Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
MRS. BENNET’S LONG GAME
Elizabeth
Cinnamon had opinions about the assembly.
She expressed them the way she expressed all opinions—by occupying the precise center of my pillow when I returned home, opening one amber eye to assess my emotional state, and then closing it again with the slow deliberateness of a creature who had evaluated the situation and found it wanting.
When I crawled into bed beside her, still wearing my second-best muslin because I could not summon the energy to undress properly, she repositioned herself against my neck, purring with such aggressive sympathy that I suspected she could smell the insult on me like smoke after a fire.
“I met the most insufferable man in England tonight,” I told her. “He looked at my mind and saw cutlery. Then promptly reassessed me as a servant.”
“You would have hated him,” I continued, because she did not remark, not even a yawn.
“He is the sort of man who looks at a cat and sees vermin rather than royalty. Cold, tall, insufferably certain of his own consequence. Also, regrettably, handsome. Which I mention only because it is relevant to my annoyance and not for any other reason whatsoever.”
Cinnamon gave me a sympathetic purr, or perhaps she had determined that I required noise more than wisdom.
I buried my face in her warm side and tried to convince myself that the ache beneath my ribs was merely the aftermath of overly tight stays and stifling assembly rooms, and not the bruise left by a man who had glimpsed my mind and thought useful.
I did not convince myself. But I slept.
My feelings were still somewhat tender by morning, not that I should be concerned about the opinions of one aristocratic, overbearing gentleman—well, he could barely be called a gentleman, no matter how well-tailored his waistcoat and that artfully tousled lock of hair that framed his face like some Grecian statue.
But the birds still chirped, and the sun still shone, and the smell of toast and bacon rose with the insistence of a household that intended to eat breakfast whether or not its second daughter wished to face the world.
Cinnamon’s pointed stare from my pillow—combined with the distinct sound of Lydia’s voice at full sail—compelled me out of bed and into a dress.
“I am not suffering from nerves,” I told my cat. “I am being selective about which parts of the day I choose to acknowledge.”
Her dispassionate blink spoke volumes, and so I went downstairs without further complaint.
The Bennet breakfast table was already in full battlefield mode.
Lydia’s lamentations about the shortage of officers were punctuated by Kitty’s customary agreement.
Mary, in an unusual departure from her morning sermons, had her nose in the household management book Mama had given her.
Jane sat beside me, serene and golden, with a secret smile that appeared without warning whenever a certain name was mentioned.
And Papa existed behind his newspaper, which meant he was either reading or hiding, and with Papa, the distinction was largely academic.
Cinnamon landed on my lap with a proprietary thump, positioned herself for optimal access to falling ham, and arranged her expression into one of profound disinterest.
“Good morning, Lizzy.” Jane greeted me with the warmth that was both her gift and her armor, because it led people to assume she felt nothing deeply when in fact she felt everything deeply but chose not to make a spectacle of her sentiments. “You look rather fatigued.”
“Indeed, I am,” I confessed. “It was a most exhausting evening.”
“Was it? I found it rather lovely.”
“You danced with Mr. Bingley twice. Your definition of lovely is doing considerable work this morning.”
Jane’s cheeks went pink, which was as close as she ever came to admitting excitement. “He was very agreeable.”
“He was besotted. There is a difference, though I grant you it looks similar from the outside.”
“He has very nice manners,” Kitty offered, from around a piece of toast.
“He has a very nice coat,” Lydia corrected, in the tone of a woman contributing the more relevant observation.
“He has five thousand a year,” Mama said pleasantly, appearing in the doorway, “which makes his manners and his coat both considerably nicer.”
She wore her brown morning dress—the practical one reserved for days when she intended to accomplish great things. Her hair was already pinned with the efficiency of a woman who had not wasted time on vanity. And she was carrying a fresh pot of tea—not innocent at the least.
I did not like that look.
“I have been thinking,” Mama said.
“Have you, Mama?” I reached for the chocolate pot. “How alarming.”
“Do not be pert, Lizzy. I have been thinking about Mr. Darcy.”
At this, my hairpin clattered to the floor, startling Cinnamon from my lap. She shot me a reproachful look as she retreated beneath the tablecloths.
“I would rather not think about Mr. Darcy,” I said, spreading butter on my toast. “I have made it my morning’s project to excise him from my consciousness entirely. The effort requires concentration, and interruptions are not helpful.”
Papa’s newspaper did not move, but the quality of silence behind it changed—the stillness of a man who has heard something he dislikes and is deciding whether ignoring it might make it disappear.
“Ooh,” said Lydia, sitting up with the sudden attention of someone who has scented drama. “Mama, what about Mr. Darcy?”
“He mentioned, at the assembly, that he required a companion for his sister.” Mama’s voice was pleasant, and thus dangerous. “He offered Lizzy a position, and I believe she should take it.”
“He offered me an insult and several cuts. There is a distinction.”
“Is there?” Mama’s voice was mild, or seemingly so. “He looked at your mind and saw value in it. How many men in that room did the same?”
Papa’s newspaper descended like a drawbridge, and he peered at Mama over his spectacles.
“Surely you cannot be in earnest,” he said.
“I am always in earnest about my daughters’ futures, Mr. Bennet. A habit I developed when I realized no one else in this house intended to be.”
“You are proposing that our daughter—a gentleman’s daughter—enter service. In the household of a man who insulted her not twelve hours ago.”
“I am proposing that our daughter secure a position that pays two hundred pounds per annum in a household with London connections and excellent society, and proximity to one of the finest estates in England.” Mama settled her hands around her teacup.
“But by all means, continue to dwell on the insult. I am certain wounded pride will keep us all very warm when Mr. Collins inherits Longbourn, and we find ourselves turned out at his pleasure.”
Mama always used the dreaded entail like a cudgel over an egg. The legal technicality meant five daughters could not inherit their ancestral home, and when our father passed, Longbourn would go to a distant cousin.
“What?” Lydia’s fork clattered against her plate. “Lizzy, a paid companion? Fetching and carrying for some rich man’s sister? Mama, how shall I ever show my face? What will everyone say?”
“They will say that Elizabeth Bennet is earning money in a respectable household, which is considerably more than they can say about you at present.” Mama did not raise her voice.
She never needed to. “And if their opinion troubles you more than our family’s security, then I have failed as your mother in ways I had not previously imagined. ”
Lydia subsided, looking stung. Even Kitty, who had been preparing to echo her younger sister’s outrage, closed her mouth.
“It would not be the worst position,” Mary ventured, drawing every eye in the room.
“If we are to marry well, we must understand the management of large households. Miss Darcy is wealthy and well-connected. A companion is not a servant—it is a respectable position that carries income and society. One might separate the offense from the opportunity.”
“Thank you, Mary,” Mama said, with a warmth that suggested she had not expected reinforcement from this quarter.
Mary looked so pleased by this that I felt a twinge of guilt for what I was about to say.
“Then perhaps Mary should apply for the position. Mr. Darcy had not insulted her. He might even appreciate her scriptural improvements.”
“Mr. Darcy did not notice our Mary,” Mama replied, with gentle finality.
“He noticed you, Lizzy. A man who looked at your mind—not your face or your figure, mind you—and saw value in it is not entirely without perception. He used it poorly, I grant you, and I told him as much to his face. But the perception itself is rare.”
“He saw a servant.”
“He saw a sharp mind, and it perplexed him enough to make that statement.”
Papa’s newspaper slapped the table. “Fanny. This is beneath us. I will not have my daughter working as a domestic in some arrogant fool’s household because you have calculated the profit margin.”
“The profit margin,” Mama said, in the voice that had made five daughters sit up straight since childhood, “is two hundred pounds a year against an entail that could leave us homeless if you are struck by a carriage. I am sorry if mathematics offends your sensibilities, Mr. Bennet, but I was raised to add, and the numbers do not lie.”
Papa’s jaw worked, and he polished his spectacles with the indifference of a man retreating from a battle he has already lost and pretending it had never been fought. “Do as you like, Mrs. Bennet. You will, regardless.”
“I usually do. It saves considerable time.”
I set down my toast because I could not eat and be furious simultaneously, and fury was winning. “Mama. Even if I were willing, which I am not, he did not offer me a position. He made a remark to Sir William in my hearing, meant as an insult, not an invitation.”
“Then we shall turn the insult into an invitation.” She poured herself a second cup of tea, with the calmness of a woman who has already worked out the chess moves and is simply waiting for the board to catch up.
“I will speak with my brother Philips this afternoon. He will draw up terms, and we will present them at Netherfield as a formal response to a suggestion made in public. Mr. Darcy said the words, Lizzy. Let him own them.”
The sheer audacity stole my breath for the second time in twelve hours. “You want to ambush him.”
“I want to negotiate. There is a difference.”
I looked at her—this woman who had baked bread and balanced accounts and married above her station and raised five daughters on borrowed time, who had stood beside me at an assembly not twelve hours ago and cut a man to ribbons for reducing me to a function—and she was now proposing to accept the reduction and weaponize it.
It was, I was beginning to suspect, the most brilliant and most maddening thing she had ever done.
“You are not actually interested in the companion position,” I said slowly, watching her face.
“I am interested in your proximity to Netherfield,” she agreed.
“And to its inhabitants. Both of them.” Her gaze found Jane, who had been very still and very quiet throughout this entire conversation.
“Mr. Bingley danced with your sister twice. He smiled at her as though she were the first sunrise he had ever troubled to notice. He lives at Netherfield, and Jane will give him her heart whether I send you there or not, because she is already halfway and she has never learned to protect herself from men who smile too easily.”
Jane looked up, and her expression—that complicated tangle of gratitude and guilt and quiet, helpless love—was rather too much to behold.
“You want me to watch him,” I said.
“I want you close enough to see what kind of man he is before your sister gives him everything she has.” Mama’s voice was matter-of-fact because sentimentality was, in her view, a luxury best reserved for moments when practicality had already done its work.
“You are the only one in this family who can see past a charming smile to what lies behind it. And you cannot do it from Longbourn.”
Cinnamon, who had been attending the proceedings with an expression of regal neutrality, chose this moment to resettle on my lap with her nose pointed at the ham.
“If I do this,” I said—and I was already, I could feel it, doing this, which was deeply irritating, “Cinnamon comes with me.”
“Naturally.”
“I am not a servant. I am not answering bells or fetching shawls. Whatever Mr. Philips negotiates, I am a guest who happens to provide companionship. The distinction matters.”
“The distinction is everything,” Mama agreed. “I would accept nothing less.”
“And if Mr. Darcy is intolerable—if he treats me as anything other than a gentleman’s daughter—I come home. Without argument.”
“With my blessing and not a moment’s hesitation.”
I looked at Papa, who had abandoned any pretense of the newspaper and was watching me with an expression I had never quite seen on him before—not anger nor retreat, but something rawer. A man confronting, with some difficulty, the arithmetic of his own choices.
I also looked at Jane, who said nothing, because Jane never asked for the things she wanted most. She only waited and trusted that someone who loved her would notice.
“Fine,” I said. “Under protest. I want that noted.”
“Noted,” Mama said, sipping her tea with the expression of a woman who has won a chess match in fewer moves than anticipated.
“And Mama?”
“Yes, Lizzy?”
“If Mr. Darcy so much as looks at me the way he looked at me last night, I am unleashing Cinnamon on his correspondence, and you will not pay for the damages.”
Mama set down her cup. “Darling,” she said, and the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth was the most unsettling thing she had produced all morning, “if he looks at you the way he looked at you last night, the cat will be the least of his concerns.”