An Assembly Such as This fdg-1

by Pamela Aidan

  “So it must be, Caroline. How else can they be such excellent walkers!” Mrs. Hurst’s snigger was interrupted by the sound of the turning latch of the door.

  Mrs. Bennet, in the lead of her daughters, entered the room all aflutter with expressions of concern for Jane’s condition and a horror at the idea of removing her to Longbourn that took no one but Bingley by surprise. By the end of her extended recital of fears and of Jane’s merits, Darcy was certain he had resolved the mystery of Miss Bennet’s remarkably unwise journey to Netherfield two nights previous. The only question that remained and had nagged at him since the note to Longbourn was sent was: Who would be called upon to continue nursing Miss Bennet? It was entirely possible the lady would require Elizabeth at home and send another daughter to try her luck at Netherfield. Or a servant…or, Heaven forbid, he swore silently, his jaw tightening, the mother might intend to stay! He studied Elizabeth’s face as she crossed the room in her mother’s wake and was puzzled at the anxiety he saw in every line. This does not bodewell…Could there be some truth in Mrs. Bennet’s protestations? No, if she is anxious, it is for her mother! He continued to watch them all from his vantage point at the window, the sun shining over his shoulders, as if he were attending a play. Mrs. Bennet simpered and smiled while the younger girls ogled the richness of the room and the ladies’ dresses, giggling and whispering to one another in the most uncircumspect manner. Elizabeth had found refuge from the antics of her relations in a light repartee with Bingley. She held herself less stiffly now, he noticed.

  “Lizzy” — Mrs. Bennet’s voice cut through the brightness of her daughter’s conversation — “remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.”

  Darcy’s musings were swiftly brought to heel as the shrill voice caused all conversation in the room to a stop. His back stiffened. He glanced at Elizabeth’s face, noting the briefest appearance of pain in her guarded countenance before she turned back to her mother. The woman was impossible! Seething in displeasure, he quickly turned his back upon the room before he overstepped propriety himself. Was she so lost to proper feelings that she could scold her daughter in their presence!

  Bingley stepped into the breach of shocked silence. “I did not know before,” he said, continuing the thread of his conversation with Elizabeth, “that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.”

  “Yes,” she replied. Her voice sounded quite small at first but steadied as she spoke. “But intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage.”

  Darcy turned back at her words, determined to encourage Elizabeth and disoblige her mother. “The country can in general supply but few subjects for such a study.” Elizabeth looked up at him questioningly. “In a country neighborhood,” he explained, “you move in a very confined and unvarying society.”

  “But people themselves alter so much,” she replied, a merry twinkle giving testimony that a diverting example lay behind her words. “There is something new to be observed in them forever.”

  “Yes, indeed,” cried Mrs. Bennet stridently, evidently offended by his estimation of a country neighborhood. “I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in Town.”

  Darcy stared at her, incredulous that he should be the object of such a person’s insupportable manners and open animosity. His glance flickered to Elizabeth. The look of apprehension mixed with mortification was returning to her face. He swallowed the stinging setdown that clamored to be set loose, clamped his lips together in a grim line, and turned silently away.

  Conversation resumed as he slowly walked about the room. Although he gave the appearance of disinterest — now gazing out the window, then withdrawing into the perusal of a book — he was careful to remain within hearing of Elizabeth. His subterfuge was little rewarded; Mrs. Bennet, once in command of the conversation, would not relinquish its control. She waxed eloquent now on the attention Jane had received from a London gentleman when she was but fifteen years old. “He wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were,” she concluded grandly.

  “And so ended his affection,” Elizabeth hurried to interject. Darcy stopped his perambulations and looked at her curiously. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way,” she continued in a strained voice. “I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”

  “Driving love away, Miss Elizabeth? Curious! I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love, not its executioner!” Her head came up at his contradiction, and he saw with complacence the gleam his words of challenge had returned to her eyes.

  “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may,” she shot back at him. “Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”

  Truly, he could not prevent the answering smile that o’erspread his face, even if the whole room was looking at them. A few moments of silence passed. Then Mrs. Bennet turned to offer her thanks for the kind attention Netherfield had extended to her poor, sick Jane, and she rose to take her leave. Darcy observed her with some trepidation, wondering anew what had been decided about Jane’s nursing.

  “Mr. Bingley,” spoke up the fidgety one, “you promised us a ball at Netherfield, if you will remember, sir. Everyone is expecting it! It would be the most shameful thing in the world if you do not keep your promise!”

  “I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement,” responded Bingley, to Darcy’s complete despair. “And when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing while she is ill.”

  “Some of us would not wish to be dancing whether she is ill or no,” Darcy murmured to Bingley as Lydia Bennet went into transports over his friend’s amiability. Bingley shot him a quelling look, which he received with resignation. The very last thing he desired was society on the scale of a ball, be it in the country or in Town. His peace would be cut up entirely in the hustle-bustle of preparations, not to mention the daunting prospect of doing his duty by the ladies of Hertfordshire during the event itself. His only consolation, and bright it did suddenly appear, was the opportunity it would afford him to claim the dance he had been denied at Sir William’s.

  Mrs. Bennet clucked at her chicks and brought them into line as she made her curtsy to the Bingleys and lastly to himself. He inclined his head at her salute but straightened to see only the back of her bonnet as she hurried all the girls through the door. The desire to know whether Elizabeth would remain overcame Darcy’s caution. He stepped into the doorway in time to witness her place a dutiful kiss upon her mama’s cheek and see the lady turn away with a last admonition before the door was firmly shut behind her.

  Elizabeth stood perfectly still there in the light of the entry hall, looking out at the retreating figures of her mother and sisters. Darcy could not guess her emotions, as she faced away from him, but the slow, determined manner in which she squared her small shoulders told him that his delightful antagonist was not quitting Netherfield or their battle of wits. As she turned and walked slowly toward the stairs, Darcy stepped back into the breakfast room and shut the door. His thoughts on the morning’s events so thoroughly commanded his attention that the sly remarks of Miss Bingley concerning the shocking behavior of their visitors were quite lost on him.

  11 November 1811

  Netherfield Hall

  Meryton, Hertfordshire

  Dearest Georgiana,

  I received your letter of the —— th with great pleasure, perusing its lines sufficient times to allow me to quote it at length whenever I wish to assure myself once again of your newfound contentment. Since you have done me the honor of writing so particularly, I will reply in the same vein and confess that I have been greatly concerned for you since we returned from Ramsgate and for these several months thereafter. That you have recognized the ev
ils of the melancholy under which you had sunk and suffer their afflictions no longer, I thank God. You write that they have made you a “stronger vessel,” and I should like to know more of this, but I can only regret the circumstance that precipitated such a lesson and that you should have been so cast down these last months. For the fault was never yours. If there is fault to be laid at anyone’s door for what happened last summer, the greater weight of it falls to me. Do not protest, dearest, for it is so, as I have told you before. I should have taken more care. The pain my negligence has caused you hangs heavily on my heart.

  Do you remember — it is a vast number of years ago! — when you were very little and I had the totty-headed notion that leaping upon you unawares was great sport? After I had resisted all our estimable father’s appeals to my sense of justice, you will recall that with great sorrow he made short work of me with his cane. But it was your tears at my well-deserved strokes that reduced my proud boy’s heart to rubble. And so it has ever been, even to the present day.

  (I pause here to execute a request pressed upon me by Miss Caroline Bingley, in whose company I am attempting to compose this missive. It is her earnest desire that I recall her to your remembrance and apprise you of her intense longing to see you once more. My duty in this is now discharged, and you may receive her sentiments as you wish.)

  To continue: If I have done well in sending Mrs. Annesley to you, it is a balm to my conscience, and I receive your assurances with a heart of gratitude to the mercy of God. She seemed a quite worthy woman, coming to me with the most excellent references and testimonies I have ever seen. That her influence has been instrumental in your recovery and has encouraged a maturation of your spirit confirm her in my estimation. She must, indeed, be a remarkable person, and I look forward to knowing her better when I join you at Pemberley for Christmas.

  (I beg your forgiveness for the disjointed nature of this letter. Miss Bingley has again importuned me with compliments. Suffice it to say that she regards all that the Darcys do as done to perfection.)

  Miss Bingley is not the only person present as I write. Charles, of course, is here, as well as his other sister, Mrs. Hurst, and her husband. Two others are temporarily part of our small party: Miss Jane Bennet and her sister Miss Elizabeth. Miss Bennet came for dinner with Charles’s sisters several evenings ago but fell very ill. Her sister Miss Elizabeth has come to nurse her until she is well enough to return home.

  Pray, excuse me again, as I take up this letter once more after an interruption. I was drawn into a discussion, quite against my better judgment, with Charles and Miss Elizabeth. I will not relate all the particulars, but I fear that, were you present, you would sweetly take me to task on my supreme lack of social grace. My instructors in philosophy at university, on the other hand, would be quite proud of my performance. As you well know, Charles has often borne the brunt of my logic and suffers me, in his good-natured way, to tear his ill-considered opinions to pieces with no untoward effects on our friendship. But in this instance, he had an unexpected champion, the aforementioned Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who entered the lists armed with the shield Sensibility, against which the lance Logic is ever seen as a scurrilous, unworthy weapon. Nevertheless, burnishing Logic with confidence, I sallied forth, only to have it shatter into the veriest splinter against that unanswerable defense. Now, I must discover a means of reinstating myself into Miss Elizabeth’s good graces. A simple matter for most of my sex, but a Gordian knot in my own case. I fear she regards me at this moment as an unfeeling, prosy fellow and has just dismissed me with the recommendation that I “had much better finish [my] letter.” This advice I have taken, as even Logic agrees to its wisdom.

  I will finish with information that Charles has well established himself here among the local gentry and is quite pleased with his circumstance. Netherfield Hall is a snug little property that will respond well to his first, halting steps as a landowner. The society is, in my opinion, quite savage; but I am being persuaded that within it delight may be found. Charles, of course, is half in love already with a local beauty. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst find nothing charming and, when they are not pining for Town, drop broad hints on how very agreeable they would find Pemberley.

  A ball is to be held at Netherfield in the near future, alas! Beyond that, neither I nor they have formed plans. I do foresee a trip to London soon on business matters but am undecided as to whether I will return to Hertfordshire or remain in Town until I join you for Christmastide.

  My dear sister, allow me to say again how heartened I am that all is well with you. I will not remind you of your studies, for I know well your diligence and already swell with pride at your accomplishments.

  May God keep you, Sweetling, for you are the true treasure of Pemberley, as well as of my heart.

  I remain your obedient servant,

  Fitzwilliam Darcy

  Darcy sanded and blotted his letter, folded it into precise thirds, and peered into the interior of the desk for a stick of sealing wax. Locating one in the far reaches of a cluttered drawer, he lit it, allowing a few drops to descend upon the letter’s edge and, deftly withdrawing his seal from his waistcoat pocket, secured his letter to his sister. This pleasant duty discharged, he leaned back in the chair and contemplated his situation, absently tapping the letter in his hand into the palm of the other.

  Miss Elizabeth occupied a settee only feet away, engrossed once more in the needlework she had briefly abandoned during their lively sortie earlier. She presented to him a picture of the earnest needlewoman, her full lower lip caught between dainty white teeth, as she brought needle to cloth with practiced ease. An inexplicable surge of contentment coursed through him as his gaze lingered on her concentrated aspect and the elegant way she plied her needle, her smallest finger crooked just so. This pleasurable sensation slipped rapidly into dismay as he considered the current state of their acquaintance. Sighing to himself, he rose and placed the letter into the silver servier from whence posts were collected.

  How could he regain her good opinion, if he ever had it? Should he compliment her needlework? Unprofitable ruse! She would merely say her thanks and they would again be point non-plus. He was looking about the room, desperate for inspiration, when his eyes alighted upon the pianoforte tucked into a corner. Perfect!…if she will consent.

  “Miss Bingley, Miss Elizabeth,” he began a trifle awkwardly, “would you condescend to indulge us with music this evening?” Miss Bingley’s languid features brightened at the invitation, and she rose with grace and alacrity. So eager was she to satisfy his request that she had nearly gained the pianoforte before remembering that he had also addressed Elizabeth. Politeness required that, as hostess, she offer her guest the first opportunity to entertain. She turned back to the room slowly and with a brittle smile invited Elizabeth to precede her.

  To Darcy’s disappointment, Elizabeth firmly declined the offer, but she did put away her embroidery. This he wished to interpret as an indication that she would oblige him when Miss Bingley had done. As Elizabeth drifted toward the instrument, Darcy could not prevent his eyes from following her, each step and rustle of her gown commanding his full attention. Miss Bingley began her first selection. A desire to engage Elizabeth in some manner warred with Darcy’s repugnance at playing the fool, as fool he would certainly appear in any attempt, on his part, to embark on a flirtation. A flirtation? The thought shocked him as much by its novelty as by its revelatory nature. A flush crept up his neck even as Elizabeth’s eyes made brief contact with his. Hooding them, he dropped his gaze to his hands, only to discover that he was twisting his ring furiously.

  Miss Bingley came to the end of the mellow Italian love song she had chosen and received the appreciation of the room with grace but little apparent satisfaction. It was likely, Darcy suddenly realized as he joined in the applause, that she had chosen the song with hopes its words would direct his attention to herself. The smile on her lips clashed with the glitter in her eyes, telling him that his lapse in
stead into a brown study had been duly noted.

  She turned her attention to Elizabeth. “Songs of love can be so tedious when one does not know the language,” she drawled in malice-edged condescension. “Do you not find this so, Miss Eliza?”

  Elizabeth paused in her exploration of the music books lying on the pianoforte. “Oh, Miss Bingley, that is too unfortunate! Especially as you played them so beautifully. Please, permit me to translate them for you!”

  Darcy almost choked as comprehension of the neat turn that her insinuation had been given flooded Miss Bingley’s face. “I did not mean…that is…that will not be necessary,” she sputtered. In silent fury she snatched her music sheets from their resting place and embarked on a loud and lively Scotch air.

  The mischievous dimple Darcy had so admired at Sir William’s made an all too brief appearance. Its effect was, however, in no wise diminished by its lack of longevity. He rose from his chair with no consciousness of having done so and, before he had fully regained command of himself, was at her side. “Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?” The words tumbled out, surprising himself as much as anyone in the room.

  Idiot! he castigated himself. Dance a reel! What are you about? Darcy knew her well enough now to be forewarned by the smile that played across her features. He had not, however, anticipated her silence. He repeated his question. It sounded even more ridiculous the second time, but to retreat now was unthinkable.

  “Oh! I heard you before,” Elizabeth assured him, “but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply.” Her chin tilted up dangerously as she paused. Darcy once again felt the air between them electrify and promptly forgave himself his awkward address. He schooled his face ruthlessly against the effects of the thousands of charges flying betwixt them. “You wanted me, I know, to say yes, that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste,” Elizabeth challenged, “but I always delight in overthrowing those kinds of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all; and now” — she fixed him with an imperious look — “despise me if you dare.”