“Well,” she said, when Richard had finished speaking, “whyever it is you are here, I must say it is nice to have guests. Will you both sit down? We would offer refreshment, but we have a strict schedule here of having nothing until teatime.”
“Of course, you were not expecting us,” said Richard, “and we should be quite willing to observe whatever traditions the house has, of course.”
We sat down.
Richard smiled at Miss Bennet. “You must be Miss Bennet, then.”
“You have heard of me, sir?” said Miss Bennet.
“Quite,” said the colonel.
“From Mr. Darcy?” she said, turning to take me in. “I would not think I would rouse much interest to Mr. Darcy.”
“Madam, of course I think you quite interesting,” I said.
Richard turned to me, giving his head just the barest of shakes, as if I should not have said that.
I bowed my head.
Richard turned to both of the women and engaged them in a very boring conversation about the weather. It went on for some time, what did they think of the general warming trend, how happy were they that winter had passed, that sort of thing.
It was insipid, for winter passed every year, and there was always a general warming trend in late April.
I remained silent for all of it.
Then Richard and Lady Susannah began to speak about the neighborhood itself, how Lady Susannah used to like to take walks on the grounds, but that now she could not, because of her cane and how certain weather caused the pain in her joints to flare badly, and Richard continued to ask questions about these sorts of things.
Miss Bennet’s eyes seemed to glaze over, and she said nothing either. I watched her and she gazed off into the distance as if she was lost to her own train of thought. Eventually, she realized that I was looking at her and she met my gaze.
I tried a smile.
She tilted her head to one side as if she could not figure me out.
Finally, Richard said, “Well, I should love to have a house like this in the country, but that will not be up to me, I suppose. The only way I shall have something like that is if I marry a woman who has a house in the country, you see. I have nothing of that on my own.”
“Is that so?” said Lady Susannah, eyeing him.
“Indeed,” said Richard. “I am not the heir to my father’s holdings, you see, so I have very little to see to for myself. It is the lot in life for second sons.”
Why was he saying this?
“You never married, that is what I hear, Lady Susannah,” said Richard, bold as brass. “Do you ever regret that?”
“Regret it, my dear boy,” said Lady Susannah, “but what you have said illustrates why marriage is such a raw deal for the fairer sex, do you not think? For if we marry, our country houses become our husband’s country houses.”
“Yes, but it’s much the same way the other direction,” said Richard. “My cousin Mr. Darcy here, he has country houses, and when he marries, they will belong to his wife.”
“No, no, not in the same way,” said Lady Susannah. “You know that and so do I.”
“Well, surely it is better for the delicate, feminine mind to have someone else to worry over these matters for her,” said Richard.
“Better?” broke in Miss Bennet sharply. “I don’t know if I agree. It is easier and more pleasant to rely on someone else, perhaps, but it only makes a body entirely reliant.”
“Yes,” said Lady Susannah, “and this, I think, is what men are after in the end. I think they wish to convince women that we are more helpless than we actually are.”
“Oh?” said Richard, smiling as if he had just won some sort of trophy when it seemed to me that he had only provoked some kind of argument. “Do expound upon this a bit further, my lady.”
“I shall fully own that there may have been a time in human history when it was necessary that men take on certain burdens that women could not,” she said. “But all of that has mostly passed us by, has it not? We have farms now. We are not out in the wilds killing things for our sustenance. We inherit houses. We do not have to construct our shelter with the sweat of our own brow. It seems to me that whatever natural advantages men have over women, they have civilized them into meaninglessness. And yet, men still want to rule over us, even if there is no reason for it anymore.”
