Chapter 8
A STAY AT NETHERFIELD PARK
Miss Bingley, ably assisted by her sister, was intent on pointing out every supposed flaw she had seen in Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Her manners, her conversation, her style, her appearance were all found gravely wanting.
Bingley attempted to defend her when they exclaimed over her appearance that morning with dirty petticoats, but they ignored him, as they so often did.
Miss Bingley then turned to Darcy and asked if he would wish his sister to make such a display.
“Certainly not,” he replied, and she began speaking again before he might continue his thought, which featured the fact that his sister would always have a carriage or a mount available to her, for he was able to keep a large stable and several vehicles, unlike the more modestly-placed Mr Bennet.
Furthermore, if his sister were through some bizarre circumstance without a conveyance and chose to walk across the fields to assist a relation, he would never censure her for it.
“To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and quite alone! It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.”
“It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,” said Bingley, beginning to appear rather agitated.
“Even if the dress is ruined, I expect Miss Elizabeth would count it a trifling sacrifice, in service of being present for her sister in her illness,” Darcy’s cousin commented.
Mrs Hurst tittered. “I cannot but imagine that the loss of a single dress might be a very great one, in her situation.”
“Even more laudable, then, that she should risk it for her sister’s comfort,” Fitzwilliam replied easily, though Darcy sensed a bite behind the words.
Miss Bingley protested that she herself was extremely fond of Miss Bennet, speaking with feigned sorrow of her lack of wealth and connexions, which must prohibit her being settled as she deserved.
Bingley attempted to defend the sisters, declaring that if they had many merchant uncles instead of one, he would find them no less agreeable.
“But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,” Darcy pointed out.
It was true, and he thought his friend, in the throes of infatuation, was not paying sufficient attention to the practicalities.
Bingley might easily end up responsible for the whole noisy lot of Bennets, all on the strength of a pretty face and a ready smile, if he did not soon begin to consider such things.
He looked to his cousin, certain he would support Darcy’s position.
Fitzwilliam, however, was slowly shaking his head.
“A man of consideration in the world,” he said with a little smirk, “can afford to marry where he pleases. Oh, he may come in for some tutting and finger-wagging from the sticklers, but what can that matter if he has chosen a lady who delights him? When one has wealth enough for security, the next thing to be sought must be happiness.”
No one else liked that opinion at all, except, it seemed, for Bingley, who declared that it was the most sensible thing he had heard this last hour.
The next day brought a slight improvement in Miss Bennet’s case, and this drew Mrs Bennet to Netherfield along with her three other daughters.
Having ascended to the sickroom to inspect her eldest, she descended once more, all the others in tow, including a pink-cheeked Miss Elizabeth, to declare to the company that her second daughter had been entirely ridiculous to suggest that Jane might be moved that day or the next.
She nattered on for a time about how sweetly and bravely Miss Bennet bore her illness, before turning the conversation to praise of Bingley.
She held forth on this subject for a full ten minutes, broken only by a few pointed comments directed at Fitzwilliam about how her Lydia was so lively and pretty, just the sort of girl a soldier should like to come home to after a gruelling day of marching and drilling.
Darcy saw his cousin struggle to conceal his amusement at this display, though he himself could find no humour in it.
Really, the woman was intolerable! Shrill, manipulative, and grasping, characteristics he could not abide in anyone.
Miss Elizabeth attempted to restrain her, to little effect.
The youngest two girls were also ill-mannered and hoydenish.
The youngest of all had the temerity to tax Bingley with his casual mention, on the night of the assembly, that he might throw a ball at Netherfield, twisting it into a promise.
Bingley, agreeable and generous soul that he was, readily conceded that a ball would be just the thing, and declared that the arrangements would commence as soon as Miss Bennet was recovered.
This seemed to satisfy the girl, who commented that some officer or another, presumably a favourite, should have returned from town by then.
Visibly contented with the results of her efforts and Miss Lydia’s, Mrs Bennet gathered up her three youngest daughters and departed.
Miss Elizabeth, blushing, made her excuses and retreated upstairs to attend her sister.
Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst lost no time in excoriating the behaviour of the visitors.
Though Darcy agreed with much of what they said, he held his tongue, for to agree with Miss Bingley was to encourage her delusion that she would, one happy day not long in the future, be Mrs Darcy.
Bingley was in no humour to hear their complaints, frowning fiercely at his sisters and then, when that produced no good result, suggesting to the gentlemen that they repair to the billiards room.
He wasted no time in voicing a complaint of his own once they were safely behind the closed door to that purely masculine domain.
“I do wish my sisters were less rigid in their expectations. Manners are freer in the country, are they not? And I am perfectly willing to forgive some little lapses in decorum when everyone here has been so welcoming to us.”
“Even by country standards, Mrs Bennet is vulgar,” Darcy replied. “And the youngest daughters are positively wild.”
“And just as in town, status covers a multitude of sins,” the colonel replied.
“Mrs Bennet can only be as she is without overt censure because the Bennets are the leading family of the neighbourhood, and everyone else hereabouts has known her for many years and become accustomed to her ways.” He selected a stick and chalked the tip with a thoughtful expression as he continued, “In fact, I have noted a remarkable resemblance of character between Mrs Bennet and a lady I have known the whole of my life. She, too, has but a passing acquaintance with what I call good manners. She is strident, meddlesome, ill-educated, and possesses far less subtlety than she believes. And—” Here, he cast a sly look at Darcy.
“—she is indisputably desperate to marry her daughter off to a wealthy man, to her own benefit, regardless of the sentiments of any other party concerned in the business.”
Darcy winced. His cousin spoke, of course, of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, sister to both Darcy’s mother and the colonel’s father. It often seemed as though the sole aim of her life for the past five and twenty years had been to secure a marriage between her daughter Anne and Darcy himself.
“And how does this lady get on with such manners?” Bingley enquired.
“Quite well. Like Mrs Bennet, she is the mistress of the largest settled estate in her neighbourhood, and if the other residents often do not appreciate her ways, they are accustomed to her. It also does not harm her cause that she is by far the wealthiest person in the neighbourhood, despite having managed her funds poorly for some years.”
“And that is why she seeks a wealthy husband for her daughter?”
“Just so.” The colonel grinned. “Her chosen gentleman has proved remarkably elusive, much to her sorrow.”
“I cannot say I am sorry for her, if she has wealth of her own,” Bingley remarked.
“Mrs Bennet, on the other hand, is in a pitiable situation, with a small estate entailed upon a distant cousin, five daughters, and a dearth of gentlemen in the neighbourhood. I understand why she is eager to see even one of them well settled, however little I care for her methods.”
“She has set her sights on you for her eldest,” Darcy warned.
“I know it.” He shrugged. “It may be that her wishes will be gratified, or it may not. I have only known Miss Bennet a month, and though I like her more than any other lady I have ever met, I am not yet prepared to declare my heart lost. If I should, in time, make her an offer, it will be because I have determined that I cannot be happy without her by my side, and further, that her happiness likewise depends upon me. If that is not the case, no scheme of her mother’s will move me. ”
“If you do marry her, you may end up responsible for most of the other Bennet ladies,” Fitzwilliam suggested, eyeing Bingley curiously.
A slow smile crept across Bingley’s face.
“I am merely leasing. I might purchase in any corner of the kingdom I choose. And if I find myself responsible for some relations with whom I do not wish to live daily, I have sufficient means to set them up in a cottage in the neighbourhood they have known all their lives, with all their friends about them. It would, viewed in a certain light, be rather cruel to remove them to my estate.”
Fitzwilliam laughed and clapped Bingley on the back. “I see you have thought this through. Excellent. Now, are we to play, or stand about nattering like old women?”
Dinner that evening was, with the exception of the dishes served, a near-perfect copy of the one before.
Mr Bingley’s sisters monopolised Mr Darcy’s attention, while Elizabeth had a very entertaining conversation with her host and the colonel, and Mr Hurst ignored everything but his plate and his glass.
She checked on Jane afterwards, and finding her nodding off over a volume of poetry, rescued the book and tucked her sister in before descending to the drawing room as she ought.
There Elizabeth took up some needlework, for the others were occupied: Mr Hurst and Mr Bingley at piquet, Mrs Hurst with observing their game, the colonel engrossed in the newspaper, Mr Darcy in writing a letter to his sister, and Miss Bingley in interrupting him constantly.
From the lady’s constant references to Miss Darcy and her many perfections, Elizabeth gathered that the letter was for that young lady.
Sensing his growing irritation, Elizabeth took pity on him and attempted to draw Miss Bingley’s attention to herself.
“Tell me, Miss Bingley, is Miss Darcy much like her brother?”
“Oh! Not greatly in appearance, no—I believe she takes after her mother’s side of the family. Her colouring is very like Colonel Fitzwilliam’s. But in character, I should say she is very like Mr Darcy indeed.”
“Would you?” the colonel interjected curiously, peering at them over his newspaper, one corner bent down for the purpose. “They are both reserved, that is true enough, but my younger cousin is a sweet and gentle soul. I doubt Darcy would like those terms to be applied to him.”
“Indeed I would not,” Darcy said drily, slanting an exasperated glance at his cousin. “If I were to criticise my sister on any point of character, I should say she is too forgiving. I am the opposite; my temper is too little yielding; certainly, too little for the convenience of the world.”
“Perhaps you ought each to take the other as an example, then,” Elizabeth suggested. “She might learn to be less yielding from you, and you to be more forgiving, from her.”
“Neither of them needs to learn anything!” Miss Bingley cried. “It is right and proper that a gentleman be firmer of character than a lady! I only meant that Miss Darcy is very much a feminine version of her brother in character.”
“Ah, well, there we have it,” said Elizabeth to Darcy. “You and your sister are both perfect creatures. I congratulate you both.”
He smiled. “That is not possible for anyone. The only praise I will give myself and my sister is that we both attempt to believe and do what is correct. That we must and shall fail at times is inescapable.”
“If either of you have failed in anything, I have never seen it,” simpered Miss Bingley.
Then, in a transparent desire to change the subject, she tasked her brother with his agreement to host a ball, questioning whether he had been serious in it.
He replied that he was, and could not be moved by any of her attempts to convince him to reverse his course.
In the end, she grudgingly agreed to begin the planning.