“What? Heir to—Collins?”Several gentlemen paused in their conversations to look at him. He lowered his voice and repeated, “Collins offered for Miss Bennet?”
“Aye, can you imagi?—”
“When?”
Fitzwilliam eyed him warily. “Obviously before he married his wife.”
AndIam the last man in the world she would marry?Darcy did not bother to suppress the urge to run a hand over his face this time.
“Truly, Darcy, are you sure you are quite well?”
He snatched his hand down. “Would that you stop asking me that! If it pleases you to have me unwell, then that will do. Let us say I havean ague. I probably ought to go home. I leave Georgiana in your capable hands.”
Though Fitzwilliam tried several more times to extract some explanation for his malaise, Darcy would not capitulate. Even were he inclined to divulge his humiliation and misery, he did not think he could, for he was truly beginning to feel ill. Ignoring his cousin’s concern, he made his excuses and departed.
Saturday 9 May 1812, Hertfordshire
The carriage jounced into the High Street, its windows rattling and its driver bellowing at his horses. Mrs Bennet flapped at the tangle of legs in the footwell, shrieking at anybody who stepped too near Jane’s new gown. Mary and Kitty argued. Lydia and Elizabeth laughed. Jane turned away to peer at the looming façade of the assembly rooms.
Not even she had truly known how badly Mr Bingley’s abandonment had affected her until he returned, whereupon she discovered her confidence in both the sincerity of his affections and her ability to secure them reduced to nothing. Four visits, his request for the first set this evening and Elizabeth’s constant encouragement had buoyed her faith in him just enough to allow a measure of anticipation for the evening ahead, but it was a fragile faith, and her grip on it was tenuous.
She and Elizabeth stepped down first and walked towards the entrance.
“Once more unto the breach,” her sister said, grinning.
“Pray, tax me not with Wordsworth this evening, Lizzy. I am determined to be sanguine, but it will only stretch so far.”
Elizabeth gave her an odd look but said nothing more.
“I hope it is not too warm inside this evening,” Mary said behind them.
“As do I,” Mrs Bennet agreed, catching up with them. “It was unbearable last month with all the fires lit.”
“Oh, I have left my fan on the seat.” Jane checked her person to confirm its absence. “One moment.” She turned to fetch it from the carriage but stopped short of the door when she heard Lydia and Kitty still gossiping within.
“All that fuss over a stupid dress,” Kitty exclaimed.
“She does not look as well as Lizzy in any case,” Lydia replied. “Or me.”
“Would that she hurry up and secure Mr Bingley. Then we would not have to hear any more of her new dress or slippers or any of it.”
“She had better hurry up and secure him soon anyway, for she is practically an old maid. I should die if I were three-and-twenty before I found a husband.”
Jane re-joined the rest of her family sans fan or equanimity and now fighting back tears. Lydia’s words echoed her own fears precisely. If Mr Bingley would not have her, who would?
“Look, Jane,” her mother said in a none-too-quiet whisper as soon as they went in. “There he is! Look at the silk of his waistcoat! Oh, you are a clever girl!”
Jane looked. Mr Bingley did indeed look fine in full evening dress, but then she had always thought he did—just as she had always admired his ingenuous, affable smile, which to her relief, he then turned on her.
“Good evening, Miss Bennet,” he called, coming immediately to greet her. He bowed; she curtsied. He beamed; she smiled. Then the moment was lost as her mother pounced upon it.
“MrBingley!How wonderful it is to see you?—”
She was allowed no further raptures. Elizabeth had urgent need of her elsewhere in the room, apparently. Which was very thoughtful, except it left Jane the sole focus of Mr Bingley’s attention before she had thought of a single thing she might say to him. She managed to answer his few enquiries with composure, but by the time he led her to join the line for the first set, her hands were shaking from the fear that she would never be easy with him again.
After all her recent revelations, Elizabeth could not but observe her family with new eyes, and she was vastly dissatisfied with what she saw. Mrs Bennet doggedly and vociferously directed all her neighbours’ attention towards Jane and Mr Bingley, Lydia and Kitty drew attention to themselves with their shameless flirting, and Mary, in her bid to avoid any attention at all, had slighted Mr Winters by turning down his request to dance.
How she could previously have been blind to such behaviour, sheknew not, but in acknowledging their impropriety, Elizabeth better understood the depth of Mr Darcy’s affections. He had been willing to expose himself to the ridicule they were certain to earn him—ridicule he once told her it had been the study of his life to avoid—to be with her. Rather than dwell upon it, she marched across the room to demand that Lydia relinquish Lieutenant Connor’s sabre and to extract a large glass of wine from Kitty’s greedy clutches and give it to Mary in the hope it might embolden her to accept the next offer of a dance.
