Mrs Michelson beamed with pleasure. “I shall bring her to you tomorrow. Until then, good day my dear Mrs Gardiner, Miss Bennet—andMiss Elizabeth.” She paused to run her eyes overElizabeth from head to toe before nodding complacently and moving away to another part of the room.
Elizabeth turned to her aunt to express her indignation, but Mrs Gardiner silenced her with a look and ushered her and Jane out of the building.
“What was that about?” Jane asked as soon as they were on the street.
“I have no idea!” Elizabeth answered. “Whyever did you agree to receive her friend?” she asked her aunt.
“As I said, Mrs Michelson’s husband is an important connexion of your uncle’s. It would not do for us to slight her by refusing the offer of an introduction she evidently thought was important.” She paused to wait for a carriage to pass, then led them across the road. Once they were safely on the opposite pavement, she continued, “I should not worry. I know not what rank Lady Staunton boasts, but I doubt she will take kindly to having an introduction to us foisted upon her. It would be entirely her prerogative to refuse.”
“Mrs Michelson was adamant that she would want to know Lizzy,” Jane pointed out. “Whatever could she have meant by saying you are the talk of theton?”
“She must be thinking of someone else.”
“But she knew our home was Longbourn.”
“Truly, I cannot account for it, Jane. I hope Aunt Gardiner is right and nothing comes of it. I have no desire to be the object of anyone’s curiosity.”
She frowned as her own phrasing made her think of the stares that had been directed her way as she talked to Mr Darcy outside Gunter’s, and before that, in Mrs Appleby’s shop—but this could not possibly be related. She had been identified at the dressmaker’s only because the woman had seen her walking with Mr Darcy and recognised her; nobody actually knew her name. Indeed, the only way anyone could know it was if MrDarcy had told them, and she could not believe he would have willingly owned to such a lowly connexion. Certainly not if the haste with which he had decamped from the tea shop when her mother arrived was any indication. No—whatever Mrs Michelson had heard whispered about her must be unconnected to Mr Darcy.
“I am sure you are not,” Mrs Gardiner agreed. “It is likely nothing at all. I will say, though, that a ball hardly sounds like a punishment. Would a dance not cheer you a little, Jane?”
“I am in no peculiar need of cheering,” Jane replied with a mild note of admonishment in her tone.
Elizabeth looked at her sister. It was true that she did seem to be recovering from her disappointment at last, joining in with more engagements and with more determined energy—but she had yet to fully return to her former sanguinity. It occurred to Elizabeth that a London ball might be just the place for Jane to meet somebody who could more effectively take her mind off Mr Bingley.
“Well, I am never averse to being cheered,” she declared. “Notwithstanding my mysterious new infamy, I daresay, if an invitation is forthcoming, we should accept.”
To the astonishment of all, an invitation was, indeed, forthcoming. The very next day, Mrs Michelson brought her friend Lady Staunton to wait upon them at Gracechurch Street. She was nothing like Elizabeth had imagined, which was a woman as forceful in character as her friend, perhaps with a touch of that haughtiness that so often accompanied rank andwealth. In fact, she was a quietly spoken woman with excellent manners and an evident desire to make herself pleasing.
“I understand you have been staying with Mr and Mrs Gardiner since just after Christmas,” she said to Jane and Elizabeth. “Have you enjoyed London so far?”
“I must admit to not having done very much,” Jane answered. “The weather has not been conducive to trips abroad. Lizzy is more adventurous than I, though, and has braved the cold more often.”
“Yes, I did hear that you had been out and about,” Lady Staunton said to Elizabeth.
“Well, I…I dislike inactivity,” she replied warily, unsure how Lady Staunton could possibly have heard anything about her.
“You enjoy dancing as well, I suppose?”
“Aye, very much.”
“You will put me to shame. I have always favoured pursuits that require minimal exertion.”
“Nobody could say your efforts at the pianoforte were minimal,” Mrs Michelson said, adding for everyone else’s benefit, “Lady Staunton is a true proficient.”
“You are too good, Mrs Michelson, but you have rather neatly proved my point. The necessity of sitting at the instrument for hours at a time, practising, is precisely why I favoured the pianoforte in the first place.”
“And precisely why my own performance is so wanting,” Elizabeth said.
Lady Staunton laughed delicately and, as the other ladies began a conversation about Jane’s accomplishments, said quietly to Elizabeth, “But you do play? You must perform at my ball in that case.”
Elizabeth considered how best to get out of doing anything of the sort, but Lady Staunton spoke before she thought of an excuse.
“I beg your pardon—I am getting ahead of myself. I have yet to invite you! But I hope you will come. And your family, of course, though it is you everybody is agog to meet.”
There it was again: the strange assertion that Elizabeth was somehow…somebody. “Pray, why do you believe anyone is agog to meet me?”
Lady Staunton smiled a somewhat bewildered smile and shook her head. “Your humility does you great credit, but I can boast no such decorum and therefore shall declare shamelessly that I should dearly like you to be there.”
