Lessons of Advantage

by michael sand

  Another letter soon followed from Kent. Mr Collins, writing now on his own account, was anxious that Mr Darcy should not take umbrage at his having served as Lady Catherine’s amanuensis; as a clergyman, he considered it his duty to preach the doctrine of peace, and never offend any one, especially any one of fortune. Mr and Mrs Collins arrived in person not long afterwards. Lady Catherine’s dudgeon requiring to be worked off on every one round her, they had thought it best to leave Hunsford for a time. They might have saved themselves the exertion, for no sooner had they left than her Ladyship, in the fretfulness of her temper, took herself and Miss de Bourgh off to Harrogate — some weeks earlier than planned. Mr Collins did not regret the expense, however, glad of the opportunity to ingratiate himself with Mr Darcy: Lady Catherine must ever be revered as his first patron, but he was not averse to obtaining a second. In this, he shewed great wisdom; nor was he the first courtier to abandon the setting for the rising sun. Mrs Collins took a private opportunity of begging Elizabeth’s pardon again for her family’s indiscretion — and her own. Elizabeth had no difficulty in forgiving her, the Lucases’ impertinence in spreading gossip having led to the happiest of results. In the end, Charlotte might prove the better courtier than her husband: she possessed a powerful advantage in having been the first to perceive Mr Darcy’s admiration for her friend, and in having considered the match possible when it seemed unthinkable to every one else — matters of grateful recollection to Elizabeth.

  If Mr Darcy took no pleasure in writing his aunt, he took a great deal in informing his sister Georgiana of the engagement. This, however, was as nothing in comparison with the delight she took in the news. Two sheets of paper, closely written on both sides, were insufficient to express all Georgiana’s joy in the prospect of gaining a sister — and such a sister! The music they would make! — the duets they would play! The joys of the country and the pleasures of town, which they would share! It was all too much! — she could scarcely bear to be so happy! — Elizabeth responded in a letter which sounded a calmer note of joy, but no less heartfelt an expectation of loving and being loved.

  Correspondence also arrived from Scarborough. Miss Bingley’s powers as a writer have already been noted. She was certainly put to it to exercise them at this time, for she was obliged to send a letter of congratulation not only to Miss Bennet, as her brother’s intended, but also one to Elizabeth. It can be imagined that the latter essay must have cost her even more dearly than the former; for where she was merely annoyed with her brother, she was extremely vexed with Mr Darcy. Moreover, her chagrin had been materially increased by receiving a note of condolence from her friend, Miss Stanhope. Beginning, “So the mighty citadel has fallen at last! — the great Mr Darcy is to be married,” it went on to express Miss Stanhope’s astonishment that the bride-to-be should be a person nobody had ever heard of. — “How comes such a complete unknown to be carrying off the first of prizes? She had always thought that some quite different person would succeed in fixing Mr Darcy.” The letter ended with the hope that she might yet dance at Miss Bingley’s wedding, whenever that happy event should take place. Great exertions were therefore required to quell Miss Bingley’s resentment and exercise sufficient civility, so that something might be saved from the rout; — to lose the entrée to Pemberley would be highly inconvenient. But she possessed talents, and could employ them, when necessary; and a carefully worded letter from her pen soon reached Elizabeth, full of empty professions, and comprised in equal measure of affection and insincerity.

  One day soon after Miss Bingley’s missives arrived, Darcy and Elizabeth went out to sit on a bench in the shrubbery, ostensibly to read their letters, but actually to review, (and not for the first time,) the remarkable way in which course of true love had ended so happily for them, in spite of not running with perfect smoothness. After some period passed in this agreeable activity, Mr Darcy thanked Elizabeth for her forbearance towards his aunt; — her forbearance had been much greater than his own! Elizabeth demurred. He would be receiving little enough by way of a dowry; nor would she be connecting him to any great extent with informed minds or polished conversation. She must make up these disadvantages in whatever way she could.

  “You are yourself the best of dowries,” he replied. “And I expect to receive very material advantage from connecting myself with such powers both of head and of heart.”

  “This is gallant! Well! I shall do my best to make sure that you do not repent of your unequal bargain.”

  “Where there is equality of mind,” he said, with a look of true sensibility, “no other inequality can be admitted. Any man would wish to improve the material circumstance of a loved object! I count myself fortunate in being able to do so.”

  “Well, well! I concede. I cannot be striving against so much magnanimity.”

  They were returning to the house later that morning, and had almost reached the front door, when they were surprised to see the figure of a gentleman emerge from it, and walk towards them — Colonel Fitzwilliam! He had arrived at Netherfield that morning, and hearing that his cousin was at Longbourn, had ridden over to meet him; had sat some time with the family, Mr Bingley having been so kind as to introduce him; but Jane informing him where her sister and Mr Darcy were likely to be found, had strolled out in the hope of meeting them. After the first civil greetings had been exchanged, the Colonel begged Elizabeth’s pardon — “for the necessity of depriving her of his cousin’s company for a while, on some very particular business.” Permission was granted of course, but Elizabeth entered the house in a state of heightened curiosity. She had not long to suffer before this was satisfied, however, and had only been sitting in the family circle some quarter of an hour before Mr Darcy joined her. After a moment, he took the opportunity of the general conversation in another part of the room, to invite her in a low voice to rise, and walk with him to the window, where they could speak unheard.

  “What had the Colonel to say?” was then Elizabeth’s question. “Was he come to forbid the banns? Do I have anger for daring to think myself worthy of you?”

  “On the contrary, he is all complacency. You have long been a favourite with him. And so far from forbidding the banns, he has news of banns of his own. He and Miss de Bourgh are to marry.”

  It appeared that Colonel Fitzwilliam had visited his connections at Harrogate soon after their arrival; and learning that there was no longer any possibility of Mr Darcy’s being to marry Miss de Bourgh, the Colonel had felt freed to pay his own addresses. He had been accepted, and had ridden immediately into Hertfordshire to impart the news to Darcy, and assure himself that there was no dislike to the alliance.

  “I congratulated him heartily, and gladly gave him all the approbation he desired; — though why he should feel in need of my consent, I cannot imagine. I have never entertained an attachment for my cousin, and (with a smile) I am even less likely at this moment to feel any resentment that he should be successful in attaching her. He sent you his warmest felicitations, and apologized for not staying to deliver them in person, but he was obliged to return to Harrogate without delay.”

  “Well!” Elizabeth said after a moment. “I am sorry to hear this news, for Colonel Fitzwilliam’s sake. Miss de Bourgh must be reckoned a great match, but it must be source of regret that so amiable a man should connect himself with such a sickly, cross, ill-natured creature.”

  Darcy stared at Elizabeth with most unfeigned surprise — “My cousin Anne, cross and ill-natured? Nothing could be farther from the truth. To be sure, she is of a reticent disposition, — but that is no great wonder when Lady Catherine is so given to talking. And though she has been used to be accounted sickly, I am indebted to the Colonel for shewing me that her supposedly frail health has been the invention of an autocratic and excessively protective mother. Nor do I think the Colonel has been influenced by the greatness of the match in seeking the union. He could well imagine, he told me, that the world would believe him moved by considerations of advantage, — �
�for it must be considered a piece of singular good fortune for so expensive an item as the younger son of an earl to achieve a great heiress like Miss de Bourgh.’ (Those were his words.) But the world would be wrong. He had always felt a deep interest in our cousin, and was most sincerely attached.”

  The Colonel’s feelings might originally have arisen out of pity for the tyrannic sway under which Miss de Bourgh had been obliged to live; but it had long since developed into a warmer regard. He had been restrained from speaking sooner by the expectation of Miss de Bourgh’s being to marry elsewhere; but that obstacle removed, he had taken an early opportunity to address his cousin, and had been so fortunate as to find that she returned his regard. He reckoned himself the happiest of men. — But how came Elizabeth to be thinking Miss de Bourgh ill-natured?

  Elizabeth was obliged to consider the question. She supposed, she said at last, that she must have formed her erroneous judgement during her visit to Rosings. (So much for Mr Darcy’s high estimate of her powers!) Perhaps disgust with Lady Catherine’s high-handed inquisitions, and the fawning subservience she received from every one within her circle, had prejudiced her and coloured her appraisal. Or was it possible? — Could it have been? —

  “I had been told that Miss de Bourgh was to be your wife. It might be that I was jealous, without understanding how I could be. — After all, at that time you were the last man on earth I ever meant to marry! — Perhaps I wished to think meanly of a person, whom I could not admit to be my rival. At any event, I am rejoiced to learn that I was wrong, — for the Colonel’s sake, as well as my own, since Miss de Bourgh is to be my cousin, — and I look forward to knowing her better.”

  How Colonel Fitzwilliam might be proceeding in future with such a mother-in-law as Lady Catherine, was the question which next animated Elizabeth’s thoughts; but Mr Darcy foresaw no difficulty. The Colonel had always been more amused than vexed by his aunt’s foibles — a philosophical stance which he could never achieve. “Fitzwilliam is unlikely to take harm from Lady Catherine’s society. If she says any thing particularly ungracious, he will only laugh or take no notice. You need not fear on that account.”

  “I hope you are right. I cannot imagine the Colonel as a complaisant aide-de-camp to the commander of Rosings.”

  There was one letter which did not benefit the Post Office revenues at this time, for the sufficient reason that it was never sent. Mr Bennet had intended to teaze his brother, Mr Gardiner, by insisting that he send him a complete account of every penny paid out so that he might make instant remuneration for all that was owed. Mr Gardiner was preserved from this raillery by Mr Bennet’s accustomary indolence; for the pleasure of mental composition having been enjoyed, the exertion of the actual writing proved too much for him. In this Mr Gardiner was fortunate: however good the joke might have appeared to its author, he must have found it painful.

  Mr Gardiner was doubly fortunate. Not only was he spared the exercise of Mr Bennet’s wit, but he obtained respite from the uneasiness he had long laboured under, (for taking credit actually belonging to Mr Darcy,) in the release from his promise, which was dispatched to him from another quarter soon afterwards. Of all the letters Elizabeth had to write, this to Mrs Gardiner gave her the greatest pleasure. For some weeks past, she had felt too conscious of all the subjects on which she dared not communicate, to be able to write easily on those she did. Now conscience could be assuaged by sending the happiest of news.

  It was received in Gracechurch-street one morning at breakfast. “There!” said Mrs Gardiner, handing the letter to her husband. “It has all turned out just as I predicted, they are to be married. We are invited to spend Christmas at Pemberley, and Elizabeth promises that you shall have all the opportunity of fishing you desire next summer. Did not I tell you how it would be?”

  Mr Gardiner understood that this instance of his wife’s superior judgement would be held up to him, for the better correction of his own, whenever any future disagreement should arise between them; but he did not greatly mind. He was a man of excellent principles, and he believed, with Proverbs, that a good woman was above rubies.

  — Finis —