If the circumstances had been different, Elizabeth and I might have gone on walks together, to get better acquainted and to discuss our life together. But she was too hurt to walk. I could have taken her on carriage rides, but that would have necessitated a chaperone, and that would have meant we werenot alone, and besides, I did not know who I should ask besides Louisa Hurst, and so we did not go on carriage rides.
I had expected some kind of reaction from Caroline Bingley when she discovered I was marrying Elizabeth, but she steadfastly ignored me, her expression blank, her features drawn into a haughty mask. She spoke to essentially no one, and she engaged in very little, though Mr. Hurst was able to pull her into a few games of cards here and there.
I supposed there was no reason to speak of it, truly. It would have been mortifying for her, and she saw the way of things now, saw the truth.
Indeed, her behavior made it easier for me. If she had been open and easy, showing her pain to me, I should have felt guiltier. But the more she withdrew and made faces that indicated her disdain, the easier it was for me not to feel badly for her at all.
The ball at Netherfield was at the end of the week.
Elizabeth attended, but spent her time seated on the outskirts.
I attended her, though she told me often to go and dance on my own.
But I had no desire to go and dance with strangers, I had to say, so I stayed close to her.
We had awkward conversations in which there were long silences and she said things to me like, “Now, it is your turn to talk, Mr. Darcy. You could comment on the size of the room or the number of couples or the various kinds of punch or whether this white soup that Mr. Bingley speaks of is any good if you have tried it.”
“I know how to have conversation, Miss Bennet,” I said. “I do not need to speak by rule.”
“One wonders if that is true, sir,” she said. “One wonders indeed.”
“We have had much conversation between us, in fact,” I said. “We spoke at length about a number of subjects when we were trapped together.”
“Yes, we did,” she said, “but I would not call our conversations pleasant on the whole. Nor would I say that your skill at conversing was anything to be complimented.”
I grimaced.
“You do not like it when I speak to you this way, I suppose, but you are the one who spent quite a lot of effort trying to convince me to marry you, so I suppose you will need to get used to it.”
“I suppose,” I said. “Will it be torture for you, Miss Bennet? Your father seems to think it will.”
“My father?” she said. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think your father likes me for you,” I said. “I don’t think he wishes me to marry you.”
“Well, that is foolish,” she muttered. “If we were not engaged, I doubt anyone should even be at this ball. I had heard whispers of such things. Why, we had a dinner at my aunt’s house in town. Their name is Philips, I know not if you have knowledge of them.”
The attorney uncle! I made a face. “I do.”
She snickered. “Oh, Mr. Darcy, how you have lowered yourself, aligning with such a one as me. I must have very fine eyes, I suppose.”
I turned to her. “You do.”
She bit down on her bottom lip again, and a blush stained her cheeks. She was smiling. “I suppose I should not do that, should not trick you into complimenting me.”
“Oh,” I said. “You like that, then, you like being told you are breathtaking?” My voice had warmth to it now.
Her smile widened, and she laughed, and she was blushing more fiercely. “No, I could not give a bit of a care, of course, sir.”
Well, this seemed a positive portent. “I shall be quite happy to compliment you often, you know. I shan’t need to be tricked into it.”
“Stop it,” she said, but she didn’t sound as though she meant it. She ducked down her face. “Anyway, at that dinner, it was sparsely attended, and I heard from a man that I met there, one who did not know about the rumors, or at least not the content, being new in town, that he had heard people saying that the Bennet family was not one to be associated with.”
“Dreadful,” I said.
“Yes, he knew you,” she said. “I meant to ask you about him, because he told me things, and I was not certain how to take them. I suppose it does not matter. I knew what sort of man you were when I agreed to marry you, but I do wonder if there is some way I could prevail upon you, with my fine eyes, to be a bit more charitable towards him.”
“Who is this man?” I said, because I had to admit I did not entirely like the way she was going on about him.
