Chapter XXIII
The hands of the parlor's case clock slowly crept toward midday. The conversation had gradually stilled as each woman's energy began to wane either through exertion or, in Elizabeth's case, a creeping ennui which was just this side of boredom.
Creating Mary's wedding clothes was not a tedious chore: not when Lizzy observed the glow which haloed her sister. No, t'was a world-weariness that bore down upon her, something which lifted only when she went to the Dower House and took tea with Mr. Smith. Everything within and without her life became brighter and more interesting even when she sat silently across from him.
The companionship of this enigmatic man paid her in a coin of which she had only begun to imagine in her scarce two decades upon this Earth.
That she could not have more brought her low.
After her difficult confrontation with her cousin, Papa had advised her to give the Dower House a wide berth and to limit her visits to easily-explainable resupply excursions. Otherwise, she would have to avoid it lest the uninformed ask questions that would complicate the entire situation.
And then there was Sir Thaddeus Soames.
Until just short of a fortnight ago, Lizzy had never even heard of the man. Then, with Papa's exclamation in the Netherfield barnyard, the name, if not the actual man, became part of Longbourn's lexicon. Surreptitious conferences were held in the Dower House dining parlor or the Longbourn bookroom. These sessions were filled with references to the mysterious baronet as Mr. Bennet worked with Mr. Fitzwilliam to unravel the mystery that was the attempt on William Smith's life.
Now, Papa was closeted with Sir Thaddeus, a visit that her father, perversely in Elizabeth's estimation, had seen fit to advise her was in the offing for this morning. Mr. Bennet knew that Lizzy would drive herself to distraction anticipating the outcome of the meeting, either out of sheer curiosity about the subjects assayed during the course of the get-together or because Smith had been in the man's thrall until the day after Michaelmas.
No matter how many times she glanced across the hall toward the bookroom, the enameled door remained firmly closed. Her agitation increased as the clock's ticks resonated through the parlor and marked quarters that only lengthened the veil behind which Papa and Soames hid.
She felt the pressure building until her right leg began to bounce.
The sound of iron rims on Longbourn's front-drive brought every pair of feminine eyes up from needlework. Kitty, with the least to occupy her, flew across the room and jumped onto the window seat beneath one of the west-facing casements.
"A coach approaches!" she called, "It gives every impression of being quite new as if this is one of its first outings. Oh, how the paint gleams, and the brightwork is so shiny!"
Lizzy sardonically snorted, "Does the coachman have blue eyes or brown? I have it on good authority that the best families only hire light-eyed drivers and postillions."
Kitty's pause was long enough to tell her sisters that she was weighing the veracity of Elizabeth's statement. Eventually she huffed, blowing a stray curl out of her face, and clearly decided that non-response was the best course to preserve herself from Lizzy's rapier wit. Having not taken the bait, she turned back to the window.
She cried out again, "Oh my! A gentleman has stepped out, and he is handing down a lady dressed in the height of fashion…"
Lydia elbowed Kitty aside and retorted, "Let me be the judge of her taste. Well, she clearly has seen the most recent plates. The cut of her gown is au courant, to be sure, but her color sense is atrocious.
"I wager she is just climbing up from trade and visited a modiste who saw her as an easy mark. That sharp disposed of several yards of unsalable material. The flattery must have flowed deep enough to endanger one of those carriage horses. Seriously, Kitty, few if any women could carry off that shade of orange—velvet if I am not mistaken. And, that turban! Lud, how many furious and naked ostriches there must be!
"And now, another gentleman, more of a square sort of fellow, exits. Mama! Mama! They are closing on the door!"
Unbeknown to the youngest Bennets, the lady of the house had been chivvying the other three daughters into a speedy cleanup. Jane, once again, had been sent to the kitchen to order refreshments. Lizzy and Mary stuffed random bits of cloth and fine-work into workbaskets to be hidden behind chairs and sofas advantageously-placed in corners or against one wall or the other. Other items went to ground beneath pillows and cushions. A blue silk shroud was tossed over the dress form which was then trundled off to the side of the room.
The sonorous rapping of the knocker spurred the women into even more animated activity as Mrs. Bennet lined her daughters up before her and inspected each one as rigorously as if the Mistress of Longbourn was the Regimental Sergeant Major of Carlton House's grenadiers preparing his men for viewing by the Regent. Hands scrutinized. Gowns tweaked and twitched. Cheeks pinched.
All of this happened while Mr. Hill slow-walked the runner in the front hall toward the richly-stained panels that graced the manor's west front. The butler had been Longbourn's chief factotum long enough—decades—to know when the Mistress required a few additional moments to prepare her family for a social encounter.
Young ladies organized in a half-circle facing the entryway, Fanny turned to Jane who quickly adjusted the matron's fichu, tucked a few errant curls beneath her cap, and swiftly fluffed her diminutive mother's skirts. Although not mounted upon a stallion, Mrs. Bennet positioned herself as if she were a colonel awaiting the order to charge, standing just to her eldest's right. Mrs. Bennet was convinced that the parlor was a lady's preferred ground for the skirmishes that made up the social wars. This had been the underpinning of everything she had ever sought to teach her daughters. They were now ready to meet whatever forces would assault Longbourn's bastions.
Mr. Hill peered through the parlor's doorway and, upon receiving a firm nod from his Mistress, pulled open both doors, silent on recently-slushed iron hinges. The great gateway's maintenance was never delegated to anyone other than George Hill: something he had learned from his father, the estate's butler under Mr. Samuel Bennet, the current incumbent's father. Silas always reminded George that he was the man on the wall between the Bennets and the rest of the world. And, for the elder Hill, the front doors were the portcullis that wordlessly described the family's place in the neighborhood's power structure: to set the tone for those lucky enough to be admitted. Smooth, silent, and effortless movement told the tale of a well-established estate's prosperity. And, further, it bespoke of a Mistress who managed her household so well that even the smallest details, like a well-functioning entry, were deemed worthy of attention.
Mr. Hill entered the parlor with a silver salver bearing three pasteboard calling cards. Mrs. Bennet collected the cards from the tray and quickly riffled through them. A small smile played upon her lips and her eyebrows floated toward her cap's hem.
"So, my husband did pay a call upon Netherfield's inmates," she whispered but not softly enough to be missed by Jane and Lizzy. The two young ladies snickered to themselves recalling how their father enjoyed twigging their mama's sensibilities by omitting pertinent facts, especially when they dealt with eligible men.
Upon his Mistress's direction, the butler left to return with her guests.
Mr. Hill soon led a lady and two gentlemen into the room. Lizzy was slightly amused at how accurate her two youngest sisters had been when assessing the woman's attire.
And, she concurred that this Miss Bingley, as she had been introduced by her brother, Mr. Charles Bingley, had probably been gulled by a modiste eager to recoup an otherwise lost investment in yards of orange velvet.
Miss Bingley surely is the ultimate example of the adage that money cannot purchase taste. She is probably just insecure enough in her status that she will endeavor to climb on our backs to reach the top of the pecking order. There may be bonfires and illuminationsi before the call is done.
Introductions completed, the various combatants sought out their preferred fields. Mama captured Miss Bingley's arm and led her to a settee. Jane and Lizzy each settled on different settees. Mary curtsied and found a lonely place on the far side of the room where she comforted herself with a book, in this case, Miss Wollstonecraft's History of the French Revolution. She had found that the lady's somewhat hectoring tone led her to the conclusion that the work was fit to be read only in a privy.ii Yet, this was the text at hand.
Miss Bingley's eyes narrowed as she watched her brother, the moon-calf, float to a side chair which he carried across the room so that he could engage Miss Bennet in conversation. The lady's blonde beauty had pierced her impressionable brother's heart as if he were a butterfly on pinned to a wax board. She was even less well pleased when Fitzwilliam performed the same maneuver, although he seemed a moth driven toward the flame of Miss Elizabeth's pair of fine eyes.
However, her father had not wasted his well-earned fortune in educating his two girl-children. While her inclination would have been to thoroughly ignore Mrs. Bennet after they had been introduced to one another in a larger salon, the fact that she was seated in the lady's parlor demanded that Caroline interact with Longbourn's Mistress, no matter how onerous the task.
Miss Bingley scanned the room with increasing and obvious—at least to Elizabeth—disdain. The woman's nostrils crinkled as she drank in the disarray around the edges of the parlor.
Her salvo was delivered down the full length of her nose, its tip aimed at least two feet above the wainscoting, "This might be such a pretty room with the afternoon sun brightening the furnishings. And all the…the…busyness.
"This must be one of those quaint country traditions about which Mr. Fitzwilliam waxes poetic: allowing weddings to overset the entire household."
Mrs. Bennet replied, "Oh, the girls usually work on their gowns in their own chambers. However, none on the upper level could accommodate all six of us, let alone the Lucas sisters and Miss King."
Caroline tilted her nose a fraction of an inch higher and replied in a tone that sneered bumpkins, "Which is why all of the ladies in Town turn their work over to modistes who have large workrooms."
Mrs. Bennet ignored all three slights…and was saved any further contemplation of insults professionally thrown her way when Mrs. Hill ushered Sarah through the servant's door with a fresh tea tray.
Refreshments at hand, Bingley opened the proceedings, "I would have returned Mr. Bennet's call sooner except that my friend, Mr. Fitzwilliam here, begged me to attend him in Town as he undertook several errands over the past sennight or so. Much ado with his solicitor and his father, I gather. Our little pilgrimage also allowed my sister to supervise the removal of some favorite pieces from our home in Portman Square. We only returned on Tuesday."
Finishing his explanation for his tardiness, Bingley turned his attention toward the lady of the house.
"I say, Mrs. Bennet," he called out to the lady, "Mr. Fitzwilliam tells me that as Netherfield Park is the largest estate in the area, Meryton's gentlefolk can justifiably expect my home to host a celebration of another successful growing season.
"I have decided that a harvest ball would set the tone for my tenure as Netherfield's new proprietor."
Mrs. Bennet bounced in her seat at his news, "Oh my, Mr. Bingley! 'Tis been several years since the last Netherfield Harvest Ball. So long that only the oldest of the young ladies from the four-and-twenty families were out and able to attend the last!
"Girls! Did you hear? There is to be a ball at Netherfield! How enchanting! Oh, such elegance none of you have seen! Netherfield's ballroom is the largest and most tasteful in the area!"
Then Fanny stopped in the sudden realization that her exultations had anticipated one very important, and as yet unperformed, formality.
She spun on her seat, hands folded in her lap like a young girl on her best behavior awaiting a desired treat from a favorite aunt. Mrs. Bennet looked expectantly at Miss Bingley who sat stock-still displaying her perfectly schooled posture. To Elizabeth's eye, except for the two red spots that had bloomed on the ginger-haired lady's alabaster skin, something which declared her to be a true member of that unique subset of humanity and not one of the daughters of henna, Miss Bingley could have stood in for one of Lord Elgin's marbles.
Caroline felt that she was one of the most put-upon women ever to have walked the face of the Earth. To Miss Bingley, Hertfordshire was only slightly less rusticated than outlying Shropshire; that county was butt up against the Welsh border. Now she was relegated to be in the company of rusticated folk like the woman seated before her.
The lease of Netherfield had put a stick through the spokes of Caroline's plans. Not two months ago, Charles had bounded through the doors of their townhouse to announce that he had taken a magnificent country estate just four-and-twenty miles from Town so that she would be but a brief carriage ride away from her favorite modistes and milliners.
He had assumed that this would soothe her feelings.
Caroline had been forced to bite the inside of her cheek to stifle an unladylike screech.
She hated it when Charles acted on his impulses without allowing her to mold his decisions to her purposes. Bingley often had opined that he himself wished an estate further north in Derbyshire so that he could be near Fitzwilliam and Pemberley. Yet, he enthused that the Netherfield vacancy seemed made for him. The estate was well-established and problems that would have overwhelmed a novice landowner appeared to be few indeed. Fitzwilliam had endorsed Bingley's plan, and that was all there was to it.
Derbyshire would have been Caroline's desire, as well, given her three-year-long campaign to become Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Mistress of Pemberley. One of her seminary schoolmates had lived by the mantra that Caroline subsequently had adopted as her own: location…location…location. If the Bingley siblings lived within easy driving distance of Mr. Fitzwilliam's home, she could have found any of a number of ways to place herself in his path during the summer months, Pemberley's Twelfth Night festivities, or Harvest Balls. Charles could be counted upon to beg Fitzwilliam's attendance at their home, much as he had just done at Netherfield, to advise him on estate management. And, if the properties had been separated by just enough real estate, Richard Fitzwilliam might have been forced to spend the odd night or two in a guest room with only Charles' valet to protect him.
Once she had maneuvered Fitzwilliam to the altar, she would be sure that they would spend only as much time at Pemberley as required to properly display her command as a hostess. She would ship dear Georgiana off to the same exclusive seminary to which her own Mama had sent her once Papa had made his fortune. They would see the girl only on the few acceptable times of the year. With luck, the shy mouse would avoid marriage for eight years allowing Mrs. Fitzwilliam free rein over Pemberley's coffers, to feather her nest with gowns and jewels.
As for little ones: once she had learned that Pemberley was destined for Miss Darcy's children and not Fitzwilliam's get, she resolved to avoid all wifely duties excepting the wedding night invasion. Headaches, female complications, and well-engineered locks would suffice to prevent the unexpected appearance of any little brats that would put a damper on her own enjoyments. Her husband would eventually tire of the game and find an outlet for his passions as did other men of the ton. He couldkeep a ladybird in Town which would ensure that the Fitzwilliams of Pemberley would remain within close proximity of all the Town society Caroline desired.
Thus, they would live at Darcy House throughout all of the fashionable times. She would have to do something about that odd name. She had always wondered why Fitzwilliam insisted on retaining the label, although Miss Bingley had never been curious enough to look beyond the suggestion that the surname 'Darcy' had more than a taint of pollution about it. All Charles ever told her was that the subject was unbroachable with Richard.
Yes, Caroline Bingley had a plan.
Now, she was forced to make pretty with this brash woman. What had she ever done but birth five daughters with nary a son in sight? The girls were pretty enough and at least the elder two—by appearance—behaved in the appropriate and expected manner. The third buried her nose in a book while the youngest pair tittered like a pair of chittering mice fighting over a piece of cheese.
Smiling around gritted teeth, Miss Bingley nodded her acknowledgment of Mrs. Bennet's silent appeal, "My brother is correct, Mrs. Bennet. We have decided to hold a ball at Netherfield in a fortnight. I do regret the short notice, but we only recently arrived from Town. As such, we have been circulating throughout the homes in the area inviting the leading figures to the fête. Mr. Fitzwilliam reminded me that the Bennets are a long-established family in Meryton, having laid down roots at over a century ago.
"Thus, of course, despite the somewhat confined nature of Netherfield's ballroom, we would hope—and I include my sister, Mrs. Hurst, in this—that your husband, you, and your daughters would consent to grace us with your presence at the Netherfield Harvest Ball."
The lady reached into her reticule and withdrew the properly-penned card. However, although she extended it to Mrs. Bennet, that redoubtable lady had to tear it from between fingers which retained the billet in a death-grip. Netherfield's de facto mistress was thoroughly correct and all that was polite, but to Elizabeth's agile ear, she could detect the strain Miss Bingley was under to remain civil.
Invitation proffered and received, and her thanks given for the lady's condescension, Mrs. Bennet exploded into motion. Her head spun as if on an axle. She observed Jane and Lizzy seated next to well-attired gentlemen. Rifling through mental cards that stored information on all eligible males who passed through her sight, Fanny dog-eared two: one with £5,000-a-year and the other with £10,000-a-year scribed atop. There were few names on either, yet she perceived Bingley on the one and Fitzwilliam on the other. While she celebrated Mary's cleverness in catching herself a parson, a man thoroughly suited to her middle girl's inclinations, the idea that her eldest were in the process of making excellent first impressions upon two desirable gentlemen mobilized the mechanisms that had shaped Mrs. Bennet's personality since her great disappointment in the Year Zero.
She summoned Kitty and Lydia, both of whom approached her side with feet dragging, to assist her in serving their guests.
Once the tea and cakes had made the rounds, Bingley ignored his hostess and four of her daughters: not in an impolite manner, to be sure. None of them captured his interest. The young man devoted his entire being to Miss Bennet, hanging on her every whispered reply and appreciating the delicate claret stain that brushed her cheeks. Elizabeth watched her sister's aura bloom and swirl like a cat being stroked as Jane absorbed Mr. Bingley's attentions.
Seeing that the rest of the room had settled into its own rhythm, Fitzwilliam adjusted his own chair: apparently to set his teacup on a table while he devoured the petits fours he had taken from Miss Lydia's tray. Yet, this was not his purpose. In so doing, Richard had managed to bring his head fractionally closer to Elizabeth's while also remaining able to observe the entryway.
Fitzwilliam quietly said, "We have missed you at the Dower House, Miss Elizabeth. In fact, Impy is positively off his feed without the lumps of sugar you secret in your apron.
"And, my valiant steed is not the only creature bedraggled and bereft. Another, although two-legged, seems a bit lost without his daily sharing of a bowl of afternoon tea with his favorite nurse."
Lizzy colored at Richard's allusions to Smith.
She replied carefully to his appeal given that they sat, albeit on the perimeter, in a roomful of strangers to their secret, "Alas, Mr. Fitzwilliam, my father has advised against my attendance upon the inmates at the Dower House. After my unfortunate encounter with my cousin Collins the other day, Papa feels that discretion is the better part of valor. The less attention we draw to the resident, the better."
Fitzwilliam reared back and breathed between clenched teeth, "Your encounter with Mr. Collins? Was it you alone or were you in the company of anyone else?"
Lizzy dipped her head and answered, "I was not unaccompanied in the back garden. I led Mr. Collins to believe—or at least I hope he does—that I had been forced to instruct a servant on the proper way to handle a slops bucket."
Before Fitzwilliam could contribute any further, she hurried on, "My cousin is perfectly fitted to serve his patroness, Lady Catherine DeBourgh, in that, while he is servile to her whims, he is also contemptuous of his lessers. I am sure he is convinced that William is a simpleton. I also may have suggested that he had been kicked in the face by Cato."
"Your cousin is my Aunt Catherine's parson? Oh, this whole nightmare only gets better," Richard said shaking his head, "Except for the fact that Aunt Catherine would never pay attention to the man's babblings…oh, wait, if he wrote her a letter, she would be sure to read it through if only to criticize the man's hand!"
Contemplating how the Mistress of Rosings' would react to learning that Collins' cousin had been seen in intimate contact with a servant, Fitzwilliam murmured to himself, "Smith means nothing to her. She would act differently if I were to introduce him at my club and try to marry him to my sister."
Lizzy broke through his brown study saying, "From everything I have heard…and I have heard nothing for the past fortnight if not of the splendor of Rosings, its glazing, and chimneypiece…Lady Catherine would dismiss any untoward behavior on my part as being the expected result of having been raised by a tradesman's daughter.
"However, I might predict a different reaction if she caught wind that her nephew, you, the one who is supposedly betrothed to her daughter, were sighted in close company with that same young woman. I urge you to take care around my cousin. If he gets wind of your relationship with his beloved patroness, your sufferings will be manifold.
"Your boots, though, would never be cleaner," she chortled.
Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes and riposted, "I had plenty of experience with lickspittles when I was in the Army. Collins sounds like one of the more incompetent."
"I once knew a true master at buttering up rich men to get his own way, but he was killed back in the Year Six…," his voice drifted off. Lizzy had the grace to recognize the sadness that reshaped his rough-hewn features. To give the man a chance to regulate his emotions, she focused on her tea.
All conversation suddenly came to a halt as the door to Mr. Bennet's bookroom opened, and the fragrant aroma of smoke escaped into the parlor.
i Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776, "Had a Declaration..." [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. digitaladams/
ii Marginalia in John Adams' copy of Mary Wollstonecraft's History of the French Revolution, Volume 1. This invaluable work is held in the Special Collections of the Boston Public Library where some 400 books from The Founder's library can be found. The author personally read the inscription (Adams wrote some 10,000 words in this single volume…enough so that the BPL catalogs this specific book as being written by Wollstonecraft, Mary and Adams, John). The actual phrase by Adams read This book is fit only to be read in an outhouse. One of the reasons the old Sears Catalog was mounted on a rope in privies across the American Midwest after the 1880s was that it was printed on very inexpensive newsprint and was composed of over 1,000 pages. I will leave it to your imagination, gentle reader, as to why. However, I do like to think that 'Farmer John' was offering a similar editorial opinion of MW's work. Likewise, I believe that the newly-emerging Mary Bennet also would see Wollstonecraft's paeans to the French unrest from 1789 to 1794 in an equally jaundiced light. Recall she is sitting in the later part of 1811 after Great Britain has been at war with France for 19 years.