CHAPTER 11 #2
“There, Lizzy,” she whispered, though in a tone which might have informed half the room had the music not begun at that moment. “Did you ever see anything so marked? The first two dances! I always said he was the most charming young man.”
“You said so after he had spoken six sentences, Mama,” Elizabeth replied softly, “which proves only that your judgement is either very quick or very fortunate.”
“It is both,” Mrs. Bennet said, with perfect conviction; and had she been able to enjoy her triumph without interruption, her felicity might have been complete.
But the door opened again, and Elizabeth, though she had told herself she would not look toward it with any particular interest, found that her eyes had already betrayed her before reason could recall them.
Mr. Darcy entered quietly, without the air of a man seeking observation, and yet the room seemed, to Elizabeth’s consciousness at least, to alter upon his appearance.
His dress was correct, his manner composed, and his countenance bore no trace of haste from travel; but there was in the first direction of his eyes, and in the almost immediate gravity with which they found hers, an assurance more meaningful than any flourish of greeting could have been.
He had returned. He had kept his word. And though he crossed the room first to speak with Mr. Bennet, as propriety and circumstance required, Elizabeth felt with a sudden warmth that his arrival had not been uncertain to him in the way it had been to her.
Mr. Bennet received Mr. Darcy with a civility in which amusement and approval were so quietly mingled that only those who knew him well could have distinguished either.
Darcy bowed, spoke briefly of his journey from Derbyshire, and answered Mr. Bennet’s inquiries with that restrained exactness which belonged to him; yet Elizabeth, watching from a little distance, perceived that her father listened with unusual attention.
There was between them now, formed through events at Rosings and strengthened by Darcy’s conduct since, a species of mutual understanding which did not require familiarity to make it visible.
“I am happy to find you returned in time, Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Bennet said, when the first civilities had passed. “Meryton would have borne your absence with fortitude, I daresay; but I am not certain that all its inhabitants would have considered themselves equally obliged to do so.”
Darcy’s gaze moved, not quickly, but inevitably, toward Elizabeth before returning to her father. “I should have regretted being absent this evening, sir.”
“That is handsomely said,” Mr. Bennet replied, “and has the further advantage of being generally intelligible. In public assemblies, a gentleman who speaks plainly saves the neighbourhood a great deal of labour in interpretation.”
Darcy understood him well enough to bow slightly, though the faintest trace of colour touched his face.
He then approached Mrs. Bennet, who received him with all the graciousness due to a wealthy gentleman whose intentions she had not yet perfectly settled but whose eligibility admitted of no dispute.
Her former suspicion of his pride had been considerably softened by his behaviour at Longbourn, by Mr. Bennet’s evident respect for him, and by the gratifying possibility that if one daughter were to gain Netherfield, another might yet aspire to a still greater establishment.
“Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth said, curtseying with unusual dignity, “we are very glad to see you returned safely from Derbyshire. I hope all your business at Pemberley was concluded to your satisfaction.”
“I thank you, madam. It was concluded sufficiently to allow my return to Hertfordshire as early as I had hoped.”
“Oh, that is very fortunate indeed,” Mrs. Bennet replied, looking as though fortune had seldom behaved with greater propriety. “For the assembly would have been quite incomplete without all our new neighbours.”
Darcy received this with proper gravity; but Elizabeth, who stood near enough now to hear, found it impossible not to smile.
When his eyes met hers, the smile was not lost on him, and though he made no immediate reply beyond the necessary salutation, something in the softened steadiness of his expression told her that he understood both the words spoken and those withheld.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, bowing with composed civility. “I hope I find you well.”
“Very well, Mr. Darcy. Thank you. Hertfordshire has had the advantage of expecting your return with more confidence than perhaps Derbyshire had in retaining you.”
“I believe Derbyshire is accustomed to my absences,” he replied. “Hertfordshire, I hope, has not yet learned to be indifferent to them.”
The answer, though spoken low enough to remain within the bounds of propriety, was not so low that Elizabeth could mistake its intention.
She felt her colour rise, and, to preserve herself from the seriousness into which he seemed increasingly able to draw her, she turned her attention toward the dancers already forming.
“You return to us in time to judge whether Meryton society deserves all Mr. Bingley’s admiration,” she said. “He has already begun the evening with great courage.”
“Bingley’s courage in admiring what pleases him has never been doubtful,” Darcy answered. “His constancy in continuing to admire it is perhaps the more important question.”
Elizabeth glanced toward Jane, who was then taking her place with Bingley in the first set. “On that point, sir, I believe Hertfordshire may have little cause for anxiety.”
Mr. Darcy followed the direction of her gaze, and his expression softened with that particular mixture of affection and resignation which Mr. Bingley’s openness often seemed to inspire in him. “No,” he said quietly. “I believe not.”
The first dance began, and with it the whole room appeared to brighten.
Bingley danced with the ease of a man who considered his partner the chief recommendation of the evening and the music merely a fortunate accompaniment.
Jane, though serene, could not wholly conceal the pleasure his attentions gave her; and their harmony, so evident without being ostentatious, furnished Mrs. Bennet with more happiness than she could safely express without alarming the neighbourhood into premature congratulations.
Kitty and Lydia, less restrained by expectation and more animated by the presence of militia officers, soon found partners enough to occupy them, while Mary, after declining one gentleman with great seriousness and accepting another with a sense of duty, entered upon the dance as though moral perseverance might compensate for lack of pleasure.
Rather surprisingly, Mr. Darcy did not immediately ask Elizabeth to dance.
Whether from consideration, restraint, or a desire not to render his attention too instantly conspicuous, he remained for some minutes in conversation with Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas, whose delight in discovering a gentleman of such consequence willing to stand within reach of his compliments was extreme.
Elizabeth, observing this, could not determine whether she was relieved or disappointed; and the uncertainty itself provoked her, for she had not previously considered herself a woman likely to be discomposed by the timing of a gentleman’s invitation.
At length, when the first dance had concluded and Bingley returned Jane to her family with an expression that made his immediate request for the next set almost unnecessary, Darcy approached Elizabeth with that mixture of gravity and intention which, in him, rendered even ordinary civilities consequential.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, “may I have the honour of your hand for the next dance?”
The request was perfectly proper, the tone unexceptionable, and yet Elizabeth felt, as she accepted, that the room had altered again.
It was not that every eye turned toward them; many did not.
It was not that their dancing together was extraordinary; it could easily be accounted for by acquaintance, by Darcy’s connection to Bingley, by recent visits, by common civility.
Yet to those who had watched with interest, and to those disposed by nature to interpret interest into certainty, the invitation possessed a significance which neither could wholly ignore.
“I thank you, Mr. Darcy,” she replied. “I shall be happy to dance.”
They took their places with a composure which, had it been complete, might have deceived even themselves.
The music began; the movement of the set separated and returned them; and for a little while the forms of the dance supplied what conversation might have rendered too direct.
Elizabeth was conscious of his presence in a manner wholly unlike their earlier meetings.
At Rosings, his gravity had provoked her curiosity; at Longbourn, his sincerity had unsettled and touched her; but here, in the public brightness of the assembly, with the eyes of Hertfordshire dispersed around them and the music imposing its cheerful order upon the room, she felt the full peculiarity of being both observed and privately understood.
“You find our assembly tolerably conducted, I hope,” she said when the dance brought them together again. “We cannot boast the splendour of Rosings, nor the elegance of London; but we possess noise, zeal, and very little restraint, which must surely count for something.”
“I find it more agreeable than either Rosings or London has lately been,” Darcy replied.
“That is a dangerous compliment, sir. Meryton may not know how to bear such distinction.”
“I did not intend it for Meryton generally.”
Elizabeth was obliged to look away for a moment, though the movement of the dance gave her sufficient excuse. When she returned, her eyes held more brightness than composure.