Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE BATTLEDORE CONQUEST
Elizabeth
I refrain from commenting about my sleep or lack of it—a most droll subject for an unusually sunny morning. Although it was with a bit of trepidation that I entered the breakfast room. Had Caroline compromised Darcy to the extent that a hasty marriage would be trumpeted?
The butter knife pointed at me suggested otherwise.
“That beast of yours,” Caroline announced to the table at large, “accosted me in the corridor last evening. It hurled itself at my ankles with unmistakable malice, nearly precipitating my fall down the staircase.”
“I am sorry to hear it. Cinnamon is a creature of strong opinions. Perhaps she mistook your ankle for a mouse.”
The table absorbed this exchange with varying degrees of interest. Mrs. Hurst examined her teacup, while Mr. Hurst remained steadfastly devoted to his eggs.
Bingley appeared mildly concerned for the cat, and Georgiana watched my reaction as if beginning to discern the nature of the tension between Caroline and me.
And Darcy, seated at the head of the table with the morning paper folded beside his plate, met my eyes for exactly one second—an assurance containing the weight of an entire midnight conversation that said all is well and say nothing.
“Miss Elizabeth.” His voice was measured.
The name landed with the correct formality, the correct distance, and the entirely incorrect resonance, because I had heard the other version—the one without the Miss, and the formal address now sounded like a door closing over a room I had seen lit from within.
“Mr. Darcy.” I matched him note for note.
Bingley, blessedly unaware, folded his newspaper.
“Capital morning. Absolutely capital. I propose we make use of the lawn. The weather is magnificent, and the grounds are finally dry enough for sport. Battledore, perhaps? I had Jerry dig the old set out of the storage room last week, and nobody has touched it. What say you, Darcy?”
“I have not played since Cambridge.”
“Then you are overdue. Miss Elizabeth, are you a sportswoman? I seem to recall your family is a family of prodigious walkers, and walkers tend to have the sort of constitution that translates well to competitive endeavor.”
“I have held a battledore racquet, Mr. Bingley, though I cannot promise my form would satisfy anyone who has studied the sport with academic rigor.”
Bingley dismissed my concerns with a wave of his hand. “The beauty of battledore lies in its simplicity. One hits the shuttlecock and hopes your opponent misses. Georgiana, will you play? The exercise will do you good.”
“I should like that very much,” Georgiana said with an eagerness that would have been impossible a week ago.
“What a charming notion.” Caroline set down her butter knife with the precision of a woman shifting from complaint to strategy.
“Fresh air would do us all a world of good. And Georgiana, dearest, it would be such excellent practice for you—country exercise is so vital for a young woman’s constitution. I should be pleased to participate.”
“Your ankle, Caroline?” Mrs. Hurst inquired skeptically.
“Much improved this morning. Mr. Jones’s draught has worked wonders.” Caroline flexed the offending joint beneath its wrapping.
I seized my opportunity with the ruthlessness Mama would have approved.
“If we are to make up a proper party, might I propose inviting my sisters Jane and Mary? Georgiana has expressed a wish to know the Bennet family better before tomorrow’s dinner, and their presence would provide us with even numbers for pairs. ”
Bingley’s eyebrows rose with a pleasure hard to disguise. “Yes, what a capital idea. Miss Bennet and Miss Mary to join us? The more the merrier. Shall I send the gig?”
“A note will suffice,” I assured him. “Longbourn is but three miles distant, and Jane is as avid a walker as I.”
“But the gig would be faster,” Bingley said. “And the cartwright has replaced the troublesome wheel.”
“It will be appreciated.” I nodded my gratitude to Bingley before Caroline could intervene.
Miss Bingley’s smile did not falter, but something behind it recalculated. An unexpected variable had entered her equation, and she was adjusting her arithmetic even as she reached for her tea.
“How delightful,” she said. “We shall be quite the merry party.”
Jane and Mary arrived at half past ten, Jane in her light-blue muslin with the blue spencer that made her eyes devastating, and Mary in a sensible brown. Bingley was at the front door before the gig had fully stopped, handing Jane down with a solicitude that bordered on the sacramental.
“Miss Bennet! What a delight. The south lawn is in excellent condition, hardly any mole hills, and Mrs. Nicholls has prepared lemonade, though I confess I requested she add a splash of something rather more bracing for after the match.”
“Mr. Bingley.” Jane smiled at him with the warmth she bestowed on everyone and the steadiness she reserved for people she was beginning to trust. “How kind of you to send the gig.”
“Oh, it was nothing—the roads are dusty—are you thirsty? There is lemonade. We are setting up for battledore. You will play, of course?”
“We should be delighted, Mr. Bingley.” Jane took his offered arm with the grace of a woman who had no idea what her arrival had done to the man’s throat and lungs. “Though I must warn you, I am only a middling player.”
Jane was too humble. Papa had taught us all, and Jane’s height gave her a reach that was the envy of every Bennet sister, but Jane believed that understating one’s abilities was a form of kindness toward those who would shortly lose.
Mary surveyed the lawn, the boundary posts the footmen were hammering into the turf, and the collection of battledores arranged on the stone bench like implements of genteel warfare.
“I have read that battledore improves reflexes and respiratory function,” she announced.
“I anticipate the exercise will be most salutary.”
“Miss Mary, you fill me with enthusiasm,” Bingley said, and meant it, because Bingley was constitutionally incapable of sarcasm. “We shall be so merry.”
Caroline appeared at the terrace door in a white muslin that would show grass stains at a whisper, her hair arranged with a perfection that suggested she intended to exert herself as little as possible while positioning herself as close to Darcy as physics would allow.
She descended the steps, and her ankle bore her weight without so much as a wince.
“Miss Bennet. Miss Mary. How kind of you to call.” The warmth in her voice was calibrated to the exact temperature that displayed civility without encouraging a return visit.
“Now then, we must arrange our pairs. Mr. Darcy, you must partner with me. My ankle will not permit much running, but I can manage a rally if you are willing to cover the ground. You will not mind, I am sure.”
She placed her hand on Darcy’s arm as she said this, and the placement was light, casual, the touch of a woman who assumed the gesture was welcome because she had never considered that it might not be.
Darcy did not remove her hand. He produced the expression I had come to recognize as his diplomatic mask—neutral, offering nothing that could be interpreted as either encouragement or objection. “As you wish, Miss Bingley.”
I looked away, not because it was painful but because my primary objective would be for Bingley to be paired with Jane. Opening my mouth, but not sure of my place as a companion, I hesitated a moment too long.
“Charles,” Caroline’s imperious voice pronounced her command, “you must partner Miss Darcy. The dear girl has had so little country exercise, and you have such a talent for encouragement. Miss Eliza may play with Louisa, while Miss Bennet and Miss Mary—” she waved a hand at Jane and Mary as though they were items on a shelf she had not ordered but would accommodate, “—shall make up the fourth pair.”
She did it so smoothly that a casual observer would have thought the arrangements entirely natural, a hostess distributing her guests according to convenience and compatibility.
But I had been watching Caroline Bingley operate since my first morning in this house, and what I saw was strategy—each pair assembled not for pleasure but for purpose, and every purpose served Caroline’s.
I didn’t mind playing beside Mrs. Hurst as it would allow me to eye Darcy as a competitor, but Jane, the real threat as far as Bingley’s affections were concerned, would be stowed safely across the lawn with Mary.
“Shall we begin?” Bingley picked up a battledore with the eagerness of a golden retriever presented with a stick, or rather a flat wooden paddle, slightly larger than his hand, its face stretched tight with parchment that gave a satisfying thwack when he tested it against his palm. “Miss Darcy, have you played before?”
“At Pemberley,” Georgiana replied, taking the offered paddle and testing its weight with a seriousness that reminded me of the way she had assessed the weathered rails before climbing the stile. “Though only with my governess, and she was not very good.”
Mrs. Hurst accepted our partnership with the air of a woman who had been assigned a duty she had not requested and intended to perform with the minimum effort consistent with not being criticized afterward.
She examined her battledore as though it might have opinions, took her position beside me, and announced: “I shall endeavour not to perspire.”
“A noble ambition, Mrs. Hurst. I shall endeavor to hit the shuttlecock.”
“Then between us, we may achieve one complete sportswoman.”
Caroline, who had been adjusting her grip on her battledore with the concentration of a woman handling a foreign object, turned to Jane with a smile that could have frosted a window in July.