Chapter 25
Once Elizabeth had come to a decision, she could scarcely wait to see Darcy again and discuss it with him.
The heavens, however, appeared indifferent to her urgency.
The rain began that very night—slow at first, then steady, then unrelenting. It soaked the lanes, swelled the streams, and rendered the road between Longbourn and Netherfield a discouraging mire. No one paid calls. No one ventured abroad without necessity.
For three days, the clouds refused to lift.
Elizabeth found herself pacing the length of the drawing room more often than sitting in it. Each time a carriage passed in the distance, her heart leaped—only to subside again.
The household, meanwhile, revolved almost exclusively around Mary.
The banns had been read for the first time on Sunday.
Mr. Collins, with solemn satisfaction, announced his intention of remaining at Longbourn until the wedding itself, which was fixed for a fortnight after the ball.
Mrs. Bennet vacillated hourly between urgency and ambition.
“We must not delay,” she declared one morning. “A gentleman may be persuaded otherwise if given too much time!”
By afternoon she would reverse herself. “But if we wait, we might secure a larger breakfast! I shall not have my daughter married with fewer than three tiers upon the cake.”
Mary bore it all with sanctimonious composure.
Indeed, engagement had only sharpened her sense of moral superiority.
She and Mr. Collins seemed to nourish one another’s most ponderous tendencies.
Their conversations, conducted at a volume just sufficient to be overheard, were laden with references to duty, propriety, and the lamentable decline of spiritual discipline in modern society.
Even Mr. Bennet had ceased to find amusement in it.
Elizabeth did her best to avoid them. The rain, however, rendered retreat difficult.
On more than one occasion, Mary contrived to position herself beside Elizabeth and remark, in tones of grave concern, upon the dangers of heresy and the peril of associating too freely with those of unsound doctrine.
Elizabeth bore it in silence.
It required significant effort.
A note arrived at last from Netherfield—though not the carriage she had hoped for.
Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy requested, with proper apology, the honor of the first dances at the forthcoming ball, regretting that the state of the roads prevented their making the request in person.
Elizabeth’s reply was composed with measured calm. An affirmative was dispatched without delay.
She would have preferred to deliver it herself.
The days that followed stretched intolerably.
She retreated often to her father’s study, where she played chess against him in near silence or sat with a volume open before her, pretending to read while her thoughts wandered toward Netherfield.
She read, too, with new purpose.
A Bible lay frequently upon her lap, alongside a small collection of tracts she had borrowed discreetly from Mr. Harding. She studied passages she had never examined closely before. She compared arguments. She sought understanding rather than ammunition.
Mary noticed.
“I am glad,” she observed one damp afternoon, peering over Elizabeth’s shoulder, “that you are at last applying yourself to serious reading.”
Elizabeth closed the book slowly.
“I have always read seriously,” she replied evenly.
Mary nodded, satisfied with her own interpretation. “It is well. One must guard against false doctrines.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened briefly upon the page.
For a fleeting, wicked moment, she longed to inform her sister precisely which doctrines she was examining—and for what purpose.
She did not.
Instead, she inclined her head and returned to her reading.
The rain persisted.
And with each sodden morning, Elizabeth found her patience thinning.
She did not doubt her decision.
She doubted only the waiting.
If the ball would not arrive sooner, she thought, she might very well dissolve entirely into impatience before it did.
∞∞∞
The rain, though miserable in its persistence, had afforded Darcy one unexpected mercy.
It had prevented him from pressing her.
He would have gone to Longbourn the very next day had the skies permitted it. Prudence might have counseled restraint, but impatience would have conquered it. Instead, the flooded lanes and impassable ruts enforced distance.
Elizabeth had asked for time.
It seemed the universe was ensuring he would give it to her.
Netherfield, at least, had grown more tolerable in Miss Bingley’s absence. The house no longer hummed with brittle commentary or watchful disapproval. It felt lighter. Less like a salon arranged for display, and more like a home.
Mrs. Hurst, perhaps chastened by her sister’s abrupt departure, proved subdued. She applied herself earnestly to preparations for the ball and frequently solicited Lady Anne’s counsel on matters of arrangement and decorum.
“Do you think the musicians should be placed nearer the fireplace?” she asked one afternoon, hovering anxiously over a sketch of the ballroom.
“Wherever they are least likely to be overturned,” Lady Anne replied gently.
Mrs. Hurst nodded gravely, as though this were profound strategic insight.
Georgiana, meanwhile, had discovered a new enthusiasm: she wished to practice dancing.
Constantly.
“Brother, will you walk through the steps once more?” she pleaded at least twice a day.
Darcy obliged without complaint. Bingley, delighted by any excuse for movement, joined readily.
On one memorable occasion, Georgiana turned, emboldened, to Mr. Hurst. “Sir, would you do me the honor—”
Mr. Hurst, who had been examining a decanter with intense concentration, started so violently that he nearly overturned both himself and the table.
“Dance?” he repeated, as though she had suggested naval combat. “Good heavens, no. I do not dance.”
Georgiana flushed crimson.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured, retreating at once.
Bingley coughed in an attempt to disguise laughter. Darcy laid a steadying hand upon his sister’s shoulder.
“You were very brave,” he told her later.
“I shall not ask him again,” she replied fervently.
At last, the day arrived.
Darcy had thought himself prepared.
He was not.
He paced after breakfast. He paced after luncheon. He paced until his valet, with visible concern, suggested that if he continued at that rate the carpets would require replacing before the first quadrille.
He changed his clothes in record time when everyone retired to their rooms to dress for the ball.
And then he resumed pacing.
The foyer offered only so much distance before one encountered a wall, but he traversed it repeatedly until the first carriage wheels sounded upon the gravel.
Thereafter, pacing became impossible.
He stood beside Bingley to receive their guests, bowing, greeting, extending courtesies with mechanical precision.
The room filled steadily. Voices rose. Candles flared. Music tested its first notes.
He scarcely registered it.
Then, at last, the Bennet carriage arrived.
Darcy felt the shift before he saw her.
Jane entered first—radiant, serene, her happiness lending her a glow no artifice could rival. Bingley drew in a sharp breath beside him, his composure momentarily deserting him entirely.
And then Elizabeth stepped forward.
Darcy forgot how to breathe.
The candlelight caught in her hair and lent warmth to her complexion. Her gown—simple by London standards—suited her entirely. There was animation in her expression, but also something steadier. Resolved.
Beautiful did not suffice.
He bowed over her hand. “Miss Elizabeth.”
Her fingers trembled only slightly as he lifted them. “Mr. Darcy.”
For one reckless instant, he considered speaking then and there. But propriety intervened. Others pressed forward. Formalities demanded attention. He relinquished her hand with visible reluctance.
He would have to wait, but the first dance would be his.
And until then, he must content himself with standing still—though every instinct within him urged motion.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth was pretending not to watch the door that led out to the foyer where Darcy was waiting with the rest of the receiving party.
Charlotte Lucas, who had known her too long to be deceived, stood beside her with composed amusement.
“You have looked toward the entrance three times in as many minutes,” Charlotte observed mildly.
“I am surveying the company,” Elizabeth replied.
“Of course.”
Jane stood across the room, smiling in that quiet way of hers which suggested the entire evening had already satisfied her.
Mary, meanwhile, stood very upright beside Mr. Collins, listening with grave solemnity as he compared the ballroom and its decor to one of the parlors at his patron’s estate to an unfortunate listener.
Charlotte’s gaze followed the latter pair.
“It is astonishing,” she observed evenly, “how swiftly fortune may settle upon a household.”
Elizabeth glanced at her. “You speak as though it were an illness.”
Charlotte smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. “If only a contagious one that I might catch.”
Elizabeth softened. “Charlotte—”
“I do not begrudge you,” Charlotte said quickly. “But I…”
Whatever she was about to say was lost into the noise of the instruments playing a few notes, signaling that the first dance was about to begin.
Within moments, Darcy was at her side. He bowed at Charlotte. “Miss Lucas.”
“Mr. Darcy,” Charlotte replied smoothly.
He then turned to Elizabeth and extended his hand. “The set is forming.”
She took his head and gave her friend a warm smile. They took their places at the top of the dance, just next to Bingley and Jane. The music began, and for several measures, they moved in silence—turning, separating, rejoining—each acutely aware of the other and of the many eyes upon them.
It was Elizabeth who broke first.
A small laugh escaped her. “We must not alarm the assembly with our solemnity,” she murmured. “They will think we quarrel.”