Page 10 of Hard Home

"And in the matter of lines," she went on, since no one had stopped her, "the distinction is of some importance, for pride is what a man feels toward his own blood, and vanity what he feels toward the ledger of it. The first requires no witness. The second requires nothing else. Which is why, I believe, the proudest families are so often the quietest, and the vainest so seldom—"

"Mary," said Mrs. Bennet, "do go and see whether Hill has the cold beef."

Mary went.

---

She came back some while later and stood at the edge of the room, and because there was a gap in the talk she said, in the flat voice she used for facts:

"Sir William. You said, just now — 'I would stake my honor upon it.'"

Sir William, delighted to be addressed, said that he believed he had.

"You did not," said Mary. "It was not an oath. There was no weight in it at all. It was only a manner of speaking."

"Well — well, my dear Miss Mary, of course it was! Good heavens, one does not go aboutswearingat breakfast—"

"No," said Mary. "I only mention it because I can tell."

There was a small pause of the kind that had followed Mary all her life.

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Bennet. "Very clever. Charlotte, do try the beef."

Mary sat down and folded her hands and said nothing further for the rest of the visit.

It was her whole gift. She had had it at nine and had understood by eleven what it was worth, which was nothing: she could hear whether a spoken thing had binding force in it — whether words were merely words, or whether the world had leaned in and taken them down. In a country where oaths are sworn perhaps four times in a life, at a christening and a wedding and a deathbed and a court, it was a talent of no more practical use than perfect pitch to a woman forbidden to sing.

So she had gone to the books instead, and read everything, and quoted it badly, and been laughed at for the quoting rather than pitied for the reason, which she preferred.

Nobody in the room remembered it by dinner.

---

Elizabeth walked with Charlotte as far as the turning, as she always did.

"You defended him," she said.

"I explained him. It is not the same office." Charlotte had her hands in her muff and her eyes on the road. "Lizzy — you asked me nothing, so I shall answer nothing. But I will say one thing and you may quarrel with it as you like. You want toknowa man before you are bound to him. All the way down. It is the great appetite of your character and it is why your mother despairs of you."

"And you do not?"

"I think it is the most dangerous appetite a woman in England can have." Charlotte said it without heat, as she said everything. "Consider what a braiding is. It is not an agreement. It cannot be undone by consent, or by law, or by any court in this kingdom, because the parties to it are not the man and the woman — the parties are two Accords, and neither of them canread. You go into a church and you come out with your blood in another person's keeping for the term of your life."

"Which is precisely why one ought to know—"

"Which is precisely why one ought to knowas little as one can bear." Charlotte stopped at the stile. "If you know a man entirely and he is good, you have gained very little, for you would have discovered it in a year in any case. If you know him entirely and he is not good — Lizzy, what do you imagine you do then? You are seven-and-twenty. Your father is dying at the ordinary rate. There is no version of that morning in which knowing has helped you. There is only a version in which you go up the aisle with your eyes open, and that is not wisdom, it is merely a more elegant way of arriving in the same room."

Elizabeth was silent.

"I shall take a small, sound, dull line and a comfortable house," said Charlotte, "and I shall be perfectly civil to whoever comes with it, and I shall not look at him too closely on the way. And you will pity me for it, and I would rather you did it quietly, that is all."

She kissed her, and went up over the stile, and walked home.

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At Lucas Lodge, the youngest of the boys, who was ten and had been listening at doors all morning, announced that ifhewere as rich as Mr. Darcy, he should not care how proud he was; he would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine a day.

"Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought," said Mrs. Bennet; "and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly."