CHAPTER ONE #3
Elizabeth laughed. “I am quite overcome. It is a pity his consequence is so great and his conversation is so very small.”
As she finished speaking, a prickle of awareness made her glance back towards Mr Darcy.
He was watching her, his expression unreadable, his dark eyes fixed upon her with a disconcerting intensity.
She expected to see disdain, or perhaps irritation at being the subject of her amusement.
Instead, there was only an analytical stillness.
He seemed to be assessing her, cataloguing her reaction with the same detachment with which he had regarded the rest of the room.
Elizabeth quickly looked away, a fresh wave of annoyance washing over her.
For the remainder of the evening, Elizabeth, in between merry re-tellings of the insult, could not help but observe him. Mr Darcy rarely spoke, and when he did, it was in brief sentences, usually addressed to Miss Bingley.
She was glad he was having such a delightful time.
Yet, whenever she happened to glance in his direction, she found his eyes upon her. It was not a casual or passing look, but a steady, penetrating stare that made her feel appraised and found wanting.
As the evening wore on, Mr Bingley, true to his amiable disposition, danced twice with Jane.
The sight of them together was undeniably pleasing.
Jane’s magic, which seemed to manifest as a soft, rose-gold light, intertwined beautifully with Mr Bingley’s cheerful energy, creating a harmonious shimmer around them that made those nearby feel a sense of peace and contentment.
“He is certainly taken with Jane,” Elizabeth remarked to Charlotte, with warmth in her voice for her sister’s happiness. “And she with him. She seems to positively bloom when he is near. Her magic feels brighter and more joyful.”
“It would be a good match,” Charlotte agreed, “A comfortable, secure prospect for Jane, and for your family.”
Comfortable. Secure. Elizabeth suppressed a sigh that felt heavier than her years. Was that all there was to aspire to in this world? A comfortable prospect? A secure alliance?
The assembly finally, mercifully, drew to a close.
As the Bennets prepared to depart, the air thick with Mrs Bennet’s triumphant pronouncements of an engagement to follow within a month and Lydia’s exaggerated yawns, Elizabeth found herself inadvertently standing near Mr Darcy again, though with a few parties between them.
He was waiting, with ill-concealed impatience, for his carriage to be called, Miss Bingley clinging possessively to his arm.
“That was a lamentable collection of people, in whom there was little beauty and fashion. I have never in all my life been so thoroughly discomposed,” Miss Bingley was saying.
“Indeed,” Mr Darcy murmured, his gaze flicking past her towards the carriages.
Despite his obvious disinterest in the conversation, Miss Bingley was undeterred.
She laughed, a practiced, artificial sound.
“Oh, but Charles seems to have enjoyed himself immensely, Mr Darcy! He declared Miss Bennet the most beautiful creature he ever beheld. I, for one, found the lot of them merely tolerable. And perhaps the less said about their magical competency, the better. That Eliza Bennet, for example, she was positively brimming with undisciplined power.”
Mr Darcy did not deign to look in Elizabeth’s direction, though she felt the subtle shift in his attention, the briefest tightening of the magic that surrounded him, as if he were assessing her presence one last, dismissive time.
“She has a certain untamed energy, I grant you,” he conceded, “but such power is more often a liability than an asset. With diligent training, it might be made serviceable, but as it is, it presents a danger to oneself and to others.”
It seemed his ten thousand a year had afforded him a great many opinions but not an ounce of civility to go with them!
Feeling rather put out, Elizabeth was left to wonder whether he was merely careless with the volume of his voice, or if he truly believed he was performing a service with his unsolicited wisdom.
As they rode home in the rattling Longbourn carriage, Mrs Bennet was in absolute raptures about Mr Bingley and Jane.
“Such an agreeable, charming young man! And so clearly, so delightfully smitten! Oh, Jane, my dear, you will be mistress of Netherfield Park yet! And his fortune! Five thousand a year, they say, at the very least! It is a match made to be!”
Lydia and Kitty giggled incessantly about officers, while Mary, roused from her book, quoted a rather obscure passage from some dreadful tome or another. Jane smiled serenely, her cheeks flushed with happiness.
Elizabeth alone was silent, wrestling with her turbulent sentiments. Every recollection of Mr Darcy’s arrogance — his insulting words, the sheer oppressive weight of his power — forged her resentment into a conviction.
But even as she sharpened the edge of her dislike, the memory of that fleeting moment when their eyes had first met lingered, an unwelcome counterpoint to her righteous anger.