Page 55 of The Marriage Articles

Then it was Elizabeth’s own turn. She had chosen for herself a light Scottish air she had known all her life, a song of no consequence at all, and she sang it with an arch little confidence that she enjoyed in herself and made no attempt to disguise. There was applause again. When she rose and looked about the room she found Darcy watching her with such unguarded admiration that she coloured and was flattered past all possibility of composure.

Tea and cake were brought in. The company came unstitched from its chairs and mingled with the freedom belonging to an interval in music. Jane and Miss de Bourgh withdrew together to the corner beyond the hearth. There they conferred upon Jane’s drawings and a collection Miss de Bourgh had viewed in London with the Matlocks, discussing line and light and the proper way to render a face. Elizabeth watched them from her place by the window and was grateful in the whole of herself. A friendship that deepened without display was the only friendship she had ever valued, and she was glad of it for Jane, who deserved every gentle thing the world could be persuaded to give her. Miss Bingley, meanwhile, had removed herself to the sideboard, where she appeared to be attempting to remain apart from the company altogether. Elizabeth hoped it would last.

It did not.

Elizabeth had seen her coming before she arrived, the smile already fitted and the angle of approach chosen, and she experienced a resignation so old it might have been affection. Miss Bingley had worn that face whenever Elizabeth entered a room at Netherfield, and the only novelty at Pemberley was the room. The method was unchanged.

“How very becoming you continue to be, Mrs Darcy,” said Miss Bingley. “So few hostesses, even those of long practice, could manage an evening of this sort with such pleasant economy.”

Elizabeth was spared answering because Mr Bingley came up at that moment, looking precisely like a man who had spent the entire evening trying to catch a word with the mistress of the house, and she was obliged to give it to him. Miss Bingley’s little offering went into the cheerfulness of her brother unopposed and disappeared there, and Elizabeth allowed herself a moment’s hope that the matter might end so. Miss Bingley returned to it a moment later, having rephrased it for more open ground, armed with her accustomed perseverance and a smile designed to survive anything.

“Pemberley, of course, keeps up its old customs so very comfortably,” she said. “It is delightful to know a house so thoroughly, and to recall, as I do with such fondness, the little economies one learns to manage without in a smaller establishment. At Longbourn, I daresay, one must be obliged to be sparing of absolutely everything.”

Elizabeth was not obliged to be sparing of anything. She had never been more indifferent to a remark in her life. “One must grow accustomed to economy, Miss Bingley,” she said, “where it is the chief company one keeps.”

Miss Bingley smiled. It was later, however, when the tea had gone round and Miss Bingley’s corner had been proved unavailing, that there came the barb of a different kind. It was delivered within a lowered tone, clearly meant not to reach the part of the room where Lady Catherine sat, though everybody present attended to it.

Elizabeth knew what was coming before she heard it, for Miss Bingley had never in truth objected to Elizabeth herself. She objected to Longbourn. She objected to the family behind it and to the county it sat in, and to everything that made Elizabeth Bennet a name to be condescended over. She had been playing that note since Hertfordshire, and Elizabeth, who had once minded it very much, awaited this performance with something near curiosity.

“Your gown, if I may say so, is quite the prettiest thing in the room, Mrs Darcy,” said Miss Bingley. “I always think of Longbourn when I see you so elegantly turned out, for there is a taste in a country gown that a lady from a smaller family may carry to the best advantage. Nobody could call it pretension. It is merely charming.”

There was a small clatter of china three chairs off, and Elizabeth’s eye went to the sound and stayed. Lady Catherine had set down her cup and saucer and was regarding neither of them, her gaze arriving somewhere over their heads at the far wall. Elizabeth had by now learned a good deal about her ladyship’s stillnesses, and she did not mistake this one for inattention. It was not inattention. It was inventory.

It was Georgiana who answered. She did it quietly, and with a firmness that turned the whole room towards her. She spoke from her chair by the hearth, and her eyes went directly to Miss Bingley and stayed there, never once, not even for half a moment, travelling to the tall white feather in Miss Bingley’s hair.

“My sister’s taste, in dress and in everything else, is the most refined I have ever known,” said Georgiana. “She has elegance without the smallest pretension in the world, which I have observed to be uncommon, and I believe anyone here will agree with me.”

Nobody did anything so vulgar as agree aloud, of course. But the sentiment was universally understood.

“There is a distinction, as I have always held, between a family founded in trade and a family founded in the character of a gentleman,” said Lady Catherine, quite evenly, and without once raising her voice. “It is a subject which invites exactness, and exactness is a habit I recommend. Your father, I believe, was in the cotton trade, Miss Bingleby. That is a respectable calling enough. Mrs Darcy’s father is a gentleman, which is a condition and not a calling at all, and the distinction is exactly what forms the difference between an opinion and a pretension.”

The room fell altogether silent. Caroline was white. Mrs Hurst was white. Mr Bingley said nothing at all.

“Is there more cake?” enquired Mr Hurst.

Six days of the fortnight had gone. Eight remained. Elizabeth could not find any reason to regret them.

❧ ❧ ❧

The trunks had come down by half past nine, and by ten the entrance hall at Pemberley held more farewells than it had ever been called upon to hold at the same time. Elizabeth stood at her husband’s side. Jane, Georgiana and Miss de Bourgh made a little farewell line beside them, while Lady Catherine stood apart, observing, as she had observed everything at Pemberley for rather longer than anyone had invited her to.

Mr Bingley came forward first, all warmth. No memory of the fortnight appeared to trouble him. Between the picnic, the soiree, the shooting party and the village visits, he had done nothing at Pemberley but enjoy himself. “Mrs Darcy,” he said, taking her hand. “I have thanked Darcy already, and I shall thank him again, but it is to you I owe the better part of my gratitude. Pemberley is the finest house I have had the honour of visiting.” Turning to Jane, he offered that particular shade of gentleness a betrothed man of true good nature could allow himself towards a woman he had once admired. Jane wished him farewell with a composure that was most admirable.

Mrs Hurst offered her own thanks, echoing her brother’s, and Elizabeth received them with the courtesy due. Caroline Bingley came last to her. “Mrs Darcy,” she said, her smile stretched rather tight across her face. “I am sure we are all vastly obliged to you for your civility. It has been quite an educational fortnight, and I shall carry away a very particular impression of your establishment.” She cast one last lingering look towards the staircase before turning away.

The carriages pulled away on the gravel. Mr Bingley waved once from the window, with that warmth that outlasted any occasion. The sound of the wheels went soft, and softer, and was gone. The hall was suddenly quiet, and suddenly very large.

Jane reached and squeezed Elizabeth’s hand. One by one the others went inside. Georgiana to the music room, Jane and Miss de Bourgh to the library. The hall emptied. Elizabeth and Darcy remained at the door, alone.

They had not heard her approach. When she spoke, it was from the hall, and she addressed her nephew and his wife without leaving her position. “Darcy.” Lady Catherine considered the two of them with the composure of a person whose inspection had been concluded. “Pemberley is well taken care of. I am satisfied,” she said. “I shall depart in the morning.”

Elizabeth did not know what to say.

“At Easter,” Lady Catherine continued, “I expect you at Rosings. Mrs Darcy will attend you.”

Darcy lifted one brow at Elizabeth over his aunt’s departing back. “Well,” she said, finally, “I collect we have passed muster.”

He took her hand and held it before they went in.