as if she accepted the conclusion as painful but sound.
Jane crossed the room and embraced Elizabeth. Mrs. Bennet, still crying, did not look at them. Or would not.
When Elizabeth left, Jane and Mary went with her as far as the hall.
There was some murmured arrangement: Jane would see Mary back to Brook Street; Elizabeth would return to Portman Square; no one would send any note to Mr. Darcy until Elizabeth had chosen what must be said.
Mrs. Gardiner heard only fragments. She was watching Mrs. Bennet, who had sunk into a chair, handkerchief pressed to her face, the injured queen of a kingdom no one had asked her to govern.
When the door closed below, Gracechurch Street seemed to remember itself.
Mrs. Gardiner rang.
Mrs. Bennet looked up sharply. “I cannot possibly receive anyone.”
“No one is asking it of you,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “You have had a long journey and too much agitation. You will be better upstairs.”
“I shall not be better anywhere.”
“Then you shall be unwell in comfort.”
Mrs. Bennet blinked.
Mrs. Gardiner gave her arm. “The blue chamber is ready enough. I shall have hot water sent up, and tea. You may rest before dinner.”
“Rest! With such a scene upon my nerves?”
“You need not sleep,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “But you shall be warm.”
There was no more argument to be had with that.
Mrs. Bennet allowed herself to be taken upstairs, protesting all the way against daughters, husbands, secrecy, formal notices, and the cruelty of relations who gave advice when sympathy was wanted.
Mrs. Gardiner listened, answered little, and saw her installed in the guest chamber with a fire stirred to life, a foot-warmer fetched, and the blinds half lowered.
At the door she gave the maid instructions in a low voice.
“Hot water, tea, and the small tray. If Mrs. Bennet rings, come to me first.”
“Yes, ma’am.”