Elizabeth’s brows lifted. “Is worthiness to be determined before kindness is attempted? That seems a rather cautious charity.”
“I only mean,” Miss Bingley replied, with a thin smile, “that people are generally happiest when each remains within his proper sphere. Tenants have their concerns, neighbors theirs, and gentlemen theirs. Too much interference, however well meant, may easily become presumption.”
There was a moment of silence. Darcy’s fingers tightened slightly upon his glass.
Elizabeth, however, looked more amused than offended. “Then I suppose the difficulty lies in deciding where concern ends and presumption begins.”
“Precisely,” Miss Bingley said, as though she had gained a point.
“An excellent question,” Elizabeth continued. “Though I suspect those who are comfortable often draw that line much sooner than those who are cold, hungry, flooded, or ill-housed.”
Miss Bingley opened her mouth to respond, but Elizabeth continued. Darcy felt the old protective impulse rise, but Elizabeth was quicker than he.
“In the country, Miss Bingley, estates have a great deal to do with one another. We benefit together or suffer together more often than town residents may suppose. A poorly drained field does not ruin only the crop within its own fence. Water runs, cattle stray, sickness travels, roads wash out, and one neglected tenant family may become the concern of three parishes before winter ends. Nature does not recognize property lines merely because men do.”
Bingley looked delighted. Mrs. Hurst, to Darcy’s surprise, looked faintly interested. Miss Bingley looked as though she wished nature had better manners.
Elizabeth’s gaze shifted, not quite to Darcy, but near enough that he felt addressed. “‘When there is no water in the river but his own, the tide comes not in, no sea water, only the water of the river, the native water, then your bottoms, your ships they stand upon the sands; but when the tide comes in, then they are raised, and come off the sands then.’”
Darcy’s attention sharpened at once.
“That is very good,” Bingley said. “Though I am not certain I follow all of it.”
“I take the general meaning,” Mrs. Hurst said. “No one rises entirely by himself?”
“Something near it,” Elizabeth said. “Or perhaps that what comes from beyond us may lift us where our own powers cannot.”
Darcy leaned slightly forward. “What author?”
Her eyes met his, and for a moment the room seemed to quiet around them.
“Not a book, precisely,” she said. “At least, not one I ever possessed as a book. It was from an old sermon or lecture in my father’s papers, written by a Reverend William Bridge at Stepney more than a century and a half ago. I found it amongsome university notes Papa had either copied or acquired, and for some reason the image stayed with me.”
“William Bridge,” Darcy repeated thoughtfully. “An Independent divine, was he not?”
“I believe so.”
“I have not read him.”
“Then at last I have found a gap in your Roman, Greek, military, and moral education.”
Darcy’s mouth curved before he could prevent it. “You assume a great deal from a little ignorance.”
“I have always found ignorance a most useful field for speculation.”
“Dangerous ground, Miss Elizabeth. Speculation leads to error.”
“And certainty leads to arrogance.”
Bingley laughed aloud. “Darcy, I believe she has you there.”
Darcy looked at her across the table, seeing the spark in her eyes and feeling, with unexpected pleasure, that she was not merely teasing him but inviting him to keep pace. “Only if I claimed certainty, which I was careful not to do.”
“Careful gentlemen are the most difficult to defeat,” she replied.
“Then you admit you intended defeat?”
“I intended conversation. Defeat is only a pleasant possibility.”
