“A thousand pardons, your ladyship! I am excessively ashamed.” Mr. Collins coloured deeply. “The honour of finding myself admitted to play in such distinguished society has perhaps deprived me of that steadiness which, under humbler circumstances, I generally command.”
“I have rarely met a gentleman,” Mr. Bennet observed, while calmly collecting the trick surrendered through Collins’s confusion, “who loses with greater innocence of intention than my cousin.”
Darcy, hearing this from the neighbouring table, lowered his eyes for a moment as though to conceal amusement.
“It is my misfortune,” Mr. Collins continued earnestly, “to retain the principles of games more readily than the rules themselves.”
“That,” Mr. Bennet replied, “places you in a condition shared by many moralists and nearly all politicians.”
Even Lady Catherine appeared not entirely displeased by this observation.
At the second table, the play proceeded with greater tranquillity. Anne, though timid at first, gradually entered more naturally into the amusement; and Elizabeth soon perceived that Miss de Bourgh possessed neither dullness nor incapacity, but merely the long habit of yielding precedence to stronger personalities.
“You play very correctly, Miss de Bourgh,” Elizabeth observed during a pause in the game.
“Mama says I play too cautiously,” Anne said, looking faintly surprised.
“That is because Lady Catherine dislikes any quality which does not resemble decision,” Mr. Darcy said quietly.
His aunt looked up immediately.
“I dislike hesitation where certainty is possible, Darcy.”
“And yet,” Mr. Bennet returned, “certainty appears remarkably difficult to secure at cards. Mr. Collins has now demonstrated at least six different convictions within a quarter of an hour.”
Mr. Collins laughed with such willing submission that even his embarrassment became harmless.
The evening, which had begun under the weight of strain and uncertainty, thus settled by degrees into a species of domestic ease none of them would earlier have anticipated. The fire burned lower; the candles softened gradually toward their sockets; and conversation, no longer guarded by continual caution, acquired something nearer comfort than ceremony.
At length Lady Catherine laid down her cards.
“It grows late,” she announced plainly. “And as your journey tomorrow will require an early departure, Mr. Bennet, it is proper that the evening should conclude before unnecessary fatigue is produced.”
The words, though practical in form, carried an unmistakable acknowledgment that their visit now approached its close.
Mr. Collins immediately expressed profound sorrow at the prospect of separation; Mr. Bennet offered the gratitude due to hospitality with a dignity perfectly free from excess; while Elizabeth, in thanking Lady Catherine, did so with a warmth more sincere than she herself might once have expected possible.
“You have shown us much kindness, madam,” she said quietly.
“I have endeavoured to act properly, Miss Bennet,” Lady Catherine replied, receiving the acknowledgment with grave composure.
“And successfully, Mama,” Anne said gently.
For an instant, Lady Catherine’s expression altered; and though no direct tenderness appeared, something in her manner softened visibly toward her daughter.
“I shall expect to hear that your journey is completed safely,” she said, addressing the Bennets generally, though her eyes rested for a moment upon Elizabeth.
Mr. Bennet bowed with easy politeness. “We shall leave Rosings with every proper sense of the attention we have received here.”
Mr. Darcy, who had spoken little during these final exchanges, accompanied the party as far as the great staircase; and though no private conversation was possible, Elizabeth remained quietly conscious, as she offered him her parting curtsy for the evening, that the understanding established between them now rested upon something steadier than accident.
CHAPTER 10
Eight days had passed since Mr. Bennet, his daughter Elizabeth, and Mr. Collins had departed from Rosings. Their cousin, whose future now appeared unexpectedly transformed by the promise of a respectable living at Kympton and the prospect of a far more advantageous clerical career than anyone at Longbourn had once imagined possible for him, had remained in London in the hope of meeting again with Mr. Darcy to settle the necessary particulars of the arrangement.
Mrs. Bennet had listened—at least outwardly—with proper attention to her husband’s various accounts of Rosings: Lady Catherine’s formidable manners, the astonishing alteration in Mr. Collins’s fortunes, the loss of one parish and the acquisition of another still more desirable; yet all these particulars, however extraordinary in themselves, had very soon yielded precedence in her mind to a consideration infinitely more important.
For if Mr. Bennet’s information was correct—and Elizabeth, whenever appealed to, confirmed every essential circumstance with an honesty too steady to permit contradiction—then Mr. Darcy himself, the wealthy and unmarried nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, intended very shortly to visit Hertfordshire, being, in all probability, interested in the leasing of Netherfield Park before the Michaelmas agreements were concluded at the end of September. The visit therefore appeared imminent. Nor was Mr. Darcy expected alone. He was to be accompanied by a friend, likewise unmarried, and evidently possessed of sufficient fortune to contemplate the leasing of a considerable estate.
