Chapter 2 #2
Mrs. Bennet paused in her circuit and fixed Elizabeth with the fond exasperation she reserved for daughters who failed to understand the serious business of wardrobe.
“You may be sure of many things, Lizzy, but I have raised five daughters and buried three bonnets that looked respectable until daylight found them. The sprigged muslin.”
Lydia had abandoned her debate with Kitty and was now attempting an elaborate bow from a reclining position on the settee.
She extended one arm in a sweeping arc that well-nigh connected with Kitty’s forehead, dipped her chin toward her chest with theatrical gravity, and said, in a voice several registers deeper than her natural one, “Your servant, madam. Your most humble, obedient—”
“You are doing it wrong,” Kitty said. “Sir William does not sound like a frog with a head cold.”
“Yes, he does. A wealthy frog who owns land in Hertfordshire.”
Jane’s needle paused, and she looked up from her work. “I believe Sir William’s bow is rather more... vertical,” she said.
“Everything about Sir William is vertical,” Lydia said.
“It is his defining quality. He is the most vertical man in three counties.” She attempted the bow again, this time with her entire body arranged in a diagonal line across the settee cushions, and succeeded only in sliding further toward the floor.
The afternoon light faded from the window, taking the warmth from Jane’s gown and the garden beyond the glass. The tallow candles shone brighter against the darkening room, their flames reflected in the uneven panes as the world outside turned to shadow.
Elizabeth leaned her shoulder against the window frame and let the noise settle around her. Mrs. Bennet returned to the assembly, her voice rising above Lydia’s laughter. Kitty resumed the embroidery she had abandoned twice, while Mary turned a page.
From behind the study door came the faint creak of a chair, then silence.
Sarah’s tail thumped once against the hearthstone.
The parlor had grown too warm, or perhaps an hour of her mother’s voice drove even the most tolerant listener toward the door.
Elizabeth excused herself on the pretext of fetching a shawl and went to the passage near the stairs, where cooler air from the front hall offered relief that had nothing to do with shawls.
Her half-boots stood beside the kitchen door where she had left them that morning, mud drying in cracked ridges along the soles. Elizabeth bent to pick up the left boot and knocked it against the flagstones, sending a shower of dried earth across the floor. She reached for the right.
Mary stepped into the passage, a book under one arm and one finger marking her place. Her brows pulled together, and her lips pressed into a line. Elizabeth would have wagered she had rehearsed whatever came next.
“Lizzy.” Mary stood at what she seemed to consider a respectful distance. “Your attention wandered in the parlor.”
“Did it?” Elizabeth knocked the second boot against the floor.
“You stopped listening to Mama.”
“That is not evidence of distraction.” Elizabeth set the boot beside the other. “I was thinking of a stranger I saw near the boundary hedge this morning.”
Mary adjusted her grip on the book. “What did he do?”
“Nothing. He sat on his horse while I repaired the hedge, as though the work confirmed some poor opinion of me.”
“You cannot know what opinion he formed.”
“No, but I can form one of him.”
“I think you ought not to decide a stranger’s character from one encounter. It is not reasonable.”
The boot was heavier than it had any right to be.
Elizabeth turned it over in her hands, examining the mud caked along the sole where she had knelt beside the broken hedge.
“The man on horseback,” she said, “appeared to think the mud, the dog, and the sheep told him everything he needed to know about me. I did not notice him extending the same caution to himself.”
“That does not mean it is right.”
“I am not claiming it does.” Elizabeth set the boot down beside its mate.
The mud on the floorboards was drying to a fine, pale dust. “I am applying the same standard he appeared to apply to me. If he can look at a woman repairing a hedge and decide what sort of person she must be, then I can think somewhat less of a man who does it.”
Mary frowned. “That is not reasonable.”
“I agree.” Elizabeth brushed her palms against her skirt.
The gesture was unconscious, a habit left over from the morning’s work.
“But he offered nothing beyond that impression. He formed his opinion and rode away. If he wants me to judge him by more than one impression, he might consider making another.”
Mary held her ground. The book under her arm had slipped, and she repositioned it with a fussy precision that seemed to channel her frustration into motion. “You are splitting hairs,” she said.
“No, I am precise. There is a difference.”
“The difference is that you are using his poor judgment to justify your own.”
Elizabeth picked up both boots and set them side by side against the wall. The dried mud formed a uniform gray layer, and moisture stained the leather above it. They would need brushing before they were fit to wear again, and she made a mental note to attend to it later, when the house quieted.
“Mary,” she said, “if a man judges me by the mud on my hem and the dog at my heels, I am not obliged to search for hidden virtues he has taken no trouble to display. I shall return the courtesy.”
Mary closed her book with a snap, turned on her heel, and walked back to the parlor with her spine straight and chin level.
Elizabeth followed. There was no shawl, but she had not wanted one.
The parlor welcomed her back with its familiar noise.
Mrs. Bennet stood in front of the fireplace, gesturing toward some invisible assembly room while she detailed, for what must have been the third time, the advantages of Jane’s sprigged muslin.
Jane had not moved from her seat by the window, but her needle had stilled, and she was watching Lydia with the half-amused expression that meant she had surrendered to the spectacle.
Lydia had abandoned the settee and now stood in the middle of the room, both arms extended in what appeared to be an enthusiastic approximation of Sir William Lucas greeting an entire room at once.
She dipped at the waist, swept one arm in an arc that just missed hitting the side table, and proclaimed, in a voice that carried the full force of her fifteen-year-old conviction, “Your most humble servant, madam! Your neighborhood is the delight of my existence, and your daughters are the very ornament of Hertfordshire society!”
Kitty covered her mouth with both hands, but her shoulders shook with laughter. Sarah remained asleep by the hearth, her muzzle resting on her paws.
Elizabeth returned to her seat by the window. The glass was cold against her shoulder, and the garden beyond had disappeared into darkness. Behind her, Mrs. Bennet resumed her plans for the assembly, Lydia kept Kitty laughing, Jane bent over her work, and Mary read.
Through the window, Elizabeth could see nothing of the garden or lane. The dark pressed against the panes, and the stranger returned to her thoughts: motionless on his horse, thirty yards away, watching as though a few minutes’ observation told him all he cared to know.
She had given him nothing but the work to watch, and that seemed to be enough.
Mrs. Bennet’s voice rose above the general noise, carrying some fresh detail about the assembly that Elizabeth did not catch.
Lydia collapsed onto the carpet in a fit of laughter that shook the settee cushions, and Jane returned to her needlework.
Sarah’s tail thumped against the hearthstone, and the sound traveled through the warm, cluttered room like a heartbeat.