“You are listening to Mrs Darcy,” Richard said, walking away while shaking his head.
Indeed, a surreptitious look through the door proved my cousin was right. I began that day to feel my defeat in earnest and wondered whether I would ever recover.
The festivities, Georgiana told me over breakfast, would begin the following day, which was Christmas Eve. She hoped I did not mind, but they had wondered if the roads would allow me to return in time for the holiday and had taken the risk of extending an invitation to all her friends for dinner and a musical evening.
“Risk?” I asked with ill-disguised consternation.
“You do not hide the fact that you do not like to entertain.”
“I-I suppose I had not thought there were many people hereabouts to invite.”
“There are ladies and gentleman aplenty, but perhaps they are not?—”
“You are perfectly right in inviting them, Porge. I am not sociable enough to see there is acceptable company in country society, and in consequence, I have neglected your entertainment. I had always thought you were shy of company.”
She looked surprised by my use of her pet name, and even more so by my acquiescence. Then, perhaps emboldened by this response, she said, “If I am shy it is because I lack practice. Did you think on whether Mr and Mrs Rogers might be included?”
I had. I was appalled at the notion of hosting a schoolmaster, respectable and educated as he was. “What does Mrs Annesley say?” I asked weakly.
“Her opinion hinges upon yours.”
“What does Mrs Darcy say?”
“I wonder you do not ask whatIsay,” she said, viciously scraping butter onto her toast.
“Very well. What do you say, Georgiana?”
“I say this is a time for generosity of spirit. They are not starving to be sure, but they might welcome a meal with friends. I see no harm in extending our party to include them,and if anyone is offended, they can decline our hospitality and celebrate with the Prince at Saint James’s Palace for all I care.”
I sat back in my chair and stared at my sister. “I have never heard you speak with such bitterness.”
Her blue eyes, clear and direct, found mine, and a look of great irony flashed across her features. I perceived instantly that she wished to fling the same accusation at me of late, but she only said, “Because I do not speak my feelings, does not mean I do not feel them.”
“If Mr and Mrs Rogers will come, then by all means, invite them,” I said faintly. I refrained from suggesting the chandler and butcher might also like to dine at Pemberley, acknowledging that my careful cultivation of only the most elegant company was now for naught in any case.
My resistance was childish—and even so disgusting as to mortify me. I was still, months later, enacting a tantrum and I knew it. A resentful temperament is one of my faults, to be sure, but self-knowledge did not yet push me to refrain from the indulgence. Had I not been so lately confronted with my disgrace in society, I might have felt more generous. My sister would indeed be pulled down by my wife—she was pulled down already and was apparently glad to be so! My recent encounters in London should have prevented me from mourning this change, but resistance had somehow become the only solid footing I could find. I had never been so confused.
33
Were I in the mood to concede anything, I would have admitted that our dinner party and musical evening were not altogether horrible.
The people gathered were perhaps more polite than those sitting around my aunt’s table. Not a word of salacious gossip was spoken, they were all well-washed, no one absent was mercilessly picked apart, and no one drank overmuch. My family, seated at the table with expressions of their willingness to be pleased, seemed to be in solidarity in ignoring my opinion of their chosen company, taking turns introducing topics of conversation and meticulously avoiding looking my way. Even Georgiana—shy, stammering girl that she was—made three valiant attempts at putting forward an opinion, and all her new-found friends looked upon her with nothing but interest. No one pitied her in the least. No, I could not fault these people at all.
Mr and Mrs Maunders accompanied their young daughter, who sat beaming with joy at being included at an adultparty. Their niece, Miss Stiles, also came with them. Mr Maunders was a landed gentleman from a neighbouring estate, a small property about the size of Mr Bennet’s in Hertfordshire. They greeted the curate and his sister, the schoolmaster and his wife, and the lowly Miss Compton with every evidence of familiarity—and not a trace of disdain.
Mr and Mrs Rogers, being new to the group, contributed little. They sat at the table with pleasant expressions and willingness to listen. To their credit, neither gushed over the privilege of eating my food nor fell into raptures over every single dish set before them. Caroline Bingley had, of course, done all of this, in between mocking her friends who were not present, disparaging persons unknown to her, and smirking away at my young sister’s halting speech.
By the third course, I was able to sit back and eat my dinner in a state of complaisance. I smiled occasionally, spoke when necessary, and observed the proceedings. The company had begun a little shy of me, gauging my reaction to anything they dared to say. But perhaps taking their cues from Richard, Mrs Darcy, and even Mrs Annesley, who were determined to enjoy themselves in spite of my brooding presence, they, too, became more comfortable and engaged one another without reference to me and my reserve.
The only exception to this was Yardley. I could feel the man’s perceptive gaze upon me throughout and wished he would look elsewhere. Perhaps he should look at Miss Stiles, who could not conceal her girlish adoration of our dashing doctor.
When dinner was over, Mrs Darcy seemed ready to rise, but she hesitated, looking at me from her end of the table with a question in her eyes. I understood her, and said, “Sincewe are a family party, I wonder, gentlemen, if we can dispense with port and go instead to the music room?”
I felt the familiar rub of irritation that she could so easily direct me to do as she wished, but in fact, shehadspared me half an hour of intimate conversation with a mismatched, disparate group of men, and so I managed to crook up one side of my mouth in answer to her look.
We descended upon the music room, and I took up a chair off to one side, my face tilted slightly away from the doctor’s prying eyes. If I could do as much at my uncle’s house, I could sit there in my own parlour for two hours in a state of apparent ease, albeit with every expectation of being tortured by the caterwauls of half a dozen musical aspirants.
What transpired, however, was a mixture of experiences that left me quite unsure of what to conclude. Mrs Darcy began the evening with a simple air on the pianoforte. Miss Stiles sang, in tune no less, and though their selection was not sophisticated, its execution was faultless and even charming. Next, the ladies and Richard warbled out a trio of Christmas carols with a great deal more cheer than tunefulness, and after much laughter and jollity, Georgiana went forward to play. I sat forward in anxious concern. She had never played well in company, and even when performing for only Bingley and his sisters, she had sometimes stumbled her way through.
