Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
FIELDS AND FARRIERS
T he cacophony of self-chastisement which followed that strange encounter with Mr Darcy lasted two full days.
What a fool I must appear to him! I could not execute a simple turn on a country lane. I could not command my cheeks to cease glowing like red lanterns in his presence. I could not even entice him to agree to my terms of a truce. Worse than all that was that he inspired me to such heights of irony, of an unseemly wittiness at his expense as to feel, in hindsight, I had come quite close to sounding spiteful.
This observation generated a feeling, if not of outright shame, then one of true remorse.
A little mockery is leavening to that cloying eagerness to please so common to young ladies but to smugly apply the full range of my capacity for cutting sarcasm? No, I did not wish to show off just how searing a wit I possessed. I wished instead to be able to use this double-edged knife with more discretion and certainly never to forget that kindness is superior in all cases to a barb, no matter how amusing. Had my father, who was in my estimation, a brilliant satirist, taught me nothing? How often had he wounded someone with less of a capacity or inclination for repartee than he possessed?
As I replayed the conversation with Mr Darcy in my mind, I became a touch preoccupied with the notion that perhaps he had toyed with me . Had he spurred me to improper speech and unseemly observations in order that I show my inferior breeding? When I should have been modest and grateful, I chose instead to pepper him with clever insolence and to poke at him from under the cover of chuckles and saucy smiles. His assessment of me—that my wish was to be noticed for pertness—stung me to a surprising degree. He was right!
Again and again, I pondered the evils of my upbringing, using the effigy of Lydia’s reputation hanging in the bonfire of reasons why we should behave like ladies instead of recalcitrant brats. I had learnt nothing from her tragedy apparently, and I resolved with great sincerity to do much, much better.
Further reflection made me consider the narrow road a woman must walk. To veer one way or another was to invite a reputation of one sort or another. How many ways could be used to condemn a lady? Many! She was a shrew, a vixen, a flirt, a skirt, a goose, a tart—the list was long indeed.
At church on Sunday, I comported myself as gracefully as I knew how, acknowledging Mr Darcy’s greeting with averted eyes and a proper curtsey. We met in passing on the street in Meryton where I had gone to buy a pot of gold paint for Mary. I tipped my head at him, lowered my eyes with extreme modesty, and drove past him at a stately pace with young Charlie on the back of my curricle dressed in a little blue jacket with a matching cap.
By the time a full week had passed, I felt I had regained a state of ladylike self-regulation and congratulated myself on the example I made of genteel propriety. Just as Lydia was no longer a hopeless flirt, I had successfully renounced my career as an insolent dandiprat. Just how well I had learnt my lesson, however, was about to be tested, for Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy paid us a call for the purpose of inviting us to Netherfield Park.
My eyes flew upward for just an instant, since the prospect of a return to Netherfield would only ever spark any number of miserable memories. Thankfully, Mr Bingley was not plagued by Lydia begging him to give a ball this time. Instead, he was hosting a dinner party to which the notables of the neighbourhood were invited. In my determination to behave properly, I sat with my eyes settled upon my folded hands and a faint, unreadable smile pasted upon my face for the duration of the visit. Though Mr Darcy attempted to aggravate me by boring holes into the top of my head with his black stares, my modesty prevailed.
Resolving to be a model of superior comportment and thereby as close to invisible as possible, I went to Mr Bingley’s dinner party dressed in my second-best dinner dress with my hair twisted in a simple knot and held in place with plain silver combs. Why should I attempt to dazzle anyone with my appearance? I was not an heiress, I had no aspirations to marry anyone in particular, and I was finished with all those girlish schemes to attract attention.
Thus, I proceeded with a feeling of complacence that was bolstered by the solid certainty that Miss Bingley had established the seating arrangements. In other words, I felt confident of being placed as far away from Mr Darcy as possible. However, upon approaching the table, he asked the curate if he might exchange places, since the flowers in the centrepiece next to him tended to make him sneeze. Miss Bingley briskly ordered the flowers removed, but the exchange had been made. Too late, her would-be husband had taken the seat farthest from her and closest to me.
“Miss Elizabeth,” he said.
“Mr Darcy,” I replied, determined after that barest requirement of civility to stay mute for the duration.
“How is your pony’s gait?” he asked.
“She is reshod and recovered, I thank you.”
“Which farrier do you prefer?”
“Creighton, sir,” I said with my soup spoon suspended in the air.
“I do not know of him. Bingley has a man here.”
“Of course.”
“He is both blacksmith and farrier on the estate.”
“Hmm.” My soup was now stone cold.
“When will Mr Bennet plan for the threshing of his crops this year?”
“The rain has set us back at least a week, sir.”
“Will he overplant with peas, or does he leave his fields fallow after the harvest?”
Torture! I could not do it! In an effort to stem the flow of sharp, unladylike utterances that had been building in my throat, I exclaimed in a hissing whisper, “I believe I would prefer to have a chicken bone stuck in my throat than to be forced to talk of fields and farriers.”
To my amazement, Mr Darcy then chuckled. “I am relieved to see you have come out of your sulks.”
“Sulks! ”
I had blurted this out rather too loudly and continued in a much lower voice through clenched teeth. “I have not been sulking, Mr Darcy.”
“Oh? I am mistaken, then. I have a much younger sister, you know, and I thought myself well-versed in the symptoms of girlish pique.”
“Such as behaving with circumspection and comporting oneself with dignity, you mean.”
“Oh, was that it? Forgive me, I mistook your grim composure for pouting. My apologies.”
I then turned to marvel at the rudeness of my dinner companion by staring into his face. “I believe you are intentionally nettling me, Mr Darcy.”
“I confess I am. I was hoping you would entertain me further with your pert?—”
“Mr Darcy!” Miss Bingley bellowed, causing me to jump in my seat. “What news from Pemberley?” she cried from the far end of the table where she sat as hostess.
“Prosperous, ma’am,” he said publicly while raising his glass to her.
Thus shielded, I turned abruptly away from Mr Darcy to request of John Lucas his advice on the subject of lame horses. Since I blinked stupidly at him and listened with quivering attention, my childhood friend obliged me, and I was thereafter prevented from engaging anyone else in conversation until we excused ourselves from the table.
I then melted into a potted palm and scuttled the periphery of the salon until it was time to leave. Mr Darcy, meanwhile, was pulled to sit next to Miss Bingley, required to turn her pages when she played the pianoforte for our entertainment, and he was thereafter begged—with a fluttering of eyelashes—to fetch her shawl from the bench when she forgot to take it with her.
Only once throughout this puppet show did I forget myself and catch the gentleman’s eye. And though I tried hard not to reveal anything by that glance, I am certain my eyes were dancing with glee at his forced servitude to his hostess.