Chapter Ten
Hunsford Parsonage was smaller than Elizabeth had imagined, and Mr. Collins larger in every particular than she remembered, if that were possible in a house not built to accommodate his pride.
"You will observe," he said, on the second morning of her visit, walking her and Maria through the garden with the air of a man conducting a tour of a cathedral, "that the prospect of Rosings may be seen quite clearly from this very spot.
Lady Catherine herself remarked upon the felicity of the view, not three weeks past."
"It is a very fine house," Elizabeth said, because it was, and because there was no profit in saying anything else to a man who would only repeat Lady Catherine's opinions back at her regardless.
Charlotte, walking a little behind them, caught Elizabeth's eye with the particular calm patience she had already, in a matter of weeks, perfected toward her husband's enthusiasms. Elizabeth admired it more than she wanted to say aloud.
There was a kind of quiet courage in choosing a life without romance and refusing to let it curdle into bitterness, and Charlotte wore that courage as easily as she wore her wedding ring.
They dined at Rosings twice that week, and Elizabeth found Lady Catherine to be everything Mr. Collins's reverence had promised and considerably less pleasant in person than his descriptions had suggested.
She asked Elizabeth a great many questions about her family, her accomplishments, her age, in the particular tone of a woman conducting an inventory rather than a conversation, and seemed personally offended that Elizabeth had never had a governess.
"Five daughters, brought up at home without one," Lady Catherine said, shaking her head. "I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education."
"We were encouraged to read, your ladyship, and given every master we required."
"That is not the same as proper instruction. But I suppose it cannot be helped now."
Elizabeth bore it with the composure of a woman who had survived Caroline Bingley's cruelty and found Lady Catherine's a duller, more predictable variety by comparison, easier to withstand simply for being so entirely without subtlety.
It was on the fourth day that Mr. Collins returned from his morning survey of the lane in a state of barely contained excitement.
"Mr. Darcy has arrived at Rosings," he announced, at dinner, as though delivering news of a royal visit. "With his cousin, a Colonel Fitzwilliam. I saw the carriage myself, and hastened home at once to inform you."
Elizabeth's fork paused over her plate for exactly as long as it took her to remember she was being watched, and then continued to her mouth with perfect composure.
"How pleasant," she said, "to have such distinguished company so near."
She did not sleep well that night, and did not examine too closely why.
She saw him again two days later, at the parsonage itself, when he called with his cousin in a visit so unexpected that Charlotte had barely time to smooth her apron before both gentlemen were shown into the small sitting room.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was, Elizabeth decided within the first five minutes, exactly the sort of man she would have liked to know better under other circumstances, easy in conversation, quick to laugh, entirely without the guarded stillness that seemed to follow his cousin into every room.
He asked after her family, her opinion of Kent, her impressions of Rosings, with the practiced charm of a man who had spent years making conversation with strangers at dinner tables.
Darcy, by contrast, said almost nothing, and looked at her often enough that she felt it as a kind of pressure against her skin, though she did not once look up to meet it directly.
"You must find our little corner of Kent very dull," Colonel Fitzwilliam said, "after Hertfordshire."
"I find every corner of the world interesting enough, Colonel, if I am permitted to observe the people in it rather than merely the scenery."
"A dangerous philosophy, Miss Bennet, for a woman staying so near my aunt."
Elizabeth laughed, and caught, from the corner of her eye, something that might have been the ghost of a smile crossing Darcy's face before he suppressed it.
He spoke to her only once, directly, near the end of the visit, when Colonel Fitzwilliam had drawn Mr. Collins into an extended discussion of the parsonage's chimney arrangements that seemed likely to occupy them for some time.
"You are well, I hope," Darcy said, low enough that it did not carry to the others.
"Perfectly. Kent agrees with me."
"I am glad of it." He hesitated, in a way she had not seen him hesitate before, and something in the hesitation made her chest go tight and unsteady. "I had wondered, after Netherfield, whether you would ever be entirely comfortable in a room with me again."
"I am managing it at present, Mr. Darcy, though I confess it required some effort at first."
"And now?"
"Now," she said, and found she could not finish the sentence honestly without giving away more than she meant to, "now I find the effort has lessened. That is all I will say of it."
He looked at her a moment longer, and something in his expression suggested that was not, quite, all she had said, but he did not press her further, and the visit ended shortly after with a correctness on both sides that gave nothing away to the room, though Elizabeth suspected Charlotte, watching them both with quiet, careful attention, had noticed considerably more than either of them intended.