Chapter 8
“Did I tell you who we saw at Almack’s last ball?” asked Louisa Hurst, when conversation at the supper table at Darcy House seemed to be flagging. “You will never guess, Mr Darcy.”
She looked at him rather archly, as though her question was highly amusing, and then cast her eyes down, dipping her head so low that the peacock feather on her headdress almost went into her wineglass.
Georgiana stifled a giggle, but Mrs Hurst did not notice.
“Do I know them?” Darcy enquired, slightly bored, as always in the company of Mr Bingley’s sisters. “If I do not, then you are right, I shall never guess.”
At this question, Miss Bingley laughed brightly as though Darcy had said something very witty, and the sound set his teeth on edge. The sound of Mr Hurst slurping his soup through drunken lips irritated him further.
While Charles Bingley himself was neither intellectual nor witty, his simple and unassuming good-nature made him always a pleasant companion and much liked by Georgiana.
He was in poor spirits tonight, however, and neither Darcy nor his sister were greatly engaged by the forced brilliancy of Miss Bingley or Mrs Hurst.
Despite their greater sophistication and pretensions to higher understanding than their brother, these ladies could not arouse the same general good-will. As for Mr Hurst, in Darcy’s opinion, the less said of that sot, the better.
“We saw Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” declared Louisa Hurst with a roll of her eyes that was lost on both Darcy and Georgiana, the latter never having met the Bennet family. “Would you believe it?”
Bingley, in contrast to the Darcy siblings, sat up very straight in his chair and paid great attention.
“You did not tell me that,” he protested indignantly. “When did you see them? I would like to have seen them myself if they were in London.”
“We had no idea they were to be at Almack’s, Charles,” Caroline said in a slightly withering tone. “You said you were not in the mood for dancing that night, as I recall. That is why you did not accompany us and see them yourself.”
“I might have been in more of a mood for dancing if I had known that we had friends at Almack’s,” her brother interjected, his cheeks pink and his eyes unhappy.
Darcy saw Bingley’s sisters share a look of condescending tolerance at this continued gap in their brother’s logic.
“How out of place they looked!” laughed Miss Bingley with a smile that was more a sneer, skating over her brother’s displeasure.
“Their dresses might have been several years old, and their hair looked as though they had dressed only for tea at home. It is hard for those from the country to become accustomed to London fashions, I suppose.”
“I am sure that Miss Bennet looked very well, whatever she wore,” Charles Bingley defended the young woman who had drawn so much of his affection in Hertfordshire. “She would look well even in the most unfashionable dress, in my opinion.”
“Dear Jane, of course she would,” Mrs Hurst soothed him. “She has such a beautiful countenance and natural grace. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, however, well…”
She did not finish this sentence, but left it to be picked up by her younger sister. Miss Bingley gave a high, artificial laugh and did not miss a beat in adding her own thoughts.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet! How strangely she comports herself. Jane was in demand for the dancing, of course, but her sister spent most of the evening at Almack’s conversing with the chaperones, as far as I could see. I believe she is in training to be an old maid herself already.”
While both Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley laughed greatly at this joke, Bingley sat stony-faced, and Georgiana looked uncomfortable, her eyes darting to Darcy’s for reassurance as to how she ought to react.
Seeing the disapproval he knew was on his face, his sister then looked down at the table, avoiding the gaze of any of their guests.
“You still should have told me that you saw Miss Bennet and her sister,” Charles Bingley put in doggedly. “I understand that you did not anticipate the meeting, but you might have mentioned it later.”
“Oh, we didn’t have any chance to speak to them properly, Charles,” Louisa Hurst told him swiftly. “The Assembly Rooms were so busy that night, and we only saw them across the ballroom. I imagine they were only in London for a day or two anyway and will have long since returned to Hertfordshire.”
At these words, Bingley gave a long sigh and picked unenthusiastically at the fish on his plate.
“If they had been here longer, we could have called on them together,” he remarked disconsolately, looking to his youngest sister, who was suddenly entirely focused on her own food, and unable to respond. “You would like to have seen Jane properly too, wouldn’t you, Caroline?”
Darcy had a distinct sense that Miss Bingley did not wish to continue that particular avenue of conversation with her brother, and perhaps was hiding something.
Uncomfortably, he recalled Caroline Bingley mentioning to him some weeks ago that Jane Bennet had been in London. Ought he to have told Bingley…?
At the time, Darcy had been trying hard to put the whole Bennet family from his mind. If he had known that Elizabeth Bennet was here too, he might not have succeeded. Nor did he wish to become involved in any domestic dispute that might arise between Bingley and his sisters.
“Mr Darcy, tell me, how goes your search for Georgiana’s new companion?
” put in Mrs Hurst, changing the subject completely before Darcy’s somewhat guilty reverie could proceed much further.
“I know you said you needed no help, but I have picked up some excellent recommendations in my normal round of social calls, if this would assist you.”
“I will not trouble you, Mrs Hurst,” Darcy told her politely but firmly. “I assure you that I have everything in hand. In fact, I am very close to appointing someone, pending an interview in a few days’ time.”
“Oh, well, I wish you luck,” Mrs Hurst returned uncertainly. It took a slight effort for Darcy to keep a polite smile on his face. Her lack of confidence in his ability to recruit a companion was almost insulting.
Meanwhile, Georgiana had smiled in reaction to his announcement, and Darcy felt a pang of conscience. He had overstated his hand in order to discourage interference from Louisa Hurst. It might easily still be that the promising young woman on paper turned out to be entirely unsuitable in real life.
Look at the Bennet sisters, for example.
The two older young ladies were fair of feature, intelligent, and well mannered.
Born into another family and situation, they could have been highly eligible, with excellent prospects.
Yet their relatives and want of fortune made them very unsuitable matches for young men of their own class.
The potential companion might have something equally disadvantageous in her own background that made her appointment as Georgiana’s companion impossible.
“We shall see,” Darcy added with a note of caution. “I hope I shall soon have good news for all of you.”