Chapter 3
TEA AT NETHERFIELD
The following afternoon broke cold and bright, and Elizabeth spent the carriage ride to Netherfield pretending she was not nervous.
She had no reason to be nervous. This was merely a tea—a simple social obligation that would last an hour, perhaps two, during which she would support Jane, endure Miss Bingley, and treat Mr. Darcy with the cool civility he deserved.
Her stomach, unfortunately, had not received this intelligence.
Mrs. Bennet had been most aggrieved to discover the invitation extended only to her daughters.
“A slight,” she had declared at breakfast, fanning herself with the offending letter.
“A deliberate slight from that Bingley woman. But no matter—I shall expect a full account of every word Mr. Bingley speaks to Jane. Every word, do you hear me? And Lizzy—” She had fixed Elizabeth with a pointed stare.
“Do try not to be too clever with Mr. Darcy. Gentlemen do not like to feel outwitted.”
Elizabeth had promised nothing of the sort.
Beside her, Jane sat with her hands folded and her expression serene, though a faint flush colored her cheeks whenever Lydia mentioned Mr. Bingley's name.
Across from them, Lydia and Kitty debated which officers might benefit from hearing about their visit, their voices rising and falling in competitive bursts.
“I shall tell Lieutenant Denny that Miss Bingley's drawing room has the most elegant curtains in all of Hertfordshire,” Lydia declared. “He will be mad with envy.”
“Lieutenant Denny does not care about curtains,” Kitty protested.
“All men care about curtains when a pretty girl describes them.”
Elizabeth caught Jane's eye and suppressed a smile. Some things, at least, remained predictable.
The carriage swept up the Netherfield drive, and Elizabeth's treacherous pulse began to quicken. She told herself it was the cold. The anticipation of warmth and tea. Nothing whatsoever to do with dark eyes and almost-smiles and the memory of a hand at her waist.
Nothing at all.
The doors of Netherfield opened before they had fully descended from the carriage, and Miss Caroline Bingley swept forward with the air of a queen greeting supplicants.
Her smile was wide, her welcome effusive—at least toward Jane.
Elizabeth received a nod so cool it might have chilled the December air further.
“Miss Bennet! How delighted we are to have you. And Miss Elizabeth.” Caroline's gaze swept over Elizabeth's pelisse with the practiced assessment of a woman cataloguing deficiencies. “How well you look! That fabric must be remarkably sturdy to show no ill effects from travel.”
“It is indeed,” Elizabeth replied pleasantly. “I find quality endures what flimsier things cannot.”
Mrs. Hurst stepped up behind her sister, her smile faint but acceptable. Mary alighted from the carriage next, followed by Lydia and Kitty in a flurry of ribbons and chatter. The entrance hall dissolved into the organized chaos of coats removed and pleasantries exchanged.
And then Elizabeth saw him.
Mr. Darcy stood at the foot of the stairs, tall and composed, his expression so carefully neutral it might have been carved from marble. He bowed as the ladies entered—correct, formal, utterly proper.
But his eyes found Elizabeth's across the crowded hall, and something flickered in their depths. Surprise, perhaps. Or recognition. Or something else entirely that Elizabeth refused to name.
She dropped a curtsy. He inclined his head.
Both looked away too quickly.
Lydia, observant for once, exchanged a quizzical glance with Kitty. Elizabeth pretended not to notice.
Caroline ushered them into the drawing room with the determined cheer of a hostess who would rather be anywhere else, and the tea commenced in earnest. The room was warm, the fire crackling, the refreshments arranged with geometric precision on silver trays.
Caroline had clearly spared no expense in demonstrating her superior taste.
Elizabeth accepted a cup of tea and settled into a chair near Jane, surveying the battlefield before her.
Jane sat beside Mr. Bingley on a settee clearly designed for intimate conversation, while Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were seated where Caroline could easily intrude upon any exchange. Mr. Darcy sat with a rigid posture, his teacup untouched, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance.
Though not, Elizabeth noticed, so fixed that it did not occasionally drift in her direction.
She ignored this. She was ignoring him entirely. The fact that she was aware of his every movement was merely a consequence of heightened vigilance. One must always know where the enemy was positioned.
Caroline launched into a detailed account of London's holiday entertainments—the soirées, the guest lists, the fashions that would certainly never reach Hertfordshire's provincial shores.
Mrs. Hurst offered supporting commentary.
Jane listened with patient courtesy. Lydia and Kitty whispered behind their hands.
Mary sat with her teacup balanced precisely on her knee, her expression one of stoic endurance, though Elizabeth suspected she was composing mental sermons on the dangers of excessive refinement.
Elizabeth sipped her tea and watched Mr. Darcy watch her pretending not to watch him.
It was exhausting.
“And of course,” Caroline was saying, “the assemblies in town are of quite a different caliber. One meets only the most refined company. Not a tradesman's daughter in sight.”
“How restful that must be,” Elizabeth murmured. “To be surrounded only by those who share one's elevated sensibilities.”
Caroline's smile tightened. “Indeed. Though I suppose country assemblies have their own... charms.”
“We are charming,” Lydia announced from across the room. “Everyone says so.”
“Everyone with questionable judgment,” Kitty added, then dissolved into giggles at her own wit.
Caroline's eye twitched.
Elizabeth hid her smile behind her teacup and caught Mr. Darcy's gaze again. His lips pressed together in what might have been suppressed amusement.
She looked away before she could be certain.
The conversation meandered through topics of decreasing interest—the weather, the roads, the lamentable scarcity of good servants in the country—until Mr. Bingley, who had been gazing at Jane with the devoted attention of a spaniel, suddenly sat forward.
“I have had an idea,” he announced. “A capital idea, in fact. I mean to host a holiday entertainment here at Netherfield. Music, games, dancing—the whole neighborhood shall come.”
Jane's blush was instantaneous and lovely.
Elizabeth's heart warmed toward her sister. Mr. Bingley's affection was as plain as daybreak, and twice as welcome.
“The whole neighborhood?” Caroline repeated, her voice climbing an octave. “Charles, surely you cannot mean—”
“Every family of consequence,” Mr. Bingley confirmed, entirely missing his sister's horror. “It shall be the event of the season. Miss Bennet—Jane—do you not agree?”
Jane murmured something soft and approving. Mr. Bingley looked as though he had received a benediction from heaven itself.
“We shall bring in greenery,” he continued, warming to his theme. “Holly and ivy and—what is the other one? The one with the white berries?”
“Mistletoe,” Caroline said. Something flickered across her expression, a calculating gleam that vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. She tilted her head and smiled in a way that made Elizabeth inexplicably uneasy.
“Mistletoe! Yes, excellent. Very festive.”
“Indeed,” Caroline murmured, still wearing that peculiar smile. “Very festive.”
“It is traditional,” Mr. Bingley said cheerfully, oblivious to his sister's sudden interest. “And tradition is the heart of the season, is it not, Darcy?”
Mr. Darcy, who had been studying his untouched tea with the intensity of a man seeking divine guidance, looked up with evident reluctance. “I suppose it has its merits.”
“There, you see? Even Darcy approves.”
“I did not say I approved. I said it has its merits.”
“Same thing,” Mr. Bingley declared, and returned to beaming at Jane.
“We shall have card tables,” Caroline announced. “And perhaps a poetry recitation. I understand Lord Ashworth hosted one last season that was quite the sensation.”
“Poetry,” Lydia groaned. “How dull.”
“Poetry can be most instructive,” Mary interjected. “Fordyce speaks eloquently on the improving nature of verse.”
“Fordyce,” Lydia repeated, wrinkling her nose. “I should rather listen to shepherds and flowers than Fordyce.”
“Literature is never dull to those with cultivated minds,” Caroline replied, looking as though she could not decide whether Mary was an ally or a further embarrassment.
“Then I am glad my mind is uncultivated. I would rather dance.”
“Dancing can be arranged,” Mr. Bingley offered. “We have a perfectly good pianoforte.”
Caroline's eye twitched again. Elizabeth was beginning to suspect it might become a permanent condition.
“If we are to decorate,” Caroline said, steering the conversation back to safer ground, “we must do so properly. Greenery arranged as it is done in London. Elegant. Refined. Nothing that might suggest—” She glanced at Lydia. “—rusticity.”
“I do hope you will not attempt to match the holly to your gown,” Elizabeth said mildly. “It would be impossible to maintain harmony of color all evening.”
The silence that followed was profound.
Darcy made a sound—half cough, half something else entirely—and raised his teacup to his lips with suspicious haste.
Caroline's smile could have frozen the Thames. “How very... droll, Miss Elizabeth.”
“I do try.”
Jane shot Elizabeth a reproachful look. Elizabeth ignored it. Some opportunities were simply too perfect to waste.
The tea continued, and somehow, through a series of conversational maneuvers Elizabeth could not entirely follow, she found herself standing near the mantelpiece, examining a porcelain figurine, while the rest of the party clustered around Mr. Bingley's plans for holiday merriment.