“That is unfortunate,” he said, “for Mr. Arsene Smith appears to know you rather well, Wickham. He knows that you are residing at Rosings, he knows that correspondence directed to you will reach you here, and he writes with the confidence of a man who believes his business both familiar and welcome.”
Lady Catherine, whose patience for obscurity had already been exhausted, struck the arm of her chair lightly with visible irritation.
“Darcy, if there is something to be said, I insist that it be said plainly. I will not have my drawing-room turned into a theatre of half-phrases and private understandings. If this Mr.Smith concerns my house, then I require the matter explained immediately.”
Mr. Darcy inclined his head, but his attention never left Wickham. From his pocket he drew the folded letter and placed it upon the table between them with a deliberation that made the gesture itself accusatory.
“A letter addressed to Mr. Wickham arrived this morning,” he said calmly. “It was not delivered, because circumstances made delivery imprudent, I daresay. The gentleman writing was not a creditor, as Mr. Wickham might have suggested, but a stock broker, and the new vicar’s expectations are remarkably ambitious for a man who claims no acquaintance with the name.”
Wickham’s smile had not disappeared, but it no longer possessed any ease.
“I hope, Darcy, you do not intend to establish a principle by which every private letter in England may be opened upon the strength of curiosity and old prejudice,” Mr. Wickham said, with a smile that had become more careful than easy. “It would make the post a very dangerous institution, and leave every gentleman at the mercy of suspicion before breakfast.”
Mr. Bennet, who had been observing the exchange with an attention far keener than his indolent posture suggested, allowed himself the smallest movement of amusement.
“The post, sir, has always been dangerous chiefly to those who write incautiously. It is one of its few democratic virtues, and perhaps the only one which reaches equally from London to Kent.”
Lady Catherine, however, had no patience for wit where her authority was concerned. She rose half from her seat,indignation lending colour to a countenance not accustomed to being kept in ignorance of anything that occurred beneath her own roof.
“What does the letter contain, Darcy? I will not be answered with philosophy while strangers discuss mysteries concerning my own household. If this concerns Rosings, I insist upon hearing it plainly, and I insist upon hearing it now.”
Darcy unfolded the paper, though he scarcely needed to consult it. The contents had already fixed themselves too clearly in his mind. His voice, when he spoke, was perfectly controlled, and therefore infinitely more severe.
“The writer was under the impression that one tenth of Anne’s dowry might be secured within the fortnight, in order to establish certain investments which Mr. Wickham had represented as advantageous. He further understood that your confidence, Aunt, was complete, and that Anne’s future settlement would remain under what he called proper guidance—”
He had not finished the sentence before Lady Catherine crossed the distance between them with an abruptness that startled even Mr. Collins into silence. With a movement so swift that dignity barely had time to accompany it, she snatched the letter from Darcy’s hand.
“I will read my own humiliation, if humiliation there is,” Lady Catherine said sharply. “I do not require it softened for me like bad news delivered to an invalid.”
A complete stillness fell over the parlour. Even Wickham, whose talent for composure was rarely unequal to the moment, seemed for the first time uncertain whether charm could still be of service. Anne sat motionless, one hand resting againstthe arm of her chair so firmly that the knuckles had gone pale. Elizabeth scarcely breathed. Mr. Bennet, for once, had no irony ready enough to be useful.
Lady Catherine read rapidly at first, with the impatience of a woman accustomed to finding most written things beneath the dignity of her attention; but before she reached the middle of the page, her pace slowed. She returned to one sentence, then another, as though disbelief required repetition before it could become insult. The colour in her face altered—not the quick flush of temper, but something colder and far more dangerous.
At length she lowered the paper, though she did not release it. Her eyes lifted slowly and rested upon Wickham with a scrutiny from which favour had entirely vanished.
“My daughter’s dowry?” she repeated, and each word was sharpened by disbelief. “My daughter’s dowry? One tenth of Anne’s dowry to be conveniently secured within the fortnight, and my confidence so obligingly complete that the remainder might afterwards be managed with less observation?”
She took one step nearer the new vicar.
“And by what extraordinary miracle, Mr. Wickham, were you to acquire access to my daughter’s dowry? Through my patronage? Through my house? Through my hospitality? Or had you already advanced so far in your own imagination that Rosings itself had begun to appear transferable?”
Now, at last, every eye in the parlour turned fully upon him. The first true thread had caught, and everyone present felt it tighten.
Wickham bowed, though the elegance of it had become effort rather than instinct. His smile remained, but it no longer possessed ease.
“Your ladyship, this is some vulgar misunderstanding. Men in the City write with an insolence proportioned to their need of money, and if some broker has presumed to use my name in support of his own schemes, I am as much offended as anyone present. A gentleman may discuss expectations without intending villainy, and idle speculation is hardly proof of crime.”
Mr. Darcy’s expression remained unchanged, which made the answer seem weaker rather than stronger.
“A gentleman may also refrain from discussing a lady’s dowry as though it were already under his management. You have shown a very particular concern for Hunsford, for Rosings, and for every arrangement by which access becomes easier and oversight less immediate. I find that concern less accidental now than I did yesterday.”
“I should be very interested to hear by what path my own hospitality was expected to finance my own humiliation, Mr. Wickham,”Lady Catherine demanded.
Anne spoke then, and the quietness of her voice commanded more attention than interruption would have done. She did not look at Wickham when she answered, but at her mother, as though truth belonged there first.
“Through habit, Mama. By being permitted to arrange what should never have required his hand—household accounts, inventories, keys, and every small authority which appears insignificant until it is quietly surrendered. He relied upon the convenient belief that attention to practical matters must always be mistaken for usefulness.”
Lady Catherine turned to her daughter with an astonishment so complete that, for a moment, it seemed almost to suspend even anger. She had expected contradiction from Darcy, ironyperhaps from Mr. Bennet, but from Anne—whose silence had so long been mistaken for compliance—such directness carried the force of rebellion.
