Chapter 5 #2
The ball. Darcy closed his eyes as he recalled the disaster of it.
Miss Bingley had been standing near enough to invite his notice.
Darcy had noticed her, but he had not approached.
He refused to raise her expectations, particularly by dancing the first set with his hostess, though he knew it was custom to do so.
He danced with no one for the first set.
And for the second, he had asked Miss Elizabeth.
Miss Elizabeth, across from him at the bottom of the line, had been the object of Miss Bingley’s silent wrath.
She had been for some time, in fact, and Darcy could not pretend ignorance of the cause.
At Lucas Lodge, he had called Miss Elizabeth pretty and had complimented her “fine eyes.” Miss Bingley, who had expected to hear herself complimented, had been jealous.
It had been rather more direct than he would have preferred, but it had been true. It had also been intended as a warning.
But Miss Bingley had taken it as a challenge instead.
“Do you not mean to ask Miss Bingley to dance?” Miss Elizabeth had asked.
Darcy had looked at her, startled less by the question than by the source. Bingley’s sisters had spent much of their acquaintance slighting Miss Elizabeth both in her hearing and out of it. He would never have expected Miss Elizabeth to take up for Miss Bingley.
“I did not consider it necessary.”
“No?” Her brows had lifted. “She is, in effect, the lady presiding over the house. I believe even an indifferent hostess is owed one dance by a gentleman residing under her roof.”
Darcy had been at a loss. Miss Elizabeth had actually defended Miss Bingley. To him. Miss Elizabeth had somehow concluded that he, and not Miss Bingley, was the party behaving ungenerously.
The injustice of it still astonished him.
Miss Bingley had pursued him relentlessly from the moment the dancing began, had interrupted every tolerably peaceful conversation he attempted, and had finally succeeded in placing him in such a state of aggravated self-consciousness that Miss Elizabeth’s rebuke had prompted him to abandon her like a man suddenly called away to extinguish a fire.
Darcy suddenly recalled where he was. He lifted his head and met his mother’s gaze. “No, I did not attempt to repair the damage.” After all, there seemed little purpose in attempting to save a ship after one had personally blown a hole through its hull.
He did not add that, after leaving Miss Elizabeth standing on the dance floor, he had abandoned the ball entirely, retreated to his rooms, locked the door, and spent the remainder of the evening staring at the fire.
It had not been his strongest social performance.
“No?” His mother, when disappointed, did not raise her voice.
It was not required, for he felt every bit of shame he ought.
“Then we shall speak of it once and no more. The Meryton remark I might have laid at the door of the assembly itself, at your dislike of country balls, and at the unhappy arts of Miss Bingley to which you are evidently not equal. The second breach I cannot.”
“No.”
“Miss Elizabeth had given you no offence that I have heard. You invited her to stand up with you and then left her standing alone. Whatever else passed between you, that fact remains.”
“I do not offer a defence.”
“I am relieved to hear it.” She sighed. “I shall not lecture you further. You are not a schoolboy, and I have no desire to continually remind a grown man of his own conscience. I am, however, still your mother, and also a hostess.”
Darcy knew exactly what was coming. Unfortunately, his mother disliked being anticipated almost as much as she disliked being interrupted.
“Given where you were today, I must assume that Mr. Bingley remains interested in Miss Bennet.”
Darcy did not respond.
“Should a match between them take place, Miss Bennet may at some time accompany her into his circle, and his circle is, you will recall, entangled with ours. I therefore foresee future encounters.”
Darcy felt this somewhere beneath his ribs. “Miss Elizabeth is also in town.”
His mother lifted her eyebrows. “I see. Well, I shall ensure Miss Elizabeth is not placed in your way at any gathering of mine.”
The fire shifted softly in the grate.
“However, to banish a young woman from my drawing room because my son, a gentleman, has behaved badly would be punishing the wrong person. You will therefore assist me by doing what courtesy requires and otherwise remaining at the opposite end of whatever room contains the Bennet sisters. You will not pursue Miss Elizabeth for conversation, clarification, or redemption. If she addresses you, you will answer briefly and like the gentleman I know you are. Only if she broaches what has passed between you should you offer your apologies. Otherwise, it would be best not to remind her.”
The arrangement, when reduced to essentials, appeared to consist chiefly of greeting Miss Elizabeth and then removing to the other side of a crowded drawing room while pretending that her presence produced no inconvenience to him whatsoever.
Darcy thought this resembled a highly civilized form of torture. What he said was “Very well.”
“Good.” His mother drew a breath. “I now understand the source of your agitation. Now, before I devote the remainder of the season to this project, I shall ask plainly: Is there anyone?”
Darcy thought of Gracechurch Street. Of Miss Elizabeth speaking with him, clearly growing impatient with his inability to hold up his end of a polite conversation.
He had insulted her before there was even an acquaintance. He had afterward attempted, twice, to solicit her hand for a dance, as though women commonly overlooked such insults. She had refused him both times.
Then, at the Netherfield ball, she had finally consented to stand up with him, and he had abandoned her before the end of the set.
It was difficult to imagine how he might have conducted himself any worse without actual criminality.
Perhaps he deserved every determined daughter of society his mother was undoubtedly planning to parade before him.
Let Miss Bingley seize his arm. Let Miss Macomber smile at him over soup and refuse to reveal a single opinion while her mother happily provided them for her.
Let half the unmarried women in London advance upon him in strategic formation.
A man who left Miss Elizabeth Bennet standing alone on a dance floor could hardly claim to be misused.
The worst of it was that it had never been dislike.
Had he merely disliked Miss Elizabeth, the matter would have been simple. He could have avoided Gracechurch Street and her altogether. But he did not dislike her, not at all. She was clever, lively, and provokingly aware of the absurdities around her, including himself.
And beautiful. She was strikingly beautiful.
Unfortunately, he had opened their acquaintance by insulting her, continued it by perplexing her, and concluded it by deserting her at a ball. Hardly behaviour that would recommend his suit.
If he confessed his sentiments to his mother, her entire formidable matchmaking prowess would be brought to bear upon the problem.
Before the week was out, she would have called upon the Gardiners, spoken with them and Miss Elizabeth, invited them to dine, mentioned that Darcy was interested, and congratulated herself on having done nothing in the least precipitate.
And Miss Elizabeth, who was not a woman to be ordered about or flattered into acquiescence, who already regarded him with little more than cool civility, would never forgive him. She was a woman who made her own decisions, and she would never decide to be with him.
No, he had thoroughly destroyed any chance he might have had with her.
Darcy looked at his mother. “No. There is no one.”
She held his eye. He did not look away. “Very well,” she said at last, and picked up her book. “Then you may go.”
Darcy rose, bowed, and went.
He walked down the stairs to his study and shut the door behind him. The fire had burned low; the candles the footman had lit during his conversation with Richard were guttering in their sockets. He fed the fire without ringing for a servant and used the box snuffer to trim the wicks himself.
His mother had neatly secured for him exactly the protection he would have asked from her if he could.
There was no possibility of starting again with Miss Elizabeth.
He had made certain of that when he abandoned her at the ball.
He need not flinch every time Bingley accepted an invitation, nor dread an evening in her company.
But neither could he hope for one.