Chapter 7
Lady Honoria Lansdowne was twenty-five, fair-haired, and possessed of a sort of vigorous sociability.
By the time she had completed a lengthy explanation of the differences between Roman and Greek attitudes towards friendship, Darcy grudgingly admired her understanding.
It was not long, however, before Lady Honoria began to admire herself with sufficient enthusiasm for them both, and his approval became unnecessary.
Across the table, his mother caught his eye and smiled.
She had been very pleased with Lady Honoria when the Lansdownes arrived; she was, Darcy suspected, pleased with her still.
Lord Lansdowne was a Whig of long standing and his Uncle Matlock’s confederate on more parliamentary committees than Darcy could enumerate. Lady Lansdowne was stouter, kinder, and seemed to have long ago surrendered any expectation of finishing a sentence in her daughter’s presence.
Lady Honoria had just taken several long minutes to explain why a woman of taste preferred Congou tea to Hyson.
By the time the second remove was placed, they had travelled from China to Tuscany.
They visited the British Museum, discussed the comparative merits of Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Gainsborough, and at last held a circular discussion of Mrs. Radcliffe in which Lady Honoria had pronounced novels a charming diversion for those whose understanding had not advanced beyond what a good education could supply.
Darcy’s head began to ache.
“Mr. Darcy,” said Lady Honoria, brightening, “I trust your sister is reading literature? At her age it is so essential. I always say that a young lady who has not yet formed her taste by sixteen will not form it at all.”
“My sister reads what she is inclined to, Lady Honoria, but in any case, her education is managed by her mother.” It was a warning, but apparently not one that Lady Honoria understood.
“Oh, but inclination is not enough.” She smiled at him with very white teeth. “I shall be glad to recommend some volumes, Lady Anne. There is a great deal of trash now in fashion. I do not say that we ought to be severe, only that we ought to be vigilant.”
His mother glanced at his uncle. Darcy recognised the look.
His mother had been challenged in her own drawing room, upon the education of her own daughter, by a woman she was considering as a possible wife for her son.
Only Lord Lansdowne’s usefulness to Matlock’s work in the Lords stood between Lady Honoria and an exceedingly polished set down.
“It shows wisdom,” said Lord Matlock from across the table, sending a warning look at his sister, “that you should be so cautious.”
Lady Honoria laughed warmly, accepted the remark as a compliment, and turned to a brief discourse on Mr. Pope, who had, she said, given the language several of its most enduring couplets, among them two that Darcy had known since he was twelve to be Mr. Dryden’s. He did not correct her.
Georgiana had begged off this dinner when they all met at breakfast. She would be taking her supper with Mrs. Annesley now, and perhaps reading a little Mrs. Radcliffe afterwards, preferring gothic terrors to his mother’s guest list.
Intelligent girl.
At breakfast, she would raise her eyebrows in silent enquiry. Darcy intended to answer with a single shake of his head.
“Now, Lansdowne,” Lord Matlock said, “tell me where you stand on Whitbread. I cannot get a straight answer out of anyone at Brooks’s.”
Lord Lansdowne, settled into his subject with something like relief. “The Regent had neither principles enough for the Tories nor loyalties enough for the Whigs, only an excellent instinct for preserving his own comfort.”
“I wonder if he means to keep us at all,” Lord Matlock said drily.
“I suppose he means to keep whoever is most convenient to him. Whether that proves to be us is, as you say, a matter on which I have lately become rather philosophical.”
“You and the rest of Brooks’s.”
Lord Lansdowne nodded. “Half the party still speaks as if His Royal Highness were waiting only for the restrictions to expire before rewarding his friends. The other half has noticed that he prefers Perceval to exertion.”
“A cruel observation,” Lady Lansdowne said mildly.
“An honest one,” said her husband.
His uncle and Lord Lansdowne both grunted. It had been a long year for them, revising old expectations at considerable social expense. Darcy had never expected the Prince Regent to behave in any way that would not assure his own comfort, but he sympathised nevertheless.
Lady Lansdowne agreed that politics was a great trial.
Lady Honoria, apparently satisfied that her father had assumed responsibility for the political portion of the evening, returned her full attention to Darcy.
She spoke on the prevailing taste in dress and asked Darcy how he liked her gown, a question to which no prudent gentleman dared reply with anything but a compliment.
She explained her preferences in horses, including a full discourse on Arabians.
And finally, she described her father’s latest evening at Carlton House, to which she had not been invited.
Darcy was beginning to regret not having paid more heed to Miss Macomber.
He made the responses civility required, listened to almost half of what Lady Honoria said, and watched his mother all the while. She had eaten less than she usually did, and her hand had gone twice to the stem of her glass without lifting it.
By the time the cloth was drawn, Darcy comprehended that his mother had revised her opinion of Lady Honoria.
Lady Honoria did not.
“My dear Mr. Darcy,” she said as she passed him on her way to join her mother, “I have so enjoyed our conversation. I feel as if we have known each other for years.”
Darcy felt as though he had been attending this dinner for years. He bowed. “You are very good, Lady Honoria.”
It was a courtesy he might have offered any lady at any door, but Lady Honoria, gratified, gave him a warm parting smile and joined her mother. His mother, across the room, met his eye briefly before leading the ladies out.
The men did not linger over the port. Lord Lansdowne and Lord Matlock spoke for twenty-five minutes about something to do with petitions, and then his uncle, who had been at his sister’s small dinners often enough to keep an eye on the clock, stood and proposed they rejoin the ladies, as he understood that Lady Honoria had been asked to play.
Lady Honoria’s selections included two Italian airs and one of Mozart's better known lieder. Between pieces she observed, to the room, that the modern fashion for sentimental ballads was certain to be short-lived.
Darcy found himself recalling another lady whose execution, though less exact, had possessed more spirit and had given her listeners a great deal more pleasure.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet had never approached the pianoforte as Lady Honoria did, with a cold determination to conquer every difficult passage; there had been mistakes enough, heaven knew, and liberties taken with the tempo that would certainly have offended more fastidious ears.
Yet her playing had warmth, humour, and feeling.
She conversed with music instead of attempting to subdue it.
One forgot the imperfections almost immediately but remembered the enjoyment of hearing her long afterwards.
The clock struck a quarter past.
Darcy waited as Lord Lansdowne kissed his mother’s hand. Lady Lansdowne smiled at everyone. Lady Honoria paused on the threshold to assure Darcy that she hoped to see him again very soon.
“Lady Honoria,” Darcy said.
The door closed.
Lord Matlock, who had remained behind in the hall, was the first to laugh. He did so only briefly and quietly after the front door was safely shut. Darcy’s mother sent her brother a look that warned him she had not yet decided whether she would be laughing.
“Anne,” he said, recovering his composure. “I shall leave you to it. Goodnight, Fitzwilliam.”
“Uncle.”
Lord Matlock paused at the door with his gloves half on. “I trust your mother will be merciful in her next selection. I do not believe even Anne can produce three such candidates in a row.”
“You give her more credit than I, sir.”
The earl pressed Darcy’s shoulder once and went out to his carriage.
Darcy and his mother returned to the drawing room.
She seated herself near the fire and rearranged a fold of her shawl. “That was not what I had expected.”
“Was it not?”
“It was not. Lady Lansdowne has been telling everybody for two years that her daughter is a credit to her education. When I spoke with her, I thought there might be something in that.”
“There is a great deal in it. Lady Honoria is so well educated that she considers it ungenerous to keep any of it to herself.”
His mother did not laugh. She merely considered him. “She is knowledgeable, and she does speak well.”
“She speaks beautifully. And at impressive length.”
“She is still young.”
“You told me that she is twenty-five.”
“That is young, Fitzwilliam.” His mother paused. “She does have opinions.”
“In abundance.”
“I did not think her wholly without wit.”
“Lady Honoria possesses fluency. Wit is more demanding.” And wit, Darcy realised, was what he wanted.
He wanted the quick turn of thought that caught him unprepared.
The arch look that made him suspect he had been mocked and actually hope that he had.
A woman who could laugh at folly without imagining herself exempt from it.
He wanted Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Which was unfortunate, as Miss Elizabeth Bennet could not possibly want him. He would be fortunate if she did not hate him.
“Yes,” his mother said at last. “Lady Honoria will be a fine wife for someone, but not for you. Perhaps for Milton.”
Darcy raised a brow. “Milton?”
“Lord Lansdowne’s politics suit your cousin’s as well as your uncle’s, and Lady Honoria’s manner is no worse than several young ladies I have matched already. And Milton, my dear, has the temperament to help a young lady like that along. You do not.”
He stared at her. “I am not the purpose of these dinners at all, am I? You are simply using me to find matches for everyone else.”
“You are quite useful that way,” his mother said, adjusting her shawl.
“For a gentleman who spends an evening in conversation with a lady teaches me more about her in three hours than I could discover in a dozen calls. If you refuse to allow me to employ those talents on your behalf, I shall use them elsewhere.”
He stared at her. “Elsewhere?”
“Of course. A lady may not be suited to you, but she will likely be perfectly suited to someone else. I have many unmarried gentlemen who have requested my assistance.”
“So I am to be brought out at intervals, seated beside eligible ladies, and used as your matchmaking . . .” He did not even know what to call it. “Device?”
His mother sighed. “If you insist on describing it so dramatically.”
“What would you call it?”
She rose. “A very practical arrangement. You will not permit me to find you a wife, but you cannot object to my helping others find theirs.”
Darcy did not know whether to argue with his mother or laugh at her.
He decided upon something between. “I will offer you this much. If I am to marry, I shall want a woman who will neither be afraid of me nor think that the way to my heart is a thorough lecture on the Aristotelian and Ciceronian theories of friendship.”
His mother set down her glass. “Fitzwilliam, I have been thinking. Rather than my one large gathering this year, I propose to hold a number of smaller parties through the winter.”
He blinked at the sudden change of subject and considered what his mother had said. More parties? This was not good news for him. “How small? And how many?”
“Well, I do not know. We shall simply have to begin and see what numbers suit best.”
She could not be serious. “Why?”
“I thought at first that a quiet dinner would suit you better,” she said. “Now I think that it may have created too much pressure on you and the lady.”
“Why not just abandon this ridiculous project?”
“Well that would not make any sense at all, would it? No, I shall continue my exertions on your behalf. A drawing room of twenty people offers a great deal more anonymity than a dining room of eight. Which I believe you prefer.”
Darcy would have preferred not to be put through this spectacle at all.
What was wrong with proceeding the way they always had?
A single annual gathering he could endure.
A smaller party, every fortnight or so, where he was the host and therefore could not leave until the final guest had departed sounded terrible.
“How long?”
She smiled sweetly. “I would say that rather depends upon you, Fitzwilliam.”
He sat back. “You mean to torture me.”
“It is not torture. It is a season among friends. I should have done this for you years ago.”
“I was not ready years ago. I am not ready now.”
“This year is the time, Fitzwilliam.” Her words were gentle, but he knew that she was determined.
Darcy stood when his mother did, and when she departed, he went to the library.
This was Darcy’s room more than any other room in the house, even the study or his chambers, and the servants all knew it.
The fire had been built up; the curtains had been drawn; a single decanter stood on the table next to his preferred chair near the hearth.
He did not pour. He sat down and looked at the fire.
He had passed an entire evening with a young lady of perfect education and titled descent, who had regaled him with hours of her many and varied opinions. And despite all of it, the only conversation he could recall just now was one that had not occurred at his mother’s table at all.
He remembered a different woman. Her slight, ironic laugh, the dark eyes meeting his over a glass of wine, her light and pleasing figure.
He even recalled a remark where she had disagreed with him about the manners of country society, where he had said something stupid in reply.
Miss Elizabeth had taken his stupidity and turned it on him so neatly that he had felt both stunned and obliged to smile.
And then there had been the ball, where he recollected that he had left her before the set was finished and had not slept that night.
He had not slept particularly well since.
No, he would never forget Miss Elizabeth, but he had lost any chance with her. Against that torment, his mother’s proposed parties would be nothing. Except that she had said she would be inviting Bingley. And Miss Bennet. Which meant that her sister would be invited too.
Darcy reached for the decanter.