10. An Accomplished Evening
CHAPTER TEN
AN ACCOMPLISHED EVENING
Elizabeth should not have expected a respite, not after the miles she had walked and the greenery she had clipped and collected to offer any reasonable excuse to absent herself from her mother’s matchmaking festivities.
The two young and eligible gentlemen had been invited to dinner, naturally, but what she had not expected was the transformation of the drawing room into a veritable greenery-infested and cramped miniature ballroom.
The furniture had been moved to the walls; holly adorned the mantelpiece, with ivy wound up the banisters.
Every doorway and eave was strung with dangerous-looking kissing boughs—an unwieldy construction of evergreen branches and mistletoe suspended from ribbon that had seen better decades.
Darcy kept his reserve upon entering the room with her father at his side, lambasting a popular pamphleteer, while Colonel Fitzwilliam appeared delighted.
“Now, girls, you must demonstrate what you have learned.” Mrs. Bennet clapped her hands as the young people stood around awkwardly—all of the sofas, other than Mr. Bennet’s easy chair, having been draped with dropcloths as if going into storage but in reality were a discouragement for sitting.
“Mary, if you please, go to the piano and play a reel or a jig. Your sisters must demonstrate their dancing abilities.”
“But Mamma, I have been diligently studying with the dancing master.” Mary picked up her bulging blue improvement journal and turned it to a page near the end.
“See here? Monsieur Belcourt has given me high marks on both the cotillion and the quadrille. In fact, Mamma, let me read to you his observations on my precise execution.”
Darcy moved to Elizabeth’s side, bending close.
“I observe that your journal, the pink one with its rose pink ribbon, has vanished from the side table.” His tone carried no inflection she could safely interpret.
“Have you finally surrendered to the tyranny of self-betterment, Miss Elizabeth, or merely hidden the evidence of your resistance?”
“I know which one you have assigned to me.” Elizabeth refused to glance at the table. “But Mr. Darcy, do you always keep a close inventory of our drawing room furnishings?”
“Only when it applies to you, my star protégé.” His voice was low, pitched for her ears, while Mary read the dancing master’s commendations loudly from her book. “You have opened it, then? Begun your improvements?”
“I have found a better use for it than writing poetry about my deficiencies.”
“May I inquire as to what?”
“I am sketching a new chimneypiece, perhaps cornicework, or noting the angle of the sunlight in the breakfast room. Your ribbon makes an excellent page marker.”
“I did not give you the ribbon for page-marking, Miss Elizabeth.”
“You intended it as a silent, malicious reminder that you caught me eavesdropping beneath my father’s window.” She kept her voice steady, though her heart was beating rather faster than the situation warranted. “A fact we have both been studiously avoiding.”
“And so you are eager to discuss it, naturally.”
“Wisdom dictates we continue ignoring it, as it would require admitting things neither of us is remotely prepared to acknowledge.”
“A fascinating theory, which presumably means you would expect me to inspect your nonadmissions at some regularity.”
“You will discover nothing save ink stains, Mr. Darcy, and therefore I shall not grant you the privilege.”
The corner of his lips turned up as he nodded. “I should not expect otherwise, for you see, Miss Elizabeth, you are quite certain that you are not in need of improvement, and I tend to agree.”
“Surely, you mock—”
“Ah, but you do not know my character. Perhaps some improvement in judgment is warranted?”
Elizabeth did not have a chance to retort because Mary came streaming toward them. “Mr. Darcy, Mamma does not wish me to demonstrate my dancing accomplishments and is ordering me to play the pianoforte. Everyone already knows my pianoforte is the best of all my sisters and—”
“I shall play,” Elizabeth said. “Mary has worked hard to learn the figures, and I find I am not in the mood for dancing this evening.”
She arranged herself behind the pianoforte, feeling the weight of Darcy’s attention pressed on her back. Her father, however, shot him a look of male camaraderie which annoyed her further. He still believed Darcy wished to marry this particular daughter.
“Very well, Lizzy, if you insist on being stubborn.” Mrs. Bennet recovered with the resilience of a flexible matchmaker. “Jane, you shall dance with Mr. Darcy. Kitty, with the Colonel. Mary and Lydia together. Lizzy, a lively air, if you please.”
“I shall not dance with Lydia,” Mary announced. “She leads when she ought to follow and treads upon my feet with the regularity of a metronome.”
“And I shall not dance with Mary,” Lydia declared. “She counts aloud. It is mortifying.”
Mrs. Bennet pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Then Kitty and Mary. The colonel and Lydia. Jane and Mr. Darcy.”
Kitty’s face fell, and Mary made no move to her side. Colonel Fitzwilliam, meanwhile, gallantly offered his arm to Lydia, who accepted with a shriek that made the candle flames waver.
But Darcy—and Elizabeth watched this from the corner of her eye while arranging the first page of a country dance—stepped forward and addressed Mary with a bow so correct, so grave, so entirely without condescension that even Mrs. Bennet fell silent.
“Miss Mary, would you do me the honor?”
Mary stared at him. The silence lasted three full heartbeats, and then Mary’s chin lifted, her shoulders drew back with the new posture the deportment mistress had been cultivating, and she placed her hand upon his arm with a composure so complete it could only have been astonishment wearing its best dress.
“You are very kind, Mr. Darcy.”
“Kindness has nothing to do with it. You have been studying the steps with admirable discipline, and I wish to see what you have accomplished.”
Jane, of course, took Kitty’s hand and patted it. “You shall get your chance with either gentleman. I will dance with Lydia or Mary as needed. In these cases where gentlemen are scarce, we must be willing to share.”
Elizabeth resisted the urge to roll her eyes and struck the first chord.
Jane would be as calm if the French had crossed the Channel and were burning down Brighton.
She had wished to observe which of the two gentlemen her elder sister favored.
It had to be one or the other, because Jane had not been so happy for quite a few weeks.
And so, she played a lively country dance, one of the new ones the dancing master had provided, and her fingers found the rhythm with a quickness born of solitary morning rehearsals.
The notes filled the drawing room—bright, spirited, and quick enough to demand attention from the dancers but steady enough to carry them through the figures without stumbling.
And she observed the dancers as she did not truly need to read the music.
Darcy danced silently with Mary. Neither spoke, but they mirrored each other’s motions precisely.
Mary counted silently, her tempo correct, and her footwork accurate.
She appeared to enjoy the dance, and so did Darcy, who danced as though she was a diamond from the ton, with honor, dignity, and the attention she deserved.
Mrs. Bennet, having lost her preferred configuration, did not sit idle.
She circled the room offering commentary at a volume designed to reach every corner, including several corners in the adjoining rooms. “Very good, Kitty, although your elbows are rather high. Mary, dear, do try to smile; no, perhaps not, you look rather frightening. Colonel Fitzwilliam, how handsomely you move! One can see your military training.” She paused before the pianoforte, leaning toward Elizabeth with the conspiratorial air of a woman who believed herself subtle.
“Lizzy, you might play something slower. A waltz, perhaps. Mr. Darcy and Jane ought to waltz.”
Elizabeth ignored the suggestion, opting for a reel for the next set.
And so it went; she watched Darcy dance with all her sisters.
With Lydia, he was gracious, tilting his head as he listened to the fifteen-year-old narrate every step as if a moment of silence was a moment wasted.
He corrected her gently when her enthusiasm led her offbeat and steadied her without making her feel clumsy.
With Kitty, he was patient, correcting her turns with a touch so light that Kitty did not feel it as instruction.
She was upright and flushed, her new posture holding even as her feet faltered, and the look on her face—shy pride and tentative delight—made Elizabeth miss a note.
Kitty had never looked like that before because no one had ever given her reason to.
And then… finally, Mrs. Bennet’s objective was in sight as she inserted Jane between Kitty and Darcy. “It will not do, Mr. Darcy, to ignore my eldest daughter, and if I may say, my most beautiful and accomplished daughter, Miss Bennet.”
“Mrs. Bennet.” Mr. Bennet’s voice carried from behind his newspaper. “Let the girls dance. Let Lizzy play. And do sit down before you direct someone into the fire.”
Jane bowed her head, her cheeks coloring with mortification, but Darcy whispered to Kitty, who nodded, and then he bowed formally to Jane, requesting the pleasure of a dance in that deep, warm voice of his.
Jane took Darcy’s hand. And Elizabeth, pressing her fingers into the keys of a slower air, watched from behind the music she could play from memory.