Chapter 22
Introductions and Distinctions
The next morning at Longbourn was a lazy one.
A door creaked softly along the passage, and Elizabeth, still in night clothes, paused before another, then entered with quiet care.
Jane was awake. “You are early,” she said, smiling faintly from her pillow.
“I could not sleep,” Elizabeth replied, coming nearer. “Or rather – I slept very ill.”
Jane’s expression altered at once. “You are not unwell?”
“No, only restless.”
She sat at the edge of the bed.
There was a moment’s silence – comfortable, yet not entirely without expectation.
“I believe,” Jane said gently, “that I know the cause of it.”
Elizabeth’s face reddened. Before she could answer, however, the door opened without ceremony.
Lydia entered.
“I knew you would be here!” she declared, though her voice was still thick with sleep. “You always go to Jane first when there is something to tell.”
“There is nothing to tell,” Elizabeth returned.
“That is never true,” Lydia said, climbing at once onto the bed. “And I shall not be left out of it.”
Kitty appeared in the doorway a moment later, hesitating.
“Come in, Kitty,” said Jane, laughing softly. “You may as well join us.”
Kitty needed no further encouragement.
The four of them were soon gathered together, with a degree of disorder that would not have recommended itself to their mother’s notions of propriety, but which seemed perfectly natural to themselves.
Lydia settled herself comfortably. “Well,” she said, looking from one to the other, “I suppose we are to speak of it.”
“Of what?” Elizabeth asked, though not very convincingly.
“Of Mr. Bingley, of course. He must return today or tomorrow at the latest. Are you going to court, too?”
Jane coloured slightly. “We do not know that he will come.”
“He will,” Lydia insisted. “Men always do, if they have any spirit.”
Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other.
Kitty nodded. “And he was very attentive.”
Jane smiled, though with some effort. “When we said goodbye at the ball, he asked if he could call… on me.”
The girls gasped, squealed, and hugged Jane.
“Oh. Kitty, you suffocate me,” laughed Jane.
Lydia turned abruptly to Elizabeth. “And Mr. Darcy… What of him?”
Elizabeth looked at her. “What of him?”
“Oh, do not pretend,” Lydia said. “You walk together, you talk together – he reads to you – he looks at you in a very particular way. He must be desperately in love with you.”
Jane gave her a gentle reproving look. “Lydia.”
“What? I only wish to know.” She leaned forward. “Well?”
Elizabeth hesitated. There was a pause. Then, with less composure than she might have wished, she said, “He was at Longbourn yesterday morning.”
“We know that,” Lydia returned impatiently.
“And we walked.”
“Yes-yes, go on.”
Elizabeth glanced at Jane, who met her look with quiet encouragement. “It was nothing of consequence,” she said at last.
Lydia groaned. “Then it must be of the greatest consequence imaginable.”
Kitty laughed softly.
Jane said, more gently, “Lizzy…”
Elizabeth drew a breath. “There was a moment,” she said.
Lydia sat upright at once. “A moment!”
Elizabeth gave her a look. “If you interrupt me, I shall say no more.”
“I shall be silent,” Lydia declared, though not convincingly.
Elizabeth continued. “He… looked at me and… and he was so handsome.”
Jane’s expression softened. “And?” she asked.
A small silence followed.
Lydia leaned closer. “And then?”
Elizabeth hesitated only a moment longer. “Then he kissed me.” She had not thought – until that moment – how little prepared she was to be so entirely understood.
There was a collective exclamation.
Kitty covered her mouth, her eyes wide with astonishment. Lydia gave a delighted little cry.
At that moment, the door opened again. Mary entered. “You are all assembled here,” she observed. “I suspected as much.”
“Oh, you have no idea what you have missed,” Lydia cried. “Lizzy kissed Mr. Darcy!”
“I did no such thing,” Elizabeth said quickly. “He kissed me.”
“But you allowed it,” Kitty added, laughing.
Mary raised her eyebrows slightly as she approached the bed. “Is this true?”
Elizabeth, now quite unable to retreat, said with as much dignity as she could command, “It occurred – and was not unwelcome.”
Mary seated herself, the others making room for her. “This is a serious matter,” she said. “Such distinctions are not lightly given.”
“No, indeed,” Lydia returned. “And I wish to know every particular.”
“You shall know nothing of the kind,” Elizabeth said, though not without a smile.
“But what was it like?” Kitty asked in a lower voice.
Elizabeth shook her head. “You must be content with knowing that it was… sufficient.”
Lydia laughed. “Sufficient! What a very unsatisfactory account.”
Jane, who had been quietly observing, pressed Elizabeth’s hand.
“I think,” she said gently, “we may all be satisfied.”
Elizabeth met her sister’s eyes and smiled.
***
The morning, though advanced toward noon, retained something of its earlier softness, and the arrival of a carriage at Longbourn produced no small degree of expectation.
Elizabeth, who had been at the window more than once without owning it, was the first to observe it.
“It is Mr. Bingley,” she said.
Jane, who had been seated near her, started slightly but did not rise at once. By the time the gentlemen were shown in, however, she was composed. Or nearly so.
Mr. Bingley entered with an eagerness he did not attempt to disguise. “Miss Bennet,” he began.
Jane curtsied, her colour heightened, her smile unsteady for only a moment. “Mr. Bingley.”
Nothing more was said immediately, yet much was understood.
Darcy, who followed more quietly, made his compliments with proper civility, but his attention, though general in appearance, was not without direction.
He was sensible – almost at once – of something altered.
Miss Lydia’s eyes were unusually bright; Miss Kitty observed him with a curiosity less disguised than usual; even Miss Mary regarded him with a degree of seriousness that bordered upon examination.
He might have attributed it to chance, had Elizabeth not blushed. It was not merely colour but consciousness. Darcy understood.
A brief pause. Then, with an inward composure not entirely undisturbed, he accepted the conclusion.
She had spoken of it. He could not resent it. Indeed, he could not be surprised.
If it had been her first such moment…
He checked the thought.
His gaze softened, though he turned it aside.
Meanwhile, Bingley had drawn nearer to Jane.
“I hope,” he said, in a lower voice, “that you have been well.”
“Very well, thank you.”
“I feared – I mean – I was concerned that my absence…”
“You had business in town,” she said gently.
“Yes, but I should not have allowed it to detain me so long.”
Jane looked at him then – more… more steadily than before.
“I am glad you are returned,” she said.
The simplicity of it restored him at once.
“And I am very glad to be here,” he replied, with warmth.
Whatever doubts had been raised were not wholly gone, but they no longer governed him.
Their conversation, though quiet, soon became entirely their own.
The others were not insensible to it.
Lydia whispered something to Kitty; Kitty laughed, though she tried to suppress it; Mary watched with composed interest.
Mrs. Bennet, who had entered shortly after, was all satisfaction and movement, though not without a certain effort at restraint.
Darcy, meanwhile, found himself again near Elizabeth.
At first, neither spoke.
He observed her – only briefly – and was confirmed in what he had already suspected.
There was a consciousness in her manner that had not been there before: a slight hesitation, yet not retreat. He could not mistake it.
“You are well this morning?” he said at last.
“Yes, quite well.”
A pause followed.
Elizabeth, who had begun with composure, found it less easy to maintain it under his gaze.
“You find us… altered, perhaps,” she added, with a faint attempt at lightness.
“I find,” he returned, “that I am more particularly observed than usual.”
Elizabeth coloured. “I believe,” she said, lowering her voice, “you must attribute that to me.”
Darcy inclined his head slightly. “I had thought it possible.”
“I could not very well conceal it,” she continued, though not without some embarrassment. “And I have sisters who are not inclined to mystery.”
“No,” he said, with a trace of amusement. “That appears unlikely.”
She glanced at him, half apologetic, half smiling. “I hope you are not displeased.”
“I am not,” he said quietly. And he was not.
A brief silence followed – less uneasy now.
Then, as if recalling something, Darcy reached for the small parcel he had brought with him. “I have taken the liberty,” he said, “of bringing you something.”
Elizabeth looked at it in surprise. “For me?”
“If you will allow it.” He placed it in her hands.
Elizabeth hesitated only a moment before opening it.
Within lay a small arrangement of flowers – clearly not of the season. Pale roses, newly brought into bloom, were set among white camellias; and beneath them, a faint fragrance rose – something delicate, unfamiliar, yet pleasing.
Elizabeth started slightly. “Flowers?” She looked up at him, her expression brightening despite herself. For a moment, she did not trust herself to speak. “But, you told me there were none to be had.”
Darcy’s gaze remained steady. “At the time, that was true.”
“And now?”
“They are from the hothouses of London,” he said.
Elizabeth looked again at the bouquet. The thought of it – of the trouble, the intention – was not lost on her. “They are very beautiful,” she said, more softly.
“I am glad you think so.”
She held them a moment longer, then said, with a return of her usual playfulness,
“I must conclude, then, that you are not always to be trusted in such matters.”
Darcy allowed himself a faint smile. “Only when I have reason to amend my first answer.”
Elizabeth met his look – and forgot to speak.