Chapter Eighteen
Eligible Visitors
Bingley was his old cheerful self, still the dear friend of India.
Although, really, it was barely two months since Darcy had seen him last and it was nonsensical to assume he would have altered in so short a time.
Darcy was, in all likelihood, transferring to his friend his own feeling that his feet stood on shifting sands.
In one particular Bingley was completely unchanged, in his weakness for pretty young ladies. He had eyes and ears for no-one but Miss Jane, taking the chair near her and engaging with her to the detriment of civility towards the rest of the company.
Mr and Mrs Hurst were as Darcy recalled: he heavy of body and mind, and she a colourless echo of her more vibrant, energetic sister. Miss Bingley was, well, more than he had remembered—more consciously elegant, more vivacious, more everything. She seized upon Darcy the moment she entered the room.
She chattered endlessly about their meetings in Town during the two weeks he had spent there before coming north—precisely three such meetings.
She subtly suggested their acquaintance had an intimacy that it most certainly did not, by speaking of events and people as if they had a significance only she and Darcy could understand. It was clever, if disconcerting.
“Oh, you will remember the Lawsons, sir, at the concert we attended at the Argyll Rooms? He is a younger son of Baron Heston, and had strong views on India. You recall them, I am sure.”
Darcy had a vague memory of some fool prating on about India when the man had never set foot there and knew less about the country than the Piccadilly cobbler who had mended the boots Darcy had bought in Calcutta. So he nodded, which was encouragement enough.
Miss Bingley instantly relayed some prime piece of gossip about the Lawsons, and was off on another tangent before anyone had time to do more than murmur variations on “How singular!” This time it was to rhapsodise about the concert, and the divine Angelica Catalani, but at least in this she endeavoured to include the other ladies.
“So distant from Town as you are, you will doubtless not have had the opportunity to hear her, but her voice is as angelic as her name. She held us all quite rapt. She sang into a respectful silence so profound, I cannot truly explain how great a privilege it was to hear her.” She favoured the ladies with a smile of great sweetness.
“Such a pity you are sequestered here in the country, and so far from the superior entertainments of Town.”
“Oh, and now our surprise is all spoiled,” said Miss Elizabeth, with a smile as sweet as Miss Bingley’s own. “What a pity!”
“Surprise?”
Mrs Darcy spoke then, with all her usual, unruffled calm.
“As you know, Pemberley is just emerging from mourning, but Elizabeth has planned some amusements for you. We will be going to Buxton at the end of next week and will stay at the Great Hotel. We intend to attend the assembly held in the Hotel’s ball room and a concert.
” She smiled. “I will be present to help chaperone you young ladies, and I am anticipating the concert very much. I believe Catalani is singing at the one at which Mr Darcy reserved a box.”
“She is, indeed.” Darcy inclined his head. “Only this morning I heard from Mr Ryley, the manager of the theatre, confirming the reservation. Our rooms at the Great Hotel are already engaged. All due to Miss Elizabeth’s efforts. We owe her our thanks.”
“Oh.” Miss Bingley looked taken aback, but rallied in an instant. “A country assembly? How… I am not sure how we will go on in such a place. It sounds rather… well, I am not certain it will be quite what we are used to… the sort of people attending…”
Miss Elizabeth smiled at this display. “Oh, you must not be anxious about that. I am sure you will acquit yourself very well indeed. The duke often attends, it is true, since the Devonshires’ Buxton townhouse is a part of the same grand crescent as the hotel and it is little effort on his part to be there.
I can quite see his august presence would discompose those unused to persons as high, but he is in mourning for his late father, so may not be there at all.
The Countess of Derby may well attend, since she has been a subscriber to the assembly and the concerts these thirty years or more, but she is not at all high in the instep.
She was an actress in her day, you know, before she married the earl, and is quite a friendly, amiable lady. ”
Miss Bingley stared, two spots of colour on her cheekbones.
Darcy’s stepmother raised her eyes to examine the ceiling, while Darcy himself glanced away to hide his smile, meeting Hugh’s mirthful gaze.
Hugh had been glowering at Bingley and Miss Bennet, but now winked at Darcy and plunged into the fray to take Miss Elizabeth’s part.
“I cannot think why you say Devonshire has an august presence, Lizzy, when you spent most of his call contending with him about whether cockers are best suited for the shoot or those bigger spaniels new bred at the Duke of Newcastle’s place—”
“Clumber Park,” Miss Elizabeth supplied, her eyes dancing as merrily as Hugh’s. “I do hope you acquire one soon, cousin! I would love to see one.” She smiled at Miss Bingley. “It is said they came from some French duke during the late Terror. So many dukes!”
“Aye, Clumber.” Hugh nodded. “I shall send for a pup for you directly. Anyhow, you cajoled Devonshire into agreeing with your every word when we all know you have never so much as lifted a gun in your life! What is august about that?”
Miss Bingley sputtered. Mrs Hurst let out a startled squeak, and her husband, roused from his consumption of tea and a great deal of cake, said something indistinct about a preference for cockers himself.
Miss Elizabeth had no compunction about allowing her mouth to quirk up at the corners, and she sparkled at the company with all the charm in the world.
Mrs Darcy removed her gaze from the ceiling and came to Miss Bingley’s rescue.
“We have not been to Town since last year, of course, but we do enjoy our annual visit for the Season. Do you attend the plays at the Covent Garden theatre? I ask, because though we are all fond of Shakespeare, we agreed we derived the greatest theatrical entertainment last year from The Iron Chest. Did you see it?”
Darcy’s stepmother was a gracious hostess.
She skilfully turned the conversation and, by appealing to the Bingleys’ knowledge of Town, soothed them into comfort again.
In this she was supported by Miss Elizabeth, who gave up on returning Miss Bingley barb for barb, and ably seconded all of Mrs Darcy’s efforts.
He settled back in his seat, content to leave the Bingleys in the hands of ladies who were definitely mistresses of their craft.
Their first reunion over, Darcy pried Bingley from Jane Bennet’s side, and they left the ladies in the drawing room to deepen their new acquaintance while Darcy carried Bingley off to show him the gentlemen’s part of Pemberley: the billiards room, the gun room, and so on.
Hurst elected to stay with the ladies. He was ensconced upon a most comfortable sofa, and plied with the best refreshments Miss Elizabeth could wheedle out of the cook who terrorised Pemberley’s kitchen.
There would be no shifting Hurst for a while, Bingley told him.
“He will doze off once he is replete with cake,” Bingley said, in a careless tone as Darcy closed the door behind them, “and find his way to the billiards room later. For all his shape and lack of industry, he is surprisingly skilled at the game.” He cocked an eyebrow at Darcy.
“Do not wager more than shillings. Sixpences would be even better.”
“I will bear the warning in mind. First, though, shall we find Reid so you may pay him your respects?” Darcy glanced about, half-expecting to see Reid somewhere close. “If he is not off gardening, he has a study of his own now, near the estate offices in the older part of the house.”
“Gardening? I had not thought him so horticulturally minded.”
“The garden in question is leased by a very pretty widow. The Bennet girls’ mother, as it happens. Since I value my good health, I do not tease him on the matter, but I am discovering John Reid has hidden depths.”
“Never mind Reid! Why did you not tell me earlier of that glorious creature? To think you have such a cousin, and yet kept silence about her! It speaks ill of the open-handed, honest nature I thought you possessed. I am gravely disappointed in you, Darcy. Gravely.”
How typical of the man! His amiability lightened every heart.
“I knew no more of the Bennets when I saw you last, than you did. Their father was my stepmother’s cousin, but they call her ‘aunt’ and she, apparently, thinks of them as nieces since she and their father were brought up as brother and sister.
They lost their estate when he died, and my stepmother had them brought here, where they lease the secondary dower house.
There are five girls in the family, with Misses Jane and Elizabeth the eldest two. ”
“I assumed she must be born to the gentry.”
“Yes. Reduced in circumstances now, of course.”
“But birth tells. And she is very beautiful.”
“I have had less to do with her than with Miss Elizabeth, who lives here as companion to my stepmother, but she strikes me as an amiable, gentle lady.” Darcy allowed his mouth to turn up at the corners.
“Miss Elizabeth is of a different sort. Amiable, yes. But she is also independent and intelligent, and pert.”
All Bingley said to this was, “Truly? She seems a pleasant enough young lady.”
Bingley’s concentration upon Miss Bennet must have left him unknowing, or uncaring, of the other conversations in the room, otherwise he would have seen how his sister had first-hand experience of Miss Elizabeth’s pertness.