So he made himself behave better.
He spoke to Sir William with more courtesy than his mood invited. He listened to Mr. Goulding’s account of the neighborhood roads. He asked after the harvest whenintroduced to a gentleman whose name he immediately feared he might forget. He bowed to Mrs. Bennet without retreating when she spoke of Netherfield, though he could not help noticing she regarded him now with less interest than before. He even managed a civil answer to one of the Lucas boys, who asked whether Derbyshire had better hunting than Hertfordshire and seemed prepared to argue no matter what answer he received.
It was not enjoyment.
It was penance.
By the time the assembly ended, Darcy was exhausted in a way no day of militia reports had ever made him. Bingley remained bright and delighted all the way back to Netherfield, though he was mercifully too occupied praising Miss Bennet to renew his scolding. Miss Bingley declared the evening provincial, the company vulgar, the room overheated, and the music barely tolerable. Darcy gave such answers as politeness required and nothing more.
When at last he reached his chamber, Bates had already laid out his night things and retired. Darcy dismissed the candle, undressed with mechanical efficiency, and lay down in the unfamiliar bed, staring into the darkness.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet had looked down.
He saw it again and again: the color rising in her face, the quick fall of her lashes, the empty chair afterward.
Tolerable.
Lack of dowry.
He pressed a hand over his eyes.
He had meant to guard himself and had struck someone else instead.
Sleep came late and uneasily. When it came, it brought not peace but a confusion of candlelight, music, and mud. He dreamed of a woman with fine eyes standing just beyond his reach, refusing him her hand each time the dance began.
Chapter 14
By eleven o’clock the following morning, Elizabeth had heard Mr. Bingley’s name mentioned seventeen times.
She had counted.
It was not that she disliked hearing of him, precisely. On the contrary, from the little she had observed the previous evening, Mr. Bingley seemed everything amiable, cheerful, and eager to be pleased. He had danced with Jane twice, looked at Jane far more often than twice, and smiled with such open delight whenever she spoke that even Elizabeth’s present misery could not wholly prevent her from approving him.
But there was only so much rapture over five thousand a year that any person could bear before breakfast had properly settled.
Mrs. Bennet sat in her favorite chair in the drawing room, declaring with renewed vigor that Mr. Bennet was the most provoking man in the world for not attending the assembly, though he had paid the first call and therefore might have presented his daughters with every advantage. Jane sat with her work, her expression serene and her color rising whenever Lydia said anything too pointed about Mr. Bingley’s admiration. Mary attempted to read, though she looked over the top of her book often enough to prove she was listening, while Kitty andLydia whispered together upon the sofa, dissolving into giggles whenever officers were mentioned.
Elizabeth sat near the window with a piece of sewing in her lap and had not made three proper stitches since the Lucases arrived.
Their visit was expected. It was an old custom between the families that the morning after an assembly should be spent comparing impressions, exaggerating small incidents into intelligence, and determining who had danced with whom and whether it meant anything. Lady Lucas had come with Charlotte, Maria, and two of the younger boys, though Sir William had remained at home, perhaps from having exhausted himself in civility the night before.
The room was full of talk, yet very little of it reached Elizabeth clearly.
Her thoughts had returned, again and again, to Colonel Darcy.
Not Colonel Darcy,she corrected herself bitterly.Mr. Darcy, now.
No uniform. No title of command to lend gravity to silence. Merely Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, handsome, reserved, and apparently capable of judging a woman’s worth by whether she possessed enough dowry to tempt him into civility.
She could hardly reconcile the man of the previous night with the one she had carried in memory for two years.
That first Mr. Darcy had stood in a damp cellar with a Roman coin in his hand and wonder in his face. He had helped Uncle Philips without reward, introduced him to Lord Matlock, and by doing so altered the lives of the Gardiner children, her uncle, and Elizabeth herself. Susie had spoken of him so often and so warmly that his goodness had become almost a settled fact in Elizabeth’s mind. Whenever letters came from Derbyshire, Elizabeth found some reason to be nearby. She had asked afterSusie’s aunt, after Lambton, after Pemberley, after whether the estate continued to improve. She had listened, though she pretended not to listen too eagerly, for any hint of Mr. Darcy’s doings.
He had repaired cottages. Paid old debts. Treated his tenants with justice. Cared for his sister with devoted affection. Served his county when another man in his place would have paid to remain comfortable at home. Everything she learned of him had added another quiet line to the portrait she carried inside herself until, without meaning to, she had made him the measure of every other gentleman.
How foolish.
Elizabeth’s needle paused above the linen.
