CHAPTER 73 #3
Elizabeth sat back.
That was worse than she had expected.
Not ruin. Not chaos. Not Sir Edmund scattering Rosings into London gaming rooms and racecourses. Discipline. Economy. Order without love. Prudence sharpened until it cut whatever did not answer to its purpose.
Fitzwilliam’s face was very still.
Lady Catherine calls it vandalism. Sir Edmund calls it economy. I am not certain both are not right.
The Wickhams are gone, or very nearly so.
Whatever agreement placed them at Rosings did not survive the inconvenience of their remaining there.
Sir Edmund appears to have liked the access they provided better than the company they kept.
Mr. George Wickham has not prospered in his opinion.
Sir Edmund considers him handsome, expensive, indiscreet, and very much dearer than he is worth.
Mrs. Wickham expected gratitude, consequence, and a chair very near the fire. She has received none of the three.
Elizabeth made a sound that was almost a laugh, and not amusement.
“There is justice in that,” she said.
“Yes,” said Fitzwilliam. “But not enough of it.”
No. Not enough. Justice had not come because the Wickhams had been exposed to moral judgment. It had come because they had become inconvenient.
That distinction mattered.
Fitzwilliam read on.
Anne is easier. I wish that fact were more comforting.
She has new gowns, books of her own choosing, quieter rooms, and more command of her mornings than she ever possessed under her mother.
Sir Edmund has discovered, with unpleasant intelligence, that Anne is more obedient when she is not harried.
Lady Catherine visits as mother and is prevented from reigning as sovereign.
This appears to have improved Anne’s spirits.
I cannot call it freedom. I do not think Anne has been taught to ask for that.
There the letter seemed to grow heavier in Fitzwilliam’s hand.
Elizabeth thought of Anne as she had last seen her in imagination rather than acquaintance: pale, managed, surrounded by consequence that did not belong to her, rich in every way that had not saved her. New gowns. New books. Quiet rooms. Fewer commands. A mother changed from sovereign into visitor.
It was not nothing.
That was the cruelty of it.
It was not nothing, and it was not enough.
Fitzwilliam finished the letter in silence.
There were a few further lines: Richard would write again if the Wickhams attempted a new claim; the Earl wished matters kept quiet for Anne’s sake; Lady Catherine had written three letters of such length that the mere weight of them might have restored her authority had paper been sufficient; Sir Edmund remained outwardly exact; Anne sent no message, but Richard had seen her in the garden with a book and could not honestly say she looked unhappy.
When Fitzwilliam lowered the page, neither spoke at once.
At last Elizabeth said, “The Earl has saved Rosings from being sold. He has not saved Anne from being managed.”
Fitzwilliam folded Richard’s letter once, then again. His expression was grave, not hard.
“No,” he said. “But Anne is not in a condition to manage herself. Not Rosings. Not her fortune. Perhaps not even all the smaller affairs of her own day, if they were suddenly placed in her hands.”
Elizabeth looked at him.
“That is part of the wrong,” he said. “My aunt made dependence her daughter’s condition, and now dependence is the argument by which everyone else may govern her.”
Elizabeth’s hand moved unconsciously to her own body.
“Then the question is not whether she is managed.”
“No.” His eyes met hers. “It is who manages her, by what right, and for whose good.”
The phrase settled between them with more weight than either had intended. In another house, it had come too late.
Elizabeth looked toward the window. The park beyond it was very fair. Pemberley, under September light, had the insolence to look innocent.
“Lady Catherine formed her to expect management,” Fitzwilliam said. “Sir Edmund’s is quieter and less exhausting. To Anne, it may feel very like liberty.”
“A comfortable captivity,” Elizabeth said.
He did not deny it.
Elizabeth thought again of the music room: Georgiana listening, Mary counting until she could trust herself, Kitty laughing by the window, Jane’s hand warm over hers.
She thought of the child moving beneath her palm while two young women made something steadier together than either could have made alone.
Sir Edmund had given each person the cheapest thing that would serve. Anne received quiet. Lady Catherine received form. The Wickhams received dismissal.
“And Sir Edmund?” Fitzwilliam asked softly, as if following the thought.
Elizabeth looked at him.
“Rosings,” she said.
He did not deny that either.
Nothing in Rosings altered the shape of the table that evening.
Soup was served; George Darcy came down and remained through more than one course; Mr. Bingley admired a dish too frankly and was rewarded with a look from Miss Bingley that would have corrected a less happy man; Mary spoke of Mozart with seriousness, but not at undue length.
Georgiana laughed once at something Kitty whispered behind her hand.
Elizabeth saw Fitzwilliam hear it.
He did not look at her. He looked down at his plate with a restraint so careful that she knew he was thinking of Anne.
The letter was not mentioned before the younger people. It could not be. There was no kindness in setting Rosings down upon the dinner table and asking Georgiana to digest it with the fish.
After dinner, George Darcy asked for Richard’s letter.
He did it when Georgiana had gone to the music room with Mary and Kitty.
Miss Bingley had excused herself to finish a letter to Mrs. Hurst; Elizabeth could not guess the contents, though she imagined Pemberley’s grandeur, Miss Darcy’s consequence, and Miss Bingley’s own steadiness under altered circumstances would each receive its proper attention.
Jane remained with Elizabeth; Bingley, after one doubtful glance at his wife, accepted Fitzwilliam’s suggestion of billiards with the air of a man who understood that gentlemen were sometimes useful merely by removing themselves.
George Darcy sat near the fire, his cane beside him and Richard’s letter in his hand. He read slowly. Illness had not made him patient, but it had made haste less available to him.
When he finished, he folded the paper without speaking.
“Sir Edmund is no fool,” he said at last.
“No,” said Fitzwilliam.
George Darcy’s mouth tightened. “That is inconvenient.”
Elizabeth almost smiled.
“He has protected himself by submitting where he must,” George continued. “And cut away what he no longer needs.”
“The Wickhams,” said Fitzwilliam.
“Yes.” George’s face altered, not softened exactly, but drawn inward by a private bitterness. “They will not know how to bear that.”
“They have long been accustomed to making themselves necessary,” Elizabeth said.
“And Sir Edmund has discovered they are not.” George looked toward the door through which Georgiana had gone. “It is a useful discovery. A little late.”
No one answered. The room held the silence with more dignity than comfort.
Jane, who had heard only enough to understand pain and not enough to presume upon it, sat very still. Elizabeth was grateful for that. Jane’s kindness, when it did not rush to mend what could not be mended, had a strength of its own.
At last George Darcy set the letter on the table beside him.
“Anne will be easier,” he said.
Fitzwilliam looked at him.
“She was never formed for struggle,” George said. “Catherine mistook command for care until the girl could hardly breathe without permission. A gentler command may look like mercy.”
Elizabeth thought of Jane’s question that afternoon: I hope you are happy. She thought of Anne, perhaps asked nothing of the kind by anyone until it was far too late for the answer to matter.
George looked away.
“I would have Georgiana taught differently,” he said.
The words were not loud. They did not need to be.
Fitzwilliam bowed his head. “So would I.”
George’s eyes moved to Elizabeth then, not commandingly, not with the old master’s expectation that a household must carry out his feeling before he had troubled to make it just, but with something nearer request.
Elizabeth understood him.
“She shall be,” she said.
The next morning, Elizabeth began.
She did not announce a reform. Announced reforms had a way of becoming performances, and girls who had been frightened by command did not require another solemn summons.
Instead, after breakfast, when Fitzwilliam and Bingley had gone out to look at a piece of fencing which Mr. Bingley was prepared to admire if it gave him any encouragement, Elizabeth asked Mrs. Reynolds to bring a few ordinary household questions into the library.
“Nothing large,” Elizabeth said. “Nothing alarming. I should like Miss Darcy to see how small matters are decided before they become large ones.”
Mrs. Reynolds understood at once. “Yes, madam.”
“And Miss Kitty, if she is willing.”
“I think Miss Kitty is willing for most things that are not called lessons.”
“Then we shall not call them lessons.”
Mrs. Reynolds’s eyes warmed. “Very good, madam.”
Jane, who sat nearby with a letter folded but not sealed, looked up after Mrs. Reynolds left. “May I come?”
Elizabeth smiled. “Only if you promise not to think every request sincere until it proves otherwise.”
Jane coloured. “I shall try.”
“Then you are admitted as a fellow sufferer.”
Jane laughed, a little embarrassed, and came.
Miss Bingley did not. She remained upstairs with her letter to Mrs. Hurst, an occupation Elizabeth suspected required more accuracy in the matter of Pemberley’s connexions than generosity in the matter of anyone else’s virtues.
The three girls arrived together: Georgiana a little uncertain, Kitty curious, Mary already grave with expectation. Kitty had brought her drawing-board; Mary carried music and a pencil; Georgiana had only her work-basket, held in both hands.