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Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as Jane assured her ladyship that had not been the case.
Not content to concede her point, Lady Catherine continued. “Then, who taught you? Who attended to you? Without a governess, you must have been neglected.”
“Compared with some families, I believe we were, but those of us who wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read and draw. Those who chose to be idle were certainly at liberty to act accordingly.”
“Do you play, Miss Bennet?”
“No, your ladyship, I do not.”
“That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity to learn. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.”
“My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.”
Elizabeth tossed a furtive glance at her father to see what he might say. His expression, however, was indecipherable.
“Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?” Lady Catherine implored.
“Yes, your ladyship, all of them.”
“All five out at once! How very odd. The younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters must be very young.”
Elizabeth, feeling all the impertinence of Lady Catherine’s questions and no longer willing to allow her sister to be thus interrogated, interceded on Jane’s behalf.
“Our youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is rather young to be much in company. But really, ma’am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters that they should not have their share of society and amusement because the elder has not yet married. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth as the first, and to be denied such a prospect would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.”
“Upon my word, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?” Lady Catherine demanded.
“With three younger sisters grown up, your ladyship can hardly expect me to own it,” Elizabeth replied.
Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer, causing Elizabeth to suspect herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.
“You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure. Therefore, you need not conceal your age.”
“I am not one and twenty.”
“Not yet one and twenty, you say? Then your elder is a year older, at least, and so pretty. Your impertinence will no doubt explain why you have yet to attract a husband, but what must be her excuse?”
“There now, Catherine,” the elder Mr. Darcy interjected, his voice commanding. “I remind you that the Bennets are my honored guests—a distinction which places them beyond such an inquisition.” He threw Mr. Bennet an apologetic look. “As I have no doubt this evening may be the last that many of us will have the pleasure of my old friend Bennet’s company, I should like to enjoy it to the fullest.”
“Oh,” Lady Catherine declared. Her interest clearly piqued, she directed her haughty glare at Mr. Bennet. “I did not know you planned to return to Hertfordshire so soon.”
Elizabeth could not be certain, but she thought she detected a bit of hope in her ladyship’s voice.
She glanced at her father. She always knew him to be a rather reclusive man, content to spend many long solitary hours in the comfort of his own library at Longbourn. Being surrounded by a house full of strangers must surely be a test of his forbearance, she silently considered. Were it not for all the tales her father had recounted of the library at Pemberley, and how it had been the makings of several generations, she was not certain he would be content to stay in Derbyshire for so long as he had planned. As it was, once Elizabeth and Jane were settled, he planned to return to Hertfordshire where he belonged, as he liked to say.
Now that it was absolutely imperative that he have a share in the conversation, Mr. Bennet said, “I am afraid you will not suffer my departure so soon as that Lady Catherine. Indeed, my old friend Darcy no doubt is referring to my penchant for reading, and as Pemberley is said to boast of one of the finest libraries in all of Derbyshire, he rightfully suspects that is where I shall be spending the better part of my time.”
Her ladyship seemed a bit taken aback by Mr. Bennet’s casual attitude when addressing someone of her stature, or perhaps she was simply disappointed that he would remain, along with his two daughters, at Pemberley. Whichever of the two sentiments she suffered more, Elizabeth could not rightfully say.
Not too long thereafter, it was announced that the ladies and gentlemen would separate—the former for tea in the drawing room and the latter for port in Mr. Darcy’s study.
Elizabeth sensed a bit of reluctance on the part of Charles Bingley, and she was certain by the disappointed look in the young man’s eyes that he would much rather remain by Jane’s side. On the other hand, she espied no evidence of disappointment in Fitzwilliam Darcy. She hoped it had nothing at all to do with her sister and everything in the world to do with his cousin Anne. Despite coming across as rather reticent, Anne, when she would speak, did so in a barely audible tone which always commanded her cousin Darcy to draw ever so close simply to hear what she had to say. He always attended her every word most diligently, but beyond that Elizabeth detected no symptom of affection whatsoever between the two of them.
CHAPTER 7
MANIFOLD ATTRACTIONS
Upon meeting the Bennets, Lady Catherine de Bourgh had been stricken immediately with the notion of having heard of these people before. But how could that be? How could she possibly have heard anything about a lowly country gentleman from Hertfordshire—one with no fortune, no connections and nothing else of consequence so far as she was concerned? Never in her life of wealth, of status, of rank, and of privilege had she made it her business to know anything about people so wholly unconnected to herself as were these people, and she did not intend to do so now, even though she was being forced to associate with them while at Pemberley.
