Elizabeth felt — and not only on Caroline’s account — more than slightly embarrassed to hear the tale bandied about in front of Mr. Darcy.
“I assure you,” Mama began, “that we had enough worrying over business for several generations. Have you any notion,” she said speaking to Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, “what it was like in those years? After my dear husband set up in trade with Mr. Bingley, Mr. Bennet’s father cut off his allowance —hesaid it was a shame before the family. But Mr. Bennet simply wanted to see those machines made! For him it was always a matter of advancing the arts and sciences of England as much as the fortune — we were quite narrow in those days.”
“I am impressed with your husband’s fortitude in acting so,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “As a dependent son I am always keenly aware of what might put me beyond the good graces of my father — though your husband had to his advantage of the entail, so he knew that he could not be separated forever from fortune.”
“Yes, yes!” Mama cried. “There is no legal arrangement I admire so much as an entail — even though it will take Longbourn away from us one day, I always advise my friends to establish one if they might. Mr. Bennet took everything he had from his mother, and a great loan from my father to make up his part of the capital. My brother also contributed a little, but he earned a greater portion back by managing the London contacts for our business in addition to his own. We lived only off the income from my funds — a little less in fact. Mr. Bennet always found some cause to give a pound here or there to some workman, or to smooth some small matter over when the working capital was overrun.”
Charlie sat on the corner of the blue chesterfield sofa next to Mama, and flung his leg over the side. He said, “Papa loved to talk about those days, and how he put in everything he could beg, borrow or steal from my grandparents, his friends, and random persons on the street.”
“Quite right! Quite! We lived, all of us, in that small house in Manchester. We were right on top of each other, sharing a maid of all work between me and Mrs. Bingley. It was quite ridiculous — we were so young. I was quite angry for the first months at Mr. Bennet for taking me north and placing me in such circumstances, but… I began to find the… fun in it. I hardly realized it at the time, but those years were the happiest in my life. I am wholly happynow— but there was something about being surrounded by a young and growing brood, the way that Mr. Bennet worked all day, each day, and then he’d talk to me at night about the business and his worries — I hardly understood a half of what he said, but I tried to listen — when you marry, girls, you always must get your husband to speak to you. The best men often are rather quiet if you do not put yourself to some effort to draw them out.”
That speech struck Elizabeth a bit oddly. It made her think of Mr. Darcy.
And she then tried to compare Mr. Darcy and her father, and while in surface ways they were not at all alike, perhaps there was a similar cleverness, and maybe even a similar tendency to be amused by others without showing it at all.
Caroline said with a blush, “Oh, I certainly shall delight in nothing so much as listening to my husband whenImarry.”
“For my part,” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and stretched his legs out in front of him, “I’d find it a terrible bore to have to constantly listen to myself talk — I’d much prefer the nattering of a woman. Tell the rest of it — how did you get the dowries of all your girls so packed with fat?”
“So packed with fat.” Mama giggled. “I’ll need to remember that. Our life became easier after Mr. Bennet inherited Longbourn. He let out the estate, and put almost all the money into the enterprise, borrowing against his expectations even, but business was expanding, and we moved into a much bigger house. Two maids and a cook — though no footman. Manservants are so dear in the north. The mills and canals, the mines and factories — they hire them all up at good wages. It is quite a good thing forthem, but makes keeping up one’s consequence harder — Kitty had just been born, and Lydia followed soon after.”
“I loved nothing so much as that house! And the yard!” Charlie grinned. He always enjoyed hearing these sorts of stories about their childhood. “I shall always remember the scent of the apple trees during the summer — I’d barely started school when we moved into the larger house. I remember my delight at having my own room — I’d had to share with Caroline and Louisa before.”
“Don’t talk about that!” Caroline said, her color high. She looked at Mr. Darcy, who listened intently to Mrs. Bennet’s story.
He was studying Elizabeth again.
Those same dark, serious eyes. She felt a flutter in her stomach that could not be attraction.
“I am not ashamed that my husband made his fortune through determined work, cleverness, and by advancing the progress of the manufactures of England!” Mama said to Caroline, using one of Papa’s favorite phrasings. “I would be ashamed to be ashamed of it — Caroline, you should be proud of your father — they were such excellent partners.”
Mama looked again at Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam whose attention to the story seemed genuine — it was wholly new tothem. “Mr. Bingley could sell a stone to a rock wall, and he could borrow a thousand pounds from the worst miser in England. On good terms. Managed all the workmen perfectly — I’m afraid my husband has no talent for dealing with anyone beneath him. Tries to treat every workman or clerk like a student who could be convinced through Socratic dialogue. But those machines Mr. Bennet designed — he’d talked gears, and pressures, and lathes through the whole of it the first time we danced. I hardly paid any attention to what he said… he looked so handsome and fine in his green coat,” Mama sighed with a misty eyed smile, “and he had such thick black hair then, and lovely hands — it was his hands I noticed first. Put me quite beside myself. All the other girls envied me for having caught the eye of Squire Bennet’s only son.”
“Mama,” Kitty squealed with annoyance. “Don't tell us about how handsome you found Papa.”
Mary looked up at that squeal, and then nodded in agreement with Kitty before she buried her nose in her book again.
“Lord! He still is a fine looking man! Men are like wine — they become more delightful with age.”
“And women as well,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Mama. “As you prove. By Zeus, I perceive that you are handsomer today than you ever might have been.”
Mama blushed at the raillery, but she smiled. “Oh Ioncewas very beautiful, but I am nothingnow. When a woman has four grown daughters, and a fifth nearly so, she ought to give up thinking of her own beauty.”
“I believe that is because,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, “very few such women have so much beauty as you — Miss Bingley, would you not say that Mrs. Bennet is as lovely as any unmarried girl of twenty and five, such as yourself?”
“I amtwenty,” cried Caroline without delay.
“Ah, my compliments then, you show that maturity and perfection of beauty that is only usually found in those older.”
Elizabeth studied the colonel. She honestly could not tell if he in fact admired Caroline, or if he was merely teasing her out of habit and amusement at her annoyance. But she had a sudden certainty that it would likely be wholly better for Caroline ifsheshifted her attention towards a gentleman who in fact paid her attention.
Caroline glared at Colonel Fitzwilliam, wholly unmollified by his response.
Mr. Darcy said to Mama, “But tell me, was Miss Elizabeth born at that first house?”
“Let me think… no, she was a year old. It was in the year ninety-two that Mr. Bennet and Mr. Bingley signed the articles of incorporation for their company — I remember it must have been ninety-two because it was the year when this long war with France first started. We were there until the year ninety-six — both couples and all the children in the same house. Everyone running around underfoot, and everything such a mess of noise that you cannot imagine. It was a delight. Lizzy insists she cannot remember that house.”
“I do, the room at least, with Mary and Jane also sleeping together with me,” Elizabeth said.
