20. Chapter Twenty #3
Elizabeth had no ready answer to that.
It would be easier if Miss Bingley were merely spiteful. Elizabeth had come prepared, inwardly at least, for jealousy, insinuation, perhaps even an insult wearing thin gloves. She had not prepared for candor.
“I do not say this to earn your sympathy,” Miss Bingley said.
“That is fortunate, since you would have chosen an unusual method.”
The corner of Miss Bingley’s mouth moved despite herself. “I say it because you and I are more alike than you suppose.”
Elizabeth’s spine stiffened.
“My uncle is in trade,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And therefore?”
“Therefore, society will remember it.”
“I shall survive society remembering my uncle. I am rather proud of him.”
“As you should be. Mr. Gardiner is a superior man.”
Again Elizabeth was disarmed. “Then I do not understand your purpose.”
“My purpose is to tell you that esteem and affection do not silence the Ton.”
Elizabeth pressed her fingertips against the arm of her chair, then released them. “I have not claimed they do.”
“No, but perhaps you have not considered how much they fail to silence.”
The room grew too close.
Miss Bingley leaned forward slightly. “I do not doubt Mr. Darcy admires you.”
Heat rose swiftly into Elizabeth’s face.
“That is not a subject for discussion.”
“It is precisely the subject.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, standing now. “It is precisely not.”
Miss Bingley remained seated, which made her next words more effective, not less. “He is sincere. I believe that, if you can credit me with enough fairness to hear it.”
Elizabeth stopped.
Sincere.
The word should have comforted her. From Miss Bingley, it came too strangely to be dismissed.
“He is also a man of rank,” Miss Bingley continued.
“A man with relations who will not admire what he admires. He is a man with a sister whose future depends in part upon the family into which she is received. A man whose tenants may adore him and whose servants may revere him, but whose equals will measure his choices against their own consequence.”
Elizabeth left her and walked to the window.
Lydia had put the biscuit in her own mouth.
Horace appeared betrayed. The dog was ordinarily forbidden the principal rooms, but Mr. Darcy told Elizabeth he had relaxed the rule since their arrival.
The servants, seeing how much Georgiana laughed whenever the dog appeared, wisely pretended not to notice.
For several seconds Elizabeth watched them and let the sight steady her. Georgiana was happy. Lydia was ridiculous. Mr. Darcy had smiled at both of them. He had defended her uncle. He had contradicted Miss Bingley at dinner. He had not behaved like a man ashamed.
“Mr. Darcy knows my family,” Elizabeth said.
“He knows what affection allows him to overlook.”
That stung.
Elizabeth faced her. “You assume too much.”
“Possibly.”
“More than possibly.”
Miss Bingley’s composure faltered. “Do you think I wish to say this? Do you think I enjoy lowering myself to confessions of my family’s origins? I have spent my life refusing to acknowledge how much it mattered.”
“Then why acknowledge it now?”
“Because you may one day stand in a room and discover that loving him did not prevent others from making you pay for it.”
Elizabeth’s fingers ran mindlessly across the window frame.
“There it is,” she said quietly.
Miss Bingley rose. “What?”
“The kindness you promised. It has teeth after all.”
Color rushed into Miss Bingley’s face. “You may call it cruelty if you wish. Cruelty would be letting you believe Pemberley is the world. It is not. Pemberley is kind because Mr. Darcy governs it. His servants love whom he loves. His tenants respect whom he honors. His sister is young and adores what is placed before her. But London will not be Pemberley. Rosings will not be Pemberley. His relations will not all be Mrs. Reynolds.”
The mention of Rosings chilled the air between them.
Elizabeth looked away first.
Miss Bingley saw that too. She saw far too much when it served her.
“Lady Catherine has long expected him to marry Miss de Bourgh.”
“I am aware of the claim.”
“Are you aware that expectation, however foolish, gives others permission to judge any deviation from it?”
“Lady Catherine does not govern Mr. Darcy.”
“No. But she can make his choice unpleasant.”
“She has often made things unpleasant. It is not a rare talent.”
This time Miss Bingley did smile, though briefly and without softness. “You are braver than I.”
“I am not certain this is bravery.”
“What is it, then?”
“Experience with overbearing ladies.”
A faint laugh escaped Miss Bingley before she could prevent it. The sound died quickly.
For a moment they were two women in the same room, both too proud, both wounded in different places, both unwilling to yield the field.
Then Miss Bingley gathered herself.
“I have said enough.”
“More than enough.”
“Yes.” She went to the door, then paused with one hand upon it. “You may think me jealous. I am. You may think me disappointed. I am that also. You may think me unkind.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
Miss Bingley’s hand tightened on the brass knob. “But I am not mistaken about society.”
The door closed behind her.
Elizabeth remained by the window.
For several minutes she allowed herself the luxury of anger.
It came hot and welcome. She did not doubt him.
That certainty had survived every kindness, every confession, and every look he had given her.
What she doubted was herself. Could affection truly withstand years of whispered comparisons, careful exclusions, and relations who believed he had lowered himself by choosing her?
Miss Bingley was jealous. Miss Bingley was wounded.
Miss Bingley had wrapped old pain around fresh spite and offered it as wisdom.
She did not know Mr. Darcy’s heart. She had mistaken his civility for encouragement and his sister’s gentleness for weakness.
She had underestimated Elizabeth, Georgiana, Lydia, and very likely every person at Pemberley who did not arrange themselves according to her preferences.
Elizabeth would not give her that victory.
She would not doubt a man who had asked, with such raw hope, whether he had any. She would not forget his hand trembling against her cheek, his voice speaking of ardent love without pride, his willingness to humble himself where once he had demanded.
No.
Miss Bingley did not know.
Elizabeth moved back toward the glass.
Her reflection floated faintly there, superimposed upon the garden.
Dark eyes. Wind-touched curls barely contained with pins.
A face not very different from the one that had once stared at Mr. Darcy across a parsonage room and thought him the last man in the world she could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
She had been so certain then.
So certain.
That was the wound Miss Bingley had found, though she had not named it correctly.
Not trade.
Not Lady Catherine.
Not whispers.
Elizabeth could endure whispers.
The fear was simpler and more humiliating.
What if she had misunderstood him again?
Not his heart, perhaps. She could not doubt that entirely.
But his future. His obligations. The extent of what he offered and what it would cost. He had once believed her beneath him.
He did not now, or said he did not, and she believed him.
Yet love had its own blindness. Had she not seen that in Jane?
In Bingley? In herself with Wickham, though that had not been love, thank heaven, just vanity dressed as discernment.
The thought irritated her enough to restore some balance.
Miss Bingley would be delighted if she knew Elizabeth stood here tormenting herself.
That settled the matter for the moment.
Elizabeth left the morning room and went in search of her aunt.
She found Mrs. Gardiner in her chamber, folding a letter.
“My dear,” her aunt said, taking one look at her. “What has happened?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“She spoke to me.”
“Miss Bingley?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Gardiner placed the letter on her desk. “Sit down.”
Elizabeth did, though she almost immediately wished to stand again. “She spoke of trade. Of society. Of what marrying Mr. Darcy might mean.”
Mrs. Gardiner frowned. “Ah.”
“It was not all nonsense.”
“No. That is what makes it crueler.”
Elizabeth looked up.
Her aunt came to sit beside her. “A lie may be dismissed. A partial truth is more troublesome.”
“I do not doubt him.”
“I did not suppose you did.”
“That is almost worse. If I doubted him, I could be angry at him. But I believe him, Aunt. I do. And still I know that believing him does not answer every question.”
Mrs. Gardiner took her hand. “No, it does not.”
“He has not formally asked me.”
“Not at this time.” Her look was knowing.
Elizabeth’s cheeks warmed despite everything. “No.”
“But you believe he will?”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Yes.”
Mrs. Gardiner squeezed her fingers. “Then speak to him when he returns.”
“I mean to.”
“And until then, do not let Miss Bingley borrow trouble on your behalf. She will charge interest.”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself.
“There. Better.”
“Not entirely.”
“Better enough.”
It might have been, had the express not arrived an hour later.
Mr. Gardiner received it in the hall.
Elizabeth heard the commotion from the upper gallery: the quick step of a footman, her uncle’s voice changing, Mrs. Gardiner’s door opening. By the time she reached them, Mr. Gardiner had already broken the seal and read the first page.
His face told her enough.
“What is it?” Mrs. Gardiner asked.
“Ainsley has been injured,” he said.
Mrs. Gardiner pressed one hand to her throat. “Badly?”
“Badly enough that he cannot oversee the warehouse accounts, and there is confusion with the shipment due Monday. I must go back.”
“When?”
Mr. Gardiner read another line, his jaw working silently. “As soon as horses can be made ready.”
Elizabeth gripped the banister.
Mrs. Gardiner came to her, apology already in her eyes.
“Oh, Lizzy.”
The house changed after that.
Trunks emerged.
Servants moved with efficient haste.