“I am afraid it might be too late to pay a call on Mr Gardiner,” Mr Bennet said when the gong sounded that it was time to dress for dinner.
“We can stay an additional day if you would like.”
“That would be best, Darcy, if you do not mind,” hesaid, and when he came down for dinner, I thought he looked fairly splendid under Carsten’s management.
Once again, we enjoyed a comfortable dinner, and my sister even spoke once or twice.
“Does Miss Bennet ride, sir?” Georgiana asked in the whisper of a mouse.
“I do not keep riding horses for my daughters, though Jane has the occasional use of our mare. I never even let Lizzy learn.”
“No?” I asked. I knew the reason before he spoke it.
“She would have frightened the hair off my head. That child was born without fear.”
“She does not ride at all?” my sister asked in a much stronger voice. The notion clearly horrified her, for though she was timid in the parlour, she was bold as a man on the back of a horse. Not even her love of music could eclipse Georgiana’s passion for riding.
“She walks everywhere she goes which is just as well. Lizzy has too much energy to be comfortable, and if she were not spent after a long march, she would be miserable in the evenings. Our acquisition of a hound has given her even more reason for exercise.”
“I have heard of Bandit,” Georgiana said, breaking her record for words spoken at the dinner table twice over.
“Darcy can tell you all about him. My strategy is to pretend he does not exist.”
I obliged them by relating the morning when we were confined indoors because of rain, and he caught sight of his tail while performing sit-stay-down. He spun in ever-faster circles and ended in a crash of china when he collided with the tea table.
