He thus found it difficult to speak with Jane.
After a few minutes Miss Bennet said, “The first of us who you danced was with Miss Elizabeth. I have noticed that you give her a great deal of consideration.”
“Youconsider Miss Elizabeth to be ‘one of you’.”
“Oh, certainly, she has grown up as our sister, since I was seven, I think. When she came to us Papa took me aside, and he made me solemnly swear to look after her as best I could.”
There was a sort of serenity to Miss Bennet’s countenance that suggested she had consciousness neither of the wrongness with which Darcy believed Elizabeth to be treated, nor that she had said anything extraordinary.
Darcy realized that he had never seen Miss Bennet treat Elizabeth with any sort of unkindness, though it was clear that she was not so friendly with her as Miss Mary.
“It was in fact Miss Elizabeth’s request that I dance with each of you—she seemed to have a great anxiety upon this point, I gathered it had something to do with your mother. I believe Miss Elizabeth thought thatsheshould never receive more attention from an eligible gentleman that Mrs. Bennet’s own daughters. I hope I do not say anything shocking when it is clear to me that Mrs. Bennet does not consider Miss Elizabeth to be ‘one of you’.”
Miss Bennet smiled and said, “Mama is always nervous. So very nervous. She is such a nervous person.”
“And you? Are you also nervous?”
“Mr. Darcy,” she replied with a smile. “I see that you mean to discover some particular point, but I am not so clever as Lizzy. I cannot guess at what your questions aim.”
“I hardly understand what you think about anything,” Darcy replied. “You always look at everyone and answer every question with that same smile.”
“I thank you for that compliment. Is that not what a lady is meant to be like in such a company as this?”
Darcy found himself unable to reply to that. He found himself suddenly much less certain in all his assessments of Miss Bennet and her feelings and thoughts.
They were quiet as they stepped through several revolutions of the line. The two of them passed Mr. Bingley and his partner for the dance, Bingley grinned and cheerily said to Miss Bennet, “I told you Mr. Darcy can be remarkably agreeable when he wishes to be.”
“Yes,” replied the beautiful young woman, with a constant smile that Darcy now knew to be a matter of policy, “I do think he feels deeply.”
They continued in silence.
Darcy wondered for the first time what growing up in such a household had been like for the Miss Bennets—the nerves of their mother. The way that Elizabeth was introduced by one parent as a sister and by the other as an unwanted creature whose inferiority must never be forgotten.
Perhaps Miss Bennet’s always fixed smile and calmness was her way of navigating such a situation, much like the way that Elizabeth’s manners and way of holding herself changed when Mrs. Bennet was present.
“What was it like when you were children? When did Miss Elizabeth come to live with you.”
For once Miss Bennet ceased to smile. “I shall never forget it. She was terrified—a person had beaten her terriblywithin the week. There were black and blue bruises all over. And she had seen her mother die before her eyes. She clung to Papa like a raft upon a stormy sea—but these are hardly memories that one ought to recall in a ballroom.”
“I have a very low opinion,” Darcy said, “of these restrictions that ladies seem to put upon what may or may not be discussed in a ballroom. For my part I have heard nothing so interesting tonight—she had been beaten? But do you know by whom?”
Miss Bennet managed to shrug gracefully in the midst of a turn of the set. “I wonder...I do not think it was her mother for she always spoke of her memory with sadness, and Papa refused to let anyone question Elizabeth about it, or about anything else—I have such a clear memory of how she looked then. I still think of it from time to time. I try to never think ill of anyone, and when I am given cause to dislike a person, I always remind myself that they have surely never beaten a child in such a way. Papa never lifts a hand to us, not even when he perhaps ought to have—there was a time when Lydia was seven, and she—but you cannot be interested in such a tale.”
“I assure you, I am. Is it a proper sort of tale to be mentioned to a person not part of the family?”
Now Miss Bennet’s smile returned. “This is known by all and sundry, for Lydia threw her fit in the churchyard on a pleasant morning as everyone came in. The whole neighborhood observed her behavior. Papa did once look as though he wished to give her a spanking, I know that any other father in the neighborhood, Sir William certainly, would have done so. I think many persons judged him for not doing so. But he would not. He barely even reduced her pocket money and liberties in punishment afterwards. I think that Papa took Lizzy’s treatment very much to heart—he had once or twice given us some spanking before she came, but never afterwards.”
“Do you think,” Darcy asked, “that this is why Miss Lydia is poorly governed?”
Darcy realized at once that he ought to not have said that, and certainly not to the sister of the woman in question. Perhaps he could have asked Elizabeth.
Miss Bennet smiled at his sudden confusion in a warm way that made Darcy think that she was quite amused. “This is like that tale Lydia told all of us, about how she had been not quite handsome enough to tempt you to dance. You say what you think easily, even when many would hide their feelings. I admire that.”
“Do you hide your feelings?” Darcy asked in reply.
“I try to always feel what I ought, so there will be no cause for that.”
The sweetness with which she said this left Darcy confused. “Did your mother ever discipline you in such a way?”
