“You are nothing but an old gossip, are you?” I said to him. Indeed, the elder Bennets did not seem to be speaking to each other. The Bennet girl, Miss Elizabeth, was one of those women who is beautiful in a way that makes it hard to breathe. Not a sortof common beauty either, but an aristocratic, alabaster, head-turning sort of beauty.
“Those are the Lucases,” he said. “Poor as churchmice, but he’s a knight and has ceased to bring any income, maybe out of pride, who knows? The eldest girl is Miss Charlotte, and she’s rather pretty, I think.”
I huffed.
“Well, I am giving you the chance to ask any of them first,” said Bingley. “You decide which one you wish to dance with. You have to own, the girls in this town are exceptionally lovely.”
“I do not have to own that,” I said. They were. “Also, I am not going to dance at all.”
“We are at a ball, Darcy,” he said. “That’s frightfully ill-bred of you. Gentleman are scarce.”
“You dance, then,” I said.
“Well, I shall,” said Bingley, and he did.
He went after that Bennet girl, of course, the one who was too pretty for words, and he danced with her twice in a row before he came back and found me and niggled at me for not dancing.
“Look,” he said, “Miss Bennet is the prettiest girl in the room, but I can’t dance with her again, as I’ve already had my two in a row. You can ask her to dance now.”
“No,” I said. “Miss Bennet is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me. Good enough for you, Bingley, but I have higher standards than you.”
At this, Bingley snickered, but Mr. James Bennet, the heir of the Bennet clan, looked up at me.
Oh, God, he’d just heard me insult his sister.
I thought about how I would react if I had heard someone say something similar about my sister. It wasn’t quite the same, because my sister was very young and very impressionable but it was really a sort of cruel thing to say, and I didn’t even mean it,and I was only saying it because I was committed to this stupid and rather childish row with Bingley.
I felt sort of awful, so that was why I went over to speak to James Bennet.
“You heard me just then,” I said to him.
He looked at me and then looked over at Bingley and then looked at his sister. “We haven’t been introduced.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes, that’s frightful of me, is it not? I am ever so out of sorts. I shall go and get Bingley, shall I, and then—”
“You’re Darcy, though,” said James Bennet. “Bingley does go on about you.” He looked me up and down. “I suppose I see why.” He sighed heavily.
“Bingley goes on about me?” I said. “Truly?”
“Oh, you know how he is,” said Mr. Bennet.
“I suppose,” I said. “As it happens, I did not come over here to discuss Mr. Bingley. I came over to apologize about what I said about your sister.”
Mr. Bennet’s face broke into a smile. “Well, it wouldn’t be me you’d need to apologize to, I suppose, it would be her.”
“Why? Did she hear me?”
“I haven’t any notion, but I think she might have. I think your voice carries a bit. It’s rather deep, is it not? Yes, no wonder Bingley does go on. He said he would bring all of these gentlemen, and it’s only you, and you are so very…” He looked me up and down again. “Tall.”
This conversation was strange. “Look, I didn’t really mean it, and if you wish me to go and apologize to your sister, I shall, but I suppose I haven’t been introduced to her either, really, so I would beg of you to do that, except I don’t know if you rightly can since we haven’t been introduced—never mind this. The point is, I only said it because I am in a bit of a row with Bingley.”
“A row,” he repeated. “Are you?” He looked past me at Bingley, his expression changing. “Do the two of you get in rows quite often?”
“Not often,” I said. I thought about it. “Perhaps. He… agitates me to a degree. He goes on about things, and when he talks, he seems to have the capacity to make nearly anything seem pleasurable, and then I find he seems to have exaggerated it all, but he can then convince me of nearly anything. Anyway, I do not wish to have come, so I feel I must stand firm that absolutely everything is horrible, even this ball and your sister. But truthfully, they are not, it is only Bingley who is horrible, and—” I broke off because I sounded like an idiot. I bowed my head. “Oh, you know, I don’t even know what I am saying.”
A smile played on Mr. Bennet’s lips, but he was looking at Bingley. “I think I do. Mr. Bingley is, erm, agitating.”
“Oh, you think so?”
