“But here comes Lizzy! And at just the right moment to dispel this gloom.”
Mary screwed up her eyes, just as John Sparrow had told her not to, and spotted Elizabeth winding her way through the stragglers at the edge of the dance floor, striding towards them. With the briefest of acknowledgements, she pulled a chair towards them.
“I have such a tale to relate that it really wouldn’t wait, so I came straight to find you. It can’t be said to reflect particularly well on me, but it is so good a joke that I have decided to purchase your laughter at the expense of my dignity—such as it is!”
Before Mary or Charlotte could reply, she raced on with her account. It appeared that as the previous dance began, she had had no partner—“that may be said to have been the first of my misfortunes”—and was compelled to sit and watch the proceedings from a seat some rows back from the dance floor. She had been there only a few minutes when she noticed Mr. Bingley and his tall friend approach and stand before her. She had not meant to listen to their conversation, “but really, they spoke so decidedly that it was impossible to ignore.” Thus, willingly or not, she had heard Mr. Bingley berating Mr. Darcy for his reluctance to dance. The room, he insisted, was full of charming women, any one of whom would be delighted to stand up with him. Why did he not ask some fortunate girl to be his partner? It did not reflect well on him to hold himself so aloof; it made no sense to march about the room with such an obvious determination not to be pleased.
“I could not wait to hear how he would answer such a very justified rebuke,” continued Elizabeth. “But he was not in the least mortified, replying with some warmth that Mr. Bingley had danced with the only handsome girl in the room, by which he meant Jane, of course. But his friend was not prepared to surrender his point so easily. Whilst he agreed that Jane was indeed ‘the most beautiful creature he ever beheld’—and please note, those were his actual words—he persevered, with perhaps more gallantry than tact. What about her sister, he asked? She is pretty enough and not engaged. Should he like to be introduced to me?”
Lizzy paused for a moment to take a breath.
“And then this proud man—I think we all now know his name is Darcy—turns and looks me straight in the eye and says—and I will do him the justice to believe he didn’t think I could hear him—‘She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me’!”
She turned from Mary to Charlotte, laughing. “What do you think? Is that not the most extraordinary thing you have heard?”
“Well, it is justly said that listeners never hear good of themselves,” said Mary.
“If that is the case, then I have certainly been properly punished,” declared Elizabeth. “‘Tolerable,’ indeed! Was there ever such a milk-and-water insult as that! ‘Not handsome enough to tempt me’—as though we women have no other occupation than to lay ourselves out to be agreeable to him!”
“It does suggest a good deal of presumption on his part,” mused Charlotte.
“Yes, but I am glad of it, for it has enabled me to decide my opinion of him. I was not sure what to think at first when I heard him so complained of for his coldness and his want of common courtesy, for by then I had only seen his bad behaviour; but now that I have heard for myself that he is just as disagreeable as he appears to be, I shall have no hesitation in condemning him out of hand!”
Charlotte smiled consolingly.
“I am sorry you have been so disappointed in your new acquaintance, Lizzy. But it does not look as though his indifference has pierced your heart very deeply.”
“No, I dare say I shall survive it.” Lizzy stood up and surveyed the room. “I only regret that I’m unlikely to have the opportunity of paying him back in kind. I really would delight in seeing his pride somewhat humbled—but I don’t think our paths will cross again. And, as I’m sure Mary would agree, there is little point in hankering after what we cannot have, so I shan’t brood on the wrong done to me. I will go instead in search of something to drink and a partner who I hope will have the good taste to find me more than merely ‘tolerable’—or will at least refrain from expressing any contrary opinion until he is well out of earshot.”
“Lizzy will never be short of admirers,” observed Charlotte, as they watched her walk away. “She will always attract notice wherever she goes.”
“It is impossible to be indifferent to her,” agreed Mary. “When she’s in a room, you always know she’s there. Even when she says nothing at all, she looks as though she might, and that it is bound to be something witty.”
“Whereas you and I … Please do not take it ill of me if I say that I don’t think people wait with the same eagerness to hear what we say next. We do not sparkle as she does.”
Mary looked gloomily at the skirts of her colourless dress. Perhaps she should have worn the gold gown? If no-one else had noticed it, it might nevertheless have made her feel less insipid.
“No, I don’t suppose they do.”
They sat quietly, each contemplating the gulf of pleasure and possibility that lay between themselves and Elizabeth. Finally, Charlotte spoke, in a voice of quiet determination that Mary had not heard her use before.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Mary. I’ve made a promise to myself that I will not come to another of these balls as an unmarried woman. If I’m still single by this time next year, I intend to put on a cap and declare myself an old maid.”
“Really, Charlotte, what can you mean? I see that you’re in low spirits tonight, but that’s far too significant a step to be taken without very serious consideration. Have you discussed it with Lizzy?”
“Of course not, she would never understand. But I think you might. And I hope you will allow me to explain myself a little.”
“I am happy to listen if you wish me to do so.”
Charlotte stared into the distance, her expression unreadable.
“When I was about your age, I imagined marriage was a reward for good behaviour and patience. I thought that if I was good and obliging and did as I was told, it was inevitable that I should end up as someone’s wife. If it didn’t happen this year, then surely it would in the next. But I waited and waited and smiled and smiled, and yet here I am—a single woman still.”
“And is that so terrible a fate?” ventured Mary. “When one looks at how some husbands and wives live together, it doesn’t seem as though marriage always brings happiness.”
“You cannot seriously think that the life of an old maid is to be preferred?” cried Charlotte with some vehemence. “Think of the unmarried women of your acquaintance, living on whatever their families allow them, eking out their subsistence with a few piano lessons or a little discreet dressmaking, mocked and disdained by all. No, for an educated woman, brought up to be genteel as we have been, the future holds no prospect but marriage or misery, depend upon it.”
“But if that’s your opinion, why are you so willing to embrace a life you despise? To put on your cap, as you say, and abandon yourself to an existence you believe intolerable?”
“I suppose I dangle such a dreadful prospect before myself to concentrate my mind on the alternative. I know I am approaching the years of danger; I must act soon or not at all.”
“I’m not sure I understand you,” said Mary. “In what possible way can you act? Do you mean to go around asking men to marry you?”
“No,” replied Charlotte ruefully. “I haven’t arrived at that degree of boldness quite yet. But I won’t disguise from you that I’m prepared to do everything I can—within the bounds of propriety, of course—to find a respectable man to be my husband. If such a one were to cross my path tomorrow, I should not answer for his chances of escaping me.”
Her tone was light-hearted, but Mary did not doubt for a moment that she meant all she said.
“I sometimes think,” Charlotte continued, “that for some men, especially those without much experience of society, it must be a great relief when a woman throws off discretion and doesn’t hesitate to convey how readily she wo
uld agree to become his wife. It must be a terrible thing not to know before you ask what the answer to a proposal of marriage is likely to be. The certainty of acceptance must be a tremendous encouragement to the making of an offer.”
“You say nothing at all of love. Do you really think it a good idea to marry where there is no affection?”
“Well, I am not romantic, you know. The last ten years have cured me of that. I am not Lizzy, who will always be sought after. Women like me who aren’t overburdened with a choice of suitors must learn to discipline their feelings. I’m sure I would settle now for anyone with a little money of his own who wasn’t positively unkind. I no longer look for a great love. A comfortable home and the security of a proper settlement is all I ask.”
She turned to look directly at Mary.
“I hope I haven’t shocked you. I’ve been brooding on these things for so long that it is a great relief to open my mind and speak about them to someone; and for all kinds of reasons, I thought you might understand how I have come to think as I do.”
“You are certainly very frank.”
“Yes, I have spoken very plainly, and not only because it was a pleasure to talk honestly for once of matters which are not usually discussed.”
Charlotte’s usual half smile had disappeared. She was entirely serious now.
“I suppose I also thought you might learn something from my experience and apply it to your own future prospects. I’m offering you advice, if you wish to take it. So—don’t waste time as I have done waiting for something to happen. Fortune really does favour the brave, you know. Don’t believe you can find happiness celebrating the good fortune of others. An eternity spent smiling and cooing over the good luck of your friends makes the heart sick in the end. And above all, don’t long for what you cannot have, but learn to recognise what is possible, and when it presents itself, seize upon it with both hands. It seems to me this is the only route to happiness for those of us born with neither beauty, riches, nor charm.”
Charlotte reached for the little bag at her feet.
“There! What a collection of portentous observations! I don’t imagine your favourite Dr. Fordyce would approve, but then he has not the knowledge of the world that I have.” She stood up, all briskness now, and readied herself to leave. “I am not at all surprised after such a lengthy confession to find myself extremely hungry. I shall go and see if I can hunt down Lizzy and compel her to the supper table.”
She did not ask Mary to accompany her; nor did she look back as she made her way towards the dining room.
For the rest of the evening, Charlotte’s unexpected declaration occupied Mary’s mind. She thought about it as she sat eating an ice with her mother. When she picked up the printed programme for the evening, put on her glasses, and appeared to be studying it, Charlotte’s words rang in her ears. She was still considering them when, to her surprise, she heard her own name mentioned. When she turned to see who had spoken, she saw Lady Lucas a few footsteps away, eagerly pointing out to Mr. Bingley’s sisters those of the Bennet family to whom they had not yet been introduced.
“And lastly, of course,” declared Lady Lucas, “there is Miss Mary Bennet, the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood.”
Before she knew it, Mary’s eyes met those of the younger Bingley sister, who bobbed the smallest possible curtsy in acknowledgement.
“That is a great achievement, to be sure,” she said, “and one which, judging by appearances, is very much deserved.”
Flustered, Mary stood and curtsied back.
“I honour your commitment to learning,” Miss Bingley continued smoothly. “Study clearly trumps all other considerations in your mind. You are an example to us all.”
Lady Lucas smiled, and the Bingley sisters swept away. It was only once they had gone that Mary realised she was still wearing her spectacles.
Chapter 18
No ball can be properly considered over until every detail of the evening has been thoroughly examined, weighed, and dissected the day after the event; and it was a sign of how much there was to discuss that breakfast was barely cleared away at Longbourn when a party of Lucases arrived to begin the discussions.
“You began the evening well, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Bennet. “You were Mr. Bingley’s first choice.”
“Yes—but he seemed to like his second better.”
“Oh,” declared Mrs. Bennet, with an unconvincing attempt at surprise. “You mean Jane, I suppose? Because he danced with her twice? To be sure, it did seem as if he admired her.”
“Indeed he did,” continued Charlotte. “In fact, as I think I told you, I heard him mention that he thought her quite the prettiest woman in the room.”
“You may have said so,” agreed Mrs. Bennet, “but I am glad to hear you confirm it. I believe he remarked that ‘there could be no two opinions on that point.’ He did say so, did he not?”
Charlotte agreed those had indeed been Mr. Bingley’s words. Mrs. Bennet did not attempt to disguise her satisfaction that her eldest daughter had been so publicly preferred to Charlotte; she looked from her to Lady Lucas with unconcealed joy. Although she watched her carefully, Mary could not detect any waver in Charlotte’s fixed smile, no crack in her expression of mild, good-natured resignation.
“My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Lizzy,” Charlotte continued playfully. “Poor Eliza! To be considered ‘only tolerable’!”
“It is a great snub,” agreed Elizabeth with mock gravity. “But I must endeavour to bear it.”
Mrs. Bennet was not so easily placated. She could not regard the disparagement of her daughters as anything other than a grievous insult; but what was to be expected of a man whose behaviour had attracted such universal disapproval? Mr. Darcy had shown himself to be disagreeable, everyone had said so. It was obvious to all that he was an unpleasant man, haughty, cold, reserved, and eaten up with pride. Mrs. Bennet declared Lizzy was to take no notice of him.
“If you were to meet again and he asked you to stand up with him, I hope you would say no.”
“I believe, Mama, I may safely promise I will never dance with him!”
The conversation ran back and forth, with Mr. Darcy’s person, manners, and character all weighed up and found wanting. It was some time before Mrs. Bennet was ready to return to the more gratifying topic of Jane’s success with Mr. Bingley, but before she could do so, Mary spoke.
“I wonder if we are quite fair to condemn Mr. Darcy as quickly as we do. There is a difference, you know, between pride and vanity. One is much more to be condemned than the other. The vain man wants others to think well of himself, regardless of his virtues. Pride relates more to our honest opinion of ourselves.”
She looked around searchingly at her listeners, hoping for a reply; but no-one, it seemed, had anything to add to her remark.
“Is it not possible,” she persisted, “that Mr. Darcy has some justification for his self-belief? Perhaps he has a right to be proud.”
Mrs. Bennet threw up her hands in exasperation.
“Really, Mary, none of us needs a lecture on what to think of that man. We have all made up our minds, and don’t require any further direction from you.”
Mary blushed, realising she had once again struck the wrong note. There was silence, until a young Lucas brother, who had reluctantly accompanied his sister and mother to Longbourn on the promise of cake, which had not yet been forthcoming, piped up.
“If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy, I should not care how proud I was! I should keep a pack of foxhounds and drink a bottle of wine every day.”
Mrs. Bennet assured him that if she were to see him at it, she would take away his bottle directly—he said she should not—she insisted that she would—and soon the level of talk was as loud and as lively as it had been before Mary had spoken. When the Lucases finally took their leave, Charlotte stopped for a moment by her side.
“Our interventions are only welcome if they are agreeable,” she murmured, “and
by that, I mean that they reflect what everyone else thinks and are delivered with a most submissive smile.”
Chapter 19
When Sir William Lucas announced his plan to give a sociable little dinner, it came as an unwelcome surprise to Mrs. Bennet. She had not anticipated that the Lucases would seize the opportunity to invite Mr. Bingley, along with his friends, to meet the families of the neighbourhood in which he had chosen to make his home. It was extremely aggravating not to have thought of this idea herself, and she received news of it with considerable indignation.
“I consider it great presumption in them to hold such a dinner,” she declared, “and very much intended to serve their own interests. They mean to have Mr. Bingley for Charlotte, Mr. Bennet, I’m sure of it. I’ve rarely seen such behaviour. I wonder they are not ashamed.”
“Then I shall write and explain we cannot attend,” replied her husband. “It would obviously be painful for you to witness their machinations at first hand.”
“Whatever are you thinking?” cried his wife, exasperated. “Of course we must go. I won’t see Jane cut out by that contriving Charlotte Lucas. I shan’t take my eyes off her for a minute.”
“In that case, I shall convey our acceptance and look forward to what promises to be a most pleasant evening spent amongst our oldest and dearest friends.”
Thus it was that Mary found herself, when the appointed evening rolled around, in an undistinguished seat at the least favoured end of Sir William’s dining table, playing with her food and wishing the dinner over. From a rather better situation nearer Mr. Bingley and his friends, Charlotte occasionally caught her eye, her cheerfulness no longer seeming as natural as Mary had once assumed it to be. Her bleak confession at the ball echoed in Mary’s mind as she surveyed the guests, all of whom appeared to be enjoying themselves with a gusto that grated on Mary’s sombre frame of mind. Her mood darkened further as she watched the men gathered round the table, and it struck her very forcibly that not one of them would consider her as a potential wife. There was Mr. Bingley, working as hard to please as he had at the Meryton ball, all smiles and jollity and good nature. But for all his easygoing charm, Mary sensed he would never notice any woman who was not a beauty; and having Jane before his eyes, why would he look for anyone else? Mary rarely thought as one with Mrs. Bennet, but as she watched Mr. Bingley and Jane together, there seemed little doubt he was smitten with her.
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