But Mrs Gardiner made a gentle motion with her hand, as though to reassure her, and, smiling slightly as she looked at her, spoke only then. “Not at all, there is no indiscretion in it. Of late, I have come to consider you my closest friend, though a decade stands between us. I believe, rather, that you have set me thinking. Yes, my father judged Mr Gardiner to be a serious suitor, and encouraged him to visit us several times, that we might become acquainted.”
“Then your father did not think so very differently from mine.”
“Far from that, he belonged to that stricter tradition in which parents determine their children’s marriages. It was,rather, a fortunate circumstance. Your uncle had come to Derby on business and took our house there, the one in which my sister Agnes now resides. As he intended to remain more than a month, my father likely wished to observe him.”
Mrs Gardiner looked at Elizabeth with attention and smiled, guessing the question that occupied her. “I was not drawn to him at first…not as you understand love. But you must know that affection came after our marriage and I have never once regretted a decision that was, in truth, entirely my parents’.”
“How glad I am!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “When you first came into our family, we were somewhat intimidated—we were only children, and you were already a woman. We did not know what to expect, but you won us over at once.”
“You were the ones who won me,” she replied, “but I was deeply struck by the atmosphere in your home—by Mr Bennet, who is by far the most progressive gentleman I have ever known. I could have spent hours in the library with you when he spoke. Do you remember how Mrs Bennet would sometimes have me drawn away, quite forcibly, because she believed my place to be in the drawing room with the other ladies? And I wished only to remain and join your discussions. Later, as you grew older, my surprise increased still more, seeing how your father encouraged your independence. To marry for affection was an ideal I had never supposed might belong to real life—it seemed rather the invention of novels.”
“Poor father!” exclaimed Elizabeth, and her heart tightened.
“Poor? Why poor?”
“Because he gave us that independence in complete contradiction to our circumstances, which could never support such hopes. Marriage was our only means of securing a decent life, and he knew it, even as he urged us to independence. ThatMr Collins did not marry one of us is, in truth, a misfortune for our family…though for Jane and me, it is a blessing.”
Mrs Gardiner sighed deeply; she knew too well the difficulties of the Bennet family.
“I hope most sincerely that you will all be happily and securely married long before any unhappy event.”
Elizabeth nodded, though without conviction. “Might I have been wrong to refuse Mr Darcy—”
“Lizzy! How can you say so? A proud, disdainful man, who holds such an opinion of your family, cannot be your husband!”
“It is true. Yet that day I saw only his faults, in every direction, without considering that we, too, might possess defects seen as such from without.”
Mrs Gardiner said nothing, allowing her to continue, and Elizabeth, looking at her steadily, spoke with a faint irony softened by sadness. “A perfect family is also an ideal of books, and we had only believed ourselves to be one.”
“And what has changed?”
“Nothing in what we are—only in how I now see us. Mr Darcy’s disdain shocked me, and I answered him with violence, but his letter brought me to reflection and urged me to do what my father has always required of me—to think before I form my opinions, especially when I am angry or hurt.
“We are not perfect. My mother’s impatience contributed to Jane’s unhappiness. Lydia and Kitty behave very ill in society, and even Jane—”
“Jane? What fault could Jane have?” asked Mrs Gardiner, in sincere surprise.
“Jane, with her reserve, appeared not to care for Mr Bingley, and all, combined with my mother’s talk of a certain engagement, made it seem as though Jane valued only his fortune.”
“Oh! There may be some truth in your sister’s timidity. Though I would not say Mr Darcy showed his own feelings very clearly before the proposal.”
“There was no reserve in him. He struggled against his affection for me and hoped to resist a marriage with a woman from such a family.”
“I hear more sorrow than resentment in what you say.”
“I am filled with both, in equal measure. I do not regret refusing him. I regret only the severity and unkindness with which I spoke.
“I am ashamed that I preserved not the smallest degree of objectivity in what concerned us, and that I erred so greatly in my judgement of a man such as Mr Wickham.”
She had told her aunt only that a passage from Mr Darcy’s letter had entirely altered her opinion of that gentleman—a libertine and a gambler, deserving of contempt rather than admiration.
Elizabeth looked with affection about the room she knew so well. The fire played cheerfully in the small grate, casting shifting shadows over the light and elegant furnishings; the subdued colours and the fine fabric of the sofa and chairs told the story of Mrs Gardiner, who, since coming to London, had cultivated a taste for beauty, while preserving the wish to create a home for her family, not merely an elegant setting.
“I am not satisfied with myself. As his daughter, whatever my father may have taught us, I ought to have reflected on the situation of my family. Mr Darcy is clearly not Mr Collins—and I do not speak of fortune, but of character. To accept a man such as he might not have been impossible, had I been given time to know him, and to remember how much my family depends upon me—upon any of us. I must own that to marry Mr Darcy would have been the very salvation my family awaits. Yet I found it impossible to think of them.”
“When in truth all your anger, and your firm refusal, arose from them, from the arrogance with which he presumed to declare his dislike of them.”
“Exactly so. I wonder whether, in other circumstances, I might at least have asked for time to consider.”