Chapter Two — Silvermere Receives Its Guests
The road from Bath to Silvermere House did not at first appear disposed to admit that any change of world was taking place.
For some miles the city seemed determined to retain its hold upon them, not by walls or streets alone, but by that more subtle authority with which places of consequence impress their habits upon the mind.
The pale stone terraces withdrew by degrees rather than at once; the measured fronts of houses gave way to smaller dwellings, then to walls, then to lanes bordered by hedges just beginning to spend the last of their blossom upon the road.
Yet even after Bath itself had fallen behind, Elizabeth Bennet felt that its spirit had not wholly released the carriage.
The city’s manner of looking, interpreting, softening, repeating and arranging seemed to travel with them, seated invisibly among the trunks and bandboxes, or perhaps folded into Lady Ashbourne’s letter, which Mrs Gardiner had placed in her reticule as though the invitation might yet be consulted for protection against itself.
It was a late spring morning of a delicate, uncertain kind.
The sky was pale, neither bright nor threatening, but diffused with a softness which gave to distant fields the appearance of being remembered rather than seen.
The hedgerows were thick with leaf, and in places the last white flowers clung to them like lace carelessly fastened and already loosening in the air.
Cows stood in mild contemplation behind low stone walls; lambs moved in brief bursts of foolish energy and then forgot their purpose; the road rose and dipped through country which seemed at first wholly innocent of design.
Elizabeth, looking out, could almost have believed herself leaving behind the careful constructions of society and entering a world governed by weather, soil and the honest indifference of grass.
Almost.
A country house, she had long ago learned, might appear less artificial than a city only because its arrangements were distributed more handsomely.
A drawing room in Bath declared its intentions in chairs, screens, candles and the angle at which one lady might overhear another.
A country estate conducted the same business with approaches, gates, avenues, lakes, windows and distances.
One might be managed by a sofa; one might equally be managed by a mile of drive.
Jane sat opposite her, quiet and composed, her hands folded loosely over the shawl in her lap.
She had dressed with her usual simplicity, in a gown that became her without asking to be praised for doing so.
Her bonnet shadowed her face a little, but not enough to conceal from Elizabeth that her thoughts had turned inward.
She did not look unhappy. Indeed, there was about her a serenity which might have satisfied any observer determined to believe that beauty and calm always told the whole truth.
Elizabeth knew better. Jane’s stillness was not distress, but preparation.
She was gathering herself against kindness.
This, Elizabeth reflected with a tenderness touched by indignation, was one of the world’s more unreasonable impositions.
That a woman must prepare herself for cruelty was sad, but not surprising.
That she must also prepare herself for congratulation, admiration, affectionate speculation and the smiling impatience of persons who wished her happiness chiefly because they enjoyed anticipating it—that seemed almost more exhausting.
Open hostility might be resisted. Expectation entered by warmer doors.
Mrs Gardiner, who had been watching Jane with an understanding gentleness that did not press itself into speech, said after a while, “The country looks very well this morning.”
Jane turned from her thoughts and smiled. “Yes. It is a beautiful road.”
“Beautiful roads,” Elizabeth said, “are always suspicious. They persuade one to approach before one has considered whether arrival is wise.”
Mrs Gardiner laughed softly. “My dear Lizzy, if you are determined to distrust even hedgerows, I hardly know what Lady Ashbourne’s house must do to satisfy you.”
“It must be honest enough to be ugly in at least one direction.”
Jane’s smile deepened. “You will be disappointed if it is handsome, then?”
“Not disappointed. Instructed. Beauty is always useful information.”
Mrs Gardiner looked amused. “In what way?”
“It tells one where the owner wishes the eye to rest.”
Jane glanced out again. “And where should the eye rest?”
“On what has been omitted.”
Mrs Gardiner said nothing at once, but Elizabeth saw her expression alter with appreciation.
Her aunt, though far less inclined than Elizabeth to declare suspicion aloud, possessed an equally sound understanding of the manner in which society arranged itself for comfort.
Mrs Gardiner’s intelligence had the advantage of never seeming anxious to prove itself.
This made it welcome in rooms where Elizabeth’s livelier perceptions were sometimes mistaken for impertinence until they proved correct, at which point they became inconvenient.
The carriage continued through a village whose cottages were set about a small green with that irregularity which guidebooks praised as charming and householders experienced as damp.
A blacksmith looked up as they passed; two children paused in the act of quarrelling over a hoop; an elderly woman at a doorway narrowed her eyes at the carriage with an expression which suggested that country society was not less observant than Bath, only less obliged to disguise it as conversation.
Beyond the village the land opened. The road became smoother and better kept, bordered now by young beeches and stone posts at intervals.
Elizabeth noted the change. They had entered the reach of an estate.
The countryside no longer merely occurred; it was maintained.
Ditches were cleared, trees thinned, walls repaired, the very grass at the verge made respectable.
Silvermere, before it had shown itself, had begun already to exert its discipline.
Jane noticed it too, though she spoke more gently. “Lady Ashbourne keeps her estate well, it seems.”
“Or wishes visitors to believe so upon approach,” Elizabeth replied.
“That may be the same thing in this case.”
“Perhaps. A well-kept drive is a promise. It remains to be seen whether the house keeps it.”
Mrs Gardiner leaned slightly toward the window. “I believe we are near.”
They passed through a pair of gates set between square pillars of weathered stone.
There was no ostentation in them; no rampant beasts, no excessive carving, no gilding.
Yet their very restraint announced old possession more effectively than display would have done.
The lodge stood just inside, pale and neat, with climbing roses trained so precisely about its door that even romance seemed to have been pruned into obedience.
The drive curved away beneath trees newly full of leaf.
Light moved through them in broken pieces.
For some minutes nothing of the house could be seen, only glimpses of lawn, a fall of ground, a flash of water between trunks.
Then Silvermere appeared by reflection before it appeared directly.
The lake lay to the right of the drive, long and still, its surface pale beneath the spring sky.
Across it, so exact that for a moment Elizabeth felt a curious dislocation of sight, the house was held upside down in the water: pale fa?ade, tall windows, roofline, chimneys, a narrow terrace, even the dark vertical accents of cypress and yew repeated beneath themselves.
The reflection was more complete than seemed entirely natural.
It possessed that eerie perfection by which an image may become less trustworthy for being too clear.
Jane leaned forward slightly. “How beautiful.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, after a pause. “Too beautiful to be unobservant of itself.”
Mrs Gardiner turned to her, smiling. “You will not allow Silvermere even its first impression?”
“I am allowing it very fully. The difficulty is that it has made such a careful one.”
As the carriage drew on, the true house came into view above the lake.
Silvermere House was indeed handsome, though not grand in the manner of houses that required strangers to be made smaller at the threshold.
Its beauty was colder and more finished.
Built of pale stone softened by age but preserved with evident care, it stood wide and symmetrical, with long windows facing the water and a central entrance approached by shallow steps.
Wings extended with disciplined modesty, neither sprawling nor severe.
The roof was dark against the luminous sky.
The terrace before the lake held stone urns in which spring flowers had been planted with a restraint that suggested not lack of feeling but a determination never to be excessive.
Formal gardens stretched beyond one side of the house, their paths visible in ruled lines between clipped hedges and young roses not yet in full bloom.
Everything was elegant. Everything was ordered. Nothing seemed neglected except perhaps the possibility of accident.
Elizabeth felt, as she had half expected to feel, that Silvermere was not so much inhabited as preserved.
Its windows shone; its steps were spotless; its gravel had been raked into submission.
There was beauty here, and money, and memory, and will.
Yet warmth did not rise from the place to meet them.
It waited to be granted, if Lady Ashbourne should judge warmth appropriate.
The carriage drew up before the entrance. Servants appeared with that quiet speed which suggested an excellent household and an exacting mistress. Before the steps, a woman in refined mourning stood ready to receive them.
Elizabeth knew at once that this must be Lady Ashbourne.