Chapter 2
The next morning, Mr. Collins preached at breakfast.
This was not unusual. Mr. Collins could convert toast into doctrine if supplied with butter enough. Today his sermon concerned gratitude, an inexhaustible subject to a man who felt it was owed to himself by nearly everyone and to Lady Catherine by the remainder of creation.
Elizabeth had meant to listen with the patience due to a cousin, a clergyman, and a man who was dangerous only when speaking. Unfortunately, her list lay folded in her pocket and crackled whenever she moved, like a small paper conscience with poor manners.
"There are few qualities more ornamental in a young lady," he said, spreading marmalade with the gravity of a bishop, "than a proper submission to superior judgment.
A young woman may possess wit, beauty, and even, in modest measure, opinion.
But without gratitude to those who guide her, she becomes" - here he paused to locate the most dreadful possibility - "independent. "
Maria Lucas looked impressed by the horror of it.
Elizabeth glanced at Charlotte, whose expression remained beautifully arranged. Marriage had taught Charlotte many household economies. The chief was economy of reaction.
"How fortunate," Elizabeth said, "that superior judgment is always so easy to identify."
"Indeed, Cousin Elizabeth. Rank, age, profession, and patronage all provide the most reliable assistance."
"And sense?"
Mr. Collins blinked. "Sense is naturally implied."
"Naturally," Charlotte murmured.
Elizabeth had intended to spend the morning walking. Movement, she hoped, might settle her thoughts into some form less likely to burst from her mouth at dinner. But she had gone no farther than the lane beyond the parsonage when she saw Colonel Fitzwilliam approaching from Rosings.
For a moment she considered turning into the shrubbery and becoming a cautionary tale. But he had already seen her, and he quickened his step with the air of a man determined to behave better than he had the day before.
"Miss Elizabeth."
"Colonel."
"I hoped to find you. I owe you an apology."
"Then you are generous. Most people prefer to owe apologies indefinitely."
He smiled, but uneasily. "Yesterday I spoke of matters that were not mine to disclose."
"I will not ask you to betray your cousin further."
"That is a relief."
"But I may ask whether your cousin betrayed anyone first."
The colonel's smile vanished.
They walked on, because standing still would have made the conversation too intimate and turning back would have made it too cowardly.
A light wind moved through the hedgerow.
Elizabeth watched a small bird vanish between new leaves and wished, briefly, for any life governed by instinct rather than propriety.
"I do not know the whole of it," Colonel Fitzwilliam said at last.
"No. But you know the shape."
"Darcy believed his friend was in danger of forming an attachment where the lady's feelings were uncertain and the family connection imprudent."
"How tidy."
"He is tidy."
"He is wrong."
The colonel looked at her. "You are very sure."
"I have the advantage of knowing the lady."
There. It was said, though not named.
Understanding moved across his face, followed by discomfort so sincere that Elizabeth almost pitied him. Almost. Pity was a luxury best spent on people who had not just confirmed one's sister had been managed out of happiness.
"Miss Elizabeth," he said quietly, "I am sorry."
"For what? You did not separate them."
"No, but I spoke lightly of it."
"Men often do. It must be restful to discuss a woman's life as if it were a seating arrangement."
He absorbed this with creditable humility. "You think Darcy cruel."
Elizabeth considered. "I think he is accustomed to being obeyed by events. When events resist, he calls them foolish."
"That is not an unjust description."
"You are loyal."
"I am fond of him."
"Those are not always the same thing."
The colonel laughed despite himself. "No. They are not."
They reached a stile, and Elizabeth set one hand upon it, not crossing.
The lane beyond bent toward a field where early grass shone with that tender green that always looked too innocent for human company.
She felt the temptation to ask everything.
What exactly had Darcy said of Jane? Had he named the Bennets?
Had he mocked her mother? Had he laughed?
She disliked herself for caring whether he had laughed.
The colonel seemed to guess something of the battle. "Darcy is not a man who laughs at people's pain."
"That is almost worse."
"Worse?"
"If he had laughed, I could despise him and be done. But if he injured Jane solemnly, with principles, then he will expect admiration for the wound."
The colonel had no ready answer.
Elizabeth crossed the stile. He followed.
"Do you know," she said, "whether Mr. Bingley was told the lady did not care for him?"
"That was my impression."
"And the proof?"
"Darcy thought her manner serene."
"Jane's manner is serene when she is delighted, distressed, tired, feverish, or surrounded by idiots. It is one of her virtues and, I begin to see, a public danger."
This time the colonel's laugh was helpless. "You defend your sister fiercely."
"Somebody must. She defends everyone else."
They walked a little farther. Elizabeth had the strange sensation that she was both collecting proof and losing ground. Each new fact strengthened her anger and weakened the comfort of uncertainty. Yesterday she could suspect. Today she could know.
"There may have been other considerations," he said.
"My family."
He did not deny it.
Elizabeth nodded. "My mother is foolish in public. My younger sisters are foolish whenever opportunity permits. My father hides from foolishness by laughing at it. We are not a solemn family. I concede the charge."
"Miss Elizabeth -"
"But we are people, Colonel. Not stains. Not blots upon a family tree. Not something from which your cousin must rescue his friend."
"I know it."
"Does he?"
The question hung between them.
At last he said, "Darcy can learn."
"Can he apologize?"
"With difficulty."
"Then I wish him a long education."
By the time Elizabeth returned to the parsonage, the walk had done nothing to cool her anger and everything to arrange it. Charlotte was in the garden cutting early flowers with the calm precision of a woman who enjoyed small beauties but did not depend on them.
"You have been walking with Colonel Fitzwilliam," Charlotte said.
"You make it sound scandalous."
"In Hunsford, walking with anyone not approved by Lady Catherine is an uprising."
Elizabeth took the basket from her and began arranging stems by length. "I know more than I did."
"And feel worse?"
"Much."
"Then it was probably true."
There were reasons Elizabeth loved Charlotte that had nothing to do with shared girlhood. Charlotte did not rush to comfort at the expense of accuracy. She could look at an unpleasant truth and decide whether it required tea, silence, or a plan.
"Mr. Darcy separated Bingley from Jane," Elizabeth said. "He believed Jane indifferent. He believed our family unsuitable. He congratulated himself on it."
Charlotte clipped a stem. "I am sorry."
"Do not be gentle. I cannot bear gentleness this morning."
"Very well. It is exactly the sort of harm a rich man can do without ever having to call himself wicked."
Elizabeth let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Thank you."
"What will you do?"
"What can I do? I cannot restore Mr. Bingley by accusing Mr. Darcy in your parlor."
"No."
"I cannot tell Jane until I know how to tell her without making the injury fresh."
"No."
"I cannot challenge him to pistols, which is a pity, because I believe my aim would be much improved by principle."
Charlotte's mouth twitched. "Mr. Collins would faint before he could serve as your second."
"Lady Catherine would insist on giving instructions."
They both laughed then, quietly, because laughter was sometimes the only socially acceptable way of touching rage.
The garden gate clicked.
Mr. Darcy stood beyond it.
He had come alone. His expression, usually arranged into grave self-possession, carried a disturbance Elizabeth had not seen before. He looked not embarrassed, nor merely earnest, but like a man who had talked himself into believing this was wise.
Charlotte saw it too. Her gaze moved from Darcy to Elizabeth and back again, and in that glance she completed the full calculation of a practical woman confronted with an emotional disaster in formal clothing.
"I believe," Charlotte said, "I am wanted in the house."
Elizabeth nearly seized her sleeve.
But Charlotte had already moved, basket in hand, leaving behind only the scent of cut flowers and the unhelpful knowledge that married women could retreat from danger under cover of household duty.
Darcy entered the garden.
"Miss Elizabeth," he said.
"Mr. Darcy."
He looked toward the house, then back at her. "May I have the honor of speaking with you?"
Honor, Elizabeth thought, was having a very busy week.
"You may speak," she said.
His color rose. He seemed, for one astonishing moment, uncertain.
Then pride came to his rescue, arranging his shoulders and lifting his chin.
Elizabeth watched the transformation with fascination.
It was like seeing a man put on armor to enter a flowerbed, where Charlotte's cut stems lay in a basket and a beetle was conducting its own affairs with greater sense than either of them.
"In vain," he began, "have I struggled. It will not do."
Elizabeth went very still.
The words were passionate. His face was pale with feeling. A month ago, perhaps even a day ago, the sight might have startled her into softening.
But now she heard beneath the declaration the scrape of machinery: family considerations, unsuitable connections, saved his friend.
Mr. Darcy had come to say something momentous.
Whatever he meant to say, the objections had come with him.