Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
The day after the assembly was spent as most days were after assemblies: in the reliving of them.
Charlotte, Maria, and Lady Lucas called at Longbourn early and stayed long.
Lady Lucas was pleased that Mrs Bennet made much of Mr Bingley’s dance with Charlotte while, at the same time, dismissing entirely the two times he had danced with Jane.
There was also a great deal of conversation the utterly despicable Mr Darcy.
To render such an insult against one of their own would have been met with ire no matter who the lady was, but the fact that it had been done to Elizabeth, who had already suffered so very much, made it unforgivable.
Lady Lucas said that Sir William had even gone so far as to suggest excluding the odious man from an impending evening gathering, but Elizabeth intervened hastily and persuaded them otherwise.
She had no great fondness for the man, but she liked Mr Bingley and did not wish to see any of his party offended.
A few days following the assembly, Elizabeth awoke early and indulged in a brief walk through the countryside. Upon her return, she heard Lydia singing in the music room, and she hastened in to compliment her.
Kitty was at the pianoforte, playing while Lydia sang. By the time Elizabeth arrived, they were nearly half finished, but she enjoyed the rest and clapped her hands with great enthusiasm at the end, nodding in acknowledgment to Miss Avery, their governess and the lady behind their proficiency.
“You girls have come along so well!”
Lydia sighed. “With little to entertain us, what else could we do?”
Elizabeth tried to be sympathetic. “This is what young ladies your age should be doing—bettering themselves to become truly accomplished.”
Kitty grumbled a bit. “You and Jane have all of the fun.”
“Soon enough, Jane and I shall be boring old married ladies, and it will be you going to balls, parties, and dinners,” Elizabeth reassured them, “but in London, where wealthy, handsome gentlemen will admire you for your many talents and sweep you away to some grand estate.” Her sisters were duly encouraged and smiled at the thought.
Kitty showed her sister the next piece she and Lydia would learn, and Elizabeth made them happier still by promising each a new bonnet when it had been mastered.
Elizabeth felt Kitty and Lydia suffered the effects of their father’s disinterest. Upon entering their teens, they began behaving in a silly and strident manner alarmingly similar to Mrs Bennet.
When Elizabeth came into the means to do so, she hired Miss Avery to curtail these growing tendencies and all but forced her father to take an interest in the girls—reading, riding, and playing chess with them, just as he had done with her.
She could not yet know whether it was successful, but both girls showed evidence of becoming a credit to the Bennet family one day even if they acted petulant at times.
Mr and Mrs Bennet might have thought Elizabeth’s edicts a bit high handed, but all Elizabeth needed to do was dangle the notion of improved marital prospects in front of her mother, and her will was done.
She felt a bit guilty for doing so, but as it was to the improvement of her sisters, she put that guilt aside.
After leaving her younger sisters, she went into the drawing room where a bit of a disagreement was occurring. Jane was gently insisting, “They are our neighbours, Mama. We must call upon them.”
Mrs Bennet frowned, stabbing viciously at a piece of needlework. “Such connexions are unsuitable.”
“Unsuitable? How so?” Elizabeth did not hesitate to enter the fray.
“You know why,” Mrs Bennet replied with another unbecoming scowl, her needle attacking the fabric with no mercy and no creditable result.
“I have no apprehension in calling on them. I think it would look very odd if we did not.”
“A countess calling upon some man in trade? Absurd, utterly absurd! It is not done!”
“I am not known as a countess to them,” Elizabeth replied firmly. “Nor do I wish to give away my position. They are neighbours, and furthermore, they are no longer in trade.”
“That might be so, but they are not gently bred either!”
“I shall call on the ladies, Mama, and so will you.”
Mrs Bennet looked away, grumbling “ladies, indeed” under her breath. She was silent for a few blessed moments while her daughters looked at her unwaveringly. Finally, she said, “I shall get my things.”
Although Mrs Bennet had acquiesced, she had not done so cheerfully, and she spent the carriage ride to Netherfield in a stony silence, staring out the window to communicate her disapproval.
Had she understood that, for her daughters, this was more of a blessing than a curse, she might have spoken simply to aggravate them, but as it was, she remained silent.
“I am certain they do not even know the proper etiquette for a morning call,” said Caroline Bingley disdainfully from her place at the window.
“They will probably stay all day,” agreed Mrs Hurst.
“I can scarcely bear to imagine of what topics they will speak! Surely, fashion, society, anything of interest is unknown to them! What shall we—”
“Caroline!” Mr Bingley looked at both of his sisters severely.
“This is country society. If you wish to serve as my hostess, I expect you to behave kindly. And do not think you will be absolved of such things once you are wed. If you marry a gentleman, you will spend time at his estate and be expected to treat his neighbours with respect.”
Caroline frowned at her brother, not impressed by his forceful tone. “Some counties, you must own, are far more civilised than others. Derbyshire comes to mind, of course. Everyone in Hertfordshire is a farmer.”
“Most in Derbyshire are sheep breeders,” Darcy remarked. “Country is not town, no matter what county you reside in.”
Caroline flushed at his rebuke, but Darcy barely noted it. He was busy schooling himself to appear calm, assuming he would soon see Miss Elizabeth Bennet, as he now knew she was called.
In the days since the assembly, he had told himself that this silly notion of love at first sight was nothing more than a fleeting thought brought on by his recent feelings of loneliness and worries over Georgiana, as well as his rising determination to marry.
As soon as he spoke to her, reality would intrude and dispel these strange ideas that afflicted him.
The room was soon a throng of Hertfordshire’s residents except for the Bennets.
Darcy felt his head turn, almost against his will, each time the door opened, but it was always in vain.
The room filled with the gentry of the area.
Young lady after young lady was thrust at him, their smiling fathers or mothers behind them in a most insupportable fashion.
Bingley, he saw, received the same treatment but did not appear as vexed by it as he was.
Darcy took to lingering on the periphery of conversations so he would not attract undue notice by any of them and, as such, missed the entry of his heart’s desire.
He became aware of her only when he heard Miss Bingley greet her, somehow managing to make the name Miss Eliza sound like an epithet.
He turned about, feeling his stomach drop into his shoes as a deep flush spread over his entire body and his heart began to pound.
Calm yourself. You do not even know her. Intent on a proper introduction, he moved to where she stood speaking to Miss Bingley, heedless of the fact that Miss Bingley would surely believe he had crossed the room for her benefit.
Miss Bingley preened when he appeared, enjoying having him at her side as though they were greeting guests together. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet, please allow me to introduce you to our esteemed guest, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
Miss Elizabeth offered a proper curtsey, and Darcy bowed. To his shock, rather than court his favour, she turned to leave. He stopped her with the stupidest, most commonplace subject that sprang to his lips. “The weather has been exceptionally fine. Tell me, is it generally so?”
Elizabeth turned back to him, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “I would say the weather hereabouts is always what I consider to be tolerable. However, I am not so fastidious. To me, many things are tolerable.”
Darcy was mortified and felt the flush only recently abated return to his cheeks. At least she was teasing him about it. Heaven only knew that, if she were to walk up and slap him, he would deserve it. But now, she was moving away from him once more.
“A moment, please.”
She turned back again.
“I wish to offer an overdue apology.”
She raised one eyebrow, looking delightfully saucy. “Why? As we have only just met, I cannot imagine how you might have offended me already. Nor could I think you were the sort of gentleman who went about offending ladies unknown to you.”
He smiled despite his embarrassment. Seeing good humour in her eyes, he admitted, “I am not the sort of man who would usually do such a thing, but I am afraid I did so at the assembly.”
“Indeed?” Elizabeth was the picture of innocence. “Well, then you must have had good reason to do so. Did I offend you?”
“No,” he admitted. “However, it was unkind of me…”
“What was it you said? I wish to be certain, should I accept your apology, that I am accepting it for the correct grievance.”
He looked at her and judged by her sparkling eyes and suppressed grin that she remained somewhat amused. “I said you were tolerable but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I was in no mood to give consequence to ladies slighted by other gentlemen.”
Elizabeth gasped theatrically and placed her hand on her bosom. “Oh my!”
“I am exceedingly sorry for such an appalling remark and hope I might make amends for any distress it caused you.”
“Hmmm…” She continued giving him that teasing look. “May I clarify one thing?”
“Certainly.”
“Are you sorry because you did not mean it? Or is it only regrettable because I heard you? Understand, I am not seeking to be flattered; I only wish to be perfectly clear on what it is I am supposed to forgive.”
He repressed the beginnings of a chuckle. “It was both entirely untrue and unkind in its utterance. It was based on nothing more than my desire to be rid of Bingley’s pestering.”
Miss Elizabeth looked over at Mr Bingley, who was making sheep’s eyes at her sister and looking in every manner like the happily besotted youth he was.
“Mr Bingley is indeed a fearsome, and no doubt dangerous, creature. I can readily apprehend that you might have to employ any means possible to extricate yourself from his evil clutches.”
Darcy now permitted himself a broad smile. “He seems harmless enough now, but I assure you, when he sets his mind to something—such as the cause of making me dance—he can be both relentless and ruthless.”
She inclined her head. “Very well. I appreciate your candour, and I accept your apology. No amends are needed.”
“Thank you, Miss Elizabeth.” Darcy frantically cast about in his mind for something else to say that would permit him to continue speaking to her.
“If you will excuse me, sir.” With that, she was gone—to Darcy’s profound disappointment.
Elizabeth walked away from Mr Darcy, wondering what sort of impulse had led her to tease him so. It certainly was not his open and welcoming countenance; Mr Darcy was rather serious, even a bit severe. I must begin by being impertinent; else, I shall soon grow frightened of him.
Although she held a slight measure of concern for having offended him, it was a fine thing to feel a bit of her old self emerging.
Elizabeth could not deny that the events of the years since her brief marriage had left their mark on her.
When she had first lost her husband, she had existed within a haze of grief and sorrow.
That eventually gave way to anger and then loneliness.
All emotions had to be carefully modulated and concealed from the world, enabling her to impersonate a reasonably happy, well-mannered young lady.
While she thought she had met with some success in her disguise, it had dulled her nevertheless.
She often felt as if she viewed the world through a warped glass, with anxiety her only true feeling.
She had pretended to be something she was not for so long a time that she almost forgot how to be herself.
Teasing Mr Darcy made her feel more like her former self.
Even though she knew not why he, of all people, would inspire it, she still enjoyed it.
Now she knew that the courageous, impertinent, witty, and teasing girl was still within her somewhere.
If she could be that girl with such a man as Fitzwilliam Darcy, surely no one in London would intimidate her.