Chapter 13 #2
Surely he must recognize her. Sir William had introduced her as Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
He had heard the name. He had seen her face.
He had looked at her—briefly, yes, but surely not so briefly as to forget entirely the young woman who had discovered a Roman hoard beneath her uncle’s cellar.
Did he remember Gracechurch Street? The coin?
The mud? The moment when he had looked at her with such arrested surprise that she had carried the memory of it for two years like a foolish secret?
His gaze passed over her as it had passed over Jane, Mary, Kitty, Lydia, and her mother.
Polite. Unmoved. Unknowing.
Elizabeth felt something inside her sink.
The musicians began the next set, and Mr. Bingley led Jane away with unmistakable pleasure.
Elizabeth was claimed by one of the Lucas boys, who danced with more energy than grace and nearly collided with her twice before the end of the first figure.
She answered him when required, smiled when appropriate, and heard almost nothing he said.
Every turn of the dance brought Mr. Darcy into view, standing apart, tall and grave, speaking only when addressed by one of Mr. Bingley’s sisters.
He did not look at her again.
By the third set, Elizabeth had no partner and was glad of it. She sat with a glass of lemonade near the wall, half hidden by a cluster of matrons discussing the price of muslin. Her pride had begun a very necessary campaign against disappointment.
Of course he did not recognize her. Why should he?
The one and only time he had seen her, she had been covered in mud, her hair falling down, her gown ruined, and her face marked like a chimney-sweep’s apprentice.
Tonight she was clean, properly dressed, and seated beneath assembly room candles rather than cellar lanterns.
Perhaps, she thought with a weak attempt at humor, if she wished to assist his memory, she ought to go outside and roll in the mud near the horse trough.
The image almost made her smile.
Almost.
Voices carried from a little distance away, and she recognized Mr. Bingley’s at once, warm and coaxing.
“Come, Darcy, you must dance. I hate to see you standing about in this stupid manner when there are so many pretty girls in the room.”
“I am fatigued from travel,” Mr. Darcy replied. “I would prefer to remain out.”
“Fatigued? Nonsense. A dance will revive you. My partner is very pretty and exceedingly pleasant, do you not think?”
“She is very pretty,” Mr. Darcy said. “And her manners appear to be agreeable.”
Elizabeth looked down into her lemonade, telling herself she had no reason to listen. None at all.
Mr. Bingley continued, undeterred. “One of her sisters is sitting just there, and she is pretty as well. I dare say very agreeable, if she is anything like her sister. I could ask Miss Bennet to introduce you properly for the next.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around her glass.
Mr. Darcy looked directly at her.
She held her breath.
∞∞∞
Darcy had not expected the assembly to trouble him.
That, he soon discovered, had been foolish.
He had attended public gatherings often enough before his father’s death, and military dinners, tenant feasts, court days, and assemblies in Derbyshire had filled a portion of the last five years.
Yet this was different in a manner he had not anticipated.
At Lambton, Kympton, and the villages surrounding Pemberley, he knew nearly every face.
If a farmer approached him, Darcy knew which field had flooded the previous winter, which son had gone for a groom, which daughter had married a carpenter, and which roof still required slate.
Among the militia, rank and routine governed the room.
A man saluted, reported, complained, boasted, or obeyed; Darcy understood each language and could answer in kind.
London, for all its crowds, was easier still. There one could retreat behind reserve and be thought well-bred for it. Silence in town was often mistaken for elegance.
Meryton did not allow such refuge.
The assembly room had all the warmth and noise of a Lambton gathering but none of its familiarity.
Everyone seemed to know everyone else, to shout greetings across the room, to laugh without calculation, to watch the Netherfield party with open curiosity, and to form opinions with alarming speed.
It was friendly, perhaps, but that did not make it comfortable.
Darcy stood near the wall, hands clasped behind his back, and felt the weight of being observed by persons whose names he could not remember and whose expectations he could not predict.
His plain evening clothes only worsened the sensation.
No uniform. No scarlet coat, no sword, no visible rank.
No clear place. Five years of being Colonel Darcy had ended, and Mr. Darcy still sat uneasily upon him, like a coat altered by someone who had not taken his measure.
He was no longer saluted. No one waited for orders.
No report lay ready in his pocket, no tenant ledger required his correction, no steward stood beside him quietly asking whether the north pasture might wait until Michaelmas.
He was simply a guest at his friend’s new neighborhood assembly, and the simplicity of the role made him feel strangely exposed.
He had danced once with Mrs. Hurst, partly because she expected it and partly because it spared him from speaking to strangers during the first quarter hour after their introduction to the room.
He had also engaged Miss Bingley for the second-to-last dance of the evening, choosing it with deliberate care.
It was far enough away to quiet her expectations, late enough to be insignificant, and close enough to the end that no one could mistake it for particular preference.
Miss Bingley had understood the intent behind the request. Her mouth had thinned when he named the set, though she accepted with all the grace of a lady determined to believe herself admired despite evidence.
Now he stood alone again, wishing with unexpected fervor that he were in London with Georgiana.
She was the one who had urged him to come.
His sister, shy as she remained in company, had written to him with that gentle firmness she had begun to develop under Lady Matlock’s care and told him that Mr. Bingley was his friend, and that friends deserved more than letters and brief visits snatched between duties.
He had given five years to the militia, to Pemberley, to accounts and tenants and debts not of his own making.
“You should go,” she had said. “You should enjoy yourself.”
Darcy wished he knew how.
He watched Bingley lead Miss Bennet through the dance with open pleasure.
His friend’s face had brightened from the moment Sir William introduced them, and the lady’s calm beauty seemed to soothe rather than encourage the more impetuous parts of his nature.
Miss Bennet’s manners were gentle, her smile sweet, and her complexion lovely enough to justify the stir she had made.
Darcy could not blame Bingley for admiring her.
He only wished admiration did not make Bingley determined to distribute happiness to everyone within reach.
When the set ended, Bingley returned to Darcy in a state of almost unreasonable satisfaction. “Darcy, you must dance.”
“I must do no such thing.”
“You have been standing about in this stupid manner for half the evening.”
“I have danced with Mrs. Hurst.”
“That does not count. Louisa is as good as family.”
“Then I am fortunate to have fulfilled a family obligation.”
Bingley gave him a look of mingled amusement and frustration. “Come, you are not usually so determined to be miserable.”
“I am not miserable. I am fatigued.”
“You are bored.”
“I am fatigued,” Darcy repeated, though the words sounded unconvincing even to himself.
Bingley glanced toward the dancers, then back to him. “My partner is very pretty and exceedingly pleasant, is she not?”
“She is very pretty,” Darcy said. “And her manners are agreeable.”
“Then there, you see. The neighborhood is not so dreadful. One of her sisters is sitting just there. Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She is pretty as well, and I dare say very agreeable. I could ask Miss Bennet to introduce you properly for the next.”
Darcy looked where Bingley indicated.
A young woman sat near the wall behind them with a glass of lemonade in her hand, her figure partly screened by a cluster of matrons.
She was not dressed richly. Her gown was neat, becoming, and almost severe in its lack of ornament, though she wore it with an ease that made the simplicity seem a choice rather than an apology.
Her face was turned slightly away, but when she looked up, the candlelight caught her eyes.
Darcy felt it then.
Only a thread. A sudden tug of memory and attraction so unexpected that his chest tightened before he understood why. Fine eyes. Dark, bright, intelligent eyes, watching him with an expression he could not immediately name.
For one instant, he thought of a cellar in London, of mud upon a cheek, of a Roman coin resting in a young woman’s hand.
The memory struck too sharply, and because it did, he resisted it.
The girl in Gracechurch Street had been connected somehow to Gardiner’s household, a tradesman’s relation or servant girl or something near enough to make foolishness impossible.
He had thought of her more than he ought, especially in the first months after returning to Derbyshire, and had been ashamed of the indulgence.
He was not a young man free to be governed by passing fancies.
Attraction without sense was precisely the sort of folly his father had mistaken for pleasure.
Now, standing in a country assembly room, feeling awkward, unsettled, observed, and strangely diminished in his own skin, Darcy answered with more sharpness than judgment.
“She is tolerable, I suppose,” he said, “but not handsome enough to tempt me to overlook her lack of dowry.”