Chapter Four — A Letter in the Music Book
By the following morning, Silvermere House had accomplished the first and most necessary act of any respectable household touched by disturbance: it had made itself appear almost exactly as before.
This was not the same as recovery, and Elizabeth Bennet was not deceived by it.
Indeed, the more successfully a house resumed its customary expression after disorder, the more inclined she was to ask what exertions had been required to restore the mask.
The breakfast room was bright, the coffee excellent, the silver polished, the flowers freshly arranged, the servants attentive without visible agitation, and Lady Ashbourne’s manner so composed that a stranger entering at that hour might have supposed the previous day’s breach no more than an unfortunate draught improperly corrected by a footman.
Yet everything had altered. The change lay not in any object, but in the space between people.
Small courtesies had acquired edges. A chair drawn out for a lady might be kindness or strategy.
A glance toward the door might be habit or anxiety.
A question after sleep could be sympathy or investigation.
Servants moved quietly not merely because they had been trained to do so, but because silence had become one of the household’s duties.
Guests watched one another while pretending not to.
Even the sunlight, falling so prettily upon the breakfast table, seemed to Elizabeth less innocent than it had the morning before.
It illuminated too much and explained nothing.
Lady Ashbourne presided with grace, yet her grace had become more visible because it worked harder.
The previous day, her command of Silvermere had seemed almost natural, as if house, servants, guests and weather had all agreed long ago to exist in relation to her wishes.
Now that command could still be felt, but one could also perceive its strain.
She spoke easily to Mrs Gardiner of the gardens, asked Colonel Avery whether he had found the stables satisfactory, recommended a preserve to Mrs Lyndhurst, and enquired with perfect kindness after Miss Trent’s headache, though Elizabeth had not previously heard that Miss Trent had one.
Every attention was correct. Every transition smooth.
Yet the very smoothness declared that unevenness had been anticipated.
Felix Vale assisted her with his usual agreeable usefulness.
He stood when a servant might be spared, smiled when conversation required softening, supplied dates, names and recollections before anyone could stumble over them, and, more than once, entered a pause just as it began to deepen.
He did not seem anxious. That was what Elizabeth found most interesting.
Anxiety may be concealed badly or well, but Felix appeared instead to possess a practised alertness, as though he had lived so long among delicate arrangements that he could feel the first tremor in a room before anyone else heard the crack.
Mrs Harrow was present. She had come down early enough to avoid appearing as though she had hidden, and late enough to avoid being the first object upon which breakfast conversation settled.
The choice, Elizabeth thought, was exact.
She wore grey again, with a narrow ribbon at her throat, and accepted coffee from Mrs Gardiner with thanks.
Her face was composed. If she had slept poorly, she did not offer the fact for pity.
Yet Elizabeth saw, or thought she saw, that she listened to every mention of the stolen letters without seeming to listen at all.
Miss Trent remained pale and watchful beside Mrs Lyndhurst. She responded when spoken to, but each answer seemed prepared only after she had considered whether the truth, even in so small a matter as the weather, might place her at a disadvantage.
Portia Vale came in late, received a glance from Felix, ignored it, and sat near Elizabeth with an air of having already quarrelled with the day.
Colonel Avery ate heartily and looked dissatisfied with everyone, which in him appeared a form of moral steadiness.
Jane was quieter than usual. Not unhappy; not even distressed in any visible sense.
Yet Elizabeth, knowing her sister, recognised that Jane’s mind had not left the forced escritoire.
Jane had always possessed the rare and sometimes painful ability to be troubled by the suffering of those who had given her little claim to concern.
Mrs Harrow’s guarded pallor, Miss Trent’s fear, Lady Ashbourne’s restrained anger—all had entered Jane’s feeling and would not easily be dismissed by marmalade, conversation or spring sunshine.
Mr Bingley noticed it too.
He had come to breakfast with Darcy, and after greeting the company with his usual warmth, had taken care not to direct his whole countenance toward Jane, which Elizabeth regarded as a triumph of discipline almost equal to a military campaign.
He spoke first to Mrs Gardiner, then to Colonel Avery, then allowed himself to enquire after Miss Bennet’s rest in a tone so ordinary that only Jane could hear the particular concern in it.
“I slept very well, thank you,” Jane said.
Bingley looked at her for a moment, evidently uncertain whether to believe the words because he wished them true or doubt them because he cared that they might not be. He chose, sensibly, neither to challenge nor over-pity her.
“I am glad,” he said simply.
Jane smiled. It was enough.
Darcy, seated not far from Elizabeth, spoke little at breakfast. This was not unusual, yet Elizabeth sensed in his silence a direction.
He observed the room without seeming to examine it, and when Mrs Lyndhurst mentioned, for the third time, that a household disturbance was always made worse by discussion, Elizabeth saw his eyes lift for one brief instant from his plate.
Mrs Lyndhurst’s own behaviour had become a study in reluctant fascination.
She wished the matter forgotten with such energy that she could not stop reminding everyone of it.
“It is so fortunate,” she said, spreading a very little butter upon toast with great care, “that Lady Ashbourne has such excellent command of her household. In many houses a small event of this kind would become quite unpleasantly enlarged.”
“Small event?” Colonel Avery said.
Mrs Lyndhurst blinked. “I meant only that nothing of monetary value was taken.”
“Letters are sometimes worth more than silver.”
“Indeed, but not in the usual sense.”
“The usual sense is often a fool.”
“Colonel,” Lady Ashbourne said, in a tone of mild restraint, “you will frighten Mrs Lyndhurst from her breakfast.”
“Then I shall have done her digestion a service. Fear is better before meals than after.”
Portia gave a small cough which might have been laughter. Felix smoothly asked Mrs Lyndhurst whether she had yet seen the west garden in full morning light, and the conversation obediently turned toward flowers.
Elizabeth caught Darcy’s eye across the table. His expression barely altered, but she understood him very well. The household’s attempt at normality had already become part of the abnormality.
After breakfast, Lady Ashbourne proposed music.
It was done with such natural grace that almost anyone might have believed the thought spontaneous.
The morning, she said, was mild but not yet settled enough for a long walk; Mrs Lyndhurst had spoken of wishing to hear Miss Bennet again; the music room was always cheerful at that hour; and nothing restored ease so gently as a little music before the day arranged itself into separate occupations.
The company accepted because refusal would have implied either discomfort or independence, neither of which a well-managed house party encouraged before noon.
Elizabeth looked at Jane. Jane’s expression did not change, but she understood the request. To play would be to soothe the room, to provide sound where silence threatened to become enquiry, and to become, for the second time since their arrival, part of Silvermere’s arrangement. Yet Jane rose with her usual serenity.
“If you wish it, Lady Ashbourne, I should be very happy.”
Lady Ashbourne inclined her head. “You are kind, Miss Bennet.”
Elizabeth wondered whether kindness was precisely what Jane was being asked to spend.
They moved toward the music room. The doors stood open; the pianoforte had been placed where the morning light fell gently across the keys; the volumes of music were arranged upon the cabinet with such neatness that Elizabeth suspected they had been put in order since the previous evening.
Mrs Harrow entered with the others but did not stand beside the instrument.
She remained near the window, her hands folded before her, looking neither at the music nor the escritoire beyond the adjoining doorway.
Lady Ashbourne’s sitting room had been closed.
That door, however, did not make the desk less present in Elizabeth’s mind.
Sometimes a closed door is only a more emphatic form of display.
Jane sat at the pianoforte. Bingley stationed himself at a distance more modest than his wishes.
Mrs Gardiner took a chair from which she could see Jane’s face.
Mrs Lyndhurst settled herself with an air of anticipated pleasure and whispered to Miss Trent, who did not answer.
Colonel Avery stood near the mantel. Portia leaned against the edge of a cabinet until Felix, passing behind her, murmured something too low to hear; she straightened with visible reluctance.
Lady Ashbourne lifted a small bound volume from the upper shelf of the music cabinet. “Perhaps this, Miss Bennet? Some simple airs to begin the morning.”
Jane accepted it. “Thank you.”
Felix, who had been turning over several loose sheets nearby, said lightly, “Aunt, Miss Bennet might prefer the Italian songs. They are in the blue volume, I think. The one you always say shows the room to advantage.”