Chapter 28
Darcy had never enjoyed a dinner more.
He knew it would be noisy. He had expected Mrs. Bennet’s raptures, Lydia’s laughter, Kitty’s echoes, Miss Bingley’s sharpened civility, Hurst’s devotion to his plate, and Richard’s unholy delight in observing all of it.
He expected Bingley to look at Jane too often, Miss Bingley and the Hursts to be passively bored, and Mr. Bennet to amuse himself by saying very little while noticing far too much.
But what he had not expected was to be so happy.
Miss Bingley presided as hostess with a politeness that would have satisfied anyone who did not know her.
Her smiles were well placed, her compliments correct, and her arrangements beyond reproach.
Yet Darcy could see the effort in her face, and more than once he caught Elizabeth’s eye when Miss Bingley spoke with especial sweetness.
Elizabeth’s expression never betrayed open amusement, but there was a spark there, a little bright intelligence that told him she had noticed everything and forgiven nearly all of it for the sake of the evening.
That, too, made him happy.
Mrs. Bennet was in triumph. Her delight could not be contained by propriety, though she made occasional attempts at it whenever Jane blushed or Elizabeth caught her eye.
She had already complimented Netherfield’s table three times before the second course.
The five Bennet daughters filled the room with varying degrees of animation, from Jane’s gentle radiance to Lydia’s scarcely checked exuberance.
Georgiana sat near Elizabeth and watched the younger girls with wide, astonished eyes, as though trying to understand how any young ladies could speak so boldly and with so little fear.
Darcy found her surprise both touching and instructive.
Georgiana had been too much among quiet rooms, careful elders, and people who spoke as though feeling must first be examined for propriety before allowed into the air.
Kitty and Lydia were not models he would wish her to imitate, but their sheer innocent noisiness did not offend him as it might once have done.
“Mr. Bingley,” Lydia cried from farther down the table, “you must give a ball now Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are engaged. You have not yet held one here, which is very remiss of you, but you may repair the fault by promising it this moment.”
Kitty leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, do. Netherfield is quite made for a ball.”
“A ball?” Bingley said, looking as if the idea had just been presented to him wrapped in gold. “Upon my word, I see no objection.”
Jane’s cheeks turned pink. “Mr. Bingley, pray do not let my sisters coerce you into anything.”
“Coerce? Never. I am most willingly persuaded.” He glanced at her, and the pleasure in his face became softer. “Indeed, I should be delighted to host a ball at Netherfield.”
Lydia clapped her hands. “There! I knew he would be obliging. Lizzy, did I not say Mr. Bingley would give the best ball in Hertfordshire?”
“You have said so at least four times this week,” Elizabeth replied.
“And now I am proved right.”
“Is there society enough in Meryton to hold one?” Miss Bennet asked.
“Of course!” Mrs. Bennet protested. “We dine with four and twenty families!”
After dinner, the separation of the sexes was mercifully brief.
Darcy had never found port less interesting. The gentlemen remained in the dining room only long enough for the servants to withdraw and Bingley to gather his courage. He stood with a glass in his hand, turned it once, then set it down untouched.
“Mr. Bennet,” he said, with a look toward the older gentleman, “might I speak with you for a moment?”
Mr. Bennet’s mouth curved. “Another gentleman requesting a private interview? I shall begin charging admission to my paternal authority.”
Bingley flushed, but did not retreat. “I have not yet spoken to Miss Bennet. I would not presume before doing so. But I hope to ask her permission to court her, if she is willing, and I wished first to know whether I might have yours.”
Mr. Bennet regarded him for several seconds. Darcy saw the teasing impulse gather. It had worked upon him—or at least Mr. Bennet had enjoyed attempting it. But Bingley stood before him so open, so earnest, so entirely without strategy, that sarcasm seemed to find no proper place to land.
At last Mr. Bennet sighed. “You are a very disarming young man, Mr. Bingley.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That is part of the problem.” Mr. Bennet waved a hand. “Yes, you may court Jane, if Jane allows it. I warn you, however, that she is not so easily read as some imagine.”
Bingley’s face lit. “I would not wish her to be.”
“Excellent. Then perhaps you are not quite so simple as you appear.”
“Thank you,” Bingley said, then hesitated. “I think.”
Richard laughed aloud, then turned to Darcy the moment Bingley moved away. “And you, cousin. Have you determined when this wedding of yours is to occur?”
Darcy, a small smile lingering on his lips, glanced toward the door. “Not yet.”
“You had better do so before I am ordered elsewhere. I intend to be present.”
“You have only just arrived.”
“And already invested. Besides, if I write to my parents that Darcy of Pemberley has attached himself to a lady who found Roman treasure and captured his heart, do you imagine my mother will remain in town?”
Darcy lowered his voice. “Richard.”
“I did not say it loudly.”
“You said it at all.”
Richard grinned. “My father will come too, and Milton if he can be dragged from whatever responsible occupation he pretends to enjoy. You should prepare yourself. The family Matlock will descend with affection, advice, and luggage.”
“I shall warn Miss Elizabeth.”
“You should warn Longbourn.”
The thought of Lady Matlock meeting Mrs. Bennet ought to have alarmed Darcy. Instead, he found himself almost amused by it. Elizabeth would manage them both, somehow, with a smile that made everyone believe she had done nothing of the kind.
When the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, Darcy paused briefly in the doorway.
The drawing room glowed with candlelight and conversation.
Mrs. Bennet was speaking to Jane with barely restrained exultation.
Mary sat near Georgiana, explaining something about a particular sermon with solemn enthusiasm, while Georgiana listened with more patience than comprehension.
Lydia inquired about the house facilities, and she Kitty stepped out of the room arm in arm, chatting animatedly about the promised ball, each correcting the other on which officers must be invited first. Elizabeth stood surveying it all with mild amusement.
It struck Darcy then that, had his life been different, he might have despised this room.
Not Elizabeth. Never Elizabeth. But the noise, the impropriety, the too-eager talk of balls, husbands, officers, gowns, and neighborhood triumphs.
He might have judged Mrs. Bennet harshly and dismissed the younger girls as beneath serious regard.
He might have retreated into coldness, believing refinement the same thing as virtue.
But five years in the militia had shown him good men with rough manners and polished men with rotten souls.
His father had taught him that elegance could conceal depravity, that birth and fortune did not prevent selfishness, and that a gentleman’s drawing room might hold more corruption than a tenant’s kitchen ever could.
Mrs. Bennet’s exclamations were fatiguing, yes.
Lydia and Kitty were unformed, forward, and in desperate need of steadier guidance.
Yet there was innocence here. Affection.
Hope. A warmth that overflowed its proper boundaries but had not curdled into vice.
Darcy found, to his own quiet wonder, that he preferred it.
He crossed the room toward Elizabeth.
She looked up before he reached her, as though she had felt his approach. The smile she gave him was not broad, not improper, not even wholly unguarded in such company. But it was his, and he felt richer for it than any dowry could have made him.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“Miss Elizabeth.”
“I hope the gentlemen did not find the dining room too unpleasant. You returned very swiftly.”
“Mr. Bingley was impatient.”
“Only Mr. Bingley?”
“I may have encouraged haste.”
Her eyes warmed. “How very public-spirited of you.”
“I thought so.”
He had just taken a place beside her when the door opened and Netherfield’s butler entered with an expression of controlled disturbance.
“Mr. Bingley,” he said, “I beg your pardon. A gentleman has arrived and insists upon being admitted. He says he is a friend of the Darcys.”
Darcy looked up, his brow furrowing in confusion. “A friend of mine?”
Richard, across the room, straightened. Before the servant could answer, another figure appeared behind him.
“There is my beautiful bride!” the man cried, stepping into the room with a familiar smile that curdled the blood in Darcy’s veins. “Georgiana, my dear, I have come for you at last.”
For one instant, the room sat frozen.
Then Darcy was on his feet. “Wickham!” he bellowed furiously.
Richard rose at almost the same moment, his face hardening from joviality into a soldier’s readiness. Georgiana, seated beside Mary, blinked in confusion. Her face had gone very white.
“Bride?” she whispered. “Brother, what does he mean?”
Darcy could not answer her at once.
Wickham stood in the doorway as if he had been invited to delight them all.
He was older than when Darcy had last seen him properly, though not much changed.
Still handsome. Still loose-limbed and easy in his movements.
Still wearing charm like a coat cut by a master tailor to disguise rot beneath.
His smile widened as he looked around the room, taking in the company, the candles, the ladies, and the shock his entrance had caused.
Darcy felt rage rise so swiftly that he feared, for one terrible moment, he would cross the room and strike him in front of them all.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.