Chapter 10
The invitation lay on the table by the window.
Elizabeth noted the slim, upright loops and the brief, decided letters—she had now seen the hand often enough to recognise it as Lady Anne’s. Martha had brought it to Aunt Gardiner on a silver salver, presenting it like she was carrying the queen’s diadem.
Elizabeth sat at the little writing desk her aunt had given over to her use, with her correspondence open before her.
There were two unanswered letters from Charlotte and one half-begun letter to her father, all of which she had meant to address this morning before her concentration had quietly withered away.
Her aunt was at the other end of the room with her workbasket, hemming a small apron. The fire was burning steadily. Outside, a coalman’s cart rattled past.
There had been a brief discussion at Gracechurch Street about whether the Gardiners would make their accustomed journey to Longbourn for Christmas.
But her mother’s letter to Jane had forestalled it.
Jane was instructed not to leave London until matters were settled between her and Mr. Bingley. Papa, in a postscript, had added:
Your mother is in fine form. News of your suitor is sustaining her, and so I must ask you to remain in London for the nonce. We shall have your uncle and aunt visit in the new year, perhaps with the children.
Neither Mamma nor Papa had mentioned her.
Elizabeth supposed that was not terribly surprising.
In the few days before Elizabeth had left for London, a great deal had happened.
Mr. Collins had offered for her, she had refused him, her mother had been indignant, her father had firmly dismissed the indignation, and Mr. Collins had attached himself to Charlotte Lucas with such rapidity that Mamma had been left with a substantial grievance and nowhere to put it.
Christmas was not so far removed from the end of November that her mother would have forgotten who was to blame for her disappointment, and Papa would not have wished to stir the pot.
Best to allow Mamma to dwell on happier matters.
The question of travel had therefore required no further discussion. Christmas had been kept in the City. The day after, Mr. Bingley had appeared with a small basket of greenhouse oranges and invited them to a Twelfth Night celebration.
That had been the simple part of the past fortnight. There had also been a dinner on the twenty-eighth, a musical evening on the second of January, and Lady Anne’s morning call at Gracechurch Street on the fourth, which had occupied the household for the entirety of the third.
On the sixth, Mr. Bingley took them all in his carriage to The Aldonberry home, where the Twelfth Night celebrations were held. The Darcys had been invited, but Mr. Bingley said they had declined.
Mr. Bingley had been surrounded by friends and had introduced Jane to each of them. Today, Jane had received him in the drawing room, and the household had returned to its proper business.
Now, on the eighth, there was another card upon the silver salver inviting them to Darcy House on the tenth.
Four invitations over two weeks.
Mr. Bingley had called at Gracechurch Street regularly since he had discovered Jane was in town, and Lady Anne was nothing if not observant.
While she might have invited Jane without Elizabeth, she had been kind enough not to do so, and therefore, where Jane went, Elizabeth went too—most often with Aunt Gardiner, though her uncle had been invited to join them for the evening engagements.
Unfortunately, Lady Anne seemed to believe that the best way to maintain everyone’s comfort was not to leave Elizabeth at home but to find her a suitor as well. And as she was not ready to be made the object of yet another matchmaking mamma, she was certain to disappoint.
Lady Anne’s morning call on Monday had ended in an extended tête-à-tête in the small parlour, during which Lady Anne had asked Elizabeth more about her favourite poets, her opinion on Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Radcliffe, and finally, her aunt’s family in Lambton.
It was as though she was composing a letter of reference but had not yet determined what she would say.
Perhaps “lively, tolerably well read, neither intimidated by nor heedless of those with titles.”
It was, Elizabeth had concluded after Lady Anne returned home, a remarkably gracious form of containment.
She could not even resent it, not really.
There was a great deal to respect in a mother who would go to such lengths merely to aid her son’s good friend while at the same time sparing her son the company of a woman he found tiresome.
Elizabeth appreciated Lady Anne, even admired her.
But her attentions had begun to wear thin.
Elizabeth glanced again at the card on the table.
“Aunt,” she said.
Her aunt looked up from her seam. “Yes, dear?”
“Lady Anne’s party tomorrow evening . . .
“Yes?”
“Might I not stay home?”
Her aunt set a stitch. “Will Mr. Bingley be there?”
“I imagine so. He has yet to stay away when Jane is invited.”
“Then Jane must go.” Aunt Gardiner pulled her thread through the cloth.
“Yes.”
“Which means you must accompany her.”
Elizabeth waited, but her aunt did not look up. “Aunt,” she said at length, “may I speak to you about it?”
Her aunt set the apron aside, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.
“I have been thinking that I might decline Friday on some polite pretext. A headache. Fatigue, which would be truthful. Jane could attend with the Bingleys. I would not be missed.”
“You would be missed, Lizzy. But that is by the way.” Her aunt rose, crossed to the bell, rang it, and when Martha came, said, “We are not at home this morning, Martha. If Mr. Bingley calls, he is to be given coffee in my husband’s study and told that Miss Bennet will join him there at twelve.
I am sure he will not mind the irregularity. ”
Martha, who was a sensible girl, did not blink. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And shut the door behind you, please.”
The door closed with a soft click, and Aunt Gardiner returned to her chair. “Now, Lizzy. Plainly. Why do you wish to decline?”
Elizabeth gathered herself. “Lady Anne does not invite me because she has any business with me,” she said.
“She invites me because she believes it would be unkind to invite one sister and not the other. Once I am in her drawing room, I am a spare piece of furniture, and Lady Anne, who orders her household to a nicety, dislikes spare furniture. So she produces Mr. Cresswell of Maplehurst, who speaks to me mostly as a favour to his hostess. If I attend on Friday, I expect she will have someone else.”
“I do not understand the problem.”
“It is mortifying.”
Her aunt’s expression was kind, but she repeated, “And?”
Elizabeth blew out an unhappy breath. “And I had rather not go.”
Her aunt studied her before saying, “Lizzy, you have borne far greater folly than being introduced to a respectable gentleman in a lady’s drawing room. I cannot persuade myself that this is the whole of your objection.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to say that it was the whole of her objection, but hesitated. How could she explain what she scarcely understood herself? Mr. Darcy did not like her. On that point, at least, there could be no uncertainty. Nor, she was very sure, did she like him.
Yet she had been used to command his notice in Hertfordshire. She had always been able to provoke, to rally, to draw from him some look or a reply.
In London, he treated her with such smooth indifference that it left her strangely disoriented.
Was her wit amusing enough for Hertfordshire, but not for rooms filled with those of his own consequence?
Or—more mortifying still—had she mistaken the matter entirely, and fancied herself his equal in encounters where he had never been engaged at all?
“Mr. Darcy tolerates my presence for the sake of his friend, but no more,” she said at last. “His mother is attempting to make it up to me in the way she knows best, but . . .” She sighed. “I do not know how to ask her to stop.”
There. The sentence was out. She would not have spoken it to anyone but Aunt Gardiner, and she felt a little ill having spoken it even here, for it felt very close to ingratitude.
Her aunt did not answer at once. She simply looked at Elizabeth thoughtfully, as if deciding how to respond. And eventually, she did.
“I shall set Mr. Darcy aside for the moment, Lizzy.”
“Aunt—”
“I have not enough material for an opinion of him, and I do not propose to acquire any. If you wish, we may take him up again when I do. For the present I shall speak only of his mother.”
“But Aunt, he is the reason—”
“Lady Anne Darcy,” her aunt went on, “is the most accomplished matchmaker in London. She does not waste invitations.”
Elizabeth made a small, sceptical sound.
“Do not snort, Lizzy. It is unbecoming, particularly in a young woman who has already refused more gentlemen than most girls are ever offered.”
“I did not snort,” she protested.
Now it was Aunt Gardiner’s turn to look sceptical.
“If Lady Anne wished merely to dispose of you, she has ten easier methods at hand. But she has invited you to her home four times in the past fortnight, spent three-quarters of an hour with you in my back parlour, and has already contrived to place in your path a clergyman with a reasonable independence.”
“Aunt.”
“All this suggests,” Aunt Gardiner continued, “that whatever Lady Anne is about, she is not treating you as a piece of spare furniture.”
“Then what is she doing?”
“I suspect she is learning what you like. I shall observe only that a lady of consequence is taking a very uncommon degree of trouble on our behalf. Her kindness to Jane is no ordinary compliment. Her civility to your uncle and me in Upper Brook Street has already been of real use to your uncle. And her notice of you is not a thing to be tossed aside because one proud gentleman has put you out of temper.”