CHAPTER 46 #2
“I hope so as well, though with less confidence than politeness would prefer.”
Mr. Gardiner laughed outright. “You will do, Mr. Darcy.”
Darcy looked faintly startled.
Then, with more feeling than he had shown before, Mr. Gardiner added, “For Elizabeth, I mean.”
Darcy did not answer at once.
“I shall try,” he said.
“That is all any of us can promise, though some of us ought to have tried sooner.”
There was no need to name Mr. Bennet. Both men understood him.
Darcy took his leave soon after, with proper thanks and a final request that Mr. Gardiner should tell him if he might be of any further service without increasing Elizabeth’s distress.
Mr. Gardiner watched him go.
When the door closed, he remained a moment with the card still on his desk.
Mr. Darcy, he thought, was not an easy man. But easy men were often overrated. They slid around difficulties and called their motion peace.
Darcy, at least, appeared willing to stand in the difficult place and name it.
That was something.
The letters came next.
Letters were easier than sisters. Paper did not interrupt, faint, misunderstand itself on purpose, or announce that nobody cared if it died.
Mr. Gardiner drew a fresh sheet toward him and wrote first to Longbourn.
My dear Bennet,
Fanny came to Gracechurch Street yesterday without notice and in a state of agitation which has not abated. I confess I am at a loss to understand how she was permitted to undertake such a journey alone, when her spirits were already so disordered and the subject so certain to inflame them.
I will not trouble you with every particular, but I must be plain: her conduct has distressed Elizabeth, made my wife unhappy in her own house, and driven Jane and Mary back to Brook Street rather than leave them able to remain here with comfort.
You must come to London.
This is not a matter for your daughters to manage, nor for my wife to endure in your place. If you can persuade Fanny to command herself, she may remain long enough to attend the wedding with propriety. If you cannot, then she must be taken home.
I will not have Elizabeth’s marriage made the occasion of further scenes, nor will I allow my house to become the theatre in which your daughters are required to answer for their mother’s fears and their father’s absence.
Come at once.
Your affectionate brother,
Edward Gardiner
He read it over and resisted the temptation to add something about wit being a poor substitute for a husband’s attendance when his wife was distressing everyone within reach. It would only give Bennet something to admire in the sentence and neglect in the substance.
He sanded the letter, folded it, and set it aside.
The letter to Jane required more care. Jane would take relief and turn it into guilt if he left her room to do so.
My dear Jane,
Your aunt and I hope you and Mary are well this morning. I write only to say that you need not call here today unless you particularly wish it. Your mother remains much agitated, and I do not think either you or Mary can improve her spirits by making yourselves uneasy.
I have written to your father and requested that he come to London. Until he arrives, I do not recommend that you return to Gracechurch Street except by your own inclination. You have duties enough without assuming those which properly belong elsewhere.
Give my affection to Mary and to Bingley.
Your affectionate uncle,
Edward Gardiner
That would not wholly free Jane. Nothing written by mortal hand could wholly free Jane from the habit of thinking another person’s distress must be an invitation to service. But it might give Bingley something to stand upon, and Mary something to cite with satisfaction.
Elizabeth’s letter took him longest.
He did not wish to alarm her. He did not wish to conceal too much. He did not wish her to think that absence was abandonment, nor that return was required as proof of affection.
At last he wrote:
My dear Elizabeth,
I write before you can think yourself obliged to call in Gracechurch Street. Your mother remains unsettled, and I have written to your father requesting that he come to London.
Until he arrives, I do not recommend that you return here unless you particularly desire it. Your aunt and I are well, and there is no duty requiring your presence. Indeed, I think your absence, for the present, the wiser kindness to everyone concerned.
He paused, then added what he thought she ought to know.
Mr. Darcy called this morning. He behaved with great propriety and with evident concern for your peace. I shall say only that his visit did him credit.
Your affectionate uncle,
Edward Gardiner
He sealed all three.
By noon, three letters had left Gracechurch Street: one to summon a husband, and two to release daughters from being used in his place.
Unfortunately, paper could not speak to Fanny Bennet in the parlour.
That remained to him.
Mr. Gardiner found his wife in the small back parlour, sitting opposite Mrs. Bennet with the expression of a woman who had been civil for so long that civility itself had begun to feel like a tight shoe.
Mrs. Bennet had a handkerchief in one hand, a cup of tea cooling beside her, and the aggrieved air of a lady who had been both indulged and insufficiently admired for suffering.
“My dear brother,” she cried as soon as he entered, “I am sure I am very sorry if I have been any inconvenience, though no one can expect a mother to be calm when all her children are taken from her in this manner, and Lizzy — dear Lizzy, though she speaks to me as if I were a stranger — is to marry a gentleman whose circumstances no one has properly explained, and I am sure I only said what any mother must feel, though I am blamed for everything, as usual.”
Mrs. Gardiner closed her eyes for one brief, revealing moment.
Mr. Gardiner shut the door.
“Fanny,” he said, “I have written to Bennet and asked him to come to town.”
Mrs. Bennet stared at him. “My husband? But why should Mr. Bennet come? I am sure I have done nothing to require such a journey. I came only because a mother’s heart—”
“Your heart may be excellent,” said Mr. Gardiner. “Your conduct has not been.”
Mrs. Bennet gasped.
Mrs. Gardiner opened her eyes.
“Brother!”
“No, Fanny. You must hear me. You are an adult woman and a mother. You must endeavour to behave like both.”
“I never heard anything so cruel. To be told by one’s own brother—”
“Your brother,” said Mr. Gardiner, not loudly. “And your host.”
That arrested her for half a second.
“You are welcome in my house,” he continued, “but you are a guest in it. I will not have my wife made miserable under her own roof, nor will I have your daughters summoned to soothe distresses which their father is better placed to answer.”
“My daughters!” cried Mrs. Bennet. “I am sure my daughters owe me some consideration. After all I have suffered for them, and with my poor nerves—”
“You are not the only lady in this house with nerves, Fanny.”
She looked almost offended by the information.