Chapter 22 #2
Georgiana’s smile broke with a sweetness that was not entirely painless, reminding me of our mother.
Her confidence was exactly what I had employed Elizabeth to build.
A girl of seventeen might attend a country assembly and survive it, and perhaps even enjoy it, and emerge on the other side with the knowledge that the world contained rooms she did not need to fear.
“What a courageous step, Georgiana,” Caroline’s voice was patronizing, as always. “After all that Miss Bennet has accomplished with your confidence, it would be a shame not to display it.”
“I am not displaying it,” Georgiana said. “I am using it.”
Bingley rapped his knife against his plate.
“Hear, hear! Miss Darcy at the assembly. Splendid, absolutely splendid. You will have a marvellous time. The fiddlers are enthusiastic, the punch is—well, the punch is the punch, I should not oversell the punch—but the company is excellent, and nobody stands on ceremony, which is the whole charm of the thing.”
“Quite right, Charles,” Caroline unexpectedly concurred, and I could not detect her usual irony. “Although, who will open the first set with Miss Darcy? She certainly cannot sit amongst the wallflowers—not after everything Elizabeth has accomplished. I suppose perhaps, Louisa, Mr. Hurst might do?”
Mr. Hurst looked up from his sausages with the alarmed expression of a man who had been volunteered for the Napoleonic Wars.
“I am a danger to young ladies’ feet, Caroline, and I will not have Miss Darcy’s first assembly ruined by my left boot. Louisa can attest. I have trodden on her no fewer than four times this year, and those were dances I knew.”
“Five,” Mrs. Hurst corrected, without sympathy.
“Well then, what about her brother?” Mr. Hurst returned to his sausages, satisfied at having deflected the obligation. “Darcy dances well enough when he can be persuaded to stand up at all.”
Every eye in the room turned to me, and the turning produced a silence in which I was expected to volunteer, had the first set not already been promised—secretly, privately, to a most remarkable woman. I hesitated, and Caroline’s eyes narrowed a fraction, and in that narrowing, she suspected.
But Georgiana slapped her fork onto the plate.
“I do not want to dance with my brother.” She said it with the cheerful exasperation of a girl who had spent the last ten minutes arguing for normalcy and was not about to undermine her own case.
“I want to dance like a normal girl at a normal assembly. Charlotte Lucas has several brothers, and Lydia told me she would rather eat her own bonnet than open with any of them, and there is a Mr. Goulding who Lydia says is perfectly adequate if one does not mind being steered like a cart-horse, and even Sir William Lucas is—”
I would have to speak to her about dropping objects, like forks, battledores, apples…
Caroline made a sound between a snort and a sigh that conveyed her opinion about Gouldings and Lucases and the quality of dancing partners available in a market town in Hertfordshire.
“Georgiana, dearest,” Mrs. Hurst said, turning the full warmth of elder-sisterly concern upon my sister, “you cannot possibly open with a Goulding. Not at your first assembly. You need someone familiar. Someone safe. Someone who will not steer you like a cart-horse.” She turned to Bingley with the implacable sweetness of a woman delivering an instruction disguised as an observation. “Charles, you are the obvious choice.”
Bingley, who had been following the conversation with the gradually dawning awareness of a man watching a net close around him, set down his toast. I knew he wished to spend the entire evening with Jane Bennet, just as I had already secured Miss Elizabeth’s first set, but…
“One set, Charles.” Caroline’s voice held the patience of long practice. “Surely that is not too much to ask. You will have the entire evening for your other… engagements… afterwards.”
I considered Bingley’s afterwards, but in our society, a man cannot claim more than two dances with any lady unless he wishes to make a public declaration.
I had claimed only a single set with Miss Elizabeth.
And following Caroline’s suggestion, Georgiana looked at Bingley with the fragile hopefulness of a girl who discovered that wanting something did not exempt her from the disappointment of not receiving it.
Her gaze was unbearable in its trust, and I heard myself speak.
“I would consider it a personal favor, Bingley. One set. She needs a familiar face for the first, and I cannot think of a man I would trust more with my sister’s comfort.”
Bingley looked at me, and his glance contained the thing that made Bingley irreplaceable—the capacity to set aside his own desires and accommodate, because someone he loved had asked.
“Of course, old fellow. One set. I should be honored.” He turned to Georgiana with a smile that contained no reservations. “Miss Darcy, I warn you, I am a considerably better dancer than I am a page-turner, which is fortunate, because a worse page-turner would require medical intervention.”
Georgiana laughed. The laugh was small but real, and the realness of it confirmed that the request was right, the arrangement was sound, and the morning was unfolding exactly as it should—other than the empty chair.
A knock at the door, and Bingley’s butler entered with a note on the good tray—the silver one, reserved for correspondence from households rather than tradesmen. He presented it to me. “From Longbourn, sir.”
The handwriting was Mrs. Bennet’s, and something caused me to break the seal to read it immediately.
Dear Mr. Darcy,
I write to request that Elizabeth be permitted to remain at Longbourn through tomorrow.
The dinner preparations have left me fatigued, and I find I require my daughter’s assistance with domestic matters.
She will rejoin you at Netherfield at her earliest convenience, or attend the assembly from Longbourn with her family, if that arrangement suits.
With thanks for your continued generosity regarding my daughter’s situation,
Yours respectfully,
Mrs. F. Bennet
“From Longbourn?” Caroline asked.
“Mrs. Bennet requests that Elizabeth remain an additional day. She is fatigued from yesterday’s exertions.”
“Oh, poor Elizabeth.” Caroline’s expression conveyed sympathy that appeared more like satisfaction.
“Mrs. Bennet does rely upon her rather heavily. I am sure we can manage without her for a day. Georgiana and I can discuss the assembly preparations. I have been thinking about your hair, dearest, and whether you should wear your mother’s pearl pins.
I believe the ivory silk rather than the blue would suit you, because the ivory catches candlelight beautifully and one wants to make an impression without appearing provincial. ”
“The ivory,” Georgiana agreed, with a confident nod, and that confidence was the thing I had been waiting two years to see—my sister making choices without flinching, deciding without looking to me for permission, and engaging with the ordinary business of being seventeen.
I wrote my reply to Mrs. Bennet, brief, granting the extension.
As Edwards departed with the note, Cinnamon entered through the opening.
She surveyed the room and dismissed Caroline with a flick of her tail, ignoring Bingley’s outstretched hand.
Pausing at Georgiana’s ankles, she permitted a brief scratch behind the ears, and then crossed to my chair and launched herself onto my lap with the proprietary conviction of a creature who had chosen her human and intended to enforce the selection.
Caroline’s sneeze was instantaneous.
“That animal,” she managed, between the second and third detonations, “has the navigational instincts of a homing pigeon and the social grace of a battering ram.”
“She has walked from Longbourn,” I said, settling the ginger weight against my waistcoat. “Her mistress is at home, and Cinnamon has come to remind me of the fact.”
“Or she has come to torment me. The two motivations are not mutually exclusive.”
Cinnamon purred. I scratched behind her ears and thought about the woman who was not here, the dance I would claim tomorrow evening, and the sister who would wear our mother’s pearls.
The morning was warm, the coffee was tolerable, and I had taken every precaution. All would be well.