Equal Ground #2
Georgiana set down her cup with a care that was not timid so much as deliberate. “We might go to the music room,” she said, and there was a steadiness in her suggestion that Darcy noticed at once. “It is brighter in the morning, and I normally practice there after breakfast.”
Caroline’s expression softened immediately into something like indulgence. “Georgiana, you must show us,” she said. “I have been longing to see it in daylight. There is nothing in town to compare with a real music room.”
Mrs Hurst set down her cup. “A morning indoors will suit me exceedingly.”
“It will suit you,” Bingley said, standing as though the matter were already settled. “And it will suit Darcy and me to be out. You promised me a ride, Darcy.”
Darcy rose with measured ease. “You shall have it.”
Miss Bingley glanced between the men, displeased to be left behind, and then recovered herself with a smile that suggested she had granted the permission. “Very well. Go and gallop your horses. Georgiana and I shall be far more properly employed.”
Georgiana stood as well, and for a moment her gaze met Darcy’s, quietly resolute. The morning had not been arranged for her, nor taken from her. She had chosen it.
Darcy inclined his head, and the day began.
They had not ridden long before Bingley’s spirits rose into full possession of him.
“This is what I wanted,” he said, taking the air itself for a kindness. “To be out. To see something that is not a street, or a drawing-room, or a man pretending he is not bored.”
Darcy let him talk. It was easier than answering, and it gave him something to do besides listen to his own thoughts.
The hedgerows were high and thick with summer, the fields a bright, unembarrassed green. A lark rose somewhere beyond the rise of land, and Bingley turned his head to follow the sound with boyish pleasure.
“Your county is determined to make me ashamed of every idle hour I have spent in London,” he declared. “If I do not buy an estate after this, Caroline will never forgive me.”
Darcy made the smallest sound of amusement, and then the road curved, and his attention fixed.
Ahead, where the lane widened near a gate, three ladies had paused beneath the edge of a tree.
One sat a little apart with a sketchbook, head bent in concentration, so intent upon lines and shade that the rest of the world appeared forgotten.
Another held a parasol with practised ease, angled to keep the light from her face as she watched her sister’s hand.
The third was turned slightly towards them, her posture calm and attentive, having quietly taken upon herself the office of keeping the peace.
Bingley saw them at once and straightened in the saddle, his expression sharpening into interest. “Are those ladies your neighbours?”
“Our new neighbours,” Darcy said, because he could hardly pretend he did not know them.
Bingley’s smile came back, immediate and bright. “Then you shall introduce me.”
Darcy shortened Wicked’s rein and slowed to a walk. The ladies had heard the horses; the one with the parasol looked up first, her expression composed. The sketchbook lowered a fraction, and its owner began to rise in haste, perhaps afraid she had been caught at something improper.
He stopped at a proper distance and dismounted.
“Good morning,” Darcy said, with a slight bow.
“Good morning, Mr Darcy,” Miss Bennet returned at once, and Elizabeth’s voice followed, steady and clear, with Kitty a half-beat behind, recalled from her sketchbook by visible effort.
Darcy inclined his head again. “May I introduce my friend, Mr Bingley, to your acquaintance?”
Bingley stepped forward at once, all warmth and readiness.
“Miss Bennet,” Darcy added. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Miss Catherine Bennet.”
Bingley bowed, his expression so immediately pleased that it seemed impossible to doubt it.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, and though the address was proper, the warmth in it was entirely his own. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Mr Darcy has been so kind as to allow me to intrude upon his Derbyshire, and I find it exceeds every description.”
Miss Bennet smiled, calm and easy, incapable of embarrassment or vanity from so simple a compliment. “You are very welcome to Derbyshire, sir.”
Miss Catherine, who had risen with less composure than the others, adjusted her sketchbook beneath her arm as though it might serve as a shield. Her eyes moved from Bingley’s open face to Darcy’s more guarded one and back again with quick curiosity.
Elizabeth said nothing at first, but her glance met Darcy’s for a moment with that directness which always made him feel more clearly seen than he wished.
“You have brought fine weather with you,” she said at last, with all the indifference the remark could reasonably claim.
Bingley laughed. “Then I shall claim the credit with great pleasure. I am told Derbyshire does not always reward its visitors so generously.”
“It rewards those who are willing to walk,” Elizabeth said lightly, easing the meeting at once.
Bingley smiled. “Then I shall take care to deserve it.”
Miss Catherine, still holding her sketchbook in both hands, shifted it a little. She did not look at Bingley when she spoke, but at Miss Bennet, seeking permission even for a sentence.
“I like it very well,” she said quietly. “When one may sit still.”
Elizabeth’s glance softened. “Kitty means to draw,” she added, with easy simplicity. “We stopped here for that purpose, and I promised to stand as long as she required.”
Miss Catherine coloured. “Only for a little while,” she said quickly. “And not in the road. I do not wish to be in anyone’s way.”
“In that case,” Bingley returned, with easy kindness, “I shall be careful to keep to the side, and I will even attempt to be patient, if that is a virtue Derbyshire requires.”
Miss Bennet smiled at that, and the stiffness of first acquaintance eased by another degree.
“We have been taking the air by the river,” she said. “The view is finer here than it is nearer the cottage, and my sister Kitty wished to sketch.”
Miss Catherine looked up and coloured, her purpose perhaps too plainly named for comfort. “Only if I find a proper place,” she said quickly. “I do not mean to detain anyone.”
“You will detain no one,” Elizabeth returned, and there was authority in the reassurance. “We are not in haste.”
Bingley smiled at once, and his readiness to be pleased made the little party feel less like ceremony. “Then I hope you will find the proper place immediately,” he said, “for I should like to see what you make of it.”
Miss Catherine’s eyes widened a little, and she dipped her head. “It is not likely to be good,” she murmured, and then, because the confession seemed to require retreat, she moved a few steps ahead towards a gate where the ground rose slightly and the river curved away.
Darcy watched Miss Catherine go with a kind of unwilling respect. She had coloured, faltered, and yet still gone, determined that shyness should not be permitted to rule her.
Bingley, meanwhile, looked like a man who had been presented with a pleasing problem and was delighted to see how it would be solved.
“She is quite right,” he said, lowering his voice a fraction as Miss Catherine moved farther ahead. “One cannot draw in a hurry. I have tried, and the result was a blot that might have been a tree, in a forgiving mood.”
Miss Bennet smiled, and the expression altered her whole countenance, not into brilliance, but into something quietly steady. “I suspect you were not patient enough with it,” she replied.
“Then I shall take care to learn patience in Derbyshire,” Bingley said, sounding as though the attempt would be a pleasure.
Miss Catherine had reached the rise by the gate and paused again, turning her head to judge the light. The river could be heard more distinctly there, and the trees thinned enough to allow a clearer prospect.
Darcy drew Wicked nearer the gate and gathered the reins shorter, then looped them over the top bar.
Wicked accepted the restraint with imperfect grace, stamping once and tossing his head in objection to standing still, but he did not pull.
He merely breathed hard through his nostrils and watched the world with bright impatience.
Bingley followed, managing the same arrangement with less practice and more good humour, patting his horse’s neck in apology for borrowing Darcy’s example.
“Shall we walk a little way?” Miss Bennet asked, making it sound the simplest thing in the world, neither invitation nor refusal.
“If it does not inconvenience you,” Bingley returned at once.
Elizabeth looked to Darcy then, plainly expecting him to decide whether he would make the meeting easy or difficult.
“It will not inconvenience us,” Darcy said, and they began to move at a pace suited to ladies, with Miss Catherine now only a few yards ahead, intent upon finding the exact place where she might sit and be undisturbed.
They walked farther than Darcy had intended.
It began as a simple civility, a short turn to spare Miss Catherine the awkwardness of being left at once with her sketchbook and her own embarrassment.
Yet the river path invited loitering. The trees thinned in places, giving sudden, pleasing glimpses of meadow and water; the air was cool in the shade; and Bingley, once engaged, seemed incapable of remembering any appointment that did not involve the person before him.
Miss Catherine found her place at last and sat with decision, her pencil already moving.
Miss Bennet remained near enough to be called upon if needed, though she watched her sister with such quiet confidence that Darcy suspected Kitty was safer than she looked.
Elizabeth, in the meantime, spoke of indifferent things with a steadiness that made them less indifferent, and Darcy found himself answering more than he meant to, simply because silence would have been conspicuous.