Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
PECULIAR ATTENTIONS
M iss Bingley was not the only person present at the dinner party at Netherfield Park to take note of Mr Darcy’s peculiar attentions to me.
“Lizzy, I wish you would have a care,” my mother said over breakfast the next morning.
“A care, ma’am?” I asked, reaching for the jam pot. I thought I was once again to hear her objections to my driving.
But no.
“You have attracted the notice of Mr Darcy, and I happen to recall he and Mr Wickham were once friends. They grew up together, did they not?”
“Mama, you cannot be in earnest,” I chided.
“Can I not? Miss Bingley did not care for your forward manners in the least.”
“Forward manners!” I spluttered. What then transpired were a few tense moments in which I was forced to defend myself for speaking to the gentleman at dinner. This was strange indeed, considering my mother’s history of pushing us forwards and encouraging us to throw out our feminine lures willy-nilly. Then to make matters worse, I was forced to defend Mr Darcy.
“If that man was a rake,” she said darkly, referring to Mr Wickham, “which we now know he was, then it is likely his friend is also a rake.”
The notion was ludicrous, but I maintained a reasonable tone in my reply. “Perhaps I should explain that Mr Darcy warned me against Mr Wickham last year.”
“As he would do if he were in competition with him. They fell out, did they not? Likely over a woman! And what must he do last night but exchange places with the curate in order to flirt with you? I swear I will not have my daughters classed as easy fruit for the plucking.”
“Flirt with me! He sat next to me for the purpose of remonstrating with me! He does not believe I should be driving, thinks I am too green to be allowed to hold the reins alone, and otherwise has criticised me for pertness.”
“You see? I am not the only one who believes you should comport yourself with a touch more reserve. Mr Bennet, do you not support me in this?” she demanded.
I hotly interrupted whatever my father might have to say. “It was my father who suggested I learn to drive in the first place, and what is more, he insisted,” I said in a lowered voice so as not to be overheard by the servants, “that I cease to behave as if some tragedy had befallen this house.” I concluded in a vicious whisper, “Which it has!”
“Do you think I must be reminded of it?” she cried.
“My dear,” my father said, placing a hand on her arm and glancing pointedly at the open doorway to the breakfast parlour .
Kitty and Mary exchanged a look ripe with dismay, then they both turned to me as if for some last word or reassurance that would end this argument over something we would all rather forget.
“Mama,” I said in a low, calm voice. “I assure you, where Mr Darcy is concerned—indeed where any man is concerned—I am on my guard.”
She accepted this with a modicum of grace, for Lydia’s scrape had taught her a little about the wisdom of reserve.
“Well, there is no fault in reminding you to be careful. Mr Darcy may not be a rake, but that does not prevent him from toying with your affections, does it? Rich men can hold themselves exempt from the mischief they cause. Why, I have only to think of how Mr Bingley broke Jane’s heart—but in any case, he will regret it, for she will receive a respectable offer any time now, and you will meet any number of eligible prospects who will have the courtesy to speak to your father first and to court you in the usual manner.”
“Oh joy,” I said in an inaudible aside. Publicly, I smiled to signal my acquiescence to this fate, and thinking I had better indulge in what freedom I had while I still had it, I then invited Mary to come out driving so she could make sketches of a gnarled oak tree I had seen at the edge of Lindbury.
On the way, Mary said, “Mama is right, Lizzy. Mr Darcy does show a partiality for you that is too pointed to be anything other than admiration.”
“Et tu, brute?”
She only shrugged and scanned the horizon for a first glimpse of her tree.
My sister’s observation and the impartiality with which she expressed her opinion left me with little to chew on save for the realisation that Mr Darcy’s partiality for provoking me had been misinterpreted by everyone but me.
We had agreed to a cordial—dare I say entertaining—dislike of one another, but who outside that strange and delicate understanding would believe there were no deeper feelings at play? No one. People loved to reach the most tawdry conclusion—in this case, that we had begun some sort of romantic affaire that would end with my ultimate disgrace. Mr Darcy would marry up, not down, and the neighbourhood would even now be judging me a fool.
Thus, I took my mother’s advice to heart. I would have a care where that gentleman was concerned.