CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Education of Fitzwilliam Darcy
Darcy had never before spent three consecutive weeks in a house where the breakfast table could contain five separate conversations, one argument about a bonnet, a theological observation, a complaint about chimney smoke, and a discussion of turnips at the same time.
At Pemberley breakfast was peaceful. At Darcy House breakfast was ordered.
At Longbourn breakfast was alive. He was carried downstairs for the first time on the twenty-third day after his accident.
Dr. Morrison permitted it only after repeated assurances that Darcy would be moved in a specially constructed chair and his leg kept elevated.
Mr. Bennet’s carpenter had adapted a stout armchair with a long padded support.
Richard and two footmen managed the stairs while Darcy endured the humiliation with the expression of a martyr being taken to execution.
Lydia waited at the bottom. “La, Mr. Darcy, you look like a king in a procession.”
“I feel like a sofa.”
Lydia laughed so loudly that even Darcy smiled.
Mrs. Bennet had ordered the small parlour rearranged because it received better afternoon sun. A table was placed near Darcy’s chair for books and tea. A cushion appeared beneath his elbow. Another somehow appeared behind his back.
“I do not require this many cushions,” he said.
“You do if you are to sit there three hours,” Mrs. Bennet replied. “Men always think comfort a sign of weakness until they are cross from being uncomfortable. Mr. Bennet is the same.”
From the library came Mr. Bennet’s voice. “I heard that.”
“You were intended to!”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth. She was sewing by the window, though the brightness in her eyes betrayed her. “Do not encourage her,” he murmured.
“I would not dream of it.”
She was encouraging everyone. The first week downstairs taught Darcy more about Longbourn than two months of assemblies and dinners had done.
He saw Mrs. Bennet receive a tenant’s wife in the back parlour and quietly arrange for two sacks of coal to be delivered to a cottage where the husband had injured his hand.
He saw her send broth to an elderly widow without announcing the charity to anyone outside the family.
He heard her scold Mr. Hill for allowing a loose shutter to remain unfixed because “the servants’ rooms are not to be colder simply because no guests sleep there. ”
Her manner remained excitable. Her voice carried through doors.
She still spoke too freely about marriages and fortunes.
But Darcy began to see the machinery beneath the noise.
Mrs. Bennet remembered who needed what. She also remembered which of Longbourn’s tenants had paid late because of a sick cow rather than idleness, which girl in the village could sew neatly enough to be recommended for service, and how many blankets remained in the linen cupboard.
One snowy morning, Darcy watched through the parlour window as she stood on the front steps arguing with a carter. “What is happening?” he asked.
Elizabeth looked up from her book. “Mama is refusing a delivery.”
“Why?”
“The apples are frozen.”
Darcy listened.
“—and you may tell Mr. Saunders,” Mrs. Bennet declared, “that I have dealt with him since before my eldest girl was born, and I know a sound apple from one that will be brown by tomorrow. Take them back.”
The carter protested.
Mrs. Bennet folded her arms.
The cart left with the apples.
Elizabeth said, “Mama has a formidable understanding of fruit.”
Darcy gave her a look.
She smiled.
His education extended to Mr. Bennet as well.
Darcy had liked Elizabeth’s father at first for his dry humour.
The longer he stayed, the more complicated that liking became.
Mr. Bennet was intelligent, observant, and often affectionate.
He was also capable of retreating behind a book whenever domestic disorder became tiresome.
One afternoon Kitty and Lydia quarrelled over an invitation to dine with Mrs. Forster. Their voices rose. Mrs. Bennet intervened. Mary offered moral instruction no one had requested. Mr. Bennet opened the library door, surveyed the scene, and began to withdraw.
Elizabeth caught his eye. “Papa.”
He stopped.
She said nothing else. Mr. Bennet sighed as a man sentenced unjustly. “Lydia, you are not dining with the Forsters tonight.”
“But Papa!”
“You were told yesterday that you must finish the letter to Aunt Gardiner and spend an hour with Mary on your French.”
“La! Mary makes French sound like a funeral.”
Mary looked offended.
“Nevertheless, the dead may improve your pronunciation. Kitty, you may go if Mrs. Forster sends the invitation properly rather than through an officer who shouted it from horseback.”
Kitty looked triumphant.
Mr. Bennet pointed at her. “Do not look so pleased. You will be home by ten.”
The matter was finished.
Darcy waited until the girls dispersed.
“You might do that more often,” Elizabeth said to her father.
Mr. Bennet looked at her.
She held his gaze.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “I might.”
He went back to the library, but his door remained open.
Darcy said nothing.
Elizabeth looked at him. “You are thinking very loudly.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“No, you do not.”
He almost denied it, then changed his mind. “I had judged him indulgent.”
“He is.”
“And you agree?”
“I love my father. That does not require me to pretend his habits are perfect.”
Darcy was quiet. Elizabeth closed her book around one finger. “Is that difficult for you?”
“To see faults in people I love?”
“To say them aloud.” He thought of Georgiana. Of his father. Of Wickham.
“Yes.” Elizabeth nodded as though he had given the correct answer to a difficult question. That evening, Darcy found himself looking forward to breakfast.
The realization alarmed him.