Chapter 18 #2
“That your brother was being gallant,” Elizabeth supplied. “He was. He was also being truthful. It is rare for a gentleman to be both and, I must say, very much to his credit.”
Miss Bingley’s eyes moved to her, all pretence of tender concern wiped clean. “Of course,” she said, rearranging her features into something resembling kindness. “Of course. I would not presume to dispute dear Jane’s account.”
“How wise of you,” said Elizabeth.
Jane gave her a look so gentle that it nearly amounted to a reprimand, and Elizabeth sat back, chastened but oddly comforted. The look had said Jane knew perfectly well what she was about, thank you very much, and required no exertion on Elizabeth’s part.
Miss Bingley lifted her cup and took a sip. The tea seemed to strengthen her.
“Well,” she said, after a moment, “I can only admire your fortitude. Such firmness is very rare in a young lady of your situation.”
“Thank you.”
“And so unexpected.”
Jane smiled. “Firmness often is, I believe.”
Mrs. Hurst’s spoon struck her saucer.
Miss Bingley looked from Jane to Elizabeth and back again, taking the measure of them anew.
Her conclusions clearly did not please her.
Elizabeth could see that she had come prepared to pity Jane, perhaps console her, certainly to reinforce their greater status in town.
To discover Jane calm and kind and unable to be provoked was apparently not a circumstance for which she had prepared.
“Charles will rally, of course,” Miss Bingley said at last. “Men do. They have so many occupations. Riding, business, friends. A great many friends. He is universally beloved.”
“He deserves to be,” said Jane.
Miss Bingley received this generous reply by taking a very careful, very frustrated breath through her nose.
Elizabeth was delighted by it.
“But dearest Jane, have you considered my brother’s situation?” Miss Bingley asked. “His amiable temper? His prospects? One trusts the decision was not taken lightly.”
“Not lightly,” said Jane. “No.”
“No.” Miss Bingley stirred her tea. “No, I am sure. You have always had such sweetness of judgement. A little romantic, perhaps. A little too ready to think well of everyone. But sweetness is never a fault.”
“I must disagree with you. Even sweetness, in excess, may be a fault in one’s character,” said Jane.
Mrs. Hurst stopped stirring.
Elizabeth took a piece of seed cake, the better to enjoy the scene playing out before her.
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Bingley.
“I only mean that sweetness ought not be allowed to make one blind.”
There was a short silence.
Mrs. Hurst recovered first, perhaps because she had risked the least. “Very true,” she said, though her tone suggested that this truth was rather unwelcome.
Miss Bingley set down her spoon. Then she looked at Jane with a different expression altogether. Less soft. More alert. “I see,” she said.
Elizabeth doubted that she did, but it was interesting that she wished to.
“And there is nothing,” Miss Bingley continued, more carefully, “no circumstance, no misunderstanding, nothing that might, with time, perhaps soften—”
“Nothing will change, if that is your question.”
“That is not my question,” said Miss Bingley. She appeared startled to hear herself admit there was one.
Elizabeth perceived that neither lady had arrived with a question at all.
They had come quite certain of the story, which was that their brother had behaved handsomely by sparing Jane as much mortification as possible, and that it was their own persistent disapprobation that had at last restored Mr. Bingley to sense.
But Jane’s calm admission had overturned every comfortable part of that tale.
She had ended the acquaintance; she did not resent their brother; in fact, she wished him well.
Worst of all, she was being so sincerely kind that neither sister could discover whether she ought to be pitied, blamed, or feared.
“Of course,” Miss Bingley said, with a strained laugh, “one cannot help but wonder—dear Miss Bennet, you will forgive me, we were almost sisters—whatever can have induced you?”
“Induced me?” Jane asked.
“Charles is amiability itself. He has five thousand a year, Netherfield for the present, and every likelihood of purchasing a permanent estate in time. His manners are pleasing, his temper kind. One cannot help wondering what objection you could possibly have to—”
She caught herself.
Mrs. Hurst made a small noise. Whether it was an agreement or a slight disorder of the stomach, Elizabeth could not say.
Miss Bingley produced another brittle laugh and smoothed the edge of her glove. “But I daresay young ladies have their reasons.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “I daresay they have.”
Miss Bingley waited.
Jane lifted the plate. “Will you have some cake?”
The true grievance was all too clear, for it went against Miss Bingley’s belief in her own superiority that Jane would not have her brother. The natural order of her world had been overturned, and Jane would not even quarrel with her about it.
It was, Elizabeth thought, a masterpiece.
Mrs. Hurst finally had something to say. “I suppose, now that circumstances are altered, you will hardly be so much at Lady Anne Darcy’s little evenings.”
“Yes,” said her sister, “that is a pity. You had begun to be quite a fixture.”
At that moment the maid came in with the afternoon post on a tray, and Elizabeth would remember the timing of it all her life.
As her aunt was out and Jane was occupied with the tea, the tray was presented to Elizabeth.
The letter on the top was addressed to Aunt Gardiner and herself in a decided, elegant hand.
Elizabeth opened it because it was addressed to them both, marked with the day, and because some instinct suggested that she would be sorry not to have done so in Miss Bingley’s presence.
It was a risk. But she thought she knew enough of the woman who had sent it to believe she would not have written merely to tell them they were no longer welcome.
“You must forgive me,” she said and met Miss Bingley’s gaze. “It is from Lady Anne.”
The smallest glimmer of hope appeared in Miss Bingley’s eyes. “I see. By all means, you must read it.”
“Lady Anne writes to hope we are all well, and to say she quite counts upon us all for Tuesday evening.” Elizabeth smiled when Miss Bingley’s cup froze on its way to the saucer. She let her eye travel down the page. “She has added a postscript.”
There was a small movement from Miss Bingley who was attempting to see the letter for herself.
“Oh, it is for Jane.” Elizabeth read, “‘Please assure Miss Bennet that I greatly anticipate her company.’”
There was a silence of the very best sort.
“How . . . attentive,” said Miss Bingley.
“Very,” said Jane. Elizabeth could hear no triumph in the word, but she did detect some relief.
The call did not last much longer than Lady Anne’s postscript. Miss Bingley conveniently recalled another engagement, and Mrs. Hurst nodded her assent.
“It was very kind of you to come,” Jane said, rising. “Pray do not let us keep you a moment longer. After such a generous proof of concern, I could not bear to trespass upon any more of your time.”
It was the prettiest dismissal Elizabeth had ever heard.
Miss Bingley curtseyed and made her farewell through thinned lips.
From the window, Elizabeth watched Mr. Bingley’s sisters being handed into their carriage and relished knowing that their version of what had happened here would not outlast Tuesday at Darcy House.
“That was quite wicked of you,” Jane said. “The letter.”
“Reading it out?”
“Reading it out then.”
“The post timed it. I am nothing more than an innocent instrument of the Royal Mail.”
Jane looked at her.
“Very well. The timing was not mine, but the decision to use it to advantage was. I have never seen Miss Bingley so pale, and I do not regret a bit of it.”
Elizabeth came back from the window and took up Lady Anne’s letter again. The triumph of the moment faded a little as she looked at the firm, familiar hand.
“Though I confess I do not understand it. I had thought—” She stopped, because what she had thought felt a little ungrateful to say aloud—that she had thought the same as Mrs. Hurst. That with Mr. Bingley gone, the connexion would be cut and the invitations would stop.
“Lady Anne’s interest in us came through Mr. Bingley,” she said instead.
“Why would she wish us to continue coming?”
“Perhaps she likes us,” Jane said.
Elizabeth looked up. There had been nothing remarkable in the words, but there was something in Jane’s tone—an innocence she did not think was innocent at all.
Elizabeth stared at her sister, who was now taking entirely too much care over a single stitch. “Jane Bennet,” she said slowly. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing at all.”
Elizabeth let it pass without comment, chiefly because the alternative was to say that she could not tell, anymore, whether she went to Lady Anne’s evenings because her aunt required it, or because missing them had somehow become the last thing she wished to do.