Elizabeth had never seen Mr. Bennet as angry as he was that day at his wife. She had certainly never touched Elizabeth, nor any of the other girls, in such a way again. However, Mr. Bennet had clearly not wished to explain what a bastard was to her. But after a while he did.
Mr. Bennet had never told her that she was illegitimate. Such was his kindness for her.
He wished her to think that she was just like any other child. Mrs. Bennet certainly knew about nothing which lacked respectability in Elizabeth’s origin. Besides the lack fortune, which was the worst sort of lack of respectability.
Elizabeth hated how everyone who she metdid not know. When they were kind to her, when they thought well of her, or even when they thought ill of her, they did not know something that might make them despise her.
Still, she never told anyone.
Habits of secrecy, of discretion, and a sense of terror prevented that. Elizabeth guiltily stayed silent and acquiescent in Mr. Bennet’s fabricated tale of her background.
Near the middle of the evening, when Jane was dancing with Mr. Bingley for a second time, Mrs. Bennet settled next to Lady Lucas so that she could make a long narration of her delight at the ball.
Elizabeth decided to take this as her opportunity to escape her constant attendance on Mrs. Bennet.
She would hide for twenty minutes from demands to grab punch, to put Mrs. Bennet’s shawl back into the carriage, to retrieve Mrs. Bennet’s shawl from the carriage, to grab Lydia’s forgotten fan from the carriage, and from the occasional requirement to hold Mrs. Bennet’s own fan. She also would escape from being regularly sent on a hopeless quest to convince Mary to put aside her book and look pretty for the gentlemen.
When she sat in the far side of the room, Elizabeth did keep half an eye on Mrs. Bennet, in case her benefactress required her attention once more. Mrs. Bennet’s temper was quickly changeable.
In making this escape, Elizabeth settled in a chair near Mr. Darcy. Something about him drew her closer to him. And she thought that he was the least likely person in the room to offend Mrs. Bennet by asking her to dance.
It was almost as though she recognized him.
Elizabeth observed him from the corner of her eyes.
When she sat, three chairs distant from Mr. Darcy, he glanced at her again. He studied her with that frown of his before looking away and back at the dancing couples.
She knew that even if she had made herself to look as pretty as she could and turned her every female art and allurement towards him, Mr. Darcy probably would have ignored her in the same way that he ignored the pretty and elaborately dressed young Misses in the room.
But she wished that she could permit herself to make the effort.
Not worth thinking upon.
Elizabeth turned her own eyes to the crowd, and more especially at Miss Bingley who was presently dancing with Mr. Lucas.
Despite the way that Elizabeth pointedly never purchased clothes, ribbons, bonnets, or other accoutrements of fashion with the ample pocket money that Mr. Bennet gave her, she was fascinated by such things. Elizabeth was as aware as Mrs. Bennet, or any other woman, of the meaning of how much lace a woman wore, and what made someone appear to be a particularly fine gentlewoman.
The Bingley sisters looked around hauteur, but they were very finely dressed indeed. An ample quantity of Brussels lace trimmed onto the hem of their gowns and around the necklines. Even though theyconversedwith the neighborhood, Elizabeth thought that they considered themselves as far above everyone else as Mr. Darcy did. It was only Mr. Bingley who behaved as though there was equality between himself at the denizens of this market town.
Elizabeth loved it when she had a peaceful chance to listen to the music and just observe. She liked to watch the women fan and flirt, and the gentlemen preen and flirt in turn.The way that the older women stood aside, watching everything, the gaiety, the drinking, the sound.
A ghost observing the happiness of the living, but unable to touch any of them.
Lydia flounced over and flopped into the chair next to Elizabeth. “I have never been so disappointed in a man! Mr. Ferris had drunk so much that he twisted his ankle near as soon as we started the set, and now I am left without a partner.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“It does not signify. I am taller than him. And he is painfully awkward. I only hate to miss a dance. Even Mary is on the floor this set. But there are no free gentlemen. Perhaps I could convince that Mr. Darcy to dance with me.”
Lydia pointedly looked towards the gentleman, ready to flash him an inviting smile if he should glance in their direction.
He did not.
“He is so tall. That might match me as well—I hate when a man is shorter than me, like Mr. Ferris. You are lucky to be so short. I would hate to be short.”
After they waited a minute, and Mr. Darcy still determinedly did not look towards them once, Lydia sighed. “The set is ruined. But I have the younger Goulding for the next.”
However, at the middle of the set there was a minute of rest and using it to advantage, Mr. Bingley stepped out of the line and approached Mr. Darcy. With a cheerful hand on his friend’s shoulder, Mr. Bingley loudly entreated his friend to join the dance.
