Chapter Eleven
Elizabeth sat in the small family parlour in her own gown and felt more herself than she had all day.
Her trunk had arrived from Longbourn shortly before she dressed.
The sage green muslin was not especially fashionable or fine, but the familiar weight of it upon her shoulders brought an unexpected sense of relief.
After a day spent in borrowed clothes and moving through unfamiliar rooms, there was comfort in recognising herself in the glass.
Across the room, Miss Bingley appeared to have dressed with the opposite intention.
Her gown was a violent shade of yellow, covered with black embroidery that crawled across the silk like an invasion of beetles, while an enormous turban had been wound around her dark hair and decorated with three upright feathers.
It made her tall frame even more imposing, and the entire arrangement suggested a foreign dignitary had taken a wrong turn on the way to a coronation.
Elizabeth had tried not to stare when Miss Bingley entered the room before dinner, but the turban made discretion almost impossible.
Miss Bingley had caught her looking and given a faint sniff.
"It is the very latest fashion from London, Miss Eliza.
Please do not worry that your own gown is so plain. "
Elizabeth allowed her gaze to travel once more over the towering arrangement. "It is quite an astonishing feat of dressmaking."
Miss Bingley looked like she was about to laugh, but instead sniffed again and lifted her chin.
Elizabeth still did not know what to make of the woman.
She seemed to move between fierce kindness and outright insult without rhyme or reason.
She had spent half the day attending Jane with genuine concern, then swept into Elizabeth's room before dinner, declared that she would reduce her already limited chances of finding a husband if she grew any scrawnier and ordered her downstairs like a disobedient child.
Elizabeth had wanted to remain with her sister and would have been perfectly content with a tray, but Jane was sleeping and Miss Bingley had spoken with such force that she thought it was best to keep the peace and show her face downstairs.
That peace lasted only until everyone entered the dining room and began to sit.
Mr Hurst had already claimed the chair nearest to the large decanter, while Mrs Hurst settled beside him and Mr Bingley took the place with the clearest view of the door.
Elizabeth had just begun to lower herself into one of the remaining chairs when Miss Bingley looked around the table, frowned and began to wave her hands in agitation.
"No, no. This will not do at all. Up, everyone. Up, up, up."
Mr Hurst stopped halfway into his chair and stared at her. Mr Darcy, who had already unfolded his napkin, looked down at it for a moment before placing it back upon the table with great care.
Charles did not move. He looked instead at his sister with a weary eye.
"This was meant to be a quiet family dinner," he said.
"You have arrived dressed like the Sultan of Arabia and now mean to manage the entire company like we are children at a picnic.
Caro, can you please let us sit down and eat. "
Mr Darcy rose at last. "I confess I had also thought the seating arrangement complete."
She ignored both her brother and Mr Darcy and began rearranging the whole party with brisk gestures, sending Louisa away from the fire, Charles nearer the door and Mr Hurst back to the chair he had first selected.
Mr Hurst looked down at it. "This is where I was already, Caroline," he huffed.
"Then you may congratulate yourself upon having been right for once."
He sat before she could change her mind.
"Miss Eliza, you will take this place," Caroline said, indicating the chair next to Mr Darcy on the side of the table nearest the fire.
Elizabeth looked from the chair to Miss Bingley. "Will I?"
"You have spent the day in a sickroom and require the warmth," Miss Bingley said, indicating the chair again with some force. Elizabeth was more bemused than annoyed and dutifully took the seat.
Mr Darcy glanced towards the fire, then at the chair beside him. "How very considerate of you, Miss Bingley," he said dryly.
There was enough amusement in his voice to surprise Elizabeth, though Miss Bingley merely narrowed her eyes at him. "You may mock me, Mr Darcy, but at least from there Miss Eliza may draw you into conversation rather than allowing you to sit in silence and frighten the servants."
Elizabeth laughed before she could stop herself.
Mr Darcy turned towards her, and for one brief moment the severity left his face entirely.
He grinned at her. An open, boyish grin that made him look incredibly handsome.
Her heart beat faster in her chest and she affected a great interest in her soup spoon.
Miss Bingley saw it. Her feathers trembled as she swept into the chair on Elizabeth's other side. "There," she said, looking around the table with great satisfaction. "Much better."
No one appeared entirely certain in what respect, but the servants had begun bringing in the soup and even Miss Bingley could hardly reorder them all again.
She could, however, direct the conversation.
"Miss Eliza is very fond of walking," she said as soon as the first course had been served.
"Mr Darcy, you are always walking about Pemberley are you not?
There are lots of woods and hills and such.
You must tell her whether three miles through muddy fields is considered an ordinary occupation in Derbyshire. "
Mr Darcy gave Miss Bingley a brief look before turning towards Elizabeth. "Three miles would not be considered a great distance, though the paths are generally kinder than the ones you chose this morning."
There was enough warmth beneath the words that Elizabeth did not take them for criticism.
"Then Derbyshire has the advantage of Hertfordshire.
I spent most of the final mile wondering whether I might be obliged to leave one of my boots behind.
I must apologise to Mrs Nicholls again for leaving a prodigious amount of mud on her rugs. "
"Oh pish," said Miss Bingley, waving her spoon in the air. "That woman loves a challenge and shall no doubt be telling the story of Miss Elizabeth’s muddy travails and her success in removing every speck of evidence for years to come."
Miss Bingley’s eyes had twinkled as she made this statement and she lost the haughty bearing that characterised her usual interactions.
She appeared to catch herself and coughed daintily, regaining her posture.
"You prefer the country to the town, sir," she said to Mr Darcy, skewering him with a look and presenting it as a statement rather than a question.
"And you are very much a country girl, Miss Eliza," she went on, flapping her hand in Elizabeth's general direction. "Indeed, you have… er… much in common."
Mr Bingley sighed from across the table. "What are you about, Caroline? You are talking more nonsense than I remember hearing in some time."
"Hear, hear," said Hurst between noisy bites of his roll.
"Charles, that is unkind," said Louisa. "Caroline is introducing topics of conversation that are relevant to the wider company."
"By informing Darcy and Miss Elizabeth that they both like the country?" Charles asked, his eyebrows raised to his hairline.
Caroline turned her glare upon him. "You have contributed nothing beyond slurping your soup and staring into the corridor."
This quietened her brother, although he added in a peevish undertone, "I was not slurping my soup."
Elizabeth looked down at her bowl, but her smile escaped despite her.
Beside her, Mr Darcy shifted slightly in his chair, and when she glanced towards him she found that he, too, was struggling not to laugh.
The discovery pleased her more than it ought to have done.
He had seemed almost forbidding when she first saw him at the assembly, but there was something unexpectedly warm and immensely satisfying in seeing his reserve crack.
Caroline noticed the look between them and straightened beneath her towering turban. "Well," she said, with renewed determination, "Mr Darcy does prefer the country. Miss Eliza prefers the country. I fail to see why everyone is behaving as though I have proposed something outrageous."
"I do prefer the country," he said. Then, more quietly, "Though I suspect Miss Bingley has reduced the matter rather too far."
Elizabeth rested her spoon against the edge of the bowl. "Then perhaps you had better improve upon it before she makes another attempt."
That brought the faintest smile to his face.
He told her that London tired him more quickly than he liked to admit and that he was happiest at Pemberley when there was no expectation of company beyond his sister and a few close friends.
Elizabeth had not imagined him speaking so openly, and she found herself listening with interest. There was pride when he spoke of the estate, certainly, but it was not the empty sort she had expected.
He spoke of his tenants and the work of maintaining the land with the deepest care.
And of his sister with such tender affection that it made Elizabeth wish to run upstairs and squeeze Jane to her tightly.
Miss Bingley, having finally succeeded in setting them upon a subject, lapsed into silence and applied herself to her soup with an expression of immense satisfaction.
Elizabeth observed her with interest. She suspected that Miss Bingley had directed the dinner exactly the way she intended—but why she wished Elizabeth and Darcy to speak of the countryside she could not possibly imagine.
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