Chapter One #2
But the oddities in Mr Darcy’s behaviour were nothing to those shown by Miss Bingley.
Elizabeth watched her attempts at flirtation with something between fascination and dismay.
Miss Bingley’s attentions toward Mr Darcy had always been marked by eagerness, but in the more intimate setting of Netherfield, that eagerness grew increasingly pronounced.
She positioned herself beside him at the pianoforte and solicited his opinion on books she had not finished, merely to hear him speak. She laughed at his remarks with a promptness bordering on anticipation. Elizabeth regarded it all with curiosity and more than a little amusement.
Was there not something a little too pointed, something almost desperate, in these attentions?
Surely Miss Bingley must understand that it was the gentleman’s part to signal if he shared her interest; it must belong to him to suggest any progression in their relationship.
If Mr Darcy did not wish to court Miss Bingley, there was simply nothing that she could do about it.
One evening, as Jane slept more peacefully than before, Elizabeth joined the party below.
Mr Hurst proposed a game of cards, but to Elizabeth’s considerable relief, this idea was quickly set aside.
Perceiving that Mr Darcy did not wish to play, Miss Bingley quickly saw to it that the idea was abandoned.
Having seen to it that they would spend the evening as he wished, Miss Bingley crossed to where Mr Darcy stood examining a volume from the shelf.
“You must allow me to recommend this,” she said, placing herself close enough that the movement of her sleeve brushed his hand. “It is universally admired.”
Mr Darcy inclined his head. “I am acquainted with Henry IV.”
Elizabeth watched with considerable amusement, her needlework almost forgotten on her lap. Poor Miss Bingley! But perhaps she had not seen in time that the author she sought to recommend to Mr Darcy was the Bard himself.
“But not sufficiently, I am persuaded,” Miss Bingley persisted. She leaned nearer, her voice lowered. “One must read it twice to apprehend its true delicacy.”
Mr Darcy stepped subtly aside, creating space without overt rejection. “Delicacy, Miss Bingley? In any case, I shall endeavour to do it justice.”
The exchange was slight, but Elizabeth did not miss the faint tightening at the corner of Mr Darcy’s mouth, nor the manner in which his attention strayed, almost involuntarily, toward the hearth where she sat. He did not appear to be enjoying any of Miss Bingley’s attentions.
This last observation was the one that interested Elizabeth most, not because she had any sympathy for Mr Darcy’s discomfort, but because it presented a contradiction that she could not immediately account for.
Miss Bingley was a handsome woman, accomplished, well-educated, and elegant.
She had fortune and connections, not to mention a very decided sense of her own merit.
Then, too, she was the sister of his particular friend.
One might have expected Mr Darcy to welcome her company.
And yet there was something odd in his expression on the occasions when Miss Bingley had arranged to stand a little too close, or had introduced Georgiana Darcy’s name with the delicate air of one who holds a special claim to its use, something that Elizabeth could describe only as endurance.
Privately, Elizabeth found this rather interesting, as well as rather funny. She was not proud of the second observation.
On the fourth evening of her stay, Elizabeth descended from Jane’s room to find the drawing room devoted to music rather than conversation.
Miss Bingley perched at the pianoforte, playing with considerable skill and very decided intention.
Mr Darcy sat in the chair nearest the fire reading intently, though apparently not Henry IV.
Mrs Hurst remained on the sofa with her eyes half-closed and an expression of tolerant boredom, while Mr Hurst’s snores showed him to have still less patience for a musical evening.
Miss Bingley was playing an Italian piece and doing it very well.
That much was not in question. What was perhaps more doubtful was the frequency with which she glanced toward Mr Darcy’s chair, and the quality of her expression when she did so: expectant, assessing, with a hope in it that the music did not quite conceal.
Mr Darcy did not look up from his book.
Miss Bingley moved into a more animated piece, with rather more by way of runs and ornament. Mr Darcy turned a page. Mrs Hurst appeared to have fallen asleep.
Elizabeth sat down and took up her own book. Or rather, she held her book and watched with the detached interest of a naturalist who was stumbled upon a particularly rare sort of butterfly.
Miss Bingley was not, she decided, in want of skill or intelligence.
She had simply misjudged her subject. Mr Darcy was surely the sort of man who would be drawn by something unexpected rather than something performed, who would notice the off-hand remark before the prepared speech, the unguarded moment before the calculated one.
Every campaign Miss Bingley mounted was so evidently a campaign that it could not help but put him on his guard.
And a man on his guard, Elizabeth suspected, was a man very unlikely to be moved.
Mr Darcy’s character was certainly difficult to make out.
That he was a proud and unpleasant man could not admit of a doubt, and yet Elizabeth felt a begrudging respect for his intelligence and even for his judgement in some matters — though the question of how one ought to behave at a public assembly was not among them.
When Miss Bingley finished her piece, she turned on the bench and addressed Mr Darcy in the bright, intimate manner of one who has just been privately thinking of him.
“What do you say to a duet, Mr Darcy? Mrs Hurst is asleep, and I think we are quite dull enough to require some animation. You sing so very well.”
“You play very well as it is,” he said, without looking up. “I am well entertained.”
“But a duet —”
“Thank you, I think not.”
There was a brief silence, during which Miss Bingley’s expression underwent a rapid sequence of adjustments before settling on something pleasant and unconcerned. She turned back to the pianoforte and began a quiet, reflective air, as though this had been her intention from the first.
Elizabeth returned to her book, and for a moment, had the distinct impression that she was not the only person in the room who was privately amused by something.
She glanced up. Mr Darcy’s eyes were on his page with the careful fixity of a man who intends to see nothing else. His expression told her nothing at all.
She dismissed the impression and went back to reading.
∞∞∞
As the week went on, Jane’s fever abated.
Her strength returned gradually; her smile regained its natural serenity.
Elizabeth’s worry for her eased, though her vigilance did not, and her care was at last rewarded with a significant improvement in her sister’s health.
The improvement was then so advanced that Jane ventured downstairs for a short while, leaning lightly on Elizabeth’s arm.
Mr Bingley’s pleasure was unfeigned. He hovered near Jane with such transparent concern that Elizabeth’s heart warmed.
Miss Bingley, observing this, seemed momentarily diverted from her attentions toward Mr Darcy.
She and Mrs Hurst said everything that was right and proper about how glad they were to see Jane recovered and how excessively tiresome it was to be ill, but Elizabeth could not help feeling that their concern rang rather hollow.
That afternoon, Elizabeth encountered her in the library. Without Jane by her side, Miss Bingley made little pretense of civility, let alone friendship.
“How fortunate for your sister that the weather detained her here,” Miss Bingley remarked, selecting a volume without looking at it.
Elizabeth looked at her in shock for a moment, taken aback by the hostility and nearly open rudeness of the comment, before Miss Bingley added, “When one considers how unfortunate it would have been to be elsewhere, I mean. Netherfield Park can so readily host another guest.”
That was at least somewhat more civil, or at least more of a pretense at civility. Elizabeth met her eyes steadily. “We are grateful for the hospitality shown.”
“Hospitality is nothing,” Caroline Bingley replied lightly. “It is society that matters. And the society here is, I flatter myself, superior to that of Meryton.”
Elizabeth cocked her head to the side. “Surely one cannot have society without hospitality. It all comes down to the generosity of a host, does it not? Without generosity, neither the finest ball nor the humblest farmer’s gathering would be possible.”
Miss Bingley’s lips curved, though her eyes remained intent. “To compare a ball with a gathering of rustic labourers is surely rather odd, Miss Eliza. Do you place no importance at all on refinement?”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “Refinement is a virtue indeed — one I consider of secondary importance only to kindness.”
Miss Bingley’s fingers tightened upon the book. She seemed perhaps about to speak, but at that moment, Mr Darcy entered the room, and Miss Bingley turned to him, whatever she had intended to say to Elizabeth immediately forgotten.
Mr Darcy, for his part, acknowledged both ladies with equal courtesy.
As Elizabeth excused herself, she was conscious of his gaze following her departure.
It would be better to say nothing of the odd encounter to Jane. The gentle-spirited, kindly Jane would find it inexplicable and slightly sad; and since Elizabeth was not yet entirely certain what she found it, she preferred to keep her own counsel.
∞∞∞
By the close of the week, Jane was sufficiently recovered to contemplate her return to Longbourn; their stay at Netherfield would soon come to its end.
Elizabeth was rather more relieved than she had expected to be.
The stay had not been without its merits.
Netherfield was a handsome house. Its library, though a little neglected compared to her father’s, was at least large, and best of all, Mr Bingley was every bit as agreeable and attentive to Jane as they could have wished.
But a week of close society with people she knew only a little, in rooms that were not her own, had produced in Elizabeth a deep hunger for the familiar: for her father’s study, for the lane behind Longbourn, for conversations free of calculation or design.
She was entirely pleased to bid Netherfield farewell.
The last day before their departure could not pass quickly enough.
That evening, the household assembled for supper in a spirit of relieved conviviality.
Elizabeth found herself seated between Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. Miss Bingley was seated on the opposite side of the table, her composure immaculate.
Conversation flowed easily at first, drifting from the weather to the harvest and the improvement in Jane’s health. Yet beneath the surface, Elizabeth sensed odd, unsettling undercurrents. Miss Bingley’s laughter came a shade too quickly. Her glances toward Mr Darcy lingered a fraction too long.
Mr Darcy responded with uniform civility, but Elizabeth, attuned now to the nuance, saw the faint reserve in his manner. She wondered involuntarily whether he longed to escape from such attentions.
The thought startled her. Why should his comfort concern her? She chastised herself for her presumption and told herself to forget her foolishness.
When she retired that night, pausing a moment at the window of her chamber, Elizabeth looked out over the darkened lawns of Netherfield Park, thinking.
The week had altered something in her perceptions.
She carried with her a new awareness of Caroline Bingley’s ambition, of Mr Darcy’s restraint, and of her own unwilling curiosity.
As she extinguished her candle, she told herself it signified nothing. Her life would resume its normal patterns as soon as they returned to Longbourn. She need not fill her idle hours with concern for the machinations of Caroline Bingley, nor yet their effect on Mr Darcy.