Chapter 5
“Such elegant ladies!” exclaimed Mrs Bennet in delighted recollection of Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst. “Their dresses were finer than any other gowns at the assembly. I daresay they might even have been from Paris, and certainly from the best dressmaker in London otherwise.”
She looked around expectantly at her daughters, all gathered in the Longbourn parlour after a late breakfast and still occupied with discussion of last night’s excursion to the Meryton Assembly Rooms. Anticipating such an eventuality, Mr Bennet had gone out that morning and did not expect to return before luncheon.
Sprawled on the largest sofa, Kitty and Lydia both looked rather the worse for wear, having both imbibed more punch than was good for them yesterday.
Mary, in contrast, had taken nothing but an ice, and rose healthfully early that morning to drive the rest of the household to distraction with pianoforte scales.
Jane was quiet and thoughtful in an armchair, and Elizabeth energetic but ill-tempered by the window.
“Mrs Hurst’s jewels were fabulous too, were they not?” Mrs Bennet continued when she failed to get the desired engagement from her audience. “Did you see those rubies in her necklace?”
“I did think Mr Bingley’s sisters a little overdressed for a country dance,” Elizabeth remarked. “Jane looked far better in her white muslin and grandmother’s pearls.”
Mrs Bennet was torn between frowning and smiling at this comment, unhappy at the critique of their elegant new neighbours at Netherfield Park, but pleased by the thought that Jane had outshone them with her natural beauty.
“Yes, well, my Jane always looks well,” their mother said at last, a little crossly. “But Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst were very much the picture of fashion, and we were lucky that they graced us with their presence. Now that they are at Netherfield Park, I look forward to knowing them better.”
Elizabeth restrained herself from commenting that she thought this unlikely to happen. Remembering how both ladies had looked down their noses at Mrs Bennet’s slightly vulgar manners, she doubted they would cultivate a close acquaintance with Longbourn.
“I’m not sure that his sisters will take to country life, but Mr Bingley himself seemed a most amiable man,” commented Elizabeth tactfully, wishing not to goad her mother too much. “You both danced with him too, did not you, Kitty and Lydia?”
Lydia only grunted in response, and Kitty nodded.
“Mr Bingley dances well enough, but I prefer Lord Keeble, and so does Lydia,” said Kitty. “You may keep him for yourself, Lizzy.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Bennet decidedly. “Kitty is right. You ought to set your cap at Mr Bingley, Lizzy. Lady Lucas tells me that he has five thousand pounds a year. It is nothing compared to Lord Grantchester, of course, or Lord Keeble, when you take into account his family connections. Still, you cannot all be so lucky as Jane.”
“I am not going to be setting my cap at anyone, Mother,” Elizabeth returned calmly but firmly. “I was merely passing comment on Mr Bingley’s good manners and sociability.”
Mrs Bennet harrumphed with indignation.
“You will end an old maid, Lizzy, and then what will become of you, I’d like to know. When Mr Collins turns us all out into the street and —”
“Mr Bingley is certainly preferable to his joyless friend, Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth interrupted, having no wish to hear her mother’s familiar tirade yet again.
“Why, yes!…Oh yes, what an awful, rude man, Lizzy. First, Mr Darcy slights my Jane’s engagement, and then he refuses to dance with any of my daughters — ha!
Lord Grantchester and Lord Keeble and Mr Bingley paid my girls the attention and respect a gentleman should.
Who does Mr Darcy think he is to snub us so? ”
“Not everyone enjoys dances, Mother,” Jane spoke up in mild reproof.
“We ought not to judge Mr Darcy on the basis of a single evening. His character cannot be so very black, given the devotion of his friends, can it? Lord Grantchester assures me that Mr Darcy is very much liked and respected in London.”
“Well, that is in London,” Mrs Bennet said with a decisive nod, as though that statement explained everything. Her expression remained entirely dissatisfied. “Mary and Mr Bennet do not like dances either, but they do not spoil them for others.”
“Yes, I was glad Mary hid away with Father in the sitting room all night, instead of subjecting us to her usual gloomy lectures,” Lydia said, and then giggled. “Mr Darcy could have gone and sat with them, and they could all have been miserable together.”
Kitty shared her younger sister’s merriment, but Mary looked severely at both of them over the tops of her spectacles.
“I was not at all miserable,” she retorted crossly. “I had a most instructive evening reading one of Fordyce’s Sermons and studying the orchestration of a Bach fugue I want to learn.”
“See?” Lydia groaned and rolled her eyes. “You are quite as dull as Mr Darcy, who could not even bring himself to smile long enough to congratulate his friend on his engagement to Jane.”
“It was not quite like that,” Jane objected again. “I really do think that he was only startled by the news and uncomfortable at the assembly. It was rather loud and busy.”
“Why do you defend him, Jane?” Elizabeth interjected, frustrated with her sister’s mildness. “You really have no cause to do so after he was so rude to you, even if he is Lord Grantchester’s friend.”
“Love is blind,” trilled Mrs Bennet with hazy sentimentality. “Likely Jane can see no wrong in any of Lord Grantchester’s friends. You will understand when you fall in love yourself, Lizzy.”
Though she chose not to object aloud, Elizabeth found both her mother’s explanation for Jane’s attitude and the prediction about her own future rather unlikely. Jane was always far too apt to like undeserving people, sometimes to her own detriment.
“I only think that we ought to get to know Mr Darcy better before we judge him,” Jane tried to explain herself better. “One remark cannot be the basis for forming our opinions.”
“I agree with you completely, Jane,” put in Mary solemnly. “Indeed, one of Fordyce’s sermons touches on this subject with great perspicacity —”
“It was not just one remark,” Elizabeth revealed, cutting off Mary’s opportunity to expound on a subject of no interest to anyone else in the room.
“I saw more of Mr Darcy than the rest of you, I think. You were all occupied with Lord Grantchester and Lord Keeble. His general behaviour did nothing to commend him, and he spoke most rudely a second time too.”
“What do you mean, Lizzy?” Jane asked with troubled eyes.
“For one thing, Mr Darcy was glaring at you and Lord Grantchester the whole time you were on the dance floor, Jane. It seemed to me that he was not only surprised by your engagement, but actively disapproves of it. I suspect he has a real prejudice against our family, but we are not the only ones who found his behaviour rude last night.”
Though Elizabeth had prudently kept a veil drawn over the most shocking details of Mr Darcy’s rudeness, Mrs Bennet was still quick to take offense.
“He thinks himself better than us, no doubt,” she railed against him.
“Well, if we’re good enough for Lord Grantchester, then I think we’re good enough for Mr Darcy of Pemberley or wherever his estate was.
He has no title, does he? I dare say he has no fortune to speak of either, compared to his friends. ”
“He has ten thousand pounds a year, Mother,” Elizabeth said dryly.
“His uncle is the Earl of Matlock, and Pemberley a most impressive estate. Charlotte Lucas told me all about him. But this is beside the point. It was when I was talking to Charlotte that Mr Bingley approached Mr Darcy and took him to task for his behaviour.”
“Good for Mr Bingley,” Mrs Bennet almost cheered. “I don’t care if a man has ten thousand pounds a year if he has no manners and does not know how to behave.”
“I hope they did not fall out,” Jane worried. “I should hate to have been the cause of disharmony between good friends.”
“Not at all, Jane. As you say, they are good friends, and Mr Bingley was not shy of telling Mr Darcy a few home truths. He told Mr Darcy in no uncertain terms that he ought to have congratulated you properly on your engagement and was most solicitous about how your feelings might have been hurt by Mr Darcy’s reaction. ”
Jane’s expression softened. A small smile even lurked at the corners of her mouth, although her eyes looked rather sad.
“There!” said Mrs Bennet triumphantly. “There is a gentleman for you, thinking of ladies’ feelings and defending them, even when he barely knows them. There are not many men like Mr Bingley in the world, girls. I warn you of that now. When I was young —”
“What else did Mr Darcy say?” Lydia demanded of Elizabeth, uninterested in her mother’s reminiscences. “You said he was rude again, Lizzy. I want to know what he said.”
Elizabeth paused for a moment, both trying to recall the exact words and also testing them in her head to ensure they should not upset Jane or raise her mother’s temper too greatly. For some reason, the fact that he had mentioned Elizabeth by name made her anger run particularly hot.
“Mr Darcy told Mr Bingley that he held his principles to be more important than the feelings of others,” revealed Elizabeth, feeling the same indignation all over again as she had the previous evening.
“He also said that as he did not know us, and never wished or expected to see us again, what we felt was of no account.”
“Of all the rude, contemptible, ungentlemanly creatures!” Mrs Bennet reacted hotly. “Well, Mr Darcy might be Lord Grantchester’s friend, but I shall be no more than civil to him on that account. I know my manners, even if he does not know his.”
Lydia and Kitty only giggled together again, seeming to find the whole conversation most amusing and rather a tonic to their punch-addled constitutions.