Chapter Three #3
Georgiana trusted too easily and thought too well of the goodness of people, and his sister would be horrified if she knew about the myriad ways that many women sinned. And men. Men as well. He must give the harsher sex its just share of disdain.
Georgiana turned to Darcy. “Explain to Lizzy that you mean to say you do not like balls very much.”
“I do not.” Darcy agreed.
“Ah, but is this a dislike,” Miss Elizabeth asked, “such as one conveyed by ‘I cannot stand the taste of vanilla, but others may prefer vanilla to chocolate if they will’? Or is it the sort of disdain that one might feel towards, oh, a man who regularly drinks till he is in a stupor? You do not drink to excess often, I imagine.”
“A tendency to drunkenness is not amongst my weaknesses,” Darcy agreed.
“Is a preference for balls more like a tendency to drunken stupors or a preference for vanilla?”
When Darcy frowned but did not reply, Miss Elizabeth added, “I merely ask to make out your character. I am delighted with your sister, and I wish to understand what sort of man our friendship will connect me with.”
“Lizzy!” Georgiana exclaimed. “I am delighted with you as well.”
Darcy found that he did think a liking for balls to be more like a preference for drinking too much—in Mary, the two preferences had oft become one.
But a declaration that liking balls was a reason to despise a woman’s character would say more about his present unhappy mood than it could say about women who liked a dance too much.
When Darcy said nothing, Miss Lucas exclaimed, “Eliza, you must play the pianoforte! Come, I shall open the instrument, and you know what follows.”
“No, no,” Miss Elizabeth said, smiling at Georgiana. “You have told me that you are quite committed to the pianoforte. I am not. I would not wish to shame myself.”
“Oh, I do not mind!” Georgiana said. “I like to hear others play, even if…I do wish to hear you!”
“Perhaps you might play while I sing.”
“In front of everyone?”
“It is a private party,” Miss Elizabeth said. “And I promise you that I shall sing in such a way that they will chiefly look towards me. I cannot promise their gazes will be in delight. It may be disgust.”
Georgiana giggled. “But I never perform in front of strangers.”
“Everyone here is my friend,” Miss Elizabeth replied. “And we are friends. You will be performing for the friends of a friend.”
Georgiana looked at Darcy. “Ought I to play?”
“Oh no!” Miss Elizabeth exclaimed. “Do not ask him to make it a matter of duty. But I would dearly like to hear you play, and to sing with you.”
Darcy said, “It would not go amiss if you were to play. This is a respectable enough gathering.”
Miss Elizabeth and Miss Lucas both looked at him in a half amused and half judging manner.
When Miss Elizabeth and Georgiana played, the music was beautiful. Darcy listened with great pleasure, and he did chiefly watch Elizabeth. She was a fine singer, with a good voice and passion in her tones and manner.
Much of the party ceased to talk so that they might attend the elegant pair, and Darcy thought that this was in great part because of the fineness of Georgiana’s playing, which made him proud.
After Miss Elizabeth and Georgiana finished their performance, one of Miss Elizabeth’s sisters was made to play a reel by another of her sisters, and the group began to find partners for dancing.
Dancing.
Even here, even outside London, all the women wished to dance. They wished to flirt. They wished to appear pretty. Their comparative poverty and the limited scope of their mercenary ambitions changed nothing. All wished to marry well. All were sweaty, stinking, scheming human beings.
Although women were pretty to look at, if he could be shrunk, like Gulliver with the giants, he would find the skin and pores of every woman in this room, even those of Miss Elizabeth, disgusting.
Lord, he hated society, in all its forms. He wished he were elsewhere.
He wished he could simply sit at home.
Drinking.
He had in fact not let himself have more than a single glass of anything in the course of a night since Mary had died. He greatly feared that if he began drinking to relieve his sick feelings, the aching in his gut, he would find great difficulty in ceasing the practice.
To crown the awfulness, Sir William decided that Darcy must wish for conversation, and he approached him to talk about how delightful dancing was. Seldom had a man chosen a subject of conversation more poorly suited to its audience.
As they conversed, Miss Elizabeth walked past, and Sir William suggested they dance.
And to his surprise, Darcy was eager to share this dance. He did wish to dance with her. He said as much.
It would be a thing he wanted, an indulgence for himself. To let himself dance, once, with a woman worth looking at, before he found an unpleasant one to marry.
Miss Elizabeth eyed him with an arched eyebrow.
Lovely dark eyes.
She smiled. “Mr. Darcy is all politeness. But I know that he despises dancing. I shall not impose upon him.”
She gave a small curtsey and walked away.
Darcy let out a sigh of either disappointment or relief.