Chapter Two Barely Tolerable #2
Jane had been seated near one of the tall windows, where a watery brightness fell on her chair.
Mr Bingley approached her readily enough, but halted abruptly before taking the place beside her.
He considered the sunlight, examined the remaining chairs, and dragged a small table several feet into the room.
He indicated the brightness crossing Jane’s hands, blinking rapidly. “I fear the light must be troublesome for you, Miss Bennet. The glare is quite severe.”
Jane lifted her face to a sky mostly occupied by thick grey clouds. “I had not noticed it.”
Mr Bingley drew another chair into the deepest shadow beyond the curtains. “I have always found autumn sunlight particularly penetrating. It causes a most uncomfortable... prickling sensation.”
Elizabeth observed this bizarre architectural arrangement from the sofa.
Miss Bingley had placed herself close enough to Mr Darcy to imply that the rest of the furniture had been manufactured for inferior species.
The daylight was weak, the window glass imperfect, and the room scarcely brighter than the hallway.
Mr Bingley nevertheless maintained a rigid distance from the glass until Hill entered carrying tea, at which point he became solely interested in Jane again.
Mrs Bennet urged cakes on the visitors. Mr Bingley accepted one, thanked her warmly, and held his plate at a precarious angle until the pastry slid silently into his napkin, a manoeuvre he executed with the guilt of a jewel thief.
He listened while Jane spoke of an ill tenant near Longbourn, offered to send assistance, and continued guarding his napkin as if it contained state secrets.
Elizabeth lowered her eyes to conceal her amusement.
Mr Darcy noticed. His heavy gaze had rested on her many times since entering the room, although each instance ended the moment she acknowledged it.
A man who had loudly declared her insufficiently handsome to tempt him now devoted a great degree of concentration to discovering whether she laughed at breakfast food.
He looked less like a visitor and more like a starving wolf attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation.
Jane directed Mr Bingley to a book on the nearby table. “My father received it from London last month. I believe you mentioned an interest in natural history at the assembly.”
Mr Bingley’s eyes had descended to the delicate pulse visible beneath the ribbon at her throat. He swallowed hard. “I beg your pardon?”
Jane pointed gracefully. “The book next to you.”
He dragged his eyes from her neck and regarded the volume without any recognition. “Yes, naturally. The history of nature is a subject of profound importance.”
Jane smiled kindly. “It concerns the management of English woodlands.”
Mr Bingley nodded eagerly. “Which form an essential wooden portion of nature.”
Jane’s smile widened, as though she found his flustered recovery endearing rather than peculiar. Mr Bingley picked up the book, opened it upside down, and praised the quality of the illustrations.
Elizabeth glanced at Mr Darcy. He had abandoned the appearance of attending to Miss Bingley and was watching his friend over the gold rim of his teacup.
His expression altered by so little that someone else might have missed the warning contained within it.
Mr Bingley noticed, hastily corrected the book, and shifted his chair another six inches farther from Jane’s neck.
During the following week, the neighbourhood produced enough dinners, afternoon visits, and card parties to satisfy Mrs Bennet’s need for surveillance.
Mr Bingley sought Jane at every gathering, and Jane’s pleasure became increasingly difficult to disguise.
He remembered her preference for music, found comfortable seats for her mother, and listened to Mary’s relentless pianoforte performances without displaying the agonising suffering visible on his sisters’ faces.
Jane responded to his kindness rather than his fortune, which Mrs Bennet considered an unnecessary distinction but tolerated because both paths appeared likely to reach the same church.
Mr Bingley’s habits, however, were unusual.
He never actually ate in company, although food continually reached his plate.
At the Gouldings’ dinner, he reduced a slice of pheasant to microscopic fragments and distributed them under his carrots without consuming a bite.
During a crowded evening at Mrs Philips’s house, he carried the same glass of wine for nearly two hours and expertly exchanged it with Mr Long’s empty glass when he believed no one observed him.
He avoided fireplaces when they burned too brightly, preferred the darkest corner of every room, and occasionally ceased speaking altogether when Jane turned her head and exposed the side of her throat.
Jane attributed these lapses in normal human behaviour to simple bashfulness.
She arranged fresh flowers in the parlour the morning after Mrs Philips’s gathering, her touch gentle on the stems. “He is confident among gentlemen, but perhaps he is less certain when speaking to ladies. His manners are open, yet there is a modesty under them.”
Elizabeth removed a damaged leaf from the table and dropped it into a basket. “He has danced with half the county and introduced himself to the other half. If he possesses shyness, it follows a very selective calendar.”
Jane focused on a stubborn rose. “He may be shy only when his feelings are engaged.”
Elizabeth snorted delicately. “That explanation is suspiciously convenient.”
Jane’s colour rose, but she continued arranging the flowers. “You are determined to laugh at him.”
Elizabeth leaned against the table. “I am determined to understand why he forgets every conversation whenever you move your head. Five thousand a year may have prevented people from informing him that staring at a lady’s neck with the intensity of a butcher inspecting a roast is disconcerting.”
Jane did not look up. “He does not stare.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms. “He inspected your ribbon for so long last night that I expected him to enquire where you purchased the silk so he could buy one for his horse.”
Jane adjusted the offending ribbon and refused to answer, although the small, triumphant curve of her mouth betrayed her.
Mr Darcy’s behaviour was no easier to understand, though significantly more menacing.
He never consumed anything offered to him, and he rarely joined general conversation.
He danced only when Miss Bingley or Mrs Hurst required a partner, yet Elizabeth repeatedly discovered his intense, unblinking eyes on her.
At Aunt Philips’s house, he had stood near the card tables while she spoke to Charlotte and followed every exchange without contributing one syllable to it.
During dinner at the Gouldings’, he had been placed opposite her and listened while she teased her father, his mouth shifting once before control restored his stony severity.
Whenever Elizabeth attempted to engage him directly, he answered with rigid, breathless courtesy and withdrew behind a fortress of silence.
Conversation flowed around him like water around a stubborn rock, although his awareness missed very little.
He noticed when she entered, when she laughed, and when another gentleman claimed her, but offered no evidence that he intended to make himself agreeable.
Elizabeth concluded that Mr Darcy’s interest, if it indeed existed, arose purely from disapproval. He had judged her tolerable and now appeared determined to mathematically identify every physical and moral defect supporting his original verdict.
An invitation from Lucas Lodge arrived before she could test the theory further.
Sir William intended to host an evening of music and informal dancing, and the Netherfield party had accepted.
Charlotte’s accompanying note promised conversation, good music, and several opportunities for entertainment.
Elizabeth folded the note and smiled. Mr Darcy might spend another evening studying her from a safe distance, but she had no intention of making the examination easy for him.
AT NETHERFIELD, DARCY stood in his dressing room, attempting to button a fresh waistcoat with unusually clumsy fingers.
“Our friend seems agitated this evening, sir,” Fletcher noted, holding out a dark coat. He gestured at the corner, where the silver punch bowl was vibrating on its table with a metallic hum.
Darcy shrugged into the coat, refusing to look at the table. “It senses my displeasure with this county, Fletcher. Cover it with a cloth. I will not have it rattling while I am attempting to maintain my sanity.”
“I believe it is attempting to form a committee, sir,” Fletcher observed drily, tossing a thick cloth over the shaking vessel. “Shall I prepare the carriage for Lucas Lodge?”
Darcy closed his eyes, the scent of starch rising from his cravat, trying to block out the phantom memory of her scent and impossible warmth. “Yes. And pray that Sir William does not possess a robust footman. I fear Hurst is reaching his limit for sobriety.”
LUCAS LODGE HAD BEEN arranged for pleasure under Sir William’s personal supervision.
This meant that every chair had been moved twice, the musicians occupied a corner too small for their instruments, and no guest could stand unobserved for longer than a minute before being vigorously encouraged to dance.
Elizabeth arrived with Jane and found Charlotte by the pianoforte, where Mary was examining the sheet music with a scrutiny that threatened the company’s enjoyment.
Lydia and Kitty had already secured two officers for the first dance.
Mrs Bennet settled close enough to Lady Lucas to discuss Netherfield without having to raise her voice beyond its ordinary, piercing public reach, while Mr Bennet selected a chair near the card room and prepared to enjoy everyone’s suffering from a safe distance.