Chapter Twenty-Five
Elizabeth had expected, upon their return, to be questioned.
What she had not expected was to be dismissed.
Mr. Bennet received her inquiry as to why she had been summoned home with the pleasant vagueness of a man who has already moved on to the next consideration.
She and Mrs. Gardiner must be tired from the journey, he said.
They should refresh themselves before dinner.
He was certain whatever she wished to discuss could wait.
It could not, but he had already returned to his book.
Elizabeth refreshed herself in rather less time than he had allocated for the purpose, and then made her way to the small room at the back of the house that had been, in some distant administrative past, the housekeeper's office.
Mrs. Hill had surrendered it to her some years ago with the quiet generosity of a woman who understood that Miss Lizzy worked harder than anyone in the house and deserved somewhere to do it without being interrupted by Lydia.
Elizabeth had thanked her, and kept the thanks short, because Mrs. Hill was the sort of woman who was embarrassed by gratitude and preferred to be appreciated through the medium of being left alone.
She reviewed the estate reports and found nothing that could not have waited a fortnight.
She had known as much before she opened them.
Mrs. Gardiner found her there not long after.
"I had thought," said Mrs. Gardiner, settling into the room's second chair, "that I might leave tomorrow. I had intended it. I have been away from my own house rather longer than I meant, and there are obligations in town." She paused. "After this afternoon's tea, I find I am not quite so certain."
"I would not have you stay on my account," Elizabeth said.
"I know you would not," Mrs. Gardiner replied. "That is precisely why I intend to."
Elizabeth looked at her for a moment, and then returned to the estate report, which had not improved in her absence, and they said nothing more on the subject, which was itself a kind of agreement.
Dinner at Longbourn that evening was not, on the whole, a comfortable affair.
Mrs. Bennet was in spirits, which was itself a kind of weather requiring navigation.
She spoke at length of Mr. Bingley, whose income she had by now refined to a figure she considered definitive, and of Jane, whose beauty had made its proper impression upon the neighbourhood at large and upon Mr. Bingley in particular, and of the general excellence of the afternoon, which she pronounced the most interesting Longbourn had produced in some years.
At length, setting down her fork, she addressed herself to Mrs. Gardiner.
“Madeline, dear, I cannot comprehend why you have never before told us you were so connected. Had I known, I should have thought of it long ago. Why have you never introduced us before?”
Mrs. Gardiner set aside her glass.
“The connection was not one I had any expectation of renewing,” she said.
“When my father died, and my godmother shortly after, I removed to London, and Mr. Darcy was only a boy.
His father did not encourage the association.
I had supposed the connection lost. It was only when he came to Brinmouth as one of Edward's investors that we discovered otherwise.” She allowed herself a small smile.
“Life arranges these things in its own time.”
“Investors,” said Mrs. Bennet. “And so he was in Brinmouth the whole time? With you and Elizabeth?”
“He was. He had business with Edward, and as the venture required some weeks to arrange properly, he remained in the neighbourhood.” Mrs. Gardiner took up her wine again. “He was particularly attentive to Elizabeth throughout our stay. I believe he found her conversation agreeable.”
Mrs. Bennet's fork paused halfway to her plate.
“Lizzy,” she said, and the word contained several distinct registers of feeling, none of them straightforwardly flattering. “He found Lizzy agreeable.”
“He is not the first to do so,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “though he was perhaps the most particular in expressing it.”
“And how,” said Mr. Bennet, lifting his glass, “did Mr. Darcy come to learn of Elizabeth's early return?”
“He was at the house when the letter arrived. He had come to meet the children, as they had been much spoken of during his time with us and he had promised them some small gifts from the shops in town. He was there when Edward read your letter, and he would not hear of Elizabeth travelling alone, or of my returning without her. He insisted his carriage was entirely at our disposal and that I ought to accompany them.” Mrs. Gardiner took up her glass.
“He is a gentleman who takes his responsibilities toward those he esteems very seriously. It was a quality my godmother always admired in those around her.”
“He came to meet the children,” Mrs. Bennet repeated. “He brought them gifts.”
“He did,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “He was very thoughtful about it.”
Mrs. Bennet applied herself to her dinner for a moment.
“Well,” she said at last, “I suppose there were not many young women in a seaside town. And Lizzy can be amusing, I grant you, though she will not take advice; and if he has seen Jane this afternoon I am quite sure he will think differently, for Jane is thought by everyone to be the most beautiful young woman in the county and she has all the accomplishments besides. It is only natural that a man of sense should prefer—”
"I find Lizzy very handsome," said Mrs. Gardiner, in exactly the tone she might have used to observe that the soup was well made. "But then I have always thought so."
“He sounds dreadfully dull,” said Lydia, who had been engaged in a separate conversation with Kitty but had caught enough to form a view. “All that sitting at the edges of rooms and not dancing. I should not like him at all. Give me a man who can talk and laugh and is not above a country reel.”
“Lydia,” said Mary, setting down her fork, “a gentleman of quiet and serious disposition is not to be dismissed on the grounds of personal preference.
Mr. Collins was reading to me only yesterday from Mr. Fordyce's Sermons, and he remarks very particularly that a young woman ought to value in a companion not spirits and liveliness but steadiness of principle and correctness of conduct. I thought it very well observed.”
Mr. Collins straightened at once. “Indeed, Miss Mary, you quote him admirably. The passage continues, if I recall, that a woman of genuine worth will seek in a husband not the mere glitter of address but the more substantial qualities of mind and character. It is a distinction which Lady Catherine herself has remarked upon, and which I have always considered among the most sound observations in the moral literature available to young ladies. You have, if I may say so, a most gratifying understanding of such things.”
Mary coloured slightly and returned to her dinner with the expression of a woman who considers herself understood at last.
“As to Mr. Darcy,” Collins continued, “I am persuaded, having had the honour of his acquaintance, that nothing will come of it in any case.
Lady Catherine is very clear upon the subject of her nephew's future prospects, and the attachment she designs for him has long been a settled thing. He is engaged, as I understand it, to his cousin Miss de Bourgh. Her ladyship mentioned it to me herself, more than once, and with a particularity that left no room for doubt.”
Elizabeth reached for her glass and drank from it with a composure she had been practising since the age of twelve, and thought of nothing in particular.
She and Darcy had spoken of this report at Brinmouth, and she knew precisely what he thought of it; namely, that Lady Catherine thought a great deal and arranged a great deal, but had consulted neither himself nor Miss de Bourgh, and that the engagement existed chiefly in her ladyship's determination.
It required a certain discipline to remember this when the report was delivered at her mother's dinner table with Collins's particular brand of solemn authority.
“An engagement,” said Mrs. Bennet, adjusting rapidly. “Well, there it is, then. Mrs. Gardiner, my dear, I hope you will not think me uncharitable, but if the man is engaged he ought not to have been so attentive to my daughter. It gives a very wrong impression.”
“It gives,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “no impression at all that I have not myself formed.”
Mr. Bennet reached for the decanter. Collins had his uses after all.
An engaged man was a neutralised man, and a neutralised man was not a complication.
The only remaining question was how long his sister intended to linger, and that was a matter easily managed.
He allowed himself a small, private measure of relief along with his port and said nothing at all, which was one of the things he did best.
After dinner, when the ladies had withdrawn and the tea things were brought in, they expected Mr. Bennet to remain where he usually remained, which was in the dining room with his port and his own reflections.
He did not. He followed them into the drawing room with his book under his arm and settled into his accustomed chair, because he had decided that Mrs. Gardiner's intentions required clarification and he preferred to do his clarifying in person, where he could observe the effect.
“How long does my sister intend to honour us with her company?” he said, without looking up from his page.
Mrs. Gardiner accepted a cup of tea before replying.
“A few days, if it is convenient. I have been away from my own house rather longer than I intended, and there are obligations in town that will not wait indefinitely. But I should not like to leave Elizabeth without first satisfying myself that all is well.”
“All is perfectly well,” said Mr. Bennet. “Longbourn is exactly as Elizabeth left it, which is to say in rather better order than she found it. She is very thorough.” He looked at Elizabeth over the top of his spectacles. “We have missed her industry, if not her conversation.”
“I am sure you have,” said Mrs. Gardiner, stirring her tea. “A few days more can hardly make a material difference to the harvest tallies, I think.”
“As to the harvest,” said Mr. Bennet, turning a page, “the numbers want tallying, and—”
“Those numbers,” said Elizabeth, “will not be ready for collection for another fortnight, sir, and you know it.”
Mr. Bennet looked at her. She looked at him. It was a look they had exchanged before, in one form or another, across twenty years of these kinds of conversations, and it contained nothing comfortable on either side.
“Indeed,” he said at last. “Well. You are home now, and that is the main thing.” He opened his book. “Good night, my dears.”
He excused himself shortly after. Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner sat together in the quiet of the drawing room and said nothing for a little while, which was its own kind of conversation.
In his book room, Mr. Bennet poured himself a final glass The engagement report had been useful. Madeline would leave within the week. Collins knew his business. The plan was orderly and it would hold. He picked up his book. For once, he read it.