Chapter 5 #3
Her reserved smile warmed slightly. “Jane married young, and for the past six years I have spent each winter, and her every lying-in, in Gracechurch Street. I also pass some time with my uncle and aunt who live not far from Jane.”
Darcy drew back. “Your relations are in the city?”
“Yes, my sister married a man who trades on the Exchange and purchased a house near to it. My uncle is a respectable man of business and also lives in Gracechurch Street. He and my brother-in-law have mutual friends, and that is how Mr Cuthbert met my sister. My uncle and his family are pursuing a venture in Montreal, and I have not seen them since last year.”
“I thought you were fixed in town, not the city.” He had not realised Miss Bennet was so far beneath him. “You said that you attended the opera and evening parties amongst people of fashion.”
“Mrs Cuthbert, my sister’s mother-in-law, is a gentleman’s daughter who did not marry as her family expected.
It was a happy union, as I understand, and she still has some connexions in a different part of town.
Nothing pleases Mrs Cuthbert more than a card party in Hanover Square or a dinner in Harley Street. ”
They were better than Cheapside, but Harley Street was filled with parvenue and Hanover Square was too far from Hyde Park for anyone with taste and wealth.
“Your connexions were not what I expected.” Perhaps that would be to their benefit.
A fortuneless Miss Bennet with relations in Cheapside was unlikely to have made the acquaintance of anyone who knew the Darcys.
“Have you an aversion to Cheapside?”
Her tone showed she thought his feelings not so enviable on this occasion. Did she expect him to rejoice to know his sister’s only friend had relations in trade and who lived in the city? “Only a man engaged in trade—it is not an area of London in which I have passed considerable time.”
“You are surprisingly arrogant to think I am not grand enough to be a friend to your sister when you live as modestly as you do, and do not live in town at all.”
Darcy’s jaw hurt from clenching it to hold back the details of a fine house in Berkeley Square. “And you are impertinent and assuming.”
“I prefer the country to town.” Georgiana blushed under their sudden attention, and cleared her throat. He had forgotten the poor girl in the midst of his own annoyance.
“I quite agree, Miss Darcy.” Miss Bennet looked a little ashamed, and he felt the same. He was not so pretentious that he could not be gentlemanly to a lady, and his sister’s sole acquaintance.
“Yes, Hertfordshire is peaceful, and the country air is beneficial to my sister.”
“On this point, our feelings coincide. I would always prefer to be in the country with my morals uncorrupted.”
There was a playfulness in her manner that had not been there before. “Do you think there is virtue in nature and vice in an urban existence? What a simplistic philosophy.”
“I delight in the natural scenery, and I am not ashamed of that. You cannot deny that morals are more firmly held outside of London or Bath. Perhaps the beauty of the country inspires greater decency in its inhabitants.”
“You sound like a proponent of Gilpin and the picturesque. Does the fair meadow or winding hedgerows have value only in how it looks?”
He had expected to silence an ignorant girl, but Miss Bennet was quick with an answer. “I see its usefulness, not just something to be formed into a pretty picture. Why can one not have both?”
“You would unite beauty with utility?”
“It is why men marry pretty wives.”
Darcy blinked. He had expected, at best, a platitude in reply, but Miss Bennet had more wit than he had supposed.
They continued in this vein for Georgiana’s benefit, who followed the conversation even though she did not join it.
Miss Bennet was the daughter of a gentleman; she had the manners and the education marks of the station, and she was a person of notable intellectual endowments.
As soon as Georgiana’s drooping eyelids stayed closed and her head settled into her pillow, Miss Bennet stood. “I intend to call on your sister again, even if you are at home. As much as I like conversation with a clever thinker, I could do without the incivility that preceded it.”
Darcy rose and opened the parlour door himself, long-now accustomed to having no footman and an overworked maid. “Was there not some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? You came here, uninvited, and presumed your acquaintance on an ill girl whilst her guardian was away.”
“I have already defended my calling on your sister to my family. I hope I will not have to plead my case with you.”
“I suspect your pleading would be more akin to haranguing and obstinacy.”
To his surprise, his honesty did not offend her; she laughed. “That is more accurate than I should admit on so short, and indifferent, an acquaintance. Why would you not want your sister to have visitors?”
He could hardly say it was because they had too many secrets to hide. “I do not comprehend your motives. What do you gain by befriending her?”
“Motives? How suspicious you are! The vulnerable must be cared for. A woman trapped at home—any person, in truth,” she corrected quickly, “needs companionship, someone to sympathise with them. I like Miss Darcy, and she needs a friend and something to think on other than her illness and the four walls of that parlour. You clearly have affection for her, but that is not enough to ensure her survival.”
“Miss Bennet, do you not see? At this point, I am told to think only of her comfort.” Darcy willed her to overlook the way his voice broke, and although she said nothing, the compassionate look in her eyes said enough.
She seems to have a sincere esteem for Georgiana.
“I would do anything for her. Georgiana desires your friendship, and if your presence is a comfort to her, then I must accept that you may come as often as you like.”