Chapter Six
The consequence of Mrs. Fenwick's evening party arrived at Gracechurch Street within two days, in the form of a note from Jane, who had it, in turn, from a letter of Mr. Bingley's own composing to a mutual acquaintance in Hertfordshire, describing a change of temper among the Bingley sisters that Jane, with her usual gentleness, attempted to soften even as she reported it.
I do not know the particulars, dearest Lizzy, only that Miss Bingley has written to Mama in a manner considerably less warm than her usual correspondence, wondering, in terms I found difficult to interpret charitably, whether our family's connections in town are quite what she had understood them to be, and hinting, though never stating outright, that she had heard something of your conduct in London that gave her pause.
I do not repeat this to distress you, only because I think you ought to know what is being said, that you may prepare yourself against it.
Elizabeth read the letter twice over her breakfast, and felt the particular fatigue of a woman watching a single indiscretion, not even her own, multiply itself into consequences she had never anticipated needing to guard against.
"It is Jane who will suffer for it," she said to her aunt, setting the letter down with more force than the paper warranted.
"I refused a man's proposal, and it is my sister's prospects with his friend that are threatened by the refusing of it, which strikes me as a particular kind of injustice I had not fully appreciated until this moment. "
"Mr. Bingley's regard for your sister," her aunt said, with the calm practicality that Elizabeth had come to value more with every week of her visit, "was not, I think, built upon anything so fragile as his own sister's approval, or he would never have formed it in the first place, knowing Miss Bingley's opinions as he must. Do not assume the worst before it has happened, Lizzy.
It is a habit that serves no one, least of all yourself. "
"I do not assume it, Aunt. I only observe that Miss Bingley has found, in this business, a convenient weapon to use against a match she never wanted, and I cannot help but feel some responsibility for having handed it to her, however unwillingly."
She wrote to Jane that evening with as much reassurance as she could honestly offer, urging her sister not to permit Miss Bingley's coldness to unsettle a friendship, or whatever the connection with Mr. Bingley presently was, that had never, in Elizabeth's observation, depended upon that lady's goodwill in the first place.
But she folded the letter with a heaviness she had not felt since the earliest days of the scandal, understanding, freshly, that the story she had believed herself managing alone had begun, quietly and without her consent, to reach into the lives of people she loved.
It was in this state of mind, wearied by consequences she had not chosen and could not fully control, that Elizabeth attended, three evenings later, a small dinner given by her aunt's particular friends the Hursts, not the Hursts of Mr. Bingley's acquaintance but an entirely unconnected family of the same name, whose company Mrs. Gardiner had long enjoyed and whose invitation Elizabeth accepted gladly, hoping for an evening free of the scrutiny that had followed her through every other engagement since Mrs. Fenwick's party.
It was there she was introduced to a Mr. Rafferty Vane, a gentleman of pleasant countenance and easy address, connected to the family through some cousinage Elizabeth did not fully untangle, who took the seat beside her at dinner with a readiness that suggested he had arranged the placement himself, and who proved, over the course of the evening, to possess a wit sharp enough to be genuinely diverting and a manner warm enough to feel, after weeks of careful public performance, like an actual relief.
"You are the Miss Bennet, then," he said, with a smile that carried more mischief than malice, "of whom half the drawing rooms in Mayfair have lately grown so curious. I confess I had expected someone considerably more formidable, given the reputation that precedes you."
"I am not certain whether to be flattered or alarmed, Mr. Vane, that my reputation has preceded me to a dinner I understood to be entirely private."
"Oh, nothing is entirely private in London, Miss Bennet, whatever a hostess may claim of her guest list. But I did not mean to distress you with the observation.
If anything, I found myself rather more curious than alarmed, on hearing the story, wondering what manner of lady could occasion so much speculation among people who had never, until a fortnight ago, any notion of her existence. "
"And have you satisfied your curiosity, now that we are acquainted?"
"Not entirely, no. I find I have only acquired a great many further questions, none of which I intend to ask you directly, having some small store of tact remaining to me, whatever my sisters would say to the contrary."
Elizabeth laughed, genuinely, for what felt the first time in a fortnight, and found the sound of it, in her own ears, a strange relief after so many careful, guarded exchanges.
"You are kinder in your curiosity than most, Mr. Vane. I have grown rather accustomed, these past weeks, to a variety that asks its questions directly and expects an answer regardless of my own wishes on the matter."
"Then I shall count myself distinguished by my restraint, and hope it earns me the pleasure of your further acquaintance, restraint being, in my experience, a rarer commodity in London than either wit or fortune, and considerably harder to counterfeit convincingly."
He was, she thought, watching him across the remainder of the dinner, precisely the sort of gentleman she might, in other circumstances, have allowed herself to enjoy without complication: charming without design, attentive without demand, entirely unconnected to the weight of history and misunderstanding that made every exchange with Mr. Darcy feel, however she tried to govern it, like the navigation of ground still settling beneath her feet.
She was aware, too, with a clarity she did not entirely welcome, that some part of her interest in Mr. Vane's easy attentions was not admiration on its own account but a kind of relief, the relief of a woman permitting herself, for one evening, to be looked at without the accompanying weight of a story neither she nor her admirer had any part in writing.
It was not fair to Mr. Vane, perhaps, to be enjoyed chiefly for the lightness he offered rather than any deeper regard, but she allowed herself the indulgence regardless, reasoning that a single evening's diversion injured no one, and that she had earned, after everything, some small measure of uncomplicated pleasure.