Chapter 2
“How awful it was last night,” said Caroline Bingley, turning to her sister at the breakfast table with a small shudder and an expression of distaste. “How utterly crude and uncivilised an assembly!”
Mrs Hurst nodded, her hair tucked this morning under a jewelled cap.
“You are so right, Caroline. There was none of the taste and refinement we are accustomed to. Mr Hurst could scarcely be induced to dance in that company, and we sat out half of the evening in the supper room. You would not believe the conversation there. So much about pigs and maidservants and the best cheeses!”
Having lowered his newspaper to greet each of the ladies when they arrived for breakfast, Darcy took it up again, hiding his face behind the printed sheets.
While he could not have claimed any greater enjoyment in the Meryton assembly rooms than Bingley’s sisters, he also took no pleasure in dissecting the evening, preferring to forget unpleasantness and discomfort rather than dwell on them.
“They have some very fine cheeses in Hertfordshire,” Charles Bingley declared, attempting to steer the conversation into happier waters. “I very much enjoy their cheeses, and the ham.”
He was the only person in the party who appeared both well and happy at the breakfast table. Miss Bingley looked pained and Mrs Hurst looked drained after their experiences in Meryton, while Mr Hurst had not surfaced from his room at all. Darcy wished only to eat in silence.
“We are not really talking of cheeses, Charles,” Caroline said with forced patience. “We are talking of local society.”
“Well, I liked that too,” her brother insisted, not to be jolted from his good mood. “I had a capital time last night and enjoyed the dancing thoroughly. I will hope to repeat it many times.”
The two sisters looked at one another in horror.
“Your partner for most of the night was the prettiest and most graceful lady in the room, present company excepted,” Darcy pointed out to his friend, not wishing to be regularly dragged to the Meryton assembly rooms. “I suspect that may have coloured your judgement of the rest of the company. About the latter, your sisters have the right of it, I feel.”
“Yes, Jane Bennet is a very sweet girl,” Mrs Hurst leapt in quickly on the back of Darcy’s sally. “Such a contrast to the other local ladies.”
“I quite agree,” Caroline Bingley remarked. “Jane Bennet is quite lovely and far superior to the general society, but did you meet her sisters? I don’t know how I kept my countenance.”
“I believe the youngest was drunk,” said Mrs Hurst in tones of hushed horror, as though she had never seen such a thing before. “It would account for the way she and another sister practically dragged young men onto the dance floor.”
“No proper manners whatsoever,” Miss Bingley agreed censoriously.
“Just like their mother,” Mrs Hurst added. “How familiarly Mrs Bennet presumed to speak to us! She seemed to think we were already acquainted.”
“I have no idea what you are both talking about, and I liked Jane Bennet very much,” Bingley protested, irked by this attack but not equipped to defend its subjects.
“We are all agreed on Jane, Brother,” Louisa Hurst assured him. “None of us has a bad word to say about Jane. But her family’s comportment…”
“Speaking of manners, I particularly noticed Miss Eliza Bennet and that Lucas girl gossiping about Mr Darcy,” Caroline remarked with seeming casualness.
Having hoped to be left out of this discussion, Darcy at last lowered his paper and set it down once more, a frown on his face.
“What were they saying of me?” he asked sharply. “I barely met either of them.”
Darcy saw a gleam of triumph in Caroline Bingley’s glittering eyes at her success in drawing him in.
Inwardly, he reproached himself for falling prey to her stratagem.
He was too sensitive to certain things after his recent experiences in London and could not shrug off the thought of gossip so easily as he might normally.
“I was not close enough to hear,” she admitted. “They looked at you and whispered for quite some time, Mr Darcy, in a most ill-bred fashion. Whether they spoke good or ill, their manner of speaking did them no credit.”
“It did not,” Darcy agreed. “I find such behaviour insupportable.”
At the head of the table, Bingley was looking distinctly disgruntled, and Darcy chose to add nothing further to his remark.
He did not wish to ruin his friend’s enjoyment in the neighbourhood and its society, nor to steer him into a contrary mood where he took the side of the Bennets out of opposition to his friends, and in defence of his interest in Jane Bennet.
Louisa Hurst also seemed to notice her brother’s expression and changed her own tack.
“I suspect that Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Miss Lucas were only speculating on their own chances of capturing your attention, Mr Darcy. There are always ambitious young ladies without fortune in the countryside, and single men of rank will always be targets. Do not take the matter too seriously, I beg you. That would only give those two ladies unmerited consequence.”
“I shall take your advice, Mrs Hurst,” Darcy agreed, knowing that she was likely correct and hoping that this would bring the whole conversation to an end.
Caroline Bingley had not finished, however.
“How funny!” she remarked with a cold, clear laugh.
“You must admit, Louisa. It is most amusing to think that either Elizabeth Bennet or Charlotte Lucas could ever aspire to marry a man like Mr Darcy. All the Lucas family are as plain as pikestaffs, and Elizabeth Bennet is scarcely more attractive, for all that she is talked of as a local beauty.”
Mrs Hurst showed equal mirth.
“Did you see what they were wearing, Sister? How dowdy and shapeless their dresses were! No one in the neighbourhood seems to have any sense of fashion, and those two young ladies are perfect illustrations.”
“I would not have worn those outfits even to walk in the gardens alone,” Caroline claimed. “It is almost as though they have accepted spinsterhood already. Do say you will return to London for Christmas, Charles. More than two months in this society would be unbearable!”
“I like the society here, and I intend to stay,” Bingley declared, his sisters’ barbs seeming to have prodded him already down the road that Darcy had wished to avoid.
“I find all the neighbours most welcoming and congenial, whatever you may think of the dresses of other ladies. Such small things as you mention are not worthy of such attention. Surely you agree, Darcy?”
“I agree we can spend our time more profitably than on criticism of dress, certainly. However, not all the points your sisters raised are small things, as you call them. Manners are important, and the distinctions of rank and fortune are very real. It is naive to claim otherwise. I cannot find fault with Miss Bingley or Mrs Hurst in principle, only in detail.”
“That all sounds rather supercilious and proud to me, Darcy,” Bingley reproved him.
“I take the view that I have the right to such pride,” Darcy replied simply, taking up his newspaper once more.
“How right you are, Mr Darcy,” Caroline Bingley assured him wholeheartedly. “Pemberley is one of the finest estates in England, and the Darcy family are among its oldest and most respected, after all. You could hardly feel otherwise!”
While Miss Bingley’s voice grated somewhat on his nerves, Darcy still smiled a little behind his paper shield.
Yes, his birthright was Pemberley and all the respect that his name and fortune engendered.
He was proud to be a Darcy from a long line of Darcys — Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, Master of Pemberley.
Then, the memory of that question mark in the club’s guest registration book re-entered his mind, and Darcy’s smile vanished.