Chapter 14
Invitations she hoped he would dine with them on Thursday; she believed the party would be small; and she added, almost as an afterthought, that it might please her niece’s young friends to know him in the same room, should he feel no objection.
Mr Darcy read it twice.
The Grants were not strangers. He knew Mr Grant by reputation and by the practical connections that existed between neighbouring properties, where boundaries and water-rights took no notice of friendship.
There had been small matters over the years, discussed and concluded without difficulty.
Yet he had never been in the Grants’ dining room, nor had they been in his.
Invitations had been extended more than once, always politely declined.
To accept was to enter Lambton society as a participant, and until now he had seen no reason to do so.
His first impulse was to refuse. His second was to reflect, with some surprise, on whether Miss Elizabeth Bennet would be there.