Darcy sat at the other side of the table. “This is your mother’s brother, who is a tradesman in Cheapside?”
Mrs Darcy sealed her letter and gave him a flat look. “You sound as though it is beneath you to have a wife whose relations live in Gracechurch Street and are engaged in a respectable line of trade. I had no idea you were so abominably proud. My uncle Gardiner is a gentlemanlike man who has an income of two thousand pounds a year.”
Darcy repressed a sigh as he remembered he was supposed to be a man on the edge of gentility. “I have my pride, the same as any man, but I was not brought up so high that I cannot befriend someone of the middling ranks. One’s manner and conduct are as important to me as rank or whether one’s income comes from genteel means.” Upon further reflection, he supposed that the former might bemoreimportant to him than the latter.
“I still say that you sound as though you think you might be demeaned by a connexion to trade.”
“You have sketched my character incorrectly. I have had a steady friendship with a man whose fortune was acquired through trade. He inherited property worth one hundred thousand pounds and has yet to purchase an estate.” Mrs Darcy now looked at him with less annoyance and more interest. “In fact, it was his intention to purchase that led me to Meryton. He cannot make up his mind as to what county to settle in, and was tempted by recommendation to lease Netherfield House last autumn. Bingley has the highest opinion of my judgement. However, I never made the time to encourage him to look at it because I was occupied in seeing what treatment could be had for Georgiana.”
Darcy thought of those months last autumn that he despairingly spent trying to find a cure for his consumptive sister, and cursing both the man who put her in a distressing situation as well as the innocent evidence of that liaison.How I want Wickham to suffer!The wrath he feltdeep in his angry heart burned anew, despite his best intentions to suppress it.
“And you remembered Netherfield when you intended to retire in isolation with your sister during her confinement?”
Darcy started. Mrs Darcy was looking at him intently, but he could not tell if she was prompting him to hear the story, or because she inferred his dark thoughts and hoped to draw him out. He was surprised by how he hoped that she wanted to be a comfort to him.
“Aside from London, I have no acquaintance for fifty miles, and its location near to town suited me, but the great house was—the lodge suited my purpose. Fortunately, Bingley has many friends who are eager to show him hospitality, and he never pursued Netherfield.”
“That would be quite a meeting at the next assembly if your friend saw you passing through the set when he thought you to be in Madeira.”
He had hardly left the house or interacted with a single soul in the months he had been here before Mrs Darcy returned from London. “I rarely attend a public ball, but my friend would be an eager participant. The last time I saw Bingley, it was at a ball at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. He knew I was leaving for Madeira and insisted on an evening’s entertainment before I left. He thought well enough of me to pass an evening with me before I was gone, but did not think well enough of my preferences to consider how I might want to spend that evening.”
“You sound as though dancing was a punishment.”
“It is a compliment that I never pay to any place if I can avoid it, but I danced with my friend’s sister.” Miss Bingley was like all the other women who admired him and agreed with him in hopes of a marriage that would bring them wealth and connexions. It pleased him to know that Mrs Darcy’s interest in what he had to say had nothing at all to do with his income. “She is a conceited woman who spends more than she ought.”
Darcy smiled at the memories of that evening, and Mrs Darcy gave him a curious look. “You look amused for a man who hates dancing and had to share two dances with a woman you do not like.”
He felt his smile widen. “I asked her to dance out of politenessrather than affection, and the entire time we were at Wilson’s ball, she commented on the little beauty and no fashion of the ladies near to us.” The memory provoked a small laugh from him. “She wore a headdress with ostrich feathers of which she was prodigiously proud. They were enormous. It was good that the doors were carried to the height of the ceiling, otherwise we would have been forced to leave her in the hall.”
Mrs Darcy rolled her eyes. “What a well-dressed lady. If she nodded, she might have caught her friends’ attention across the room without interrupting the dancers.”
Her brief chuckle brought on his own. “True. But Miss Bingley did not have the opportunity that evening. After the dance, I escorted her to a group of ladies she claimed were her friends, yet she persisted at my elbow. I stood to the edge of their group by the wall, and she pressed closer to me no matter how pointedly I inched away, flattering me and quietly disparaging the dress and beauty of other ladies, until—and we neither of us realised—she was next to a sconce near the fireplace ...”
“Oh no!” Mrs Darcy laughed harder, but her eyes pleaded with him to continue.
“The feathers ignited like a bowl of brandy!” They both laughed heartily, and Mrs Darcy had tears in her eyes. He handed her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes, still smiling. It was pleasing to see her fine eyes bright rather than red-rimmed.
“How were the feathers extinguished?”
“Before I could tear the headdress from her, the same ladies whose appearance she had no opinion of immediately dumped their tea upon her head. And then a footman ran over with a pitcher and ewer to douse her completely.” They shared another cheerful laugh.
“I daresay your friend’s sister will never insult other young ladies again, not when they saved her hair.”
“I doubt she learnt a memorable lesson. You have been to enough parties in town, I understand, to know that London women can be all gauze, ribbons, feathers, and diamonds, with little substance.”
“Jane’s mother never took me to one of Wilson’s balls, but I seeyour point. I prefer the theatre and shopping with the Gardiners to evening parties like that.”
Darcy nearly asked when the Gardiners were to return, but he realised she would be distressed since she would not live long enough to see them again. “What manner of business is your uncle in?”
“He is a linen merchant. He is in Canada, with his wife and children, to secure a business venture with fur traders. If I give you a good name, I am sure he will give your tailor a reasonable rate on fur trim for your greatcoat collar.” He bowed graciously. “Lydia hopes for a fur muff because she thinks it makes her look wealthy and slender, and also a silk cape lined with fur for her winter in town. She expects such things will help her secure a husband who can afford her. The height of desire for any sixteen-year-old girl!”
He returned her smile, but Mrs Darcy’s laughing expression fell, and she covered her mouth with her hand, likely remembering another sixteen-year-old who would not have the chance for flirting and fashion.
“You need not feel guilty,” he said in a low voice.
“But I do, very much, Mr Darcy. What would your dear sister say to hear me laugh about such things?”
“You need not worry on that account. Georgiana would want us to smile and laugh together.” Mrs Darcy shook her head, but her expression told him she wished to be convinced. “My sister never knew how soon she would reunite with you in heaven, but I have no doubt that she would want you to find any joy you could in the time left to you.”
