"It is pleasant."
"High praise."
Something flickered behind his eyes. Surprise, perhaps, at being teased. Or discomfort. It was difficult to tell with a man whose face appeared to have only one setting.
"The country has its charms," he said, after a pause long enough to have walked to the refreshment table and back.
"You will turn our heads with such flattery, sir."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at his glass. Elizabeth had the distinct impression he wanted to say something but could not find the door through which to say it.
Sir William, sensing the conversational emergency, launched into an account of the local assemblies, the quality of the roads, and the excellent situation of Netherfield Park, which he described with such enthusiasm that one might have thought he were selling it. Darcy listened with the polite rigidity of a man who had been trained from birth to endure exactly this sort of thing.
Elizabeth excused herself and returned to Charlotte.
"Well?" Charlotte said.
"He is the most disagreeable man I have ever met. He said four words to me. One of them was 'pleasant.'"
"Perhaps he is shy."
"He is not shy. Shy people fidget. He stands there like a column in a cathedral."
Charlotte smiled. "Some people are better in small groups."
"Or alone. On a mountain. In another county."
The evening continued. Dinner was served, and Elizabeth was seated far enough from Darcy to avoid further conversation but close enough to observe him. He ate without enthusiasm.He answered questions addressed to him with a brevity that bordered on rudeness. He did not laugh at any of Mr. Long's jokes, which, to be fair, were not very good, but which deserved at least the courtesy of a smile.
Bingley laughed enough for both of them. He laughed at everything, even the jokes that were not jokes, and his laughter was so genuine and warm that Elizabeth liked him despite her best efforts to be critical of any friend of Mr. Darcy's.
After dinner, the party returned to the drawing room. Charlotte played the pianoforte with the competent, unhurried touch of a woman who practised because she enjoyed it and not because she wished to be admired for it. Mary would have played had she been present, and Elizabeth was privately grateful for her sister's cold. Mary played with great feeling and no accuracy, and the combination was difficult to survive at close quarters.
Lydia was talking too loudly about officers. The militia was expected in Meryton any day now, and Lydia had already begun collecting intelligence about the regiment with a thoroughness that, if applied to any other subject, would have made her a credit to her sex. Mrs. Bennet was telling Lady Lucas, at a volume that carried across the room and possibly into the garden, that Mr. Bingley had sat beside Jane for the whole of dinner and was clearly in love.
Elizabeth glanced at Darcy. He was standing where she had left him, near the mantelpiece, with the air of a man who had calculated exactly how long he must remain before he could leave without giving offence. He had not moved. He had not spoken. He had stood in that spot for the better part of an hour, and Elizabeth wondered, with some annoyance, what it was about a room full of perfectly pleasant people that he considered so intolerable.
Elizabeth was standing near the window, talking with Charlotte about a book they had both read, when she heard it.
A distant squealing. Faint at first, then growing louder. Then the unmistakable sound of small hooves on gravel.
No.
She had latched the door. She had latched the window. She had left a turnip.
The squealing grew louder. It was coming from the front of the house. Elizabeth set down her wine glass. Charlotte looked at her.
"Is that — ?"
"No," Elizabeth said. "It cannot be."
A commotion in the hall. A servant's startled exclamation. The sound of hooves on flagstone, moving fast.
The drawing room door was ajar. Through the gap shot a small pink blur, moving at a speed that should not have been possible for an animal with legs that short. Truffles skidded across the polished floor, banked around a side table, narrowly missed Lady Lucas's shoes, threaded between two footmen carrying a tray of glasses, and made straight for the fireplace.
She did not stop at any of the twenty-odd people in the room. She did not pause to investigate the dropped biscuit near Mrs. Long's chair, which under normal circumstances would have been irresistible. She did not so much as glance at Elizabeth.
She went directly to Mr. Darcy, sat down on his left boot, and looked up at him with an expression of total, radiant adoration.
