Mr. Darcy’s incredulity was quickly masked, and Elizabeth turned back to the window to peer out into the dark. The flakes were coming thick and fast.
Miss Bingley must have been waiting all day to offer Mr. Darcy such praise. Elizabeth wondered, laughingly, whether she had been composing delicate little compliments to use should the opportunity present itself. But Miss Bingley could not have chosen worse, for a conscientious landowner such as Mr. Darcy, no matter how well he had planned for such a contingency, would be accepting lowered rents and anticipating greater expenditures during the winter so that his tenants neither froze nor starved. Even Papa had told Mamma they should have to economise this year—after Jane’s wedding, of course.
Mr. Darcy did not deign to reply, and Miss Bingley fell silent. No doubt the woman had returned to her soup, since no further discussion was to be had. But having committed to her breach in propriety, Elizabeth stood at the window for a few moments longer, watching the peaceful sweep of the snowflakes as they drifted to earth. She took a deep breath and released it slowly.
Charles was still beside her when she turned, and Elizabeth blushed to think that she had been keeping him from his meal. “Forgive me, Charles,” she told him quietly. “I still adore the first snowfall.”
“I, for one, detest the stuff,” Miss Bingley said. “It fouls the roads and makes visits difficult, if not impossible. And what if one requires deliveries of coal or food?”
“That is why landowners spend much of the autumn preparing for winter, Miss Bingley,” Mr. Darcy said pleasantly. “Pemberley itself is essentially cut off from both Lambton and Kympton after a heavy storm. We are required to care for ourselves.”
Elizabeth was impressed. That was a proper set-down without any sign of it being so. Charles held out her chair for her, and she slipped back into it with whispered thanks. Her new brother smiled at her and returned to his own seat.
“Although we do not often have storms that cut us off from town for more than a day or so,” Elizabeth said, “we also prepare as though it could. For if the shopkeepers cannot reach their shops to open them, or there is illness in the house and we cannot go out, we must be prepared.”
“And do you manage the larder, Miss Eliza?” Miss Bingley asked, her lips raised in a mocking smile.
Elizabeth was suddenly afraid that her early morning visit to the kitchen had been discovered, but although her cheeks warmed a bit, she quickly rallied. “We all of us grew up on an estate, Miss Bingley. It would have been strange had we not been trained to run one.”
It was Miss Bingley’s turn to blush. “And yourmothertaught you? How extraordinary.”
“Caroline,” Charles said without any hint of malice, “tread very carefully.”
Elizabeth thought the calmness in his voice more powerful a warning than if he had raised it. Miss Bingley, however, would not be deterred.
“Eliza does not mind, Charles. After all,” Miss Bingley said, “your mother is not from the landed gentry, is she? What could she possibly teach you?”
“She learned how to be mistress of Longbourn from our grandmother Bennet,” Jane said before Elizabeth could respond.
Jane always knew when to step in. Elizabeth reminded herself that Mamma needed no protection from her, any more than Jane did. Mamma, despite her nerves, was a good mistress, and the Bennets were the oldest family in the area. A great house had stood on the same site at Longbourn for close to three hundred years. Caroline Bingley had money and nothing else. Not even the respect of a brother who was likely to rise far above his father’s expectations.
“Your grandmother?” Miss Bingley asked, for once caught off guard.
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, now more in control of her ire. “My grandmother was mistress of Longbourn for thirty years when our grandfather passed, and she lived with us until her own death five years ago. My mother was very happy to learn from her.”
Her grandmother had taken such pains with them all. She would have been saddened by Lydia’s marriage, but then, had she been here, she might have prevented Lydia from becoming such a flirt in the first place.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Mr. Darcy said, looking directly at her. “It sounds as though she was very much loved.”
“She was.” Elizabeth smiled. “Jane, do you recall her teaching us to sled when we studied the Cimbric War?”
Jane laughed. “She was irrepressible.”
“It sounds as though she was a little like our Lizzy,” Charles said as the soup bowls were removed, and the next course brought in. There were several dishes, and they all smelled heavenly.
“You know, Lizzy,” Jane said after everyone had been served, “now that I think on it, you two were very much alike. She lovedthe cats in the barn and would take you out there to play with the kittens. Mamma was always unhappy when their little claws snagged your clothes, so Grandmother bought you a special dress to wear out to the barn, do you remember?”
Elizabeth nodded. “It was made of a rougher material, and it itched, but I did not mind, for the kittens could climb all over me and Mamma did not care. And when the puppies were born . . .”
Jane nodded. “And she taught you how to climb trees.”
“You climbed trees?” Miss Bingley’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. “How . . . charming.”
“Oh, it was the best way to pick apples, you see. Or throw them at marauders.” Elizabeth glanced over at Mr. Darcy. His expression told her nothing, but the light in his eyes meant that he found the notion of her climbing trees more amusing than shocking.
Jane laughed a little louder this time, which for Jane meant that it could be heard. “You mean the Lucas boys?”
Elizabeth met her sister’s eye. “There are so many of them.”
