Chapter 11 Crushed
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CRUSHED
The private ball held in the home of Lady Whitmore was celebrated as one of the most important events of the London Season.
Lady Whitmore always planned it for just after Easter, and many gentlemen thus regarded it as the event to meet the Season’s debutantes.
It was, as some of the coarser men snickered, akin to Tuesdays at Tattersall’s; one did not purchase anything, but it was an excellent time to get a good look at the horseflesh.
It was not the sort of event Darcy generally attended. He despised crushes and only danced when he had to; nevertheless, he had accepted the invitation. Eagerly. And although he would not quite admit it to himself, he hoped that he would meet Miss L again.
Madness, he told himself as he was dressed for the evening. Absolute nonsense to be dangling after a woman in such a way, a woman I do not even know! Nevertheless, he asked his valet Fields to redo his cravat twice and sent him into his jewellery box seeking a more elegant stick pin.
The crush in Lady Whitmore’s ballroom was excessive even by London standards.
Darcy had arrived within half an hour of the stated beginning and already the receiving hall was crowded and hot.
He handed his hat and gloves to a footman and made his way up the marble staircase, the sounds of conversation and music swelling with each step.
He paused at the entrance to the ballroom, his height affording him a view over many of the assembled guests.
Couples were forming the dance lines, watched over by the matrons lining the walls; at the far end of the room, he saw another door in which several gentlemen entered. He presumed that to be the card room.
No sign of her.
Darcy moved along the perimeter of the room, nodding to acquaintances as he passed. Lady Jersey caught his eye and inclined her head; he bowed in return but did not approach.
“Darcy! I say, Darcy!”
Darcy turned to find his friend Lord Amesbury pressing through the crowd, his round face flushed with wine and heat. He acknowledged him with a slight bow.
“Dreadful squeeze, is it not? Cannot move for all these people. Lady Whitmore has quite outdone herself.” Amesbury mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “You have only just arrived? Thought I saw your cousin earlier.”
“Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“No, Saye. Went directly into the card room.” Amesbury chuckled. “I have heard he is all but engaged to Peverel’s daughter, so I suppose he is excused from the dancing.”
“I daresay he is,” Darcy agreed. “I suppose he must have escorted my aunts?”
Amesbury shook his head. “He was with Sir Frederick Moore. I did not see anyone else with them.” Amesbury paused and then said, delicately, “I understand your family are…displeased with you, hm?”
Darcy cut his eyes towards him. “What have you heard?”
Amesbury winced. “I am sure you can imagine. Everything and anything. You jilted your cousin, you fathered a child by a maid—”
“Good lord!”
“They removed Miss Darcy from your care, such were your libertine ways.”
“Insupportable,” Darcy ground out from between gritted teeth. “And absolutely untrue, first to last.”
“Anyone who knows you knows that,” Amesbury said consolingly. “The Season has not produced the requisite number of scandals just yet, so the gossips are chewing on your family affairs instead to amuse themselves.”
Indignation rendered him temporarily silent. “I understand my aunt has brought my cousin to town to see if they can see her married off,” Darcy replied tersely. “I daresay that is my best hope for all of the nonsense to be put aside. She was never engaged to me, I know that much.”
“As rich as your cousin is, I do not doubt that she will have ten offers before the end of June,” Amesbury assured him. “I would not mind marrying her myself!”
“Have at her, then,” Darcy replied shortly.
“Do you think so?” Amesbury asked.
Darcy turned to look at his friend. He was an average man of average height and weight and, though merely a viscount, he was heir to an old and respectable earldom. His countenance bore an eagerness upon it that surprised Darcy until he remembered the inducement of Anne’s properties and fortune.
He inclined his head. “If you can bear my aunt as a mother-in-law, then I think you should have as reasonable an expectation of happiness as any man does.”
“You know what they say,” Amesbury exclaimed jovially. “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”
“Indeed.” He left Amesbury then, continuing to push through the crowds seeking Miss L.
He saw nothing of her, nor of the rest of his family; he wondered if Georgiana’s intelligence was incorrect, or if perhaps they had decided to await a different event to begin Anne’s search.
He looked in on the card games, but Saye was deep in a high-stakes game and paid him no mind after a vague wave of greeting, so he left again and made yet another perambulation about the ballroom.
The ballroom remained impossibly crowded, the heat oppressive, and Miss L remained frustratingly elusive.
Lady Matlock had decided Lady Whitmore’s ball would be the ideal place to introduce Elizabeth to the ton as Miss de Bourgh’s particular friend.
Lady Catherine had begged off for the evening; she had decided that her chaperonage would be limited to civilised events such as concerts and exhibits while the more sociable Lady Matlock would take the ladies around to the balls and assemblies, with either Saye or Fitzwilliam alongside them.
Anne had at least four tantrums in her preparations for the evening.
The first was because she was hungry; the second was because she was cold.
The third tantrum arose over what she might wear, and the last was due to her maid arranging her hair in an exceedingly unflattering way.
Elizabeth could readily see that Lady Matlock was losing her patience with her niece and hastened into the breach to assist.
“My dear, you are beautiful,” Elizabeth enthused. “Unflattering? Such nonsense! You look absolutely lovely.”
Anne sat at the dressing table with tears in her eyes. Her hair had been done in a more elaborate manner than Elizabeth had before seen it but suited her well enough.
“’Tis no use!” she cried out. “I have dreadful, frizzled hair, and I look a fright!”
“You are nervous,” Elizabeth soothed as she took Anne’s hand and gently tugged her up. “If you stare at yourself in the mirror long enough, everything begins to look peculiar.”
“But this curl,” Anne said, gesturing towards the locks that dangled over her shoulder. “It looks like it merely fell out.”
“Then let us tuck it in.” With quick hands, Elizabeth remedied the offending locks, offering an apologetic smile to Anne’s maid who was straightening the room. She appeared relieved that someone else had stepped in to help.
“There. Is not that nice?”
Anne quickly peeked into the mirror again, frowning as she turned her head this way and that. “Maybe it is too plain now.”
Elizabeth took her hand and again began to tug, this time moving her towards the door. “It is not too plain, nor too elaborate. It is just the thing for a night of dancing and diversion, but if we do not leave, we will miss it all.”
With a sigh, Anne allowed herself to be moved from the room. Within a short time, the ladies were in the carriage, Anne more composed and almost regal as the carriage rolled the short distance between St James’s Square and Lady Whitmore’s residence.
Elizabeth had begun to understand that fits of temper were Anne’s method of managing her nerves.
She had begged to be released from the obligation to Lady Whitmore no fewer than ten times that day, and each of those ten times, Elizabeth had bolstered her courage and assured her that not only would all be well, but would likely be excessively enjoyable.
Even now she reached for Anne’s hand, ice-cold even through her gloves, and squeezed gently.
“I daresay we will have a splendid time,” she murmured.
“You both look very well,” Lady Matlock said warmly. She then poked Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had come with them, and said, “Do they not?”
He smiled. “Oh, I think they will do. Pray do not make me come looking for either of you in dark corners, eh?”
Elizabeth smiled at the jest, and Anne looked first alarmed but then amused. “I just hope someone asks me to dance,” she said. “Someone agreeable.”
“They will,” said Elizabeth firmly. “They most definitely will.”
“And if they do not,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “I shall dance with you.”
“You are going to begin with Elizabeth,” Anne reminded him.
“I will happily give him up to you, if needed, but I do not think it will be required,” Elizabeth assured her. Anne only sighed in response.
Elizabeth had heard of parties referred to as crushes in the tattle sheets, but she had not realised it meant that the guests themselves were crushed, pressed tightly together, a fog of warmth and cologne and anxious sweat surrounding them.
The din of greetings and exclamations was loud, and the musicians played even louder to be heard above them.
Surely this gown will be torn and stained by the end of the night.
Elizabeth looked ruefully at her hem, which already bore the marks of shoes and dirty floors.
The crowd, at many points, was pressed tight with scarce an inch between them, and the only way to move was to shove oneself betwixt and between whoever stood in the way.
They made slow progress towards the ballroom with Lady Matlock stopping or being stopped frequently for introductions.
Anne was asked to dance by a man who was a marquess.
To Elizabeth’s relief, she found herself with several partners as well.
She hoped it meant that she looked like she belonged, at least a little.
The exertions were certainly far more than Elizabeth was accustomed to.
With over twice the number of dancers, the lines were above twice as long and the sets were thus by necessity prolonged as well, to ensure that all dancers could complete the patterns.
The crowd pressed close on all sides of them, and the air was soon close, humid and warm, and the chatter of the party was deafening.
By the time Elizabeth had danced three sets, she was in desperate need of refreshment and a moment or two to rest her aching feet.
She moved towards the ladies’ retiring room, hoping Anne did not require her aid. She had lost sight of her during the first set, presumably whirled off by another partner, and Elizabeth hoped dearly that the triumph of that would delight mother and daughter both.
When she left the retiring room, she somehow got turned about.
Thinking she was moving towards the ballroom, she instead found herself down another back hall altogether, one which opened into a small courtyard.
Turning back with the intention of retracing her steps, she very nearly collided, once again, with Mr D.