Chapter 3 #2
Why did she suddenly assume the worst of him? “I doubt you will see them after the end of September. But I concede that the girlish talk I find noisome and tedious is exactly what a fifteen-year-old needs.”
“I had thought since you spoke with Elizabeth that it meant you approved of her. She is kind, and observant too.”
Darcy bit back the additional comment that she had low connexions and no fortune.
“She is, and if you kept up her friendship and let Miss Lydia’s and Miss Kitty’s fade, I could tolerate that.
But I still say she will not end up as well settled as you, and your friendship must ultimately sink.
Your station will rise, and hers will at best stay the same, but in all likelihood fall.
She has been set up in the world with nothing more than some wit and a pair of fine eyes. ”
They completed their walk with no apparent fatigue, and Elizabeth and the others were at once delighted and astonished at seeing the shrimps and lobsters taken out of the sea.
After they had taken a complete view of the bay, they walked on to Belle Vue, where Georgiana treated them all with shrimps, rolls, and coffee.
There would be many cheerful things to report when she wrote in her journal this evening.
It was a pleasant spot, fitted up in a genteel style, and everyone sat outside, eating seafood and laughing and talking.
Everyone but Darcy. He sat with them, ate with them, and even talked a little, but he did not join in their hilarity.
He soon left them to walk the gardens, and when she saw him stop by the cliff’s edge to watch fishermen at work, she rose to follow him.
She felt compelled to tell him not to concern himself with Lydia. There was no harm in Wickham’s company, even if he had no money. And Darcy had no cause at all to so easily place a kernel of concern and doubt in her heart.
“What do you think of the Belle Vue Tavern?” she asked when she joined him. “I know you are a man above being satisfied, but I challenge you to find fault with such a place.”
“It is a pleasant spot, but one rendered disgusting by the smell and appearance of the remains of all the crabs the visitors eat and thoughtlessly discard.” He gestured toward the tables in the tea garden, and Elizabeth frowned.
The disagreeable man was not wrong. Shells were everywhere, crunched underfoot and piling up at an alarming rate.
Still, he could try not to be so miserable.
“Will you now complain about how the harmless animals are barbarously boiled to death too?”
Darcy gave a wry smile. “I have no opposition to eating them, just in carelessly discarding the remains of them.”
“You can see my mistake. Since you have been in Ramsgate, you seem to have a propensity to hate everything and everyone.”
He turned away, and she thought she was being dismissed until he said, while he watched a boat in the bay, “I like the enlivening breezes. I enjoy looking at the sea. There is something exhilarating in it that I experience nowhere else.” He turned back to her and said, with a wider smile, “But I can only look at it because I suffer from mal de mer.”
She returned his smile. Darcy had a personality beneath his stern demeanour. Something could actually please him. She entertained a more favourable opinion of him than she had formerly done. “I promise to dissuade our sisters from any boating excursions.”
He nodded his thanks, and she said, quickly before their amity faded completely, “Lydia just wants a little attention, to be distinguished. All girls have the hope of a romance—”
“Not with Wickham,” he breathed. “But I realise I have spoken out of turn to you in nearly every instance, and we may drop the subject because I have no intention of discussing that man further. You may take my hints of caution and warn your sister or stay silent.”
Darcy was just too severe for his own good. “If your sister is friends with Wickham, why not mine? My sister is no more susceptible than yours.”
He looked her full in the face. “Is she not? Please, do not provoke me into speaking out of turn again.” She felt ashamed when she thought of how Lydia and even Kitty behaved compared to Georgiana. She was about to leave him when he added, “Hopefully, he tricks no young lady to love him.”
“Your dislike of a poor man makes me wonder why are you not married?” Darcy’s eyes went wide. If he could say impolite things, even if they were true, then she could be just as bold. “If flirtatious young men with no money should not marry, then grave young men of fortune must.”
“Well, I do not expect having to trick anyone,” he said drily.
“Do you aim to contract a marriage through motives of wealth and ambition?” When he hesitated, she added, “Your sister implied you are intended for your cousin and will unite your families’ fortunes. You won’t have to trick anyone and you will make everyone in your family happy.”
He shook his head, his eyes drifting back to the bay and the fishermen.
“I want what any man wants: to be happy in a marriage of equal affections, and it would be folly to expect that such arranged marriages, however they may answer to the purpose of wealth and ambition, should result otherwise than in wretchedness for both parties.”
It spoke well of him to hold such a view, and to cover her feelings of approval, she said glibly, “I thought you were single because you just were not ready to grant pin money and the expectation of a jointure. Young men often have great habits of expense. But I suppose your desire to marry for love is also a permissible reason for you to still be single.”
“I will not marry where I do not love. But a marriage based solely on personal liking will not succeed either. Romantic notions alone are not enough. Suitableness of character, of fortune, of rank, of affection all matter.”
Darcy seemed to be a person who enjoyed a debate. For someone inclined to observe silently and judge, he certainly shared his opinions when called on.
“But mutual esteem and real, permanent friendship in marriage matter to you. That sounds like a romantic notion to me.”
Elizabeth left him by the cliff’s edge to ponder the sea while she talked with Georgiana and the others.
They were so highly gratified in one another’s company that they did not reach the Bennets’ lodgings until the clock struck three.
She did not speak with Darcy again, but under Georgiana’s expectant eyes they shook hands and parted with promises to see each other at the assembly rooms on Monday.
The afternoon of the ball found Elizabeth once again leaving Cliff Street, down Sion Hill, and toward the pier to look for her sisters. Surely by now they found whatever shoe roses or ribbons or hair combs or other trimmings they insisted they had to waste their money on.
Georgiana had said she would go to the assembly rooms but not dance, but Elizabeth did not know if Mrs Younge would chaperone her alone or if her brother would really join them.
He did not seem the type to relish a public assembly.
Based on what Wickham had said, she had assumed Darcy would be tedious company and insipid.
He was serious, but she found him full of opinions and knowledgeable.
He knew himself, and his confidence was an attractive quality. It was a shame he was above being pleased. Perhaps his sureness, his responsible attitude, and that serious manner were why Wickham thought him dull.
She passed the circulating library and was taken aback when the very man she was thinking of stepped onto the pavement next to her.
“Wickham!” she cried in surprise. “I thought you left Ramsgate on business.”
She must have startled him because he looked alarmed at seeing her; but with a moment’s recollection, he bowed and greeted her. He seemed weary, and she noted the faint redness creeping up his neck and under his chin just above his cravat.
Was he ill or only flushed from the heat of the day? When he noticed her staring, she met his eye and asked kindly, “When did you return?”
With a returning smile, he replied, “Only recently. I thought it best to avoid some of my friends and not run into Darcy, but there is an assembly tonight and I would hate to disappoint you and your sisters.”
Elizabeth looked to the door that led to Georgiana’s lodgings. “Were you visiting Miss Darcy?” Darcy would not approve of that. He would pack up his sister in an instant and remove her from Ramsgate as soon as the horses were ready.
“No, do they lodge here? You mistake where I was. I was in the circulating library buying stationery. Calling on Miss Darcy would not be wise. I am not on friendly terms with her brother, and it always gives me pain to meet him.”
“That makes it impossible to keep a relationship with his sister.” She wondered what more there was to his shared history with Darcy. Since Wickham mentioned him, she asked, “Why does he dislike you so?”
Wickham shrugged and joined her in walking toward the High Street to find her sisters.
He kept to a slower pace than she had known him to use.
Possibly his malaise was due to illness after all.
“He holds youthful indiscretions against me, calls me extravagant and imprudent—in essence, nothing, really. Perhaps he resents that his father loved me. The late Mr Darcy was one of the best men that ever breathed, but his son has an unyielding temper and will never forgive some carelessness.” He gave her a heavy look and added, “You would be wise not to confide in him or befriend him, because he tolerates nothing less than perfection.”
She kept her silence, but she wondered if he was truly unyielding or if Wickham misunderstood Darcy’s serious nature. They were very different men, after all.
“Since you came back in time for the assembly, you ought to know Miss Darcy plans to attend.”
“I always enjoy speaking to Miss Darcy, but I doubt she will dance.”
“I mention it because Mr Darcy could be there.”
Wickham gave her a knowing smile. “I thank you for the kind hint, but if he wishes to avoid seeing me, he must go.”
They talked of other things, the theatre in Margate and the stone lighthouse, before finally encountering Lydia and Kitty, their hands full of purchases.
They both shrieked at the sight of him and ran to his side, lamenting his absence of a whole five days and exclaiming all their delight that he returned for the assembly. Elizabeth was glad their friend was back, but she wished her sisters would not attract so much attention on the pavement.
“You need not carry on,” she said, trying to keep her patience and not appear tiresome before Wickham and every passing pedestrian. “It is not as though there is not another assembly on Thursday, and every Monday and Thursday all season long.”
He looked charmed by their enthusiasm and it rallied his energy. “What young lady does not look forward to a dance? I am eager for it myself.”
“Are you sure to dance at the ball?” Kitty asked him.
“Of course I am,” he replied, smiling at them all. “What single man goes to a ball and refuses to dance?”
Elizabeth suspected Darcy would be such a man, but she would not invoke his name when Wickham was in such a fine mood.
“And,” he went on, “I hope to be honoured by dancing with all of you in the course of the evening.” They all agreed, and even Elizabeth was flattered at knowing she had a partner for at least one dance.
During their walk, he particularly attended to Lydia.
She was on his arm, and he ducked his head low, often speaking right into her ear.
Elizabeth and Kitty walked behind, and while she could not hear what they spoke of, she saw Wickham’s smile when his head turned and saw Lydia’s shoulders shake with laughter.
Wickham walked with them to their door, and then made his bow, despite Lydia pressing entreaties that he would come in.
“I am wanted elsewhere, and I am sure all of you have to attend to your dress, although you are perfect in my eyes. But before I leave, may I take this opportunity to solicit your hand, Miss Lydia, for the first two dances?”
Lydia was stunned silent but nodded, giving him a beaming grin.
“It is mere hours until I see you again,” he promised, with a kiss to Lydia’s hand.
Lydia’s composure lasted until the door closed behind them, and she ran up the stairs while shrieking with glee and crying out to tell her mother of her good fortune. Kitty stomped off to her own room, and Elizabeth stayed in the lobby, enjoying a moment of solitude and quiet.
Her sister would feel all the compliment offered to herself, but Elizabeth suspected it would only end in disappointment if Wickham could never afford to marry her.
She knew how the rest of the afternoon would play out.
She would advise her mother that Wickham was a charming man to dance with but that he would not marry Lydia.
Her mother would deny it, Lydia would call her jealous, and after a great deal of yelling, nothing would change.
Lydia had a rage for admiration and was entirely uncontrolled, and would only learn her unimportance when Wickham found a woman with a fortune.