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“If he does not, I will eat any bonnet you choose for me to consume,” Mary added.
“It was so much more fun when I was the only one who used to tease,” Elizabeth huffed. “Do not forget it was not very long ago that I believed that I hated the man.”
“Are love and hate not different sides of the same coin?” Mary suggested.
“Lizzy, could it be that you had such a strong reaction to Mr Darcy’s slight because you felt an instant attraction to him?” Jane surmised. “Others have slighted you before and you laughed at them. You never reacted the way you did to Mr Darcy’s inadvisable, rude, and incorrect words when Mamma spoke of your lack of beauty, even though I have always told her she was wrong. Why do you think it was so different? Do not forget, you painted him as the blackest hearted of men and ignored the things Cousin Collins pointed out that proved Mr Wickham was manipulating you.”
“You may have the right of it, Jane,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “When I first saw him, I thought he looked as well as Adonis, but then his behaviour was as ugly as Thersites.[7] Perhaps my disappointed hopes drove me to look for anything negative about him.”
“William opined that you suspended your faculty for logic because you so much wanted to believe the worst of Mr Darcy,” Mary reminded her next older sister. “Lizzy, that was then, but you have not said if you enjoy his attentions now.”
“I should have known you would not allow me to obfuscate.” Elizabeth took a moment to order her thoughts. “I suppose I prefer Mr Darcy’s admiration to when I believed he disdained me. Neither of you need to say it, I know he never did, but I believed he scorned me at the time.”
“As yet, not a direct reply,” Jane pointed out.
“Ugh, nothing is succeeding to redirect either of you. You are like dogs with a bone. If you must know, yes, I am pleased that Mr Darcy admires me and is not afraid to let others see that he does. I do not miss the arrogant, taciturn man he was when I first came to know him. Before they departed for London, Anne and the Colonel told me that what we are seeing is the Mr Darcy they know. The one he was before he became inured to all the huntresses pursuing him.”
“Lord Hilldale has also been hunted like a prize stag,” Jane mused. “Add to that, his mother has been pressuring him to find a wife.”
“Is that not the aim of every mother? To see their children well disposed of in marriage?” Mary enquired. “We can hope that the Countess of Matlock is more subtle than Mamma used to be before she calmed and her fears were put to rest.”
Jane remembered something. “Lizzy, did Mr Darcy tell you that Anne and the colonel are engaged?”
“He did mention that,” Elizabeth replied. “He reported that as happy as his aunt and uncle are about that, Colonel Fitzwilliam resigning from the army was the best of news.”
“I cannot imagine their worry every time he went into battle,” Jane sighed.
“Anne must be pleased that she will not have to share Colonel Fitzwilliam with the army,” Mary opined.
“What of you, Mary?” Elizabeth queried. “How goes your courtship?”
“Very well,” Mary responded dreamily. “William is so kind and considerate. He is also a very good person and so well educated. I think I may be falling in love with him. If he were to ask me to marry him, I would accept him.”
Jane and Elizabeth considered the men who were unofficially courting them. They both admitted to themselves, without the other knowing, that they had begun to develop tender feelings for the respective man who was showing interest in them. With these pleasant thoughts, each sister fell asleep in Jane’s bed, neither returning to her own bedchamber.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On Monday morning when Bingley saw the three cousins and Mrs Annesley preparing to depart for Longbourn, he considered requesting that he accompany them, but he decided against it. It would be too hard to see his former angel being courted by another man, even if it was not official yet.
As he watched the Darcy travelling coach rumble down the drive, Bingley was fully aware that he had no one but himself to blame for losing Miss Bennet’s esteem. If he were completely honest with himself, he was not ready to marry. Miss Bennet’s assessment had been accurate. He needed to mature and become his own man before he could consider taking a wife. Also, he needed to stop only looking at women who fit a physical type. As Miss Bennet intimated, being attracted to someone’s looks tells one nothing about their character.
Bingley supposed that part of his disappointment was rooted in the fact that Miss Bennet was the first of his angels not to return his feelings. At that moment, Bingley wondered if he ever had anything aside from an infatuation for any of his previous angels.
It was then he had an uncomfortable thought. Did he raise expectations only to disappear without fulfilling them? It was at that moment that he realised that he had much growing to do before thinking of attaching himself to any one woman.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The cousins and Mrs Annesley arrived at Longbourn just after ten. It was before acceptable calling hours in the country, but they had been invited to arrive at that hour.
After Mr Hill and one of the new footmen took the callers’ outerwear, the butler directed them to the drawing room. All seven Bennets were within, along with Mr Collins. The latter was sitting next to Miss Mary. Greetings, bows, and curtsies were exchanged.
Bennet was about to leave to go to a tenant’s farm to evaluate how the work to fix all the problems he had neglected for far too long was progressing. Before he could, Mrs Annesley approached him.
“Mr Bennet, if you are still looking for a companion, my younger sister, Mrs Marion Crawford, worked for the Duke and Duchess of Bedford for the last five years. Lady Marie, their daughter, just married a few days past. She would be more than happy to meet you to interview for the role of companion you mentioned,” Mrs Annesley related.
“Thank you for that, Mrs Annesley. Please write to her and tell her that my wife and I would be very pleased to meet with her,” Bennet responded gratefully.
Yes, it was less than a sennight, but William Collins was impressed so far that Bennet was being very diligent in performing his duties as the master of the estate and the head of his family. By Saturday, applications to fill the three largest of the eight available tenant farms had been received. Word had travelled beyond Meryton that things had changed at Longbourn.
