Chapter 15 Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Elizabeth finished reading Ennui to Jane, and she decided to try to find Georgiana to see if she was ready to trade books.
Her sister was doing so well, although still going through handkerchiefs at a prodigious rate, that they both agreed Elizabeth could leave her alone while attempting to accomplish the task.
She knocked on Georgiana’s door, but not even a maid responded. Next, she looked in the library, the two drawing rooms, and the morning room, and she did not see Georgiana. She was considering checking outside when she spotted Miss Bingley lurking in the doorway to the ballroom.
There was a clinking, metallic sound, and Elizabeth wondered if someone was fencing. Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley, perhaps?
The posture of Miss Bingley—or, rather, the lack of her usual posture—made Elizabeth wonder very much what her facial expression would be.
She was pretty sure from many different statements that she coveted Mr. Darcy for his wealth, his standing, his noble connections and his handsome person.
If Mr. Darcy was in the ballroom, if it was he whom Miss Bingley watched…
well, there was something about the way she had draped herself in the doorway that gave Elizabeth pause.
She moved soundlessly to join Miss Bingley in the doorway. She flicked her eyes inside the ballroom and saw that her assumption was correct; Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were fencing. Then she soundlessly moved her eyes to take in the expression on her hostess’s face.
Miss Bingley looked spellbound. Her eyes were fixed, her pupils were huge, and her mouth looked to be permanently open in an intake of breath. Elizabeth felt certain that this was no garden-variety fortune hunter. She was, likely, a woman thoroughly infatuated with a man.
However, that did not make her less dangerous. It might make her far more dangerous.
Elizabeth breathed out the words, “He is a handsome man, is he not?”
The word “Gorgeous!” escaped Miss Bingley’s lips before she twisted to face Elizabeth with a furious expression on her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the show, same as you, I imagine,” Elizabeth said calmly.
She turned back to watch Mr. Darcy, armed with a foil, advance and retreat in an effort to best Mr. Bingley and his foil.
The weapons clanked together with their rapid thrusts and parries.
She did not know much about the sport of fencing, but still she could see that Mr. Darcy was the superior swordsman, demonstrating much more precision as well as more power than Mr. Bingley.
Miss Bingley had drawn herself up to her much greater height, and she brought every possible ounce of hauteur to her expression as she said, “It is not proper for a young, unmarried lady to watch men in their current state of undress.”
Elizabeth had not thought of the fact that both men were wearing only breeches and shirts—and that no waistcoats or coats obscured their forms. She felt herself blush, but she only flicked an amused glance at Miss Bingley and responded, “Indeed.”
Miss Bingley let out a huff of exasperated air and turned away, and Elizabeth gave one more surreptitious glance at Mr. Darcy, fully understanding why Miss Bingley wanted to watch him fence, before turning away herself.
“Do you know where I might find Georgiana?” she asked her hostess.
“No.” The simple answer was voiced with so much cold disdain, Elizabeth decided to hurry away rather than linger long enough to hear, she supposed, anything from scolding to veiled threats.
Elizabeth decided to try Georgiana’s room again. Still holding the book she hoped to trade, she knocked on the door of her friend’s sitting room, and soon she found herself in Georgiana’s affectionate hug. The books were swapped, and Georgiana invited her to sit down and chat.
“I should probably return to Jane, but you can come with me,” Elizabeth suggested.
“I should like that!” Georgiana enthused.
As she turned to go, Elizabeth spied a small slate and the soapstone used to mark it.
She gestured to it, eyebrows up in a questioning manner.
Georgiana looked confused, but she nodded, and Elizabeth grabbed them on her way out of the door.
Georgiana walked over to pick up a rather messy looking piece of cloth, and Elizabeth realised that it must be the cloth that Georgiana used to erase markings on the slate.
Once in Jane’s room, Elizabeth asked Jane how she fared, and as her sister answered, she wrote a message on the slate: “To thwart eavesdroppers.”
Both Jane and Georgiana signalled their comprehension with nods, and as the young women chatted with one another, once in a while someone would write a message on the slate, swiping the slate clean again after everyone had read and nodded their acquiescence to doing so.
Slowly, over the course of five full slates of communication, Georgiana told them about her attempt to confuse Miss Bingley with mentions of Margate, and Miss Bingley’s rude responses.
Elizabeth wrote, “I need to ‘talk’ to your brother.”
Georgiana nodded her comprehension and then swiped away the message.
Later on, she verbally made her excuses to leave the room, saying that she had some mathematics work she was completing as part of her tutelage under Mrs. Annesley.
She wrote on the slate, “I have Mrs. A’s slate in my room. You keep this one.”
Almost an hour later, Elizabeth answered a tentative knock on Jane’s door.
In the hall was Georgiana and Mr. Darcy; the latter was holding a slate.
“I am having trouble explaining to Georgiana how to simplify algebraic expressions, and I wonder if you can come to her sitting room with me and help explain.”
Elizabeth agreed immediately. She struggled to remember the algebra she had insisted on working her way through, at age fourteen, and she thought she remembered enough terms to pretend to discuss it.
Once in Georgiana’s sitting room, with both doors closed, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth sat down in the two chairs, positioned at the table. Georgiana hovered so that she could read what was on the slate, and her maid sat in a corner.
Mr. Darcy said, “So, Georgiana, you remember what a variable is, correct?”
“I do,” she answered.
Elizabeth met Mr. Darcy’s questioning gaze and nodded minutely.
“In this expression,” he said, “we are using ‘x’ to stand for the price of wool…” he went on and on, explaining very clearly one way in which he actually used algebra as master of Pemberley.
Elizabeth was thrilled to understand every word and mathematical concept, and she could see that Georgiana was getting lost. The subterfuge they were using in their discussion was working out very well.
He asked Georgiana a question, and she said, “I am sorry to say that I do not understand.”
Then Mr. Darcy handed Elizabeth the slate, the soapstone, and the cloth.
She quickly cleaned the slate and said, “Georgiana, take a look at this.” Instead of writing algebra on the slate, she wrote, “I saw Miss Bingley watching you fence today.” She looked into both of their faces, saw their nods, and swiped the board clean.
She thought fast and said out loud, “You see, your brother does not know, each year, as he plans his flocks, what the price of wool will actually be….”
She had to pause the math talk in order to write her message on the slate: “She is mostly not desirous of your fortune, as you might think. She looks to be completely enamoured with your person. Possibly infatuated to the point of mania.”
Then she said a bit more about using algebra to figure out the best use of land for raising sheep, cows, and goats.
Mr. Darcy asked Georgiana if she understood, pointing to the slate with raised eyebrows.
She nodded in response, and he swiped away Elizabeth’s message.
He paused for a moment, clearly pondering his words, and then wrote, “I have never really thought that she cared anything for me. Me, a person, a man, not the master of Pemberley.”
Elizabeth looked up at Georgiana, saw her immediate nod, and said as she erased Mr. Darcy’s message, “I think we need to look at it more like this.” Then she wrote, “She may not care for you as a lover should. Care about your feelings and opinions and dreams for the future. But she definitely seems to care about you as a man.”
She felt uncomfortable expressing anything else.
She did not, for example, want to write the word “desire” on the slate for Mr. and Miss Darcy to see.
She let a little chuckle out and then said, “So sorry, I just find it hard to explain how to use multiple variables….” She swiped away her last message and wrote, “I think it makes her more dangerous.”
Georgiana spoke: “I think I understand now. And I agree with you, Elizabeth, it is hard to explain, but that does not make it any less true.”
Mr. Darcy nodded. “Indeed.” He rose from his seat, and Elizabeth hurried to wipe the slate clean before she, too, stood up. Her message conveyed, she was about to leave the room and return to Jane, when Mr. Darcy surprised her with a subtle touch to her upper arm.
His fingers barely brushed her arm, but Elizabeth felt as if every teeny, almost invisible hair was suddenly attracted his way, as if he had electrified her. She turned towards him, startled, and he immediately withdrew his hand.
“Miss Elizabeth, I wished to tell you, as I already told the Bingleys and the Hursts, that my cousin is coming here to Netherfield, likely tomorrow evening. I will be gone much of the day, Georgiana, but I promise I will come back before Richard arrives, if he sticks to his planned departure time.”
Georgiana nodded, and Elizabeth said, “I look forward to meeting him.”
Wondering if his cousin was coming as part of their two-fold plan against attempted blackmail, or for some other reason, Elizabeth returned to her room, to her sister, to her self-imposed tasks: tending to the still-extensive sniffles suffered by her beloved sister, and plotting to protect the reputation of her increasingly-beloved young friend.