Chapter Eighteen
Mr Bennet arrived at the King’s Arms shortly before dusk, having spent the better part of two days discovering that a journey to Dorset was an excellent thing to undertake in theory and a considerably less excellent thing to experience in practice.
When he had ordered the carriage at Longbourn it had been with all the calm authority of a man acting from principle.
By the time the inn came into view, with its creaking sign and glow of firelight behind uneven windows, principle had given way to a strong desire for supper and a chair that did not move.
The inn stood some ten miles from Lyme, which was near enough to be convenient and far enough to delay arrival until morning.
Mr Bennet had not admitted this as a reason for stopping there.
He had told the driver that the horses required rest, which was true enough.
He had told himself that no sensible man arrived in an unfamiliar seaside town after dark, which was also true.
He had not told himself that he preferred one more night before seeing his wife.
That would have been an uncomfortable thought, and Mr Bennet disliked uncomfortable thoughts unless they belonged to somebody else.
He was shown to a private room upstairs, where he washed, changed his coat and looked for several minutes at his own reflection in a small spotted glass.
He saw nothing very remarkable there. A gentleman somewhat fatigued by travel.
A little older than he had been. A little less amused than usual perhaps, but that could be attributed to the roads.
Almost anything could be attributed to the roads if a man had spent sufficient time upon them.
He went downstairs to supper in a mood of determined moderation.
The dining room was over warm and smelt like damp wool.
A fire burned low at one end, and several men had gathered near it.
Mr Bennet took a table near the wall, ordered supper and had just begun to feel restored when the conversation beside him left the subject of a lame horse and passed to local scandal.
"I tell you, I saw it plain as I see you now," said a thickset man with a weathered face and a nasal intonation. "There was no mistake in it."
"You saw what you wished to see," said another. "You always do. Last Michaelmas you had Mrs Hadley’s niece married to the curate before either of them had so much as borrowed a book from the other."
"They would have suited," said the first man peevishly.
This opinion was received with laughter, and Mr Bennet, who had every intention of being entertained, listened closely applied himself to his beef with slightly increased leisure.
"It was at Mrs Purvis’ card party," the first man continued. "A respectable evening by all accounts, or as respectable as such things can be when half the room is young bucks who can’t hold their drink. There was a gentleman there from Derbyshire. Very above his company. Name of Derby."
"I have heard of him," interjected a younger man. "Rich as anything."
"Then he can afford better manners."
Mr Bennet took a sip of ale and smiled faintly. A rich gentleman with defective manners did not seem anything out of the commonplace, but it seemed there was more to this tale.
"And the young lady?" asked another.
"Miss Bucket."
"Benton," said the younger man.
"Bucket."
"I am certain it was Benton."
"And I am certain it was Bucket."
"Then one of you is certainly wrong," shouted a florid faced farmer from across the bar.
The thickset man waved this away. "It began with a B, that is the point, and she was sitting at cards with Mr Derby when he took hold of her hand thus…"
There followed a dramatic reenactment of romantic hand grasping which caused jeers and laughter to break out around the room. The farmer looked close to toppling off his stool.
"At cards?" said one at last.
"At cards."
"Well," said another, after some thought, "that is unusual."
"Unusual? It was bold as brass. Not in a corner, not in a passage, not out walking where a man might make a lovestruck fool of himself privately if he must, but at Mrs Purvis’ own table with half the town looking on."
"Was Miss Bucket unwilling?"
"That is the difficulty. She told him to let go after a fashion, but she did not look as though she disliked him taking hold in the first place."
Several heads nodded at this, as though it was the sort of distinction upon which civilisation depended.
Mr Bennet’s fork paused only briefly before continuing its journey. Miss Bucket was an excellent name for an indiscreet young woman, he thought.
The story expanded. Mr Derby grew taller and richer with every telling.
Miss Bucket became lively and coquettish, though whether she had encouraged him, rebuked him or done both in the same breath varied according to the speaker.
By the time Mr Bennet’s plate was cleared, the young couple had passed from hand-holding at cards to a state of emotional entanglement so advanced that even the cattle-dealer at the end of the far table, who had walked in halfway through the telling, felt qualified to give an opinion.
Mr Bennet looked at the fire and felt his amusement becoming rather less pronounced. He thought of how much gossip Mrs Bennet would once have rung from such a silly tale. And then he thought of the silence between them.
There had been a time when his wife could fill four pages with the conduct of a neighbour at dinner and leave him with the impression that civilisation itself had narrowly escaped collapse.
Lately there had been almost nothing. Jane wrote that she improved.
Lizzy wrote that the change of air suited her.
Mrs Bennet did not write to say whether either was true.
At first he had been relieved. Then puzzled.
Then irritated by his own puzzlement. He had admitted his behaviour was poorly done, which had seemed to him, at the time, as close to apology as any reasonable person could require.
Yet Mrs Bennet had left Longbourn and stayed away.
Mrs Bennet, who had once filled every room by entering it, was apparently sitting by the sea and becoming quiet, or cheerful, or altered, depending upon which daughter was reporting and how much she wished to spare him.
The men at the neighbouring table had returned to Miss Bucket, which was a relief. Other people’s follies were always more comfortable than one’s own.
"I say they will be engaged before the week is out," said the thickset man.
Tomorrow he would continue to Lyme. Tomorrow he would see Jane and Lizzy. Tomorrow, also, he would see his wife.
The men beside the fire began to argue over whether a gentleman ought to marry a woman after holding her hand at whist, and Mr Bennet allowed the discussion to occupy him as fully as possible.
It was a foolish question, but it had the considerable advantage of not being one he had brought with him from Longbourn.