Chapter 5
FIVE
Elizabeth could not deny that Mr Darcy was probably the handsomest man of her acquaintance.
I expected, I suppose, another person entirely, a fumbling sort of pompous man entering Longbourn and thumbing through its contents—in both females and furniture—and tallying their worth.
He had given another impression entirely, although not wholly a good one.
The night before, he had seemed grave and solemn and as if he could not smile if his life depended upon it.
Of conversation, he had very little. If he was not openly avaricious, neither was there any charm or address to be found in his character.
Not that her parents and younger sisters had made things any easier.
She had expected her mother to be easily offended by anything he said; Elizabeth simply had not expected to care—but in spite of everything, she had.
Her father had glumly presided over a household he failed to discipline—Lydia and Kitty had sounded like giddy flirts, although thankfully not towards him.
Mary, at least, had tried to impress him—her sister had a deep appreciation and respect for men of the cloth—but her homilies and quotations had sounded unnatural and affected.
Elizabeth had been embarrassed, but then was even more so when her father had, finally, chided Mary for ‘sermonising’ before a congregation who had not any means of escape.
Even Jane had not been able to find any way to restart the conversation after that, and they all retired early for bed.
“It is not a promising situation, Jane,” Elizabeth had spoken into the dark of their shared bedroom.
Jane had only sighed.
It was almost surprising, to be strolling along beside him without too much discomfort.
If only he had not written of his hunt for a wife!
If only Papa had kept that information to himself!
It certainly kept her from conversing easily, especially about those subjects most important to them both.
When she did, finally, blurt out a question, she abruptly wished she had kept silent.
“What is your view of an accomplished woman?”
He glanced over at her, raising his brows, and she felt the colour rising in her cheeks. With a shrug, she gave up any thought of easing into this particular topic gracefully. “I do not mean to be bold, but you must agree that this is the most discomfiting of situations.”
“I take it that your father shared my letter, with you, at least,” he said, his tone grave and solemn all over again.
Why, why did I ask him anything at all? I have only embarrassed myself and shown my father to be a churl.
“Only a part of it,” she said tentatively.
“The worst part, it seems,” he replied drily. “I was attempting to show a forthright spirit, and merely achieved ‘awkward’. Is this the worry you have carried, the one unaffected by a new day?”
“Yes,” she said, seeing no point in dissembling now.
“I regret causing you any uneasiness. Allow me to explain myself. I realise that, as a gentleman’s daughter, you have been accustomed to a certain life, one more…
elegant, perhaps than my own. What I look for may possibly be quite different from your own expectations, as well as the attributes your ideal spouse might have anticipated.
For instance, I do not care if my wife speaks any French or can perfectly perform Beethoven’s sonatas. ”
Something like interest flickered within her. “I suppose those skills would not be of much use to a clergyman.”
“To me, it is both simpler and more complicated. Yes, the dedication to learning a foreign tongue or playing an instrument well could signify a young lady with all the traits of which any husband might be proud. I believe what I really hope for, however, is a certain…compatibility.”
“I would suppose any couple considering marriage must hope for that.”
“I am not explaining very well, am I?” He peered up at the sky, as if he expected better words might be writ in the clouds.
“The Hebrew words in the Bible translated as ‘helpmeet’—'ezer kenegdo’—seem appropriate to my meaning. The root ezer is frequently used in the Old Testament to describe God’s strength or power to save, suggesting the wife is to be a source of great strength.
Kenegdo signifies someone ‘opposite to’ or ‘facing’ the man, suggesting a complementary power, not his servant, but one willing to succour, to rescue him, even from himself. ”
A godly, strong woman. “You comprehend a great deal in your opinion of accomplishment,” she said, a little daunted and a good deal impressed.
“I suppose I do.”
When he had invited her on this walk, he had seemed less starched, less reserved, but she could feel the stiffness in the arm she still held. Was he sorry he had asked her to join him, sorry he had revealed what was plainly a very personal opinion? Was he sorry that she had asked?
“I apologise if I have offended you. I am not a person who dithers, who can stomach handwringing and wondering whether I ought to have spoken or stayed silent. I know only that you came here looking for a wife. I do not know why, or rather, why now, or whether you are already sorry you have come.” She tried to smile, but it was difficult through her mortification, especially when he answered nothing for a long while.
“Do you know anything of the history between our two family lines?” he asked at last.
She tried to recall what little she had heard, in scraps and snatches of conversations over the years. “Not a great deal,” she said. “It was Oliver Bennet who was the first Bennet of Longbourn, some time in the seventeenth century, I think. He had two sons, Bertram and…”
“Joseph,” he supplied.
“Yes, Bertram and Joseph. Joseph eventually took his wife’s surname of Darcy. She was the daughter of a wealthy maltster.”
It was all she could remember, and she suddenly felt a little ashamed that she had never shown any prior interest in her own family history before this moment.
“Yes. It is somehow completely unsurprising that my great-grandmother’s father’s career in trade is the one fact that has been passed down from generation to generation in the Bennet line.”
She was quiet for several more steps, and were it not for her promise to Jane, would have already made an excuse to return home. Nevertheless, she had said she would try, and try she would.
“Since my own mother is the daughter of a solicitor, and my most beloved uncle, her brother, lives in sight of his warehouses, it would be distinctly hypocritical of me to look down upon the Darcys for that.”
He sighed. “I suppose I am, myself, a little too sensitive about it.”
“It is not easy, is it? I stayed at Netherfield last week, and Mr Bingley’s other guest, a Mr Collins, laughed himself silly about my uncle Gardiner in Cheapside. It was difficult to remain quiet and pretend not to notice the insult.”
He looked over at her. “Mr Collins, of Pemberley?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“After a manner of speaking. He is the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who granted me the Hunsford living. I have met him a few times.”
“Ah.” Yet another strike against him, she thought. If the aunt was anything like the nephew, to be in close proximity to her for years and years was a horrible notion.
“There was a world of meaning in that single syllable,” he said, and she noted that some of the tension in his arm had eased.
“Lady Catherine and her nephew are very similar in character and temperament. I am not ashamed to say that I avoid her as often as is possible, and when it is not possible, such as when she interferes in situations which are not only none of her business, but when, as is usual for her, she makes everything worse, our discussions are often unpleasant. She is very sorry, very sorry indeed, she tells me often, that she granted me the living. Fortunately, she cannot un-grant it.”
Elizabeth beamed at him—she could not help it.
To live in the same parish as any relation of Mr Collins was an awful thought, but at least he was no infatuated supplicant.
He was, obviously, his own man. He smiled then, and she felt her heart beat a little harder.
Mr Darcy was a handsome man, a very handsome man when he smiled. And when he does not.
It was probably shallow of her to allow that fact to carry any weight whatsoever.
Yet he was also plainly an honourable man.
It was not easy to confront a noblewoman, even when she was mistaken, especially when one was in many ways powerless to overrule her.
He clearly held a very strong sense of right and wrong.
Like Jane, she now wondered if the entail was almost as much a burden upon an honourable man as it was upon the family he displaced.
Clearly, he felt an obligation to choose one of his Bennet fourth cousins as his wife, unless they were all silly fools—which gave him a very slim selection, truly, of only two women in the world, one of whom had an unavailable heart.
It was an ugly thought, to be, not his choice, but his yoke, his onus, his obligation.
If only they could have come to know each other without its encumbrance!