Chapter 2
YULETIDE CHURL
“Introduce me, man!” Saye ordered just as Colonel Fitzwilliam came up and jostled himself into the group. Darcy was pressed back against the wall, and his shoes were again scuffed. Not that he was any sort of dandy, but he had had his shoes specially shined!
He had said nothing of Elizabeth to either cousin, and neither appeared to perceive any undue interest as he made the introductions to her and her sister. Saye was quick to ask Miss Bennet for a dance—no surprise there, he always had favoured blondes—and Fitzwilliam did likewise with Elizabeth.
“I had hoped,” said Darcy interrupting them before Elizabeth could answer, “that Miss Elizabeth Bennet might open the ball with me.”
Elizabeth’s brow raised. “Open your ball with you?”
“You would honour me,” he said. “My aunt is serving as my hostess, and she is lately—”
“Gouty,” Fitzwilliam supplied. “But pray do not mention it or she will box my ears. She said having gout makes her feel like an aged crone.”
“I-I thank you, Mr Darcy, but the colonel did ask me first,” she said, giving Fitzwilliam a concerned look. “I would not wish to offend your cousin.”
“Dance the second with me,” said Fitzwilliam genially, “and I shall be satisfied.”
She hesitated slightly, much to her credit; likely she comprehended that the situation was uncommon, to say the least. But at length, she overcame the objections of her natural modesty and accepted.
There was no doubt his cousin did now perceive that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was something out of the common way to Darcy. Fitzwilliam’s gaze had sharpened, and he looked back and forth between Darcy and Elizabeth until Mr Gardiner interceded.
“We have lingered too long, and Mr Darcy has other guests to be greeted,” he said.
“Lizzy, Jane?” So saying, he escorted them off into the ballroom, and Darcy turned his attention to the small party that had just entered.
He could not help but glance after her and was thrilled when she—while attempting to be surreptitious—glanced back over her shoulder at him.
“Well, well,” said Fitzwilliam as soon as the influx of guests had ceased. “This suddenly became much more than your usual Festive Season ball.”
“Why?” Saye demanded. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” said Darcy quickly while Fitzwilliam answered, “A great deal, in fact.”
“You do know that everyone here will be exceedingly interested in a previously unknown young woman with whom the very taciturn Mr Darcy opened his ball,” said Fitzwilliam with a wag of his brows.
“Scandal!” Saye cried out happily.
“Hardly a scandal,” Darcy retorted. “Can a man not dance with a lady without being the object of inquisitors?”
“Some can but not you,” Saye replied, leaning far too near for Darcy’s liking. “Tell us more about Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Darcy gave him a light push to create some space for himself; the receiving hall had emptied, and there was no reason for his cousin to be standing on top of his shoes. “I met her while I was with Bingley in Hertfordshire, and there is nothing more to say than that.”
“I think you like her,” Saye said smugly, again stepping too near Darcy. “In my opinion, the elder is the more classic beauty.”
Darcy gave another small push. “I care nothing for your opinion and have long considered Miss Elizabeth the handsomest woman of my acquaintance.”
Saye drew back and smirked. “Twenty pounds if she lets you kiss her tonight.”
“I am in for ten,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I would not so dishonour her,” Darcy snapped.
His reply caused both cousins to pull back. While Fitzwilliam merely studied him, Saye raised one hand to his face and tapped his chin with his finger while he considered Darcy with a gimlet eye. “Since when is a little mistletoe kiss dishonour?”
“I did not play kissing games when I was green, and I am not going to start now.”
“But you do want to kiss her?” Fitzwilliam enquired. “I would like to kiss her, and I scarcely met her five minutes ago.”
“I would not be averse to kissing both of them,” Saye agreed. “And Mrs Gardiner is not far behind. Quite the toothsome bit I daresay. That Gardiner is a lucky man.”
“You will not kiss any of them,” Darcy said firmly. “Mistletoe or not. No kissing any Bennet or Gardiner, or I shall toss you out on the street.”
“Do not be such a yuletide churl,” Saye protested.
“I am not a churl,” he said. “In any case, dancing awaits, and I have no longer the patience for standing here with you two.”
With that, he turned on his heel and began to stride towards his ballroom, but not quickly enough to avoid overhearing Saye tell Fitzwilliam that Darcy was most certainly in love and Fitzwilliam voice his agreement.
She could not comprehend what he was about.
He wished to open the ball with her? Gouty aunt or not, it made no sense and could expose them to a great deal of supposition and gossip.
Was it a favour to her uncle? It was excessively peculiar that a man who held no great opinion of her should wish to distinguish her in such a way.
Her eyes moved over the ballroom, which had grown rather crowded, seeking him, but he was not yet with them it seemed.
Mr Gardiner had been immediately drawn into a discussion between men she knew not, and Jane sat quietly by her aunt’s side with the matrons.
Like hers, Jane’s eyes roved the crowd. Looking for Mr Bingley no doubt.
Mr Darcy entered the ballroom, and she resolved to go to him at once, to tell him to choose another, more suitable, lady with whom to open his ball. Alas, when he came to her, an odd expression had come over his countenance. He looked…younger. Eager. Even a little…happy?
“Miss Elizabeth.” He bowed and gestured towards the area where the set would form. “Shall we?”
“If you are certain, sir,” she began. “Only I fear—”
“You fear my skill in dancing? I do not pretend to any great expertise,” said Mr Darcy. “But I do hope this will be a far different experience from the last ball you opened.”
They took their positions, provoking others to begin forming lines behind them. “I am not sure I have the pleasure of understanding you, sir.”
He chuckled and looked a little embarrassed. “Forgive me. Only I was remembering Mr Bingley’s ball at Netherfield when you danced with your cousin Mr Collins. It seemed that he stepped on your toes with regularity.”
“Oh yes. Well I did what I could to cover Mr Collins’s inexperience with the dances, but I am afraid more than a few pained yelps escaped me.” She blushed remembering Mr Darcy’s unwavering gaze upon them as they had moved through the forms. “We made a comical scene, I am sure.”
A spectacle was what she ought to have said, one of many that the Bennets had made that evening.
She winced inwardly remembering it: a drunken Mrs Bennet proclaiming Mr Bingley’s wealth; Mr Bennet chastising Mary in front of the whole company; Kitty and Lydia running amok as they always did; and, worst of all, the manner in which the Longbourn party had lingered at the end of the ball, the last to leave, disregarding all of the obvious attempts by their hosts to effect their departure.
It was almost a month gone by, but the pain of those remembrances would not die for at least a year, she was sure.
Mr Darcy had stood by through all of it, she recollected, saying nothing but observing it all. Is it any wonder he scorned them? His censure of the Gardiners had been undeserved, but for the rest…
At once she felt the impulse to show him that she was different, that she knew how to behave among society. She had been an unpleasant partner the last time they danced, but this time she would be all affability. She would prove to him that not all Bennets were ridiculous.
Putting a smile on her face, she said, “I suppose it was to my advantage that I danced the first with Mr Collins at Mr Bingley’s ball. He indulged a bit too much in the orgeat and grew more heavy-footed as the evening went on. My sister Mary is still limping from her turn with him.”
Mr Darcy seemed to relax a little and smiled himself. “I confess, seeing that he danced with you first as he did, I almost wondered at his intentions.”
“His intentions?”
It was now Mr Darcy’s turn to look embarrassed.
“I had heard that Mr Collins came to Hertfordshire in search of a wife. That he requested your hand for the first, rather than Miss Bennet’s, made me wonder whether he had some notion of…
of asking you to marry him.” He paused then added, “Obviously that would not be the case.”
Perversely his words made her prickle. Obviously? What did obviously mean? Did he imagine that no man would possibly wish to marry her, not even a man like Mr Collins?
“In fact, Mr Collins did propose to me the day after Mr Bingley’s ball.”
Her words caused him to stumble. Shocked that someone might want me?
The look on his face when he turned to her was nothing short of aghast. “You are engaged?”
“No, I am not.”
“But you just said—”
“I said he proposed. I did not say that I accepted.”
The pattern took them away from each other then, so she did not see how he would have responded to the notion that not every woman would leap to accept whosoever might propose to her.
When they did return to one another, the look of bewilderment on his countenance had not abated. He did not speak, seemingly lost in his amazement that such events had occurred.
At length, she enquired teasingly, “I wonder what it is that surprises you so, Mr Darcy. Is it that I managed to obtain an offer of marriage? Or is it shocking to think I should refuse it?”
“N-no,” he said. “It is not surprising that you refused him. He did seem somewhat… Well, he did not seem to be suited to you.”
She refused to see the compliment in that. If a compliment had been given, no doubt it was given unconsciously.
“You must have heard it said in Hertfordshire that Longbourn is entailed. Mr Collins is my father’s heir, and that distinction, he seemed to believe, ought to have been sufficient charm to win him any woman he chose.”
“I see,” said Mr Darcy pensively. “So marrying him would have—”
“Saved my family from the entail. Yes, had I married him, my mother and her nerves might have rested more easily. Alas, I was a selfish, headstrong girl and could not sacrifice myself in such a way.”
She expected to see his censure, but instead he turned a gaze of true compassion upon her that made her previous ire dissipate immediately.
“Your parents are disappointed in you?” he asked gently.
Kindness from Mr Darcy? Elizabeth swallowed, dropping her eyes. “Not my father. He lent his support to my decision. My mother, on the other hand, was…inconsolable…particularly once Mr Collins became engaged to Charlotte Lucas.”
Mr Darcy’s eyes flew wide, and his mouth fell agape for a moment. “Your friend?”
“The very one.”
“He proposed to your friend? But that could not have been enough time—”
“It was two days later. So you see it was prudent for Jane and me to come to London for the Festive Season. For Jane to recover her spirits…” She paused to see what he had to say to that. When he said nothing, she continued, “And for me to escape my mother’s dismay…and Charlotte’s wedding.”
“For any honourable man to act with such caprice,” said Mr Darcy wonderingly. “I can scarcely credit it.”
“We have seen it before in Hertfordshire, where a man who appears to have fixed on a woman suddenly goes off,” she told him, again looking to see how he bore it. It seemed the reference to his friend was lost on him, for he once more said nothing.
The dance required their attention for a short time, and their conversation was paused while within it came the most perverse notion of all.
Mr Darcy’s words echoed in her mind. “That he requested your hand for the first, rather than Miss Bennet’s, made me wonder whether he had some notion of… of asking you to marry him.”
If dancing first with Mr Collins made Mr Darcy think that her cousin might propose…then what was the meaning of Mr Darcy asking her to open his ball?
The idea of Mr Darcy having intentions towards her nearly made her laugh aloud.
He hated her! She had said nothing at Netherfield that he did not try to make into an argument!
Though it had to be said, their arguments were more akin to debates.
He had never seemed angry when he contradicted her opinions…
Only she had seen them as contentious. Maybe he had not.
When the dance next afforded her the opportunity to speak, she said, “I am delighted to see, sir, that you and I are capable of amiability in our conversation. I did not think it so when you stayed at Netherfield.”
He smiled faintly. “We did have a great many debates, did we not? I confess I was particularly fond of our discussion on the accomplishments of a young lady. I think Miss Bingley is still unaware of how adeptly you provoked her to contradict her own opinion.”
Another compliment? She smiled, unable to stop herself.
“I confess that I did, at times, speak to an opinion not my own because I enjoyed our deliberations.”
“You did?” She laughed lightly. “And here I believed you took me for a fool and meant to prove it to me.”
“A fool? Oh no, anything but that,” he said, sounding suddenly urgent. “Pray forgive me if ever I gave you such an impression. I was delighted by you and…and charmed by the liveliness of your mind, to say nothing of the sweetness of your temper.”
“Thank you,” she said, unable to manage anything more. Mr Darcy was charmed by my mind? My sweetness? Will wonders never cease?
After the dance ended, he further surprised her and told her he wished to introduce her to his aunt. “The countess?”
To that he merely inclined his head and offered his arm.
They strolled the length of the ballroom to where a handsome woman of about five-and-fifty sat among other similarly elegant-looking ladies.
The wife of the Earl of Matlock was pleasant if not expansive in her consent to the introduction.
They had a little bit of conversation about the recent cold weather and how their respective families might celebrate Christmastide, then Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived to take her away to dance with him.
She resisted the impulse to look back over her shoulder at Mr Darcy. He had amazed and bewildered her tonight, and for the first time she wondered whether she had been unduly prejudiced against him, refusing to see any modicum of good. The notion did not sit well with her.