CHAPTER SIX
Netherfield Park was a perfectly acceptable place to stay, but I became increasingly interested in my private sojourns down the road. Mr Bennet satisfied my need for sparse and meaningful conversation in a way Bingley never could. Miss Bennet provided a sharp counterpoint to all the panting, marriage-hungry ladies of my acquaintance, and I enjoyed the unique sensation of untroubling female company.
Some ladies could be amazingly restful creatures, I reflected with surprise, and yet I was not so entirely tamed that I wished to be lulled into a complacent stupor for the remainder of my life. I liked a challenge, and Longbourn housed the most challenging creature I had ever met.
I did not refer to Bandit. Though he, too, was achallenge, it was over Miss Elizabeth and her clever provocations I wished to prevail.
While visiting for the second time during my third week at Netherfield Park, the minx and I were again engaged in our private game. Bandit had been put through his paces in the parlour on account of rain. I had then ended his lesson by forcing him to lie down on his rug at Miss Bennet’s feet, and he did so in a state of total agony.
The beast squirmed and occasionally moaned as though pleading for mercy. His eyebrow whiskers twitched as he looked from me to his mistress in hopes of a reprieve.
“Stay,” I commanded in a low rumble, and after thumping his tail at me in apology and submission, he went back to the barely perceptible whines of the tortured. The idiot dog was beginning to amuse me, and I suppose I was suppressing a reluctant smile when my eyes met Miss Elizabeth’s as she sat across from me.
My hostess had let the conversation lapse. We were none of us chatterboxes, and after becoming better acquainted as time passed, we sometimes collectively agreed to allow the comfortable entertainment of our own thoughts.
Miss Bennet sewed for the poor box, and Mr Bennet read a periodical I had brought from Netherfield. Miss Mary also bent over a book, and Miss Elizabeth, who hadbeen looking at a letter in her lap, ceased pretending to be occupied with it and was engaged in studying me as boldly as I had been studying her for the past quarter of an hour.
Her eyes sparkled in response to my wry smile, and with seemingly lazy intent, she directed her all-seeing, razor-sharp gaze slowly downward, fixing it pointedly and somewhat critically on my unprepossessing boots.
Every nerve and fibre of discipline under my command was required to stop me from shifting my legs in mortification, in striving to make the state of my mucking-about boots less obvious. With resolution, I withstood her scrutiny, and when her eyes finally rose to meet mine, I hitched my right brow upward and silently dared her to comment aloud.
This apparently delighted Miss Elizabeth. We were secretly sparring under the very noses of her family! She pursed her lips forcefully to snuff out the chuckle that threatened to undo her. Once she had conquered her amusement, she again met my eyes, glanced at my boots and back to my face, and this time, she pulled her lips downward in a pantomime of sympathy common to nursemaids who look upon some trifling bump on a child’s knee.
I rubbed my chin in vexation—in absolute frustration. I could not conjure up any sort of expression on my face that would answer her mockery as completely as Iwished. I finally replied with the sort of scowl I used on Bandit when I admonished him for being a bad dog and in doing so, forced Miss Elizabeth to stifle a shout of laughter under a cough.
Because I was a merciful man, I offered the lady a reprieve by releasing Bandit from his forced stillness. He bounded towards me, poised to leap into my lap and lick my face, and so I ordered, “Sit!” before we went once again through sit-stay-come commands.
Eventually, I drank tea as I liked it and just as all three of the Miss Bennets had learnt to make it for me, without once evincing the sort of triumph over their accomplishment that I had seen from Miss Bingley. But I only took one cup, knowing that tea at Netherfield awaited my return.
Once back inMiss Bingley’s web, I continued my campaign of obstruction.
“Tea, Mr Darcy?” she asked, with only half her former assurance.
“Yes, I thank you,” I said, and then I waited expectantly, as any frequent guest would, for a perfectly stirred cup.
She floundered. “A lump of sugar, I believe.”
I let a slight frown flicker on my browbefore I cleared it and said, graciously, “Plain, if you would be so kind.”
She sighed in defeat.
At dinner, she studied my plate, my face, and my every mannerism for some clue as to my pleasure or disapproval, but I had played cards for higher stakes and did not show my hand. I shunned the carrots one night, only to relish them the next time they appeared, and so on. In this, my valet assisted me by giving me a preview of the menu so I could think ahead on how to confound my hostess.
Later in the parlour, Miss Bingley sought to regain her footing, speaking in a sing-song, repetitive manner I have always found grating.
“I know, Mr Darcy, you will enjoy hearing Mozart. You have always appreciated Mozart.”
“What piece did you have in mind?”
“Why, theRondo alla Turca,” she said bravely, flipping her music to the page she had in mind to play.
“Do you perhaps know his sixteenth sonata? I hear theTurkish Marcheverywhere I go,” I said pleasantly.
“I say, Darcy, so do I!” remarked Bingley. And it was all I could do to maintain my indifferent expression when the footman began to cough and had to leave the room.
By then, even the obtuse Mrs Hurst seemed to notice that her sister was not herself. After the ladyfumbled ever so slightly through a composition that was equally if not more popular than theRondo,Louisa Hurst gently suggested they play cards instead of listening to music.
I declined the invitation to ruffle Miss Bingley any further that night and thought instead of what I would next do to rile Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
