Chapter Three
The invitation came from her aunt Gardiner within the week, and though it was couched in the ordinary language of family affection, an invitation to spend some part of the spring in Gracechurch Street, seeing the sights, enjoying company beyond what Meryton could offer, Elizabeth was not so far gone in innocence as to mistake its true purpose.
Her aunt had written to her mother, her mother had spoken to her father, and between the three of them a plan had been quietly assembled to remove Elizabeth from the immediate vicinity of Mrs. Philips's tea table before the story currently circulating there could attach itself permanently to her person.
She accepted with more gratitude than she allowed herself to show.
Longbourn had become, in the space of a fortnight, a house in which every visitor arrived with a question behind their eyes even when their mouths spoke only of the weather, and Elizabeth had grown weary of watching her neighbours calculate, behind polite expressions, precisely how much of the story might be true.
"You will find London considerably more forgiving than Meryton," her aunt said, on the second evening of her visit, as they sat together over their needlework while the children slept above them.
"Not because Londoners are kinder, but because they have a great many scandals to occupy them, and yours, whatever it is, must compete with a dozen others for their attention.
I do not say this to make light of your difficulty, Lizzy, only to assure you that you will not be quite so singular a curiosity here as you have become at home. "
"I begin to think there is no such thing as a private matter, Aunt, once it has left the mouth of a single indiscreet person. It travels faster than I can outrun it, and grows larger with every mile."
"That has always been the way of these things.
" Her aunt set down her work and regarded her with the particular gentleness that made Gracechurch Street feel, to Elizabeth, more like a refuge than a retreat.
"Will you tell me the truth of it, or would you rather I remained ignorant, as your mother's letters have been vague enough to suggest you would prefer? "
Elizabeth considered this. She had told no one the full truth, not even Jane, though Jane suspected more than she said; there was a particular exhaustion in constructing careful half-accounts for people who loved her and deserved better than her carefulness.
Her aunt Gardiner was shrewd, and kind, and asked for nothing beyond what Elizabeth wished to give.
So she told her. The proposal at Hunsford, delivered in terms of such condescension that she had refused him with more anger than the moment strictly required.
The accusations she had levelled at him, some just, and one, regarding Mr. Wickham, that she had since learned was built upon a foundation considerably less solid than she had believed.
The letter he had written her the following morning, an account of himself so unlike the man she had thought she knew that she had read it three times before she trusted her own understanding of it, and had carried it with her every day since, though she could not have said, precisely, why.
Her aunt listened without interruption, her needle still in her hand, until Elizabeth had finished.
"And what do you feel for him now, Lizzy? Not what you felt at Hunsford, not what Meryton believes you must feel. What do you feel, presently, when you allow yourself to consider the question honestly?"
Elizabeth opened her mouth to answer with something light, something that would turn the question aside as she had turned aside every version of it she had privately posed to herself these three weeks, and found, to her own surprise, that she could not manage it.
"I do not know," she said, finally, and it was the truest thing she had said on the subject to anyone.
"I know that I was wrong about a great deal of his character, and that the wrongness troubles me more than I expected it to.
I know that I think of his letter more often than I would like to admit, and that when I try to summon the anger I felt at Hunsford, it does not arrive with the same conviction it once did.
Beyond that, Aunt, I confess myself entirely at a loss. "
"That," her aunt said, with a small, knowing smile, "sounds a great deal like the beginning of something, Lizzy, whatever you choose to call it."
Her first proper introduction to London society came four days later, at a card party given by a Mrs. Fenwick, a woman of considerable fortune and even more considerable appetite for other people's business, whose acquaintance with the Gardiners was slight but who had extended an invitation the moment she learned a niece of theirs was newly arrived from Hertfordshire.
Elizabeth understood, within a quarter hour of entering the woman's drawing room, precisely why the invitation had been so promptly issued.
"Miss Bennet." Mrs. Fenwick took Elizabeth's hand with a warmth that felt, immediately, like the warmth of a hostess who had identified the most interesting guest in the room and meant to make the most of her.
"How very delighted I am. I have heard the most extraordinary things of a Miss Bennet from Hertfordshire, though I confess I did not think to find her a connection of the Gardiners, whom I have known this age. "
"I cannot think what extraordinary things you might have heard of me, Mrs. Fenwick, as I have done nothing more extraordinary than travel from Longbourn to Gracechurch Street, which I assure you was a journey of very ordinary tedium."
"Oh, I am sure you are too modest." Mrs. Fenwick's eyes glittered with the particular pleasure of a woman who believed herself in possession of information her guest did not yet realize she had shared.
"But we shall not speak of it now, my dear, there is company enough for a dozen conversations tonight, and I would not for the world embarrass you before you have had your tea. "
The threat implicit in that promise, that the subject would be raised, merely postponed to a moment of Mrs. Fenwick's own choosing, sat with Elizabeth for the remainder of the evening like a stone in her shoe.
She had not been in London a week, and already her name had preceded her into a drawing room she had never before entered.
It was there, over cards an hour later, that she encountered Caroline Bingley, whose greeting carried all the warmth of a winter frost and none of its honesty.
"Miss Bennet. What a very great surprise to find you in town. I had understood the Bennets to be entirely fixed at Longbourn, but I collect Hertfordshire has grown too small to contain your recent celebrity."
"I was not aware I had achieved any celebrity, Miss Bingley, recent or otherwise, though I am gratified to learn of it from so authoritative a source."
"Oh, come, Miss Bennet, we need not play at ignorance between friends.
The whole of London is speaking of a certain gentleman's disappointment in Kent, and though the lady's name has not yet been fixed with certainty, I confess I formed my own suspicions the moment I heard the tale, knowing what I know of your particular talent for attracting attentions you have no serious intention of returning. "
Elizabeth felt the barb land precisely where it was intended, and was proud, afterward, of how little her face betrayed it.
"I do not know what talent you refer to, Miss Bingley, and I confess I have very little curiosity to learn it, as I find myself considerably more interested in this hand of cards than in gentlemen's disappointments, whether in Kent or anywhere else. Shall we play?"
Caroline's smile thinned, but she said no more on the subject that evening, and Elizabeth understood, watching her withdraw to another table with the particular satisfaction of a woman who believed she had planted a seed that would grow of its own accord, that the matter was very far from settled.
Miss Bingley had suspicions. Miss Bingley would share them.
And London, unlike Meryton, had a great many mouths through which a suspicion might travel before the day was out.
She wrote to Jane that night, unable to sleep, and found herself setting down words she had not permitted herself to write until the pen was already moving.
I begin to fear, dearest Jane, that I have less command over this story than I believed even a week ago.
It follows me now, not as a whisper behind my back but as a question asked to my face, dressed in politeness, and I do not know how long I can go on answering it without saying more than I intend, or less than is true.