Chapter 14
INVITATION TO A BALL
Fitzwilliam followed Darcy into his room when they returned to Netherfield that evening. Seeing his night clothes laid out, Darcy dismissed his valet, saying he would tend to himself after speaking with his cousin.
“Well, Darcy,” the colonel said, “here is what I cannot make out—have you acted to save the incomparable Miss Elizabeth in order to pursue her yourself, or merely to one day see her wed to a better man than Mr Collins? Make no mistake, you will see it, for if Bingley does not wed Miss Bennet I shall eat my shako.”
“The latter,” Darcy replied firmly.
“And yet you like her very well.”
“I do,” he admitted. “But she is hardly suitable.”
“She is a gentleman’s daughter, a beautiful and witty woman whose company you enjoy.”
“Which makes her an acceptable acquaintance, but she has no fortune, a ridiculous mother, two wild sisters, and an uncle in trade. It will not do, Fitzwilliam.”
His cousin shook his head but said only, “I would not be so fastidious as you for a kingdom. Good night, Cousin.”
Mr Collins and Mary spoke studiously of theology over breakfast, and though her mother solicited Elizabeth’s opinion several times in a blatant manoeuvre to bring her into their conversation, Mrs Bennet subsided after Elizabeth persisted in cheerfully declaring that she was certain Mr Collins and Mary knew far more about the matter than she herself ever would.
The afternoon brought Mr Bingley and his sisters with an invitation to his ball, to be held on Tuesday evening.
The ladies of Netherfield professed their pleasure in seeing Jane again so soon and said nothing at all to anyone else where it could be avoided.
Their expressions would seem to indicate that the house was afflicted with an unpleasant aroma they strove mightily to ignore.
When Mrs Bennet had displayed the invitation, printed on a fine, thick card, to all her daughters, and assured Mr Bingley several times that they would certainly attend, receiving in return his assurance that Mr Collins was included in the invitation, Mr Bingley addressed them with a more serious mien than was his wont.
“You would surely have heard of it soon in any case, but I hope you will inform Mr Bennet that the receipts for Mr Wickham’s debts which were paid by my friend and never repaid arrived by messenger yesterday while we were all at Haye-Park together.
Darcy and his cousin left today at the same moment we did, to present them to Colonel Forster.
There can be no doubt remaining that they have spoken the truth about that man’s proclivities, I hope. ”
Elizabeth was not at all surprised, for she had not once questioned the colonel’s honesty, but it was a heavy thing, to know that such a man dwelt in proximity to them, and that so long as he attended to his duties, he must remain.
Her sisters, save the openly disgruntled Lydia, received this news solemnly, and Mr Collins shook his head and muttered something about vipers.
Mrs Bennet fanned herself with the invitation and declared, “It is dreadful indeed, sir, to know that such a man walks among us! But we shall not associate with him. I cannot imagine that anyone with any pretension to respectability shall!”
Mr Bingley opened his mouth to reply, but was forestalled by an exclamation from Mr Collins.
“Quite right, madam!” he cried. “And while I am here, you may be assured that this snake in the garden of Hertfordshire shall not approach your daughters. I will defend my dear cousins with my very life if I must!”
Elizabeth was hard-pressed not to laugh at this ridiculous pronouncement, though she rather thought the foolish man might truly mean it.
Mr Bingley looked a bit silly for a moment, but recovered himself and said, “I imagine that all the gentlemen of the area will be looking to the ladies’ protection so long as he is about.
I certainly shall, and I feel confident I may speak for my friends in this, also. ”
“This is, I think, a timely reminder that a lady cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex,” Mary pronounced solemnly.
Kitty and Lydia rolled their eyes and Elizabeth bit back a sigh, but Mr Collins beamed at her as though she had unlocked a great theological mystery, and hastened to voice his agreement.
The Bingley party left soon thereafter. Mrs Bennet was swift to push the talk back to the delightful subject of the ball, enquiring whether Mr Collins would dance, with many significant glances in Elizabeth’s direction.
“A ball of this kind, given by a young man of character, must always be a suitable entertainment,” he replied with great satisfaction. “I plan to dance with all my dear cousins in the course of the evening, but I hope that Cousin Mary will do me the honour of accepting my hand for the first.”
“Mary?” Mrs Bennet squawked, as her third daughter gaped at Mr Collins.
Recovering herself before her mother could object, Mary said, “Thank you, sir. I am pleased to accept.”
Some half an hour later, Kitty and Lydia announced that they wished to go into Meryton to look at shoe roses and begged that one of their sisters should accompany them, as their father had ordered.
Mary, to her relations’ surprise, declared that she was in need of a new ribbon herself and would attend them.
Mr Collins was quick to attach himself to the party, and they were all out the door within minutes of the initial request.
Mrs Bennet then turned a gimlet stare upon Elizabeth and demanded, “Lizzy, what have you done? You have driven Mr Collins away!”
“I have done no such thing. You have observed us constantly; I have been nothing but civil,” Elizabeth replied imperturbably.
“I do not know how it has happened, but it seems to me that he has at last realised that we are not suited, and turned his attention to the one amongst us who might accept him if he proposes.”
“You would have accepted him!”
“I most certainly would not,” Elizabeth firmly replied. “And if Papa had tried to insist, I should have run away to Uncle Gardiner and hoped he would support me in refusing to make myself miserable forever.”
“Oh, you are a most disobliging and unnatural child!” her mother wailed.
“But, Mama, is this not for the best?” Jane suggested. “I think Mary truly appreciates him. Will they not both be happier where there is real esteem?”
“I suppose you are right,” Mrs Bennet grumbled ungraciously. “Though how I am ever to get rid of such a wild, headstrong daughter, I do not know.”
“Perhaps you shall not,” Elizabeth answered pertly. “It may be that when you are old, I will be your only companion.”
Mrs Bennet then felt a sudden need to retreat upstairs to lie down and rest her nerves.
Kitty pulled Elizabeth aside shortly after her return from Meryton. “Lizzy,” she whispered, almost trembling with anxiety, “will you come with me to Papa? I must tell him something, but I am afraid he will shout at me.”
“Of course I shall,” she reassured her young sister. “Do you want to tell me about it first?”
“I think I shall lose my courage entirely if I do not go now,” Kitty replied miserably.
“Then go now is exactly what we shall do.” Elizabeth linked her arm through Kitty’s, smiled reassuringly, and led her to the door of Mr Bennet’s study.
She was afire with curiosity—Mary and Mr Collins had been perfectly complacent when they all returned, so it seemed unlikely that Kitty or Lydia had done anything truly shocking.
She hoped poor, nervous Kitty was merely overwrought about a trifle.
“Enter,” he called when she knocked.
“Papa, I have Kitty with me,” she said, drawing her sister in after her. “She has something to impart to you.”
He gazed at his fourth daughter suspiciously over his spectacles, eyebrows lifting as she cringed.
He marked his place, shut his book, and set it aside, then said, “Very well. Shut the door, please, Lizzy.” Privacy thus secured, he addressed Kitty more gently than was his wont. “Well, child, what is it?”
“Sir, when we were in Meryton today, we passed Mr Wickham and… and he greeted us.” She wrung her hands and seemed to struggle to continue. Elizabeth put an arm about her sister’s waist and gave her an encouraging smile.
Mr Bennet’s brow contracted in a mild frown, but he replied, “If you bade him good day out of a habit of politeness, I shall not be angry.”
“No… No, none of us said a word to him. But, as he moved past us, I saw… I believe I saw him slip something into Lydia’s hand. I think it was a note,” she concluded in a rush.
“What!” Mr Bennet exclaimed. “Are you certain?”
“N-no, not certain,” Kitty stammered. “Though that is what it looked like, a bit of paper folded up small. I asked Lydia about it when Mary and Mr Collins were occupied in browsing the wares at a shop, but she called me stupid and said he had not given her so much as a nod. I… I can usually tell when she is lying, and I think that she was.”
“I see,” said Mr Bennet, a grim line etched between his contracted brows. “And I thank you, Kitty, for coming to me with this. You have done exactly as you ought. Where is Lydia now, pray tell?”
“She went up to our room and told me I must stay away, for she wants to lay her ballgowns out across both beds and choose one for the ball at Netherfield.”
“Why does my fifteen-year-old daughter have multiple ballgowns?” he muttered to himself, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Very well, girls,” he said briskly. “Leave it with me.”
They departed his study and, as they reached the door to the parlour, saw him mount the stairs to the family apartments.
In the parlour, they found Jane and Mary attending to their sewing while Mr Collins read to them from Fordyce’s Sermons.
Kitty’s dismay was evident. Elizabeth was not at all delighted, either, but she thought it best they remain together until her father’s business was concluded.
“Kitty,” she said in a low voice. “I have some ribbon I mean to make into shoe roses, and you fold them so much better than I. Will you help me?”
Kitty brightened somewhat, and agreed. They were bent industriously over Elizabeth’s sewing basket some minutes later, while Mr Collins droned on about female modesty, when such a commotion arose above-stairs as to be audible in the parlour.
The words being shrieked could not be discerned, even when Mr Collins ceased to read and joined his cousins in wide-eyed silence, but the inflexion of utter rage carried even through stone, wood, and plaster.
A second high-pitched voice soon joined the first, crying out in tones of distress.
Then, distantly, came Mr Bennet’s bellow of a single word, “Silence!”, and no more was heard.
The inmates of the parlour looked to each other in discomfort and wonderment, until Mary suggested, “Mr Collins, perhaps you might continue? I am sure we are all in need of the sort of rational atmosphere the Reverend Fordyce’s words provide.”
The clergyman took up his reading once more, and the ladies returned to their tasks. Kitty whispered to Elizabeth, “Do you think Lydia was shouting because Papa found the note?”
“I think he must have found something for which to censure her,” she replied. “You were very right to tell what you saw, Kitty. I am proud of you.”
Kitty seemed uncomfortable. “I do not know that Mr Wickham is as bad as all that,” she admitted, “but I do know that I do not want Papa angry with me.”
“Then you have more sense than Lydia. I urge you to use it to further consider the matter of Mr Wickham, who I think must be very bad indeed.” There was no further disruption from above, and in time they all separated to prepare for dinner.