Page 10 of A Selfish Disdain

A faint amusement crossed his expression, "I assure you, Miss Bennet, the drainage system offers considerably less resistance when corrected."

She understood at once what he had done, matched her pert remark with an equally dry one of his own, and done it so smoothly that she could not decide whether to be irritated or impressed, and settled, after a moment's consideration, on being both at once.

"Perhaps because it does not argue its case first," Elizabeth replied, her eyes bright with amusement. "A ditch, I imagine, has the good sense to remain silent.”

Darcy did not take the bait so much as turn it back on her. "The lower ground retains water after heavy rain," he said, gesturing toward the labourers at work in the field beyond, "and has done, unattended, for longer than it ought, certainly long enough that the soil has begun to suffer for it, and the foundations of the outbuildings may soon suffer with it, if the matter is left much further." He paused for a moment, but was not quite finished. "I do not think it remains entirely silent, do you, Miss Bennet? It has been telling anyone who cared to look for the better part of a year, by the state of it. It wanted only someone willing to listen."

Elizabeth's smile faded, but it was not from displeasure, but from surprise. She had expected a defense or even a lecture; but what she had not expected was such a plain and practical explanation.

She turned her head to look him in the face, in a tone entirely serious. "You know rather a great deal about ditches, Mr. Darcy."

There was the faintest suggestion of amusement in his expression. "I should hope so. They are rather important ditches. My own estate is prone to flooding in the lower fields, and I have spent no small part of the last several years learning rather more about the management of water than I ever expected to want to know."

Elizabeth looked at him with renewed curiosity, uncertain whether he meant to be droll or was speaking unexpectedly in earnest. "I confess, Mr. Darcy, I had not imagined that drainage would rank among your areas of expertise."

He shook his head slightly. "Few people do, until they are obliged to it," he said. "I have found it is a great deal easier to address such matters before they become disasters than after." Something in the small movement at the corner of his mouth suggested he was not entirely displeased by her admission. "Though, nor had I imagined it would become a subject of such particular scrutiny this morning, Miss Bennet.”

She raised her brows. "I assure you, Mr. Darcy, I am not so determined to remain mistaken merely for the satisfaction of being right. In this particular case, I believe you have rather the advantage of me." She paused, and there was less teasing in her voice than there had been a moment before. "I have heard enough, from those who have farmed this ground a great deal longer than either of us has lived, to know the difficulty is not so trifling as it might appear to a stranger passing through. Several families nearer the low fields have suffered a good deal for its having been neglected so long. You have found it out rather quickly, for a man so newly come. That, I think, is to be praised, whatever else may be said of your ditches."

This time, Darcy looked at her openly, and she sensed the most subtle softness near his eyes, before he started his speech. "You give me more credit than the case deserves, Miss Bennet. I have done nothing yet but notice a problem by walking the ground and asking a few sensible questions of the people living on it. The credit, as such, belongs rather to your neighbours, who have been patient a great deal longer than the matter warranted, and said nothing of it to anyone in a position to remedy it until I happened to ask."

He paused, and then started again. "Though I will own I had not expected to hear the ground I walk of a morning discussed with such particular knowledge by a lady. I had thought you concerned chiefly with poetry and satire.”

"You must not underestimate me too far the other way, Mr. Darcy, or I shall be obliged to disappoint you with an opinion on crop rotation before the week is out." Her eyes were bright again, the teasing fully restored. "I assure you I collect information the way other ladies collect ribbons, indiscriminately, and with very little notion of what I mean to do with it until the occasion presents itself. You are simply fortunate enough to have provided the occasion."

She paused, tilting her head as though considering him fresh. "Though I confess I am almost sorry to have disillusioned you on the subject of poetry and satire. I had rather enjoyed being thought a frivolous creature.”

His eyes narrowed somewhat, though perhaps not in displeasure, and he spoke plainly, "You have never for a moment been a frivolous creature, Miss Bennet, and I think you know it a great deal better than you pretend to." Then, Darcy inclined his head toward the field. "I ought to return to the men before they conclude I have abandoned the work entirely for the pleasure of speaking to a lady. Good morning, Miss Bennet." He offered another short nod.

"Good morning, Mr. Darcy." She watched him go, and found she was in no particular hurry to resume her own walk, standing a moment longer, as he returned to the laborers.

Then, finding no ready conclusion in the standing, she turned to walk back down the path by which she had come, though she made rather less progress along it than she might have, so occupied was she in retracing, instead, the whole curious exchange from its beginning: her own teasing over ditches, his sudden and unexpected earnestness, her praise of his quick understanding, and, last of all, that one unguarded admission, the pleasure of speaking to a lady.

What was she to think of that?

Elizabeth did not know, and found, walking on with the question still unanswered, that she rather minded not knowing.

CHAPTER 6

True to their word, a week later, Jane and Mr. Bingley returned from their wedding tour. With the arrival of the newly married couple, the house resumed its accustomed cheerfulness. Jane glowed with the happiness of newly married life, while Bingley seemed determined to convince everyone within sight that no man had ever known the true meaning of contentment.

Elizabeth rejoiced in seeing them so perfectly delighted. Though, her satisfaction was not confined to witnessing their felicity alone; she was equally pleased to stay at Netherfield long enough to help Jane settle into the unfamiliar responsibilities of mistress of the estate. She knew Jane possessed every quality necessary to excel, and Elizabeth also knew that Jane's kindness and good sense did not always prevent uncertainty in the beginning.

"You will manage it beautifully within a month," Elizabeth assured her sister, the morning following her return, smiling at Jane’s anxious expression. "And within two, you will wonder that you were ever uneasy about it at all. But I am very glad to remain and see you through the beginning, for I think even the most capable bride deserves to have her sister at her elbow for the first few weeks, if only to be reminded that she is doing everything admirably before she can persuade herself to believe it."

Mr. Darcy, meanwhile, had likewise prolonged his stay, aiming to complete the drainage project that he had started, and aid Bingley through it. Indeed, Darcy had reasoned that Bingley, newly married and inexperienced in the management of an estate the size of Netherfield, needed his counsel upon matters of business.

Darcy told himself, Bingley cannot be left to safely run things in the first weeks of his marriage; and it would be no great sacrifice, he reasoned thoughtfully, to remain another fortnight, or perhaps three, in assistance to fixing the drainage problem, as the neighborhood would benefit for it, and the neighbors themselves, are less tedious than I expected.

However, Darcy did not examine the question of why a neighbourhood he had privately judged, upon his arrival, to be sadly wanting in society should have improved so markedly in his estimation within the space of a month; nor did he permit himself to observe how frequently his counsel to Bingley concerning drainage, tenant leases, and the proper rotation of crops seemed to conclude, by whatever route, in the drawing-room where Elizabeth generally sat with her needlework and a book she was rather more often reading than sewing.

One day, a week after his return, Bingley pointed out an interesting habit he had observed in his friend. "You are very often in the drawing-room of an afternoon, Darcy. I had thought you a creature of the library."

Darcy was quick to refute his friend. "I find the light better in the drawing-room for reading, and the wall hangings are still being fussed over in the library; it is altogether disruptive."

"Is it?" Bingley asked, though it was more of a statement than a question, and he said nothing further. And yet, the look he gave his friend suggested he found the explanation considerably less persuasive than Darcy appeared to find it himself.

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