He called on the Bennets every other day, now always in the company of Mr. Bingley who had formed some sort of attachment with Mrs. Hawdry. Perhaps the experience of shared grief had bound them together, or perhaps simply that the two of them, both dressed in mourning, looked very well together.
Elizabeth and Darcy met often in the library reading room, and they met in general company, and while Mrs. Bennet could not throw lavish entertainments as the family was yet in mourning for Mr. Hawdry, Mrs. Bennet could call her intimate friends to her house for small intimate dinners, where they would not drink much, or talk much, or sport much, and where propriety required they spend the first half of the evening in the drawing room listening to dull and mournful music.
That is to say, not much music, as Jane had no taste to play, and Elizabeth had no taste for mournful music.
Darcy several times met her on walks, since he took to haunting those areas where he met her once.
It also became clear that Bingley was in love with Mrs. Hawdry, who was in Mrs. Hurst’s opinion entirely unsuitable for her brother. That gentlewoman accepted matters without too much protest as she saw the way the wind blew between Elizabeth and Darcy. The match would bring a closer tie to at least one good connection, and it would be the most natural thing if their children married each other.
Mrs. Hurst fantasized about a glorious future in which her brother Bingley’s grandson became the master of Pemberley…
Darcy had, after the third time he’d seen Mr. Bingley and Mrs. Hawdry speak barely a word to anyone else, and become quite neglectful of the other inhabitants of the room, roused himself to question Bingley about how much time he was spending with the recently widowed woman.
“Eh, Bingley,” Darcy said one night, after having invited his friend for another game of billiards, during which he successfully reestablished his proper place of dominance over his younger friend. “Seen you sitting around with Mrs. Hawdry a great deal.”
“Angelic woman? Upon my word, never met a sweeter woman in my life, except Isabella.”
“Yes. A fine young woman — recently widowed too — not more than a month yet,” Darcy replied. “You wouldn’t want to… ah… abuse her tender feelings. I’m concerned for her.”
“Did your Miss E tell you to say something to me?” Bingley laughed.
Darcy in reply knocked a ball into a hole, making a score, and putting himself far enough up in the game it would be quite unlikely for his friend to overtake him. “Not at all — but… well I do have a certain fraternal concern for anyone who Miss E has a sororal concern for.”
Bingley laughed. “Leave us to ourselves. We both know what we are about — I’ll not do injury to Mrs. Hawdry’s tender feelings.”
“You two hardly know each other — and she is deep in mourning. It is not… proper to feel something about one so recently widowed.”
Bingley shook his head. “Just though one is full of grief, it does not crowd out every other consideration. And while one ought not speak ill of the dead, there is that in Mrs. Hawdry’s manner when she speaks of the departed… he was not what a husband to such a woman ought to have been. I assure you she has said nothing to me, but—”
“Miss E,” Darcy said the “pseudonym” with a wry tone that made it into a joke, “made so much clear to me as well. I believe her sister did say something to her.”
“Did she, eh?” Bingley looked at Darcy with a more intent gaze. “Did Miss E say anything else about her sister’s feelings about me?”
“Bingley, even had she, I would not in the slightest be inclined to speak upon any matters spoken to me in confidence.”
“Often sisters want such messages to be passed on — but I see Miss E said nothing to you.” Bingley shrugged without the slightest hint of concern at that. “Our eyes speak to each other well enough. None of that nonsense between you two — why haven’t you and Miss E settled matters? I’d half suspect from how you act that there was a secret engagement, but that is not like you, and not much like Miss E.”
Darcy coughed. The truth was… he was waiting for some sort of clear sign that she wanted him to definitely ask her, but he would not wait forever before he embarked upon a clear and steady besiegement of Elizabeth. However she had her occasionally anxious disposition, and he did not wish to trigger those feelings if he could avoid doing so.
Besides… charm was present in the season of courtship.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was a patient man, a man who believed that a certain deliberateness should be practiced in matters of importance. That he had acted so strongly out of character when he made his first proposal merely encouraged him to act with more deliberation before he hazarded a second.
It so happened that in the early weeks of winter an individual from the distant (that is neighboring) county of Kent descended upon Hertfordshire.
Elizabeth’s dearest friend, Mrs. Collins.
Darcy could not help but suspect that some letter from Elizabeth about his proposal had drawn Elizabeth’s dearest friend to the county so shortly after he presented the offer of his hand to Elizabeth.
It was a pleasure for Darcy to see a woman who he had always thought highly of and to be able to speak to her in the absence of her husband, who remained in attendance upon his pastoral duties and Darcy’s cousin, Anne.
When Darcy called first on the Bennets after Mrs. Collins entered the neighborhood, he found the two ladies together in the drawing room, their heads close together, and laughing over a collection of childhood sketches that had been prepared years before together by Mrs. Collins and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth caught his eye, and there was something different about her look.
A mix of calculation, confidence, and a hint of worry.
Darcy smiled back at her, and the worry fled away, replaced by Elizabeth’s brilliant smile. He suspected that Mrs. Collins was pushing his own case with as much alacrity as he could wish for. For her part, Mrs. Collins smiled at him in a manner that managed to be both knowing and reassuring.
During the course of that morning conversation, Mrs. Bennet stayed in the room and talked a great deal to Mrs. Collins. The older woman had a great suspicion of Mrs. Collins, on account of the fact that her husband was to inherit Longbourn upon the decease of her own. “You’ll not find us abusing your future rights. We keep the drawing room directly in fashion, as is I’m sure your reason for this visit, that you’d heard from your mother how I updated it, and wished at last to see the changes.”
“It was,” Mrs. Collins replied with a smirk, “one of the minor inducements — but merely as I know your taste to be excellent in such matters.”
Mrs. Bennet peered suspiciously at Mrs. Collins. Clearly a little flattery was not sufficient in this case to appease that excellent woman.
Darcy was glad that he had not been asked to venture an opinion on the decor of the drawing room. He thought it atrocious. And Elizabeth had said as much to him as to show she held precisely the same opinion.
At least there were pleasant smelling flowers spread in vases from a hot house.
It was too wet for the group to depart upon a walk where Elizabeth and Darcy could separate from the rest and go apart for their usual private conference. However Darcy felt something in his stomach of nervousness at this new change in how Elizabeth looked at him, now that she had talked with Mrs. Collins.
She looked as if she was somehow more decided than before.
The next evening Mr. Bingley held a grand ball that had been contemplated since his entrance to the neighborhood.
The central dining room of Netherfield was a fine room for such a party, and the housekeeper had put aside ample white soup, and there were small bites and excellent wines everywhere. The band was the finest in the neighborhood, and a dozen servants had been borrowed from the neighbors to ensure that there were enough staff to serve so many couples.
For his part, Bingley half ignored his duties as a host, only dancing half the dances, and instead spending much of the time with a woman w
ho, as she wore black to honor her former husband, could not dance herself, and who had only attended after strenuous persuasion on the part of both Bingley and Elizabeth.
Bingley’s daughter Harriet ran around the room, bothering the dancing couples, to the despair of her nurse, before she became sleepy around nine and was finally retired to the nursery.
Darcy, Elizabeth and Mrs. Collins, serving half as a chaperone, and half as a co-conspirator, withdrew while the crowded dancing was yet in full swing to the library. There were a few other people perusing the mostly empty chairs, and waving their hands in front of red faces to cool down from the heat of the dance.
They found a sufficiently private nook to talk, and at first the conversation centered around Elizabeth’s next book. “Wonderful — or terrible. But I love the way it feels in my mind. Far better than the usual course of my books.”
“You always say that as you write.” Charlotte laughed. “I have long since learned you cannot judge your own work.”
“I only need a little distance.”
“No,” Charlotte bantered back. “Once you have distance, you determine the value in most cases by the value of the cash the book returned to you. Not a sound basis for assessment either.”
“Then how should I assess my books?”
“By asking me and Mrs. Collins,” Darcy said, “how much we like it. And we will like the book excessively, so you will know it was excellent.”
“My sincerest, and fondest enthusiasts — I depend upon you both for the nourishment of my vanity.”
“But this new book, you say it will be particularly good?” Charlotte asked.
“Particularly excellent — except I cannot find the ending. I may have written myself into a situation I do not want, and I am seeking,” she looked at Darcy as she said this, “to write a new pattern. This book may be longer than I expected, and perhaps the end I wish to write is different from the end I always wrote before.”
Darcy swallowed, butterflies playing in his stomach, and his chest feeling light. “I hope that… I like this notion of a new… beginning.”
“She referred to a new ending.” Mrs. Collins laughed. “Now, now, Eliza. My dear Eliza — you must not tease us, how does the novel end now. You know I wait excessively for each of your books.”
“And I never tell you how they shall end, so that I may ensure my most loyal purchaser remains to me.”
“I’ll still buy! I promise, even if I know the end.” Mrs. Collins grinned at Elizabeth.
“I as well,” Darcy said, “am curious — and you may rely upon my patronage, no matter what you tell me of the end of the novel.”
“But that is just the problem! I do not yet know how the story ends.”
“You should,” Mrs. Collins said, with a mischievous smirk. “Do quite the opposite of your preference. It is time to write some sensible staid gentleman for the heroine, instead of a rake, and have them marry, instead of her going off to pursue a career as an actress, or running a boarding house, or gaining a pension for some great favor she did one of the royal family. Tell a different story. The time has come.”
“Charlotte!” Elizabeth blushed. She looked at her hands, but she was smiling, and she looked up at Darcy, in a way that showed he was certainly on her mind.
Darcy was smiling as well.
“I see that you like to tease one another, when the chance arises,” Darcy said to the two dear friends.
“Do you like to be teased?” Mrs. Collins asked. “You have always been so solemn round the dining table at Rosings, though less so since your aunt passed, and her place was taken by Anne.”
“Not often — I always sought to not give cause for others to tease me. But of late…”
“Yes?” Elizabeth asked, her face red, and her voice arch and curious.
“Of late, I have given others more cause to tease me than ever before, and to my surprise I like the sensation. I would never have thought it, but…”
“It is how we show mutual affection towards each other!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “A person who you can never laugh at in play, that is no friend. Laughter can be cruel to those who we place below us, but to laugh with a friend. That is required to be friends. That is required to be close. Laughter is required for… for…”
“For any true partnership.”
“Yes! I could never care half so much for a stern man who I must look up to, and who always kept his dignity with me, as I could care for a man who, no matter how stern he was with others, allowed me to tease and smile and laugh when we were together.”
Darcy glowed at her, unable to say anything else.
Her eyes were delighted, bright, and shining in the light of the many candles. She had such fine red lips, and the dimple in her cheek showed as she smiled back at him. He was quite tempted to kiss her.
Mrs. Collins coughed, half apologetically, reminding Darcy of her presence. “Mrs. Hawdry,” she said, “has spent a great deal of time tonight with our host.”
“Very kind of him,” Elizabeth agreed with mock solemnity, “to forgo the dancing, so that he might comfort a bereft and unwanted widow.”
This was Darcy’s turn to cough, to hide a snort of laughter.
“I perceive you disagree,” Elizabeth said sweetly.
“Bingley is the soul of kindness, and Mrs. Hawdry is also the soul of kindness. There is no surprise in them being kind to each other, having the same identical soul.”
Mrs. Collins said, “I approve of Mr. Bingley, at least from what I’ve seen and heard of him — a fine ball. I am glad we prevailed upon Mrs. Hawdry to accept that she might attend, so long as she does not dance, or drink to excess.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Jane! To excess?”
“Eliza,” Mrs. Collins said in a slightly hesitant voice. “I have seen how… Meryton accepts you once more.”
Elizabeth frowned. “For what good it does to me.”
“You set no great importance by that, do you?” Mrs. Collins raised her eyebrows.
“No. Not at all. I had wondered at times why I came here again at all.” She shot a glance at Darcy. “Some good fate drew me. I have been happy once more in the country of my childhood. And I have come to know myself better. And I am glad for it.”
Darcy smiled at her. “Though you may have passed through misfortunes one would wish upon none, you have reached a safer shore.”
“Yes, and I would change nothing. What I suffered has made me stronger. Shaped my character into something even better than it began as.”
“Nothing?” Mrs. Collins asked, head tilted to the side, studying her friend.
“Who I am now, it depended entirely upon what course my life has taken.”
“You cannot be glad you were accused of such vile sins, baselessly?” Darcy asked, surprised.
“Not so vile — you admit yourself, you do not despise all such women, in fact I have been given to understand you have on occasion thought very highly of a woman who you believed to have committed such a ‘vile’ sin.”
Darcy waved her tease away. “Such ordinary and human sins. Behaviors that rightly are discouraged by God and by society, though they are not enough to stain a soul black.”
“Is anything?”
“A hard question. But not my question.” Darcy smiled at her.
“The best thing. I am like Candide, living in the best of all possible worlds. Yet the world I am in is a very good world that would have lost something important without what happened. Could I change my past, I would not.”
“That is not what one expects to hear of such an experience.” Darcy smiled.
“Our Eliza,” Mrs. Collins said smilingly, “lives to say the unexpected.”
“Can you imagine what would have happened to me otherwise?” Elizabeth smiled. “I would have married some gentleman of half decent stature, or turned into an old maid, endlessly going to a circle of balls without ever finding a man who met my fancy. A useless sort of creature — instead… I do not think suffe
ring is of value as such. But to be strictly enjoined to abandon habitual manners and modes… It was very valuable to me. And then I began to write… I have earned money, ample money to survive if necessary, and I have perhaps seen through the unnecessity of so many necessities.”
“Writing is so remunerative?” Darcy asked. “I had in general thought scribblers to be a complaining poor lot — I heard that even Frances Burney received a mere two thousand for Camilla, one of the most ran after novels ever.”
“The attitude of the very rich!” Elizabeth laughed and echoed Darcy’s voice. “A mere two thousand! I’ve not earned quite so much with all my books. But it is remunerative enough to gain happiness and independence if your desires are modest: I have oft said to myself, I only need a room of my own, coffee, and the implements of writing to be happy. Some good society as well, excellent gentlemen of good taste to praise me and my writing—” She glanced at him sidelong — “that is not a matter of funds. The society I found in London, the society of artists and writers, and those who would choose their own paths in the world, that society has been immeasurably superior for me to that sort of society I found here in the environs of Meryton. As for money… I have ample for that room of my own.”
“It seems a precarious existence to me.” Darcy smiled at her. “But I admire that you can survive upon so little. And I admire that you would be happy if you were enjoined to, and would not mourn such a fate.”
“You do not tell me how I deserve better than to be forced to labor, as much as a governess, or a steward, or a baker for that matter, I labor for my bread.”
“I think,” Mrs. Collins said, “that Eliza in truth sees her writing not as like the effort of a baker, but as the calling of a vicar, such as my husband.”
“Heavens, I hope I am nothing like Mr. Collins.”
All three laughed, as Elizabeth blushed at her indiscreet reply.
“You do worry,” Darcy said. “I do not think — you cannot enjoy that worry. That concern that your audience will not enjoy the next tale you produce. One should not live, if they can avoid it, with such an anxiety, and such a need to constantly busy your hands and mind.”
Writerly Ambitions Page 17