After her friend had left Longbourn, Mama said to Elizabeth, “Lady Lucas just does not wish to see her Charlotte overshadowed by you. Charlotte is such a plain creature though, but it is not her fault. All my girls, even Mary, are prettier by far.”
This evening her mother had been in her ordinary nervous flutter. She had insisted strongly that the girls must pay attention to the dancing, and to not be ashamed by the fact that they would be wearing older dresses, arriving on foot, and that they would lack a footman to be sent off from the servant’s shack if they had any necessary errands.
Mama was the most insistent of all that they must feel no shame about the lack of the fine hair styles that a real lady’s maid would have produced.
One might suspect, if they were not Elizabeth, that Mama’s lengthy discourse on the number of matters that they need not be ashamed of due to their constrained financial situation following Mr. Bennet’s death reflected her own shame.
Elizabeth need not suspect, as she had heard her mother more than once rant and rail to her, to Elizabeth’s sisters, to her mother’s sister, and to the few remaining servants, upon how shameful it was that Mr. Collins did not permit them the use of a carriage. He expected Mama to make do with her own funds for clothing, food, and everything beyond the bare necessities required to keep the house in good order.
The ball was too soon. The room oppressed her.
Harsh violins, raucous tilting cellos, the trumpet and drums. Everyone sounded an octave off key. There was something in the scent of the assembly hall that Elizabeth did not like, and that she had never noticed. Everyone’s conversation was happy, and half drunk. The wine was terrible.
Elizabeth’s feet wished to stumble, not dance.
And Mama glared at her, because she did not act happy and flirted with no one.
A part of Elizabeth wished to flirt and use her womanly wiles to find an escape from present circumstances.
Elizabeth was not quite sure what she wished to escape from.
It was not the loss of status and comforts. It was not the frustration of being subject to the small and fool minded will of Mr. Collins. Even though Mr. Collins had sold off all the novels present in the house when he took possession, and then proclaimed that none would be read within his house — this following the advice of his patroness.
Well, shedidwish to be free of Mr. Collins’s influence.
But it was not chiefly that. Elizabeth felt alone.
Papa died and Jane was thrown by circumstance and choice into her harsh exile in Kent, with Collins as the jailor. Charlotte’s simple approval of Jane’s marriage had almost created a rupture in their friendship, and… Elizabeth was now fully aware that their minds were not alike in matters of greatest importance. After the argument they had about Jane’s marriage to Mr. Collins, things simply could not be the same.
At least Kitty and Lydia were happy at the ball. They behaved like colts that had been kept in the barn too long, and who were finally given a chance to run. They drank, laughed, danced, flirted, and acted as though they had not a lone care in the world.
Despite her melancholy, after a dance with Charlotte’s brother, Mr. Lucas, Elizabeth found herself unable tonotbe strongly interested in the intelligence Mr. Harris offered to a group of the ladies of the neighbourhood about Mr. Darcy.
“Oh yes,” Mr. Harris said, “A widower. His wife died in the spring a year past. The tragedy Eve brought upon all her daughters. His wife was a great heiress. I was told that the windows alone cost ten thousand pounds on the house she inherited! Ten thousand pounds! For windows!”
“And yet,” Mrs. Long said, “all that wealth helped her not at all when the grim angel came.”
“They say,” Mr. Harris added, “that he is devoted to his wife’s memory, and you can see that he has not left half mourning after all of this time.”
“Look at his eyes,” Miss Gold fluttered. “You can see the ghosts of his dead in them.”
Elizabeth looked towards Mr. Darcy, who frowned at them, as though he were aware that he was the subject of their conversation. He turned determinedly away.Shesaw no female ghosts in his eyes, though those eyes were as deep as a sea.
“Did the child survive?” Mrs. Long asked practically. “And was it a boy or a girl?”
“I believe the child survived.” Mr. Harris then stammered before adding, “I cannot recall whether it was a female or a male child. But Mr. Darcy is very wealthy. He is originally from Derbyshire.”
“We were already aware ofthat,” Mrs. Long replied. “But in precise figures and sums how wealthy is ‘very’?”
Elizabeth did not consider Mrs. Long’s sharp reply to be wholly justified.Elizabethat least had not been aware that he hailed from Derbyshire. That was of rather less importance to everyone of sense than the size of the fortune owned by the gentleman present with them.
Later in conversation Elizabeth heard from another guest the definite information that Darcy’s own estate of Pemberley was worth more than ten thousand a year, and that his infant daughter owned an estate outright in Kent that was worth nearly as much again.
Mr. Darcy’s standoffish manners did not destroy the fascination which he held for the inhabitants of the ballroom. A fascination particularly felt by the younger and more unmarried females. You could see in the twist of his mouth how he couldnot stand to witness the joys of the dance. Without a doubt the joyfulness of the crowds in this room reminded him of happier days spent lightly dancing with his beloved.
But O the heavy change now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
