“Because I have observed him,” returned her husband, his tone quiet but firm. “And because he has been taught, by circumstances rather than instruction, that obligation is not a claim, but a trust—a lesson hard won, and one that has formed his character more surely than any precept.”
Mrs. Bennet was silent for a moment, turning this over in her mind with reluctant consideration; but silence, with her, was rarely surrender.
“And what of the girls?” she resumed, her voice softening into a plaintive note. “Am I to tell them that their father is educating a cousin while they must content themselves with nothing but hopes? They will think it the strangest thing in the world—and perhaps resent it, as young ladies are apt to do when their prospects seem overlooked.”
“They shall think what they please,” said Mr. Bennet, “provided they think it at home, and without expense. You know very well that I have been personally taking care of their education all these years, in my own fashion.”
Seeing that argument was unlikely to move her husband from a determination so calmly expressed, and perceiving at last the quiet resolve beneath his mildness, Mrs. Bennet had recourse to her last defense—prediction.
“You will repent it,” said she solemnly, fixing him with a look of prophetic certainty. “Mark my words—you will repent it.”
“That,” replied Mr. Bennet, rising with a slight bow that acknowledged the familiar ritual of their exchanges, “is a possibility I have already taken into account.”
***
If Mrs. Bennet’s opposition did not alter her husband’s purpose, it at least served to regulate it, impressing upon him with renewed force the necessity of proceeding with the utmost discretion. He was resolved that no part of his design should encroach upon the visible comfort of his family—neither diminishing the customary allowances for pin-money nor occasioning any perceptible curtailment of household expenditures; and to this end he applied himself, with a diligence which few suspected him capable of—and which even he himself undertook with a private sense of surprise at his own perseverance—to the necessary arrangements.
He wrote first to those friends of his youth whose circumstances and dispositions he best understood—men with whom he had once read, disputed, and idled away many anhour at Cambridge; men who had since exchanged the frivolities of speculation for the sober pursuits of practice, and who now occupied themselves in the respectable spheres of scholarship, instruction, and the Church. His letters were brief, unadorned, and free from entreaty, composed in his neat, economical hand and dispatched with a quiet hope that tempered his natural skepticism. He stated the case as it stood: a young man of good character and moderate ability, with some modest provision of his own, in need of direction rather than indulgence; and he asked, not for charity, but for supervision. If the boy proved worthy after a preparatory year, he would require further support of a kind which their old friend Bennet could—and assuredly would—provide.
To one of these letters he received, in due course, a reply which satisfied him more fully than he had dared anticipate. The writer—Professor Saunders, an old acquaintance from his university days, now settled in quiet respectability at Oxford—expressed himself willing to receive the boy during his college terms, to lodge him under his own roof, and to assist him in his studies, upon terms which were neither lavish nor degrading, but framed with the plain honesty of a scholar who valued usefulness above display. Mr. Saunders spoke of discipline, of regular hours, of plain living, and of expectations clearly defined; and though there was no warmth in his tone—no effusion of paternal solicitude—there was something better: steadiness, the calm assurance of a man whose own life had been ordered by principle rather than impulse.
Mr. Bennet answered at once, with a promptitude that betrayed his inward relief, and the matter was concluded after a few further exchanges of letters, each more confirmatory than the last.
It was then necessary to inform Richard Collins of what had been arranged. Mr. Bennet wrote to him with that courtesy which costs little when it is unaccompanied by illusion, choosing his words with care to avoid any note of superiority or condescension, and explained, without reproach or apology, the plan for William’s instruction and eventual removal to Oxford, should he successfully remedy his deficiencies within the preparatory year. He did not disguise the fact that the boy’s continued residence at the inn must then prove incompatible with his improvement; nor did he affect to believe that Richard’s circumstances would materially alter for the worse by his absence—indeed, hinting gently at the relief it might afford. If there was pride to be wounded, it was spared; if there was indifference to be gratified, it was indulged.
Richard Collins returned a letter of confused gratitude and careless assent, scrawled in his uneven hand and bearing the faint stain of ink blurred by haste, in which he declared himself glad to be relieved of anxiety, and perfectly satisfied that the boy should be made something better than himself, provided he were not troubled with the details. He added a brief postscript noting that young James Cox was proving a steady worker at the inn, laboring diligently both for his own support and to ease his friend’s path toward education—a circumstance that afforded Mr. Bennet a quiet satisfaction.
William was informed last of all, as befitted the principal party in the arrangement. Mr. Bennet wrote to him with a directness which he had learned to value in others, and which he trusted would convey both authority and encouragement. Mr. Bennet spoke of the opportunity now placed before the young man; of the absolute necessity of application; of the strict limits of the assistance offered; and of the expectation—neither more nor less—that he should conduct himself with propriety anddiligence. There was no language of affection, and no promise of indulgence; but there was, between the lines, that confidence which young men often feel more keenly than praise, a tacit belief in his capacity to rise to the occasion.
William’s reply, when it came, was short, but so earnest as to satisfy even Mr. Bennet, who was not easily impressed by professions, and who read it twice with a faint nod of approval. He expressed his gratitude without effusion, his resolution without bravado, and his sense of obligation without servility—closing with a simple assurance that he would strive not to disappoint the trust reposed in him.
Thus, by degrees and without display, the plan took shape; and when at last Mrs. Bennet perceived—through the gradual accumulation of hints and the occasional abstracted air of her husband—that the business was settled beyond recall, she resigned herself to it with the air of one who submits to necessity while reserving the right to complain of it hereafter, though her complaints grew gradually milder, tempered by the reassuring knowledge that no immediate sacrifice would be demanded of her own comforts or her daughters’ prospects.
Four
The year which followed Mr. Bennet’s departure from Portsmouth passed with little outward disturbance at Longbourn, yet not without a steady undercurrent of correspondence and consideration which occupied more of his attention than his family at first supposed—and which he pursued with a quiet persistence that would have surprised those who knew him only for his customary indolence. To Mrs. Bennet, whose notions of consequence were commonly awakened only by visible alteration—visits, expenses, or the introduction of new faces—the months appeared much as any other; her husband was no oftener absent than before, the household accounts remained unalarmed, and no young relation arrived to demand accommodation or sympathy. She therefore concluded, with some relief—expressed in the occasional triumphant glance toward her husband, as though she had foreseen the matter’s gradual and convenient fading away—that Portsmouth was no more than an episode of transient duty rather than lasting consequence, and she resumed her usual round of complaints and anticipations with renewed vigor.
Mr. Bennet, however, knew better, and permitted himself a private satisfaction at the steady progress unfolding beyond her notice. From the time William Collins entered Mr. Jennings’s office as a junior copyist, a regular exchange of letters was established—quiet, factual, and singularly free of sentiment, yet affording Mr. Bennet a growing sense of quiet vindication. Mr. Jennings reported with professional satisfaction that the boy’s hand was not merely legible and correct but improving daily;that his attention did not wander; and that, once instructed, he repeated an error no more than once—habits which the solicitor described as “most gratifying in one so young and so lately removed from irregular circumstances.” Mr. Cobb, whose earlier impatience had given way to genuine interest—and even, in his later letters, to a note of paternal pride—wrote more freely still, remarking upon William’s uncommon willingness to labor strenuously, and his habit of remaining at his desk long after other apprentices of his age would have sought diversion in the streets. He noted, with some pride, that the boy copied not only what was required of him, but occasionally read what interested him—acts which, though not encouraged, were quietly approved, as betraying a native curiosity that promised well for future scholarship.
From the church came reports of a different, though complementary, nature. Father Hartley, whose judgments were formed neither hastily nor indulgently, and whose clerical reserve lent weight to every approbation, observed that William’s Latin, once uncertain, had acquired steadiness; that his translations, while not elegant, were faithful and conscientious; and that his disposition toward study appeared neither forced nor fragile. William had also, with steady application, accustomed himself to the rudiments of Greek, a circumstance that drew from the good father a measured commendation. Mr. Aldridge, the retired curate engaged for his instruction, was more explicit still. He declared the boy fit, with continued application, to present himself for collegiate preparation; not as a prodigy, nor as one destined to distinction, but as a young man capable of discipline, submission, and perseverance—qualities which, in his opinion, were better foundations for clerical life than brilliance without restraint, andwhich he illustrated with brief anecdotes of the boy’s patient correction of his own faults.
William himself wrote constantly, his letters arriving with pleasing regularity and always directed in his increasingly accomplished hand. His letters were brief, respectful, and marked by an exactness of expression which showed both care and progress. He spoke little of his own merit, nothing of hardship, and never of complaint; but he mentioned his work, his studies, and his gratitude with a steadiness that satisfied Mr. Bennet more than enthusiasm could have done—and which occasionally drew from the gentleman a faint, involuntary smile as he read by the fireside. There was no hint of presumption, and no trace of dependency beyond what the situation properly required, only a quiet assurance that the trust reposed in him was being diligently honored.
By the end of the year, therefore, Mr. Bennet found himself in possession of a rare and gratifying concurrence of testimony—a harmony of judgment that afforded him a deeper contentment than he would readily confess. The solicitor declared the boy useful; the tutor pronounced him prepared; and the boy himself appeared neither elated by encouragement nor daunted by expectation. It was then that Mr. Bennet resolved—without announcement, and with his usual dislike of ceremony—yet not without a private sense of anticipation at seeing the fruits of his intervention in person—that the time had come to take the next step.
He would go himself to Portsmouth, travelling with his customary economy and without fuss. The purpose of this journey, however, was not merely to inspect what others had observed, but to conduct William in person to Oxford, there to be examined with a view to his admission, and to lodgehim, during the trials, under the roof of Professor Saunders, whose earlier promise of supervision had not diminished with time—and whose recent letters had reaffirmed his willingness with scholarly punctuality. Should the boy’s preparation prove equal to the undertaking, he would be received with a view to presenting him for matriculation at Michaelmas; should it fall short, no harm would be done, and the delay would be instructive rather than mortifying—a contingency Mr. Bennet contemplated with his characteristic equanimity.
Such was Mr. Bennet’s reasoning; cautious, deliberate, and free of false optimism, yet tempered by a growing conviction that the boy would not disappoint.
He planned, therefore, to take William from his father, bring him to Longbourn first to meet his family, there to pass a short interval—no more than a day and a half, he calculated—before proceeding onward. Mr. Bennet made this decision without consulting his wife, not from secrecy, but from habit, knowing full well the tempest it would initially provoke; and when he at last informed her of it, over tea one quiet evening, he did so with such calm assurance that opposition, though attempted with her usual vigor, expired for want of encouragement.
Mrs. Bennet protested, as was natural, against the inconvenience of an unexpected visitor—her voice rising in familiar lamentation over the disruption to household routine, the extra work for the servants, and the inevitable strain upon her nerves—until she learned that the young man was to remain only for a few days, and that his prospects lay elsewhere, far from any permanent claim upon Longbourn’s resources. She then softened perceptibly, her indignation giving way to cautious curiosity, and even began to wonder aloud—without committing herself to the opinion—whether a clergyman in thefamily might not, after all, be a respectable acquisition, should he prove agreeable in person and not too encroaching in his manners.
Of William himself, she had formed no clear idea, owing to the paucity of information concerning him—her husband’s habitual reticence on the subject having left her imagination free to wander between vague apprehension and indifferent dismissal. That impression was soon to be supplied, and with it, perhaps, a revision of her poorer expectations.
***
Mr. Bennet and his young cousin reached Longbourn on the Tuesday afternoon, when the heat of the day had begun to abate, and the shadows of the old elms and beeches lay stretched and quiet upon the gravel sweep, as if the very place were disposed to receive them with its customary composure. The carriage had scarcely drawn up before the main entrance door, its wheels crunching softly to a halt amid the familiar scent of warmed earth and late-summer roses, when Mrs. Bennet—who, having been told of their approach by a maid’s hurried report, had professed to disbelieve it until belief became unavoidable—was seen in the passage, her cap-strings fluttering with a movement which she would have attributed to the weather, but which owed rather more to agitated expectation than to any breeze.
