Mr. Collins turned toward her. He had formed his first impression upon entering the room, which was that she was not handsome in the way her sister was handsome. Upon further consideration, however, he had found her eyes rather fine, her manner animated, and her accomplishments unusually suitable. He had it upon unimpeachable authority that the matter was settled, and considered himself, on the whole, very well pleased with the arrangement.
"Cousin Elizabeth," he said, "I understand you are most particularly employed in the management of this household. It is a most commendable quality, most commendable. Lady Catherine herself is of the opinion that a young woman whoapplies herself to the practical arts of domestic management is a far more estimable creature than one who merely ornaments a drawing room, and I find myself, as I generally do, in complete agreement with her ladyship, whose understanding is, in my experience, without parallel.I am told you are very accomplished, Cousin Elizabeth."
"You are told a great deal, Mr. Collins," Elizabeth replied pleasantly, "that may not entirely survive closer examination."
Mrs. Bennet's cup came down rather sharply."Lizzy."
"I mean only," Elizabeth continued, with the composure of long practice, "that Mr. Collins ought to form his own opinions. Second-hand accounts are rarely quite accurate."
Collins produced a smile that attempted to accommodate both compliment and correction.
"Ha. Yes. Most refreshingly put, Cousin Elizabeth. A lively mind is a very agreeable quality, I am sure, and I do not at all object to it." He said this in the manner of a man granting a concession he had not been asked for. "I shall look forward greatly to forming my own opinions, as you recommend. I shall look forward to it very much indeed."
He looked at her as he said it, with a smile that remained rather longer than the sentence required.
From the mantelpiece, Darcy looked away and fixed his attention upon the window. Proper channels existed for a reason. He was finding the belief somewhat harder to maintain than usual.
Lydia, who had been observing Mr. Darcy throughout with the frank curiosity of someone conducting a private assessment, decided it was time to make herself known to his attention.
"Mr. Darcy," she said, with the confidence of someone accustomed to being found charming, "those are your carriages in the drive, are they not? Both of them?"
"They are," said Darcy.
"And do you always travel with two?"
"When occasion requires it."
“And the horses, are they your own? They are very fine. Do you attend many assemblies? We have a very good assembly at Meryton. And do you dance?”
A pause that was, in its way, rather eloquent. "When I am prevailed upon to do so."
She withdrew with the decisive efficiency of someone reallocating a resource, and turned to Kitty with something more promising to discuss.
It was at this moment that Jane turned to Elizabeth. “Lizzy, you look tired. The journey must have been so long.” She glanced toward their mother. “I said so this morning, did I not, Mama? I said I hoped Lizzy had not been overdoing it.”
Mrs. Bennet required no further invitation.“She never listens,” she said, with the comfortable authority of long experience. “I have always said so. Up at all hours, out in all weathers, coming home in a state beyond redemption. I used to say to Mr. Bennet, I cannot think what is to become of this girl, because a young woman who will not take care of her appearance cannot expect to be taken seriously by the world, and it is not as though she has not been told. She was climbing trees at an age when Jane was already perfectly behaved, and she could not be kept from the fields, and there was that business with the Whitmore boy which I prefer not to think about, and her hair was always—” she paused, appearing to collect herself,and produced a smile in the general direction of the room. “Well, she has a great deal of spirit. I have always said so. It is her best quality.”
Elizabeth looked at her hands as Mrs. Gardiner set down her cup.“Elizabeth has a great deal more than spirit,” she said, with the serene composure of a woman who had chosen her moment. “She has judgment, and steadiness, and a quality of attention that is considerably rarer than people generally suppose. But you will have observed as much yourselves.” She addressed this to the room at large and returned to her tea.
Mrs. Bennet received this with the expression of a woman marshalling her response; but before she could deploy it, Mr. Bingley, who had been peacefully admiring Miss Bennet and had registered the temperature of the room only dimly, looked up with good-natured uncertainty. "I wonder," he said, to no one in particular, "whether it might rain tomorrow. The roads were very fine today, were they not, Darcy? Very fine indeed."
In the relative quiet that followed, Mr. Collins leaned toward Elizabeth with the steady confidence of a man returning to a subject he considers well within his rights. "Cousin Elizabeth," he said, in a lowered voice that was not, in fact, particularly low, "I had hoped, before the afternoon concluded, to speak with you upon a matter of some personal significance. The accounts I have received, and not only of your domestic accomplishments but of certain other circumstances which are, I believe, known to us both, have led me to anticipate this occasion with feelings of considerable warmth, and I venture to hope that you may have been, in some measure, similarly prepared for—"
"Collins." Mr. Bennet did not look up from his cup. His voice was pleasant, unhurried, and carried the quality of a man who has been attending to every word and has decided that enough of them have been spoken. "I believe Lizzy has not yet hadthe opportunity to taste Mrs. Hill's seedcake. It is considered very good." He looked at Elizabeth then, briefly, with eyes that communicated nothing useful and everything alarming. "You must try it, my dear."
Collins subsided with the expression of a man reserving his remarks for a more suitable occasion. He had no doubt such an occasion would present itself.
Elizabeth took the seedcake and held it without tasting it, and thought about the word circumstances, and the word prepared, and the particular careful way her father had looked at her just now, and the equally particular careful way he had not. There was something she did not know. As the thought settled upon her, her eyes met Darcy's across the room, and for a moment the careful attention he had been directing at the company fell away. She saw instead the man she knew from the beach, and from the morning walks, and from the small excursions with her aunt and uncle that had become, over six weeks, the foundation of everything she had said yes to. He was there, entirely present.
Then someone in the room shifted, or a cup was set down, or perhaps nothing happened at all except that the weight of the afternoon reasserted itself, and the mask returned; not harshly, but completely, the way a door closes in a quiet house. She looked down at the seedcake in her hands. She had her answer. She could not, at this particular moment, feel it. But she had it.
Mr. Bennet, behind his untouched book, had been watching them both. He did not yet know what had been arranged between them. He knew only that something had been, and that Collins's position had become considerably more complicated than it had appeared that morning. His plan required revision. Elizabeth must not be permitted to suspect, before the matterwas properly settled, that she had any choice in it. He turned a page he had not read.
Darcy had heard every unfinished word. Certain arrangements. Under consideration for some time. The principal. He had come to Longbourn to speak to Mr. Bennet openly, as honour required. He had not anticipated finding that Mr. Bennet might already have made arrangements of his own. He needed that conversation, and soon.
Bingley set down his cup with the cheerful decisiveness of a man to whom a practical thought had just occurred.
“Darcy,” he said, “we have kept these ladies long enough after such a journey. We ought to go.”
