Chapter Thirty-Four
Mr. Bennet Tries
Mr. Bennet did not become a different man.
He remained fond of his library. Still teased. Still avoided Mrs. Bennet when her nerves became particularly theatrical. Still found human folly more entertaining than was charitable.
But he tried.
That was enough to change much.
He asked Kitty about drawing.
The first time she assumed he was mocking her.
"Why?" she asked, clutching the sketchbook to her chest.
Mr. Bennet looked genuinely puzzled. "Because I wish to see it."
Kitty narrowed her eyes. "You never wanted to before."
The accusation struck.
Mr. Bennet did not make a joke.
"No," he said. "I did not."
Kitty waited.
"I should have."
Slowly, she handed him the book.
He spent twenty minutes turning the pages.
The next week he commissioned a sketch of Longbourn's front elevation. Kitty worked on it for months.
When she finished, he framed it and hung it in the library.
Mary found him listening outside the drawing room one afternoon while she practiced a new sonata.
She stopped.
"Papa?"
He stepped inside. "Continue."
Mary looked suspicious. "Why?"
"Because I was listening."
"You usually close the library door."
He winced.
Mary noticed.
Mr. Bennet sat. "Play the beginning again. I missed it."
Mary did.
Not perfectly.
He did not laugh.
Lydia argued with him constantly.
But he began setting boundaries and explaining them instead of retreating.
When she wanted to stay overnight with a friend, he asked who would be present.
Lydia complained. Then answered.
When she wanted money for a new bonnet, he asked whether she had used the allowance she had already been given.
Lydia accused him of tyranny.
He agreed cheerfully and still refused.
Mrs. Bennet noticed the change.
One evening during a visit to Pemberley, she told Elizabeth, "Your father has become very tiresome."
Elizabeth poured tea. "How?"
"He has opinions."
"Terrible."
"About the girls."
"Imagine."
Mrs. Bennet narrowed her eyes. "I liked him better when he left everything to me."
Elizabeth laughed.
Mrs. Bennet paused.
Her expression changed. "No."
Elizabeth looked at her.
Mrs. Bennet stared into her teacup. "I did not."
That was enough.
Later Elizabeth repeated the conversation to Darcy.
He smiled. "Your father has become responsible and your mother resents the competition."
"You sound pleased."
"I am."
Elizabeth rested her feet on the edge of the sofa, an indignity Darcy had once pretended to dislike. "Papa will never be diligent."
"No."
"Mama will never become quiet."
"God forbid. I would worry."
Elizabeth laughed.
Darcy came to sit beside her. "They need not become different people to become better ones."
Elizabeth looked at him.
"Marriage improved you," she said.
Darcy sighed. "I walked into that."
"Entirely."
Darcy's relationship with Clara altered Georgiana too. She watched her brother carry the baby through the library, change his schedule for nursery visits, and ask the nurse questions instead of issuing instructions.
One afternoon Georgiana said to Elizabeth, "He would have been a good father."
Elizabeth looked toward Darcy, who was attempting to convince a six-month-old child that a wooden rattle belonged in her hand rather than his mouth. "He is."
Georgiana smiled. "I mean he always would have been."
Elizabeth understood. "Yes. But perhaps not quite this good."
Georgiana laughed.
Darcy looked over suspiciously. "What?"
"Nothing," both women said.
He narrowed his eyes.
Clara sneezed.
Darcy immediately forgot them.
When Elizabeth recovered fully, she resumed longer walks around the estate. Clara sometimes came in a small carriage, and Darcy often joined them. Tenants who had once found their master formidable now saw him stopping to retrieve a baby's fallen blanket from the lane.
One elderly woman told Elizabeth, "Marriage agrees with him."
Elizabeth smiled. "So I have been informed."
The woman lowered her voice. "He smiles now."
Elizabeth looked toward Darcy, who was listening seriously while a tenant boy explained the importance of a frog he had found.
"Yes," she said softly. "He does."
The question of their first children surfaced again when Clara was baptized. The vicar asked whether there were family names they wished to include.
Elizabeth looked at Darcy.
Anne.
Margaret.
The names stood between them.
Darcy answered first. "Clara Elizabeth."
Elizabeth turned toward him.
He smiled faintly.
Afterward, in the carriage, she asked, "Why Elizabeth?"
"Because I like the name."
"You are very original."
"I married one."
Elizabeth laughed, then became quiet. "Thank you."
Darcy knew what she meant. "Anne's name is hers."
"Yes."
"We do not have to prove we remember by giving the dead to the living."
Elizabeth looked out the window at the winter road. "You always know when I need you to say the difficult thing."
"Not always."
"Often enough."
He took her hand.
The christening breakfast filled Pemberley with noise.
Mrs. Bennet declared Clara the image of Elizabeth despite having spent the previous hour declaring her the image of Darcy.
Lydia insisted babies were dull until they could talk.
Mary offered a serious observation about infant development and stopped when everyone looked frightened.
Georgiana held Clara near the window and whispered something no one heard.
Elizabeth watched her.
Darcy came beside her. "What?"
"Nothing."
"That is never true."
Elizabeth smiled. "I was thinking that we keep expecting grand corrections."
"And?"
"Most of the good things are small."
Darcy looked at Georgiana with the baby, Bingley laughing with Jane, Kitty sketching Lydia when Lydia was not looking, Mr. Bennet speaking to Mary without teasing.
"Yes," he said. "They are."