His sister laughed, and then coughed; Darcy only smiled. “Humour is a useful way of avoiding direct argument, or attacking anything of which you do not approve.”
Miss Bennet gave him an arch smile, and turned to Georgiana. “So this is the severe gentleman you are forced to converse with when I must go home? If only the Collinses allowed me to stay longer that I might spare you from him. You have my pity. Although, perhaps by confiding in your brother, you receive every advantage you can hope for from friendship with men without any of the inconveniences that often attend a connexion with that sex.”
Darcy was on his feet in an instant. “What have you heard about her? Why do you suppose my sister would have any inconvenience from an association with a man?”
Miss Bennet paled. “I never heard any harm of Miss Darcy, at least nothing worth attending to.”
“How do you mean?” He stood over her, and Miss Bennet cast worried looks at Georgiana.
“I will not repeat foolish neighbourhood gossip. It does no credit to anyone present.”
“Unless you can explain why you cast aspersions on my sister, you may take your leave!”
“Fitzwilliam, I think Miss Bennet was speaking lightly, and of generalities,” Georgiana said.
Darcy ignored her and again demanded this unwanted friend answer him. What rumours of Ramsgate had Miss Bennet heard? With whom had Wickham been speaking? Had Georgiana’s reputation suffered in London? The fear knotted his insides.
“I only meant that some men’s habit of luxury can be an insult to a poorer woman, or when they talk of field sports and dogs as if a woman could possibly appreciate their interest, or a man who presumes his friendship with a woman will lead to matrimony. Miss Darcy avoids all of that by being friends with her brother, who knows her tastes and is not a marital prospect.”
Darcy slowly sat, his cheeks heating at his presumptuousness. His emotions had overridden his good judgement, and now he had exposed himself to ridicule and suspicion. “I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
“I suppose I shall have to for your sister’s sake, but you are too secure in the rightness of your opinions.”
“And you have formed an unfair estimate of my abilities and character based on my reserve and one mistake, which does you no credit.”
“I would think your discomfort on this innocent subject, when you ought to have been at ease, proves my point.”
“I am perfectly at ease and amiable when no one is insulting my sister’s reputation and when I am amongst my friends.”
She inhaled and seemed about to give him a disdainful reply in the hopes of offending him, but then looked at Georgiana. Instead, she gave him a false smile. “I am sure your sister is tired of a conversation in which she can have no share. Miss Darcy and I have begun readingTheFemale Quixote, since we triedAlphonsinebut were disgusted by it within twenty pages.”
Miss Bennet wishes to avoid an argument for the sake of Georgiana’s spirits.She expressed her amusement with the book and Arabella’s delusions, with his sister smiling all the while and Darcy contributing as little as possible, until half an hour had passed. Darcy noticed hissister’s shifting in her seat and grimace of pain, and gave their guest a pointed look. Miss Bennet immediately rose.
Georgiana begged her to return tomorrow, and Miss Bennet gave him a taunting look. “I promise to return at the earliest possible hour the Collinses allow me to come.” She curtsied and was gone.
“My dear, perhaps you might be more comfortable in bed?—”
“Fitzwilliam, not only did you hardly speak to Miss Bennet, but your countenance never softened nor changed its gravity the whole time she was here.”
“It is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than it is easier to make enemies than friends.”
“But she isalreadymy friend—at least she is a close acquaintance—and I have no one else. Aside from you,” she added.
Georgiana then coughed, and Darcy’s arguments about preserving her reputation above all else died on his lips. Miss Bennet was not entirely objectionable, and her friendship was what Georgiana wanted, and had he not already decided he would do whatever was necessary for her comfort?I shall try harder to make myself agreeable to Miss Bennet and not to assume the worst of her.
“Come, my dear, let me help you to bed and ring for something to ease your pain. For your sake, I shall give Miss Bennet every courtesy due to the friend of Miss Darcy.”
Elizabeth returnedto Netherfield’s gatehouse the next day, willing to suffer the rude brother for the sake of the sweet, shy sister. Not that she would admit it to Mr Darcy, but his less-than-winning manners were not as much a trial as Mary’s insistence on everyone observing her precedence, or Mr Collins’s speeches, or Lydia’s desperation to be wed and gone from Longbourn, or her mother’s attempts to hold on to the position of mistress of the household. She comforted herself with the hope that the unpleasant man might be occupied elsewhere today.
Her heart sank when Hannah showed her into the drawing room,and Mr Darcy rose. He said something about his sister sleeping fitfully during the night, and that she was napping now.
“You are welcome to wait here or in the garden. She rarely sleeps past noon, and I know that Georgiana would regret not seeing you today.”
Why was he being so courteous? She would have preferred to walk all the way home and come back again to avoid him, or even help the woman taking down the washing from the line, but she thanked him, and gambled on the best way to get out of Mr Darcy’s company. “I will walk the garden for half an hour and see if she is awake by then.”
“I would be happy to join you. I do not think I have spent half that long in the garden since I first let the house in October.”
Elizabeth sighed.This is why gambling never pays.
