With that sentiment bringing an irrepressible smile to Elizabeth’s face, they went out.
Even after only a few days of walking around the park, the great manor house was a familiar object to Elizabeth. They approached closer to the structure, with its giant line of windows, high portico, fine marble columns, and impressive gravel carriageway.
It had never been her privilege to enter a house greater than Netherfield, and while Elizabeth hoped that she was not one of those persons who attributed greater importance to wealth and position than she ought to, she had a natural curiosity.
The door was large and heavy. Two liveried footmen who made a finely matched pair as they were twins, or at least brothers with great similarity of appearance, opened their way. The visiting party was directed to the drawing room by a solemn bald butler whose fine gloves and sober coat made the very image of a respectable and high servant of a great house.
A checkerboard marble floor, high ceiling, massive staircase, a big portrait of a gentleman on a horse. Next to the staircase had been placed a wooden elephant that was a bit taller than Elizabeth.
Oddly though, Elizabeth felt a strange sense ofdeja vu.She could swear that she remembered a wooden elephant just like that. But that elephant in her memory had been much bigger.
Besides that strange sensation, however, Elizabeth was not deeply impressed. The house was much like Netherfield, only on a larger scale.
Elizabeth supposed that she would need to visit an earl’s seat to see anythingtrulyimpressive. But just as Rosings wasonly on a slightly larger scale than Netherfield, and Netherfield not more than two or three times the size of Longbourn, Elizabeth would likewise be disappointed by the seat of an earl whose place would only be a little bigger than Rosings.
If only she had never seen anything but a tiny cottage! Then she could be filled with wonder and a proper sense of her own insignificance.
The drawing room was delightful, a large piano, dark wooden paneling, shelves full of books, a globe that was almost as big as the wooden elephant, tables, couches, everything.
And Mr. Darcy.
He had a solemn expression, but he looked at Elizabeth in a way that she found reassuring, with a hint of a smile. He seemed to be saying to her, “Do not worry, Lady Catherine will do nothing to you, and even if she tries, I will protect you.”
Elizabeth found herself entirely at ease when she was introduced to Mr. Darcy’s aunt.
Lady Catherine stood in grand state, and she was very much the gentlewoman, her hair worked into a style that made her larger, an erect bearing, clear eyes, and a tendency to talk constantly that reminded Elizabeth distinctly of Mr. Collins.
She of course lacked every hint of his submissiveness.
Upon the introduction Lady Catherine stared at Elizabeth for a surprisingly long time. “Well, well. You are the young lady whose visit Mrs. Collins was eager for. Hmmmm.”
Lady Catherine shook her head again, frowned and looked peculiarly at Elizabeth again.
Then she asked Mary which room that Elizabeth had been placed in and offered suggestions upon which types of coals or wood it was best to use in the stove.
Following this, Lady Catherine spent five minutes making “suggestions” and critiques to Mr. Collins upon his sermon—this included her saying in a very kindly way to Mary thatshe thought that the raw material of Mr. Collins’s sermons had improved greatly since he had married, and that the allusions were often more learned and that she could always perceive those parts that were built upon a suggestion of Mrs. Collins.
After this the whole time before dinner was called was occupied with Lady Catherine advising Mrs. Collins on the proper management of servants, the best ways to manage the general cleaning that came about due to the spring, and how best to see to it that Easter was properly solemnized by the wife of a clergyman.
Elizabeth liked Lady Catherine more than Mrs. Bennet.
PoorMaryto be subject to this woman.
Mrs. Bennet had seldom put her own daughters under strict scrutiny. But Mary seemed happy enough at present, and she was always perfectly friendly and patient in listening to this advice, even when it sometimes seemed quite silly to someone with Elizabeth’s greater knowledge of the doings of servants and the details of housework.
“Oh, I wish,” Mary exclaimed, “that I had brought ink and quill with me so that I might write down the chief points of your advice, to make certain that they will stick with me.”
Lady Catherine was all graciousness, all kindness, and at that thought being made she rang the bell and summoned a footman to collect such writing implements, for the use of Mrs. Collins.
It so transpired that, as Elizabeth had suspected would be the case, the large lady’s desk in the corner of the drawing room contained all the necessary implements, including a portable surface to write upon.
Mary eagerly set up her station on one of the chairs, the tilted writing surface on her lap, and turned her face up to show every readiness to hear that wisdom dispensed by Lady Catherine.
Mary found advantages in a feature of her marriage that Elizabeth would have considered as being a most seriousdisadvantage.
Elizabeth’s eyes drifted to Darcy’s, and he smiled at her as though to say that he too thought the same as she did.
This was the key to Mary’s present happiness. She was in fact a little silly. But that was no cause for shame. Better to be silly and happy than wise—or merely clever—and unhappy.
