Mr. Collins. A clergyman, a cousin of the Bennets, a man who had arrived at Longbourn the previous week and who had the social awareness of a cupboard. He stood at Elizabeth's elbow with his hand extended and his smile fixed and his timing catastrophic.
The moment broke. Elizabeth stepped back, the pig in her arms, the surprise on her face folding back into composure.
"Of course, Mr. Collins." She looked at Darcy. She looked at the pig in her arms. She held Truffles out to him. "Would you mind?"
He took the pig. Of course he took the pig. "If you will excuse me, Mr. Darcy." And she was gone, led to the dance floor by Collins, who was already explaining the steps to her as though she had never danced before.
She looked back at Darcy once, over her shoulder, and the look in her eyes was something he would remember for a very long time.
He stood in the middle of the ballroom with a pig in his arms and a muddy mark on his waistcoat and the ghost of her fingers against his and watched her dance with Mr. Collins, who moved through the figures with the graceless determination of a man who had memorised the steps but not their purpose.
Elizabeth endured it. She smiled. She did not look at Darcy again during that dance. She was too busy keeping her toes clear of Collins's feet and her composure clear of her face. But whenthe dance ended and Collins released her with a bow so deep it was practically geological, she glanced across the room and found Darcy's eyes immediately, as if she had known exactly where he was standing.
She crossed the room to him. "I believe you have my pig."
"She has been very well behaved." Truffles was asleep in his arms, her snout tucked against his waistcoat, her body warm and heavy with the boneless weight of a creature who felt entirely safe. He transferred her carefully. Their hands touched during the exchange.
"Thank you," Elizabeth said. She settled Truffles against her shoulder. The pig did not wake. She carried her to the side of the room, where a Netherfield footman was persuaded — with the quiet authority of a woman who had been managing a pig in public for months — to hold Truffles on a folded tablecloth near the servants' door. The pig slept through all of it.
He did not ask anyone else to dance. He did not want to. The evening continued around him, bright and loud and full of music, and he stood on its edge and watched her. He watched her dance with an officer. He watched her talk with Charlotte. He watched her stand with Jane while Bingley fetched them both lemonade.
Twice more, she caught him watching. Twice more, she did not look away.
At supper, they were seated at opposite ends of the table. Mrs. Bennet, between them, held forth on Jane's beauty, Bingley's fortune, and her absolute conviction that a match was imminent. She said this loudly enough for the entire table to hear, including Darcy, including Jane (who went scarlet), and including Bingley (who beamed).
Darcy flinched. Not for himself, but for Elizabeth, who he could see from his end of the table pressing her eyes shut for onelong moment before opening them and continuing to eat with a composure that cost her everything.
After supper, the dancing resumed. Elizabeth danced with a local gentleman. Darcy stood by the wall. The distance between them felt simultaneously vast and unbearable.
Bingley found him near midnight. "The best night of my life, Darcy. The absolute best night."
"I am glad."
"Did you enjoy yourself? You danced. I saw you dance with Miss Elizabeth."
"I did."
"And?" Bingley's face was alight with the bottomless hopefulness of a man who wanted the whole world to be as happy as he was.
Darcy looked across the room. Elizabeth was putting on her gloves, preparing to leave. The ball was ending. She was going home, taking her sisters and her laughter and her sharp eyes and her impossible pig, and Netherfield would be quiet again, and the quiet would feel like a punishment.
"And nothing," he said. "It was a dance."
But his hand, at his side, still held the memory of her fingers. And the muddy mark on his waistcoat, that small hoof print like a seal, stayed there for the rest of the night. He did not brush it away.
CHAPTER 11
Elizabeth
Mr. Collins proposed on a Wednesday morning, four days after the ball, between the rose bed and the kitchen garden, with the formal gravity of a man delivering a sermon and the perception of one of the pews.
He had spent the days since the ball following Elizabeth through the house with renewed purpose. He sat beside her at meals. He complimented her reading with the specific observation that "reading is an admirable occupation for a clergyman's wife," which was less a compliment than a list of duties. Truffles did not like him. She gave him a wide berth and grunted when he came too close, which Elizabeth interpreted as the pig's version of tolerating a bad smell.
Elizabeth was checking the state of the autumn cabbages. She was kneeling in the dirt with her gloves on and Truffles rooting nearby when Collins materialised on the garden path, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression arranged into what he apparently believed was tenderness.
"My dear Miss Elizabeth," he began, positioning himself in front of her with the care of an actor hitting his mark, "almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life."
Elizabeth stood up. She brushed dirt from her knees. She opened her mouth to interrupt. Collins held up a hand.
