Lessons of Advantage

by michael sand

  If Elizabeth had nothing to fear from her father’s perception, she had much to endure from his wit; — for Mr Bennet dwellt with relish on the irony of two people, so widely known to dislike one another, being supposed to be engaged; — on the idiocy of those who had invented, and the folly of those who had repeated, so unlikely a tale; — and on the utter impossibility of Mr Darcy’s being in love with any woman — least of all her! She escaped at last, and went out to walk off her perturbation in the shrubbery; but it soon came on to rain, a heavy, lashing rain which drove every one indoors. A long, wearisome day ensued, in which Elizabeth, her spirits as clouded as the weather, found difficulty in settling to any rational task; finally putting herself to read with Kitty as a contribution to family improvement, and a suitable mortification of absurd expectations.

  The next morning, the blustery showers had blown themselves out, and a genial sun tempted Elizabeth to take the air after breakfast. She went out determined not to return till she had fortified her resolution. It was two weeks since Mr Darcy had left Hertfordshire; she must therefore accept that he was not to come back; that there was no farther hope for their union; and that she must exert herself to regain her balance: she could not go on pining and sighing forever. Her feelings might require some effort to subdue, but she was resolved to do so, however tinctured by regret. — And to think that she might have accepted Mr Darcy’s proposal in April, and been his happy wife by now! — But she should not have been happy, — she knew that very well: they should neither of them have been — not as they were then constituted. She remembered what her behaviour had been at Hunsford: blind, prejudiced, self-deluded, and impertinent! She hoped she had improved since then. He had changed too, from the proud, insolent, superior being who had paraded before her that day; — and her heart told her that he had changed on her account. The pride of both had suffered an advantageous humbling since that period, and their union might have been supremely happy if they could have overcome their reserve. But they had not done so; had not dared to be happy; and therefore did not deserve happiness. In the event, they could blame no one but themselves.

  Such sobering thoughts might bring a sort of comfort, with time, however little immediate was the conviction that accompanied them. Mean while, (turning to walk back to the house,) she must exert herself to appear a great deal wiser than she felt.

  As she entered the breakfast room, she saw that two gentlemen had come to call in her absence, and were sitting with the females of the family: Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. Elizabeth felt joy and fear in almost equal measure. — Might he have come back only to offer his felicitations to his friend? But no! — That was just the self-bemusement of a too-eager mind, made fearful by the possibility of happiness, and afraid to hope too much. While these thoughts were darting through her brain, Mr Bingley was smiling; Mr Darcy maintaining his grave composure; and Mrs Bennet shewing her usual degree of complacency toward the one, and scant politeness toward the other. After some conversation, of no great moment in itself, but expressive of the comfortable mood prevailing in one part of the company at least, Mr Bingley announced that he had invented a something in the course of his ride from Netherfield that morning, — a charade, he might be so bold as to call it. “It was a trifling, foolish thing — they must bear in mind that it had been struck off extempore — but it might serve to amuse them.” Every one having assured him that they were all eagerness to hear his charade — “Very well,” he said. “Then they were to look for a word of four syllables.

  “My first and second form a lady’s name.

  “My third establishes a poet’s fame.

  “My fourth is but a simple Latin thing.

  “Thus ends the foolish rhyme of Mr Bing—ley.”

  Among the objections on the headings of form, scansion, and meaning which this effusion immediately elicited, the chief was, that all the charades they had ever heard of had ended in a final clew, containing a summation of the whole. “Upon my word!” exclaimed Mr Bingley. “This is asking a great deal of an extempore! However, if you will be so nice, allow me a moment to think. Hem. — Yes! I have it.—

  “These four, to make no farther mystery,

  “Record a famous date in history.

  “There! Now consider and reply, all of you!”

  Kitty was the most forward in bringing out her guesses. A lady’s name — that must be Jane! — No, ‘Jane’ had but one syllable. Elizabeth? Too many. Or — ?

  “What of Kitty?” said Bingley, with a smile. That had the requisite number of syllables, had it not? This started a long philippic from Kitty, who had reached the age when she must be dissatisfied with her name; and had moreover imbibed from novels a conviction of the superiority of exotic imports. — Had any one, in any book or play, ever met with a heroine named Kitty? “If only she had been baptised Sophronia!”

  Bingley broke out in a laugh, for which he instantly begged Kitty’s pardon. His sister had a housemaid Sophronia! — “But that was the way of it now-a-days, when every servant girl was a Charlotte Matilda, at the least. — And how absurd, when one hears their mistresses calling, ‘Clean the grate, Clarissa,’ or ‘Scrub the steps, Anna-Sophia.’ — However, all this was leaving the unravelling of his charade sadly neglected! Where were their insights, their flashes of genius, that were wont to set the table on a roar? — ”

  From two of his auditors, at least, no flashes of any kind had been forthcoming. Elizabeth — who would usually have entered eagerly into any exchange of wit — seemed as though her own wits were any place else; and Mr Darcy appeared to be listening with only half an ear. In the end, Mr Bingley was obliged to furnish his own explication.

  “‘My first and second form a lady’s name’,” he said. “ — That is ‘Annie.’”

  Mr Darcy demurred — (it was the first time he had spoken, beyond the civilities of greeting). “‘Annie’ was not a name, but a hypocorism.”

  “By hypocorism,” Bingley retorted, “I suppose you mean what people less addicted to long words might call a nick-name.”

  It seemed to Elizabeth that Mr Bingley — made bold by happiness — was shewing a greater readiness to teaze Mr Darcy than she had ever beheld in him heretofore. “Could not the intended name be ‘Anne’ conjoined with the letter ‘E’?” she suggested, conscious that she too had been conspicuously silent, “ — as short for a cognomen such as Edwards or Elliot. That would resolve the difficulty, would not it?” Bingley humbly thanked her: he would gladly accept the emendation, though he felt sure that his friend would then find some other grounds for complaint. Mr Darcy signified that he was quite prepared to withdraw his objection, if it would lead to a quicker construing of the puzzle.

  “Very well!” said Mr Bingley. “‘Annie’ is the solution of the first line. The solution of the second, that which ‘establishes a poet’s fame’, is ‘verse’. — I trust there can be no objection to that!” This having received general assent, — “Now the solution of the third line, the ‘simple Latin thing,’ you must grant me very clever,” he went on, “for the Latin word for ‘thing’ is ‘re,’ as in republic, — the res publica, you know. Put them all together, — Annie, verse, re — and they make ‘a famous date in history’ — in short, an anniversary!”

  This drew a groan from his listeners, and Jane declared it the worst charade she had ever heard. But “Oh! no,” cried Bingley: he had invented many a worse. And they must remember, it was an extempore. “But even now the inner meaning has escaped you all!” he continued, triumphing. “I mean as to the famous event of which today is the anniversary. — Why, the ball at Meryton! It was a year ago this very day that Darcy and I had the good fortune of meeting the present company for the first time!”

  Kitty, rushing to the almanac, found the assertion confirmed: it was indeed the anniversary of the assembly at Meryton. The aptness of this recollection was what struck everybody; every one exclaimed over it. — “To think,” said Mrs Bennet, “that it was only a year ago! — exactly a year! �
� since they had first met their dear Bingley; — and Mr Darcy, too, (in a colder voice). What might another year be bringing?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mary went up stairs to practise soon afterwards, and Mrs Bennet urged the others to take advantage of the fine weather, — “For who knew how long it would last,” — by walking out together. She knew that Bingley and Jane would welcome the idea, which must afford them some occasion to separate themselves from the rest of the party, and cared not if it were less to the taste of the other three. The party set out accordingly; and the expected separation was soon effected by the difference between the slower pace of Miss Bennet, which Bingley exactly matched, and the quicker, decided steps of Mr Darcy. When the larger party came to the lane which led off to Lucas Lodge, Elizabeth, determining not to wait on fortune, drew Kitty aside. “Would not you rather be calling on Maria Lucas?” she said. But though Kitty should have preferred to visit her friend, she was by no means prepared to fall in with the suggestion — and from the most generous of motives. “She would not leave her sister alone with that disagreeable man.” Hearing that epithet used of Darcy had long been a penance to Elizabeth, — and her own previous use of it a source of continual regret. At that moment, however, she felt that she had paid sufficiently for her sin. She therefore said, with some asperity, “Oh! don’t be such a goose. Mr Darcy will not bite me!” And she almost pushed her sister in the direction of Lucas Lodge.

  The other two walked on some little time in silence before Elizabeth decided that she must speak. She could not bear to continue in ignorance, — should infinitely prefer to know even that he had ceased to care for her. “He is too chivalrous to equivocate with me. He will allow me to see whether there is any hope.” She determined to thank him for what he had done for Lydia: — difficult as the subject was, it was less awkward to start than any other. With bold resolution, therefore, (and breathing rather quicker than usual,) she began,

  “It is a vile world, Mr Darcy. We are all for self, and I am no better than the rest of mankind; for though I know it will be affording you pain, I must thank you — I must — for your generosity towards my undeserving sister. Pray do not blame Mrs Gardiner for revealing what you wished kept secret. Lydia — ”

  “I do not blame Mrs Gardiner,” the other broke in, in a feeling accent. “I confess I was very angry when I learned that she had been obliged to lay the facts before you, your sister having made further concealment impossible, but I was in error. I have always said that secrecy is abhorrent to me. I should not have expected it. I should have acted openly.”

  “I can understand that you wanted no light to shine upon your liberality,” said Elizabeth, very earnestly. “We are told that one hand should not know what the other is doing. But you must allow me to thank you on behalf of those who do not know how much they have to thank you for. You must allow me to express my gratitude.”

  Gratitude — that word! Darcy believed there was no sensation so little liked by the generality of mankind — and deservedly: the need to express gratitude soon wore out the recipient’s power to feel it. Besides, some seeming acts of charity might be thought to be prompted by the desire of creating a sense of indebtedness: people might rightly be suspicious of such a motive.

  Elizabeth coloured. “People would have to be very deficient to suspect such a thing. No thinking, feeling person could do so. In any event, you need not fear that of me. I assure you my gratitude is unforced. I bestow it as a willing tribute to your magnanimity. I know — I know! — how much trouble you were put to, to achieve my sister’s rescue, — how much mortification of spirit you had to undergo. To be obliged to deal with people so repugnant — so justly repugnant — to you; to persuade — cajole — induce them to do for gain what they ought to do from principle. And that you should do all this on behalf of a girl, who had not principle enough to keep herself from shame; — a girl to whom you owed nothing!” —

  “I would have done all this and more! Who should have the trouble and mortification but myself? If others had guilt, I had guilt too. — But though I acted on your sister’s behalf, I did not do it for her sake!”

  After another short silence, during which Elizabeth kept her eyes on the ground, — she could not have looked up for her life, — Darcy began again.

  “I am grateful to my friend Bingley for noticing the anniversary of our first meeting. It has put me in mind of another anniversary. It is full six months since I spoke to you in Mrs Collins’s parlour at Hunsford. I told you that day that I loved and admired you. That was a falsehood. — I did not know then what it meant truly to love and admire. (And in a quieter tone,) I do now.”

  He turned his gaze on Elizabeth, and his expression almost overwhelmed her. She could not immediately have uttered a word; her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed; but it was necessary to speak. She feared no mischance; — their happiness was assured; they were no longer to be misled by momentary inadvertencies; — but she felt all the anxiety of suspense which must be his at that moment, and she owed it to him to reply in the same mode of generous confidence. How should she speak? In her rising spirits, — spirits soaring higher every instant, — she wished to say something of such éclat as might be handed down to amaze and astonish future generations — had any one been present to hear it apart from the one man for whose ears it was intended; but she was too overcome, and could only say, in low, feeling accents, that she, too, had since learned what it meant to love and admire.

  Afterwards, a more eligible reply was supplied by that unfailing esprit de l’escalier, which mankind can always depend upon, after the event. — “Mr Darcy,” she might have said, “I, too, spoke in error that day. I said you were the last man in the world I could ever marry. I should have said, — the only one.” This stroke was denied posterity, however, by a sincerity of feeling too powerful for wit; but Mr Darcy shewed no sign of being dissatisfied with his answer.

  After one quick look of gratitude and warm appreciation on either side, each turned away. But though they could not regard one another, they could attend each other’s voice. They walked on a long time, heedless of the mellow landscape through which they passed, their eyes taking in a beauty which their minds were too preoccupied to notice. What did they speak of? — that most interesting of all subjects, themselves. The delight, the joy! of abandoning reserve — of having a being to whom every thing could and must be confided. The first thing to be discovered was how this mine of felicity had come to be sprung. While they had still been in the house, Elizabeth had been every moment dreading the revelation of Lady Catherine’s visit; now she could not wait to learn whether Darcy had known of it — and whether her Ladyship had descended upon him after leaving Longbourn.

  Lady Catherine had gone to London, but the effect of her communication on her nephew had been exactly the reverse of what she had intended. “It made me decide to come into Hertfordshire immediately. I could not allow you to believe she spoke for me.”

  “Then we are indebted to her Ladyship for our present joy? (laughing). Here is irony enough!”

  “Something might be owed Lady Catherine, but we are more indebted to your aunt than to mine.”

  Elizabeth started. — Indebted to Mrs Gardiner! How might that be?

  “I had formed a sudden resolve to quit England and make a tour of Switzerland. — Behaviour very unlike my usual proceeding, I agree (seeing her look of astonishment); but I had thought removal the only course. You may guess how the idea first gained upon me. (And when Elizabeth professed total ignorance on the point,) — You seemed so distant, when I was last here. I believed you were sending me away — wishing that I should go.”

  “I — send you away? I was doing every thing in my power to keep you here. When you left Hertfordshire, I thought all hope was over. I felt sure you must have argued yourself out of any irrational partiality you might have entertained for me.”

  “A man does not argue himself out of such a partiality! — (feelingly.) But I th
ought you were wishing to discourage me.”

  Elizabeth wondered how Darcy could have thought her conduct discouraging. Her efforts to draw him had seemed so marked to her! — But upon consideration, it was not difficult to apprehend why they should have been little apparent to him: the problem of how to communicate her sentiments to one person, while guarding them from every body else, having found no ready solution with her. She remembered, too, how conscious and ill-at-ease she had felt in his company, oppressed by the sense of what her family owed him — and by being the only one to know it. Perhaps Mr Darcy had been right to fear the produce of gratitude. — But still!—

  “You were easily discouraged. I am almost ashamed when I think how greatly I put myself in your way. You must remember my luring you with song.”

  “Perhaps I was too easily discouraged,” he replied. “But I was afraid you would think I had preserved your sister in the hope of making interest with you; and that was an idea which must give you disgust.”

  “I never thought such a thing! — ”

  “You might well have thought it, for it was true — though I long concealed the truth from myself. Oh! (when Elizabeth protested against the injustice he was doing his own noble generosity,) I might have pursued the same course from genuine consciousness of mistake, but I should not have pursued it so energetically, — or been so ready to accept the necessary vexations, — if I had not had your picture steadily before my eyes. The idea that I was serving you, gave me a happiness that mitigated the most degrading circumstances. And perhaps my receiving pleasure from what ought to have been a penance made me apt to question my motives. At any rate, I felt sufficiently discouraged about my prospects to contemplate a journey abroad, and to convey a hint of it when I called in Gracechurch-street on Sunday. Your aunt was kind enough to counsel me against the plan. — ‘The picturesque effects of Switzerland would be lost on me, if my thoughts were always turning towards home. How could I be viewing scenic splendours when your image filled my mind?’”