Elizabeth’s glance at me was ripe with anxiety, and that was sufficient to induce me to enact desperate measures.
I sent to the kennel to retrieve the smallest, daintiest whelp—the runt who would have been drowned were I a different man. Thinking there were very few people in the world who could resist a puppy, I scooped her up and carted her up to the parlor. As I passed a mirror, I caught sight of myself. A faint grimace and long-suffering sigh rather told the tale. It boggled that I was so enslaved I would respond to a mere look, but there I was—carting a dog up the grand staircase—and I felt it a matter of my own survival that Elizabeth never know the extent to which I could be twisted around the crook of her elegant little finger.
Fortunately for the ladies—and unfortunately for my campaign to withstand Cupid’s assault upon me—my mission proved curative. The feeling of distress that had filled the room instantly evaporated, and I was rewarded with a display of Elizabeth cooing unrestrainedly into the face of an infant dog.
Lord, my heart! If she were ever to look at me like…but I must have been staring. She became embarrassed to have so forgotten herself and, with a prim little flourish, returned the runt to my custody; I was, in effect, dismissed.
That night, Elizabeth came down to dinner. She looked determined to be happy and to make my sister equally so, and Georgiana was quite ready to laugh. She had become increasingly untroubled by the possibility Wickham might smear her name, and her spirits rose to a degree of lightness I had not seen in some time.
As though I were not already enchanted—in one stroke, Elizabeth commiserated with Georgiana about her fear of coming out, reconciled her to the need to do so, and reassured her that she would do well enough.Since in all my attempts to fortify her resolve I had only ever helped to terrify my sister more, I sat in total wonder to witness such dexterity.
But it was when Elizabeth answered my sister’s enquiry into the members of her family that the lady’s true genius showed itself. Having my own unflattering opinions, I had been quite curious what she would say about her sisters—how she might minimize the faults of their education and upbringing.
But Elizabeth made no such attempt. She simply related to Georgiana the unadulterated truth, but her assessments were so deftly presented in the context of general human ridiculousness, it was impossible to judge them as harshly as I had. Her description of her middle sister Mary’s playing and singing nearly sent Parker out of the room, but it was such a brilliant portrait in miniature, my opinion of the poor girl softened considerably.
As she had so many times before, Elizabeth spoke in layers upon layers. Georgiana laughed herself into tears, and members of the household who were privy to this history were informed of the precise placement of the Bennet family in the strata of society: an old family, buried in the country, gentrified but not rich.
Meanwhile, I, who had been to Meryton and seen these people for myself, was taught just how Jane, Mary, Lydia, and Kitty had turned out as they had. The inadequacies of their characters were somehow more understandable to me as a result of that glimpse into the haphazard, unequal, and neglectful manner of their upbringing. Even the parents, who were sketched by default, and who I would have bitterly condemned for stupidity, suddenly struck me as mere human beings, subject to the whims and struggles of life with whatever inner resources they had.
I could not help but think of Aurelius’s advice:Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.That is precisely what Elizabeth seemed to be doing. Unable to effect any change in their characters, she was teaching herself to bear with her siblings by becoming conscious of their faults and the reasons for them.
She did not spare them from her wit, but clearly, she loved them very much. At the end of her caricature describing life at home, she laughingly, though plainly, begged my sister never to visit Longbourn, forcing me to see that it was not so much the folly of her family that caused her pain; rather, it was our judgment of them she dreaded most.
I contributed very little and served more as an audience to the interplay between Georgiana and her particular friend, but the conversation had a profound effect on me nevertheless. I could not take my eyes off the lady who was revealing to me how my harsh opinions, so poorly disguised, were a genuine weakness. Who was I to judge anyone’s character if my own was so imperfect? I had despised poor, neglected Mary Bennet, and if that did not show me the smallness of my mind, nothing could.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
On the fifteenth day of February, Mr. Gardiner arrived.
Perhaps it was an odd coincidence that the house had fallen into a state of settled silence that only increased from the moment his coach was seen coming down the drive.
I was alerted to his imminent arrival because I sat in my study with the door ajar; I heard the footsteps and murmurs of the footmen and a call for someone to find Mr. Parker. I stepped out and asked that my sister be brought down before I went to the doorway to greet our guest.
I was vaguely aware that I would meet Mrs. Bennet’s brother, and I had formed any number of expectations regarding this man who was reportedly a resident of Cheapside in London proper. What I saw, however, was the stern and uncompromising face of a man laboring under a strong sense of indignation.
My sense of foreboding, which had been slowly on the rise for days, bloomed into extreme sobriety in meeting this man.
“Welcome to Pemberley, Mr. Gardiner,” I said.
He crisply bowed and thanked me, quickly introducing the reason for his visit. “I understand I might find my niece Elizabeth Bennet and my aunt-by-marriage, Mrs. Jennings, here, sir.”
“They have been our guests—yes. Allow me to introduce my sister.”
They met, and Georgiana invited him into the parlor and offered refreshments; he managed to refuse her invitation with a bare modicum of politeness by expressing an eagerness to see his niece.
My sister, thrown into confusion, knew enough to leave an angry man to me to manage. She sweetly excused herself directly after I replied that I would send for his niece.
“I am grateful for your hospitality, Mr. Darcy, and for that of your sister, but I am sure my family has imposed long enough, and I shall see them home.”
“There has not been the least imposition.” I gestured toward a chair, hoping he would make himself comfortable. “Might I have a room made up for you? We have had every expectation you would stay with us at Pemberley for at least a few days.”
“As much as I appreciate your offer, I believe we must go, sir,” he said briskly while still standing.
“Well, after you have spoken to Miss Bennet, perhaps I might yet convince you. Are you certain there is nothing I might have brought up for you?”
“My niece will be sufficient.”
Something in the disguised hostility of his words radiated his deep suspicion that I had her in my custody—under my power perhaps—and had I not been trained to regulate my expression, my eyes would have closed in that universal expression of doom. His impression was so unflattering to me and so condemnatory of Elizabeth that I excused myself and went personally to find her.
