Gay Pride and Prejudice (8 page)

When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep. Miss Bingley again took up a book; Darcy commenced to his usual writing; and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother’s conversation with Jane.

Mr. Darcy’s attention appeared nearly as much engaged in watching Miss Bingley’s progress through her book, as in writing his letter. Several times he made a low-voiced inquiry, to which she replied in a matching tone, and read on. At length, frowning furiously, he gave up attempting to write and took up a book himself. But he did not become invested in the content, and at last threw aside his book, casting his eyes round the room in quest for some distraction.

“I say, Mr. Darcy,” said Caroline, setting her own volume aside, “you make it nearly impossible to concentrate. What about your letter? Surely dear Georgiana will be disappointed if you do not finish it?”

The look he leveled at her was noticeably cross, and she recognized immediately that he was in no mood for their usual veiled banter, probably because he had not received nearly as many missives in response lately as he had once been known to do. Hearing her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned towards him and said: “By the bye, Charles, are you serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party. I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure.” She found balls, frankly, exhausting, with all of the compulsory dancing with men who bored her combined with the necessity of pretending not to gaze overlong at pretty women dressed in their finest gowns.

“If you mean Darcy,” said her brother, “he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it begins—but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send round my cards.”

“I should like balls infinitely better,” replied she, “if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.”

“Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say; but it would not be near so much like a ball.”

Caroline made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up to walk about the room. After a moment, pausing beside Elizabeth, she said: “Miss Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.” Louisa glanced their way suspiciously, but Caroline kept a polite smile fixed to her lips.

Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately, as Caroline had remained pleasant to her throughout the day. Darcy looked up, as much awake to attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself could be. He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which his joining them would interfere.

“Do you understand his meaning?” Elizabeth asked Caroline as they reached the far end of the room.

“Usually only too well,” was her answer. “But not this time. Depend upon it, however, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it.”

Despite the rancor in Darcy’s tone, she was not concerned that he would expose her. She knew that he was as glad as she was to have discovered a trusted confidante. From the day one of his “sister’s” letters had found its way into her stack of correspondence, their friendship had developed a far deeper aspect. Each finally had an intimate friend with whom they could be absolutely honest without fear of recrimination, and even if sometimes one or the other of them took their longstanding game of teasing a bit too far, they would never purposely endanger one another’s reputation. Given what they were, a sense of safety was something each prized dearly, and mistrusted greatly.

Elizabeth and Caroline maintained their strategic silence, but Mrs. Hurst insisted on absolute curiosity, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of Darcy’s two motives.

“I have not the smallest objection to explaining them,” said he, smiling archly. “The ladies either choose this method of passing the evening because they are in each other’s confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because they are conscious that their figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be completely in the way, and if the second, I can admire them much better as I sit by the fire.”

Caroline glared at him.
Secret affairs
—the phrase had caused Louisa to attend even more minutely to their progress about the room.

“Indeed,” said Elizabeth, “I never heard anything so calculated. How shall we punish him for such a speech?”

“Nothing very difficult, if you have but the inclination,” said Caroline. “Tease him—laugh at him. With four sisters, you must know how that is to be done.”

“I wish I could say that I did not, as it would perhaps cast me in a better light, but truly, we are a family that enjoys laughing at one another’s expense. Besides, as second eldest, it is beholden upon me to keep my younger sisters in their place. Jane has such a kind disposition that she is quite unable to knowingly inflict damage.”

“But you are? Able, as it were?”

“Exceedingly. It would appear I have claws sharp enough for the both of us.”

“I must confess, I had noticed.”

“Had you?”

“Indeed; I rather enjoy a woman with a few sharp edges in among the softer ones.” She glanced sideways, and felt Elizabeth start a little as their eyes met. “In any case,” she added, “we may not succeed even if we do set out to vex him. Mr. Darcy may simply refuse to comply.”

“Is Mr. Darcy not to be laughed at?” asked Elizabeth, appearing to recover her composure. “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintances.”

“Miss Bingley,” said Darcy, overhearing this last bit, “has given me more credit than can be. The wisest and the best of men—nay, the wisest and best of their actions—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.”

“Certainly,” replied Elizabeth, “there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.”

“I doubt that is truly possible for anyone; but it has been a priority of mine to avoid those weaknesses which often expose one to ridicule.”

“Such as vanity and pride.”

“I dare say, I cannot be expected to comment upon my own vanity. As for the other, where there is a genuine superiority of mind, pride will always be well-regulated.”

Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.

“Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume,” said Caroline, her light tone belying, she hoped, her serious interest; “and pray what is the result?”

“I am perfectly convinced that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise.”

“I have forwarded no such pretension,” said Darcy. “My temper I dare not vouch for. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”

“
That
is a failing indeed,” said Elizabeth. “Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me.”

“Yet there is, I believe, in every disposition a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”

“Then
your
defect is to hate everybody.”

“And yours,” he replied with a smile, “is to willfully misunderstand them.”

“Do let us have a little music,” said Caroline as they neared the pianoforte, eager to interrupt the conversation to which she had become a mere witness. “Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst?”

Her sister had not the smallest objection, and the instrument was opened; and Caroline, after a few moments’ singing and playing, was only a little sorry to have lost Elizabeth’s nearness. From the pianoforte she could watch the object of her increasing affection all she wanted without Louisa’s notice, and watch, too, Darcy’s manner toward the younger Miss Bennet. From his attitude, it appeared that she may well have a rival of sorts on her hands. If only there were some way to divine which of them Elizabeth might prefer—but then, that was always the case when it came to finding love, was it not, particularly with a member of one’s own sex? Careful maneuvering, unremitting watchfulness, and awareness that all might well—likely would—end in disappointment.

Chapter Twelve

I
N CONSEQUENCE OF AN AGREEMENT
between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane’s week, could not bring herself to receive them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at least not to Elizabeth’s wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley and his sisters pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively resolved—nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley’s carriage immediately, and at length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield that morning should be mentioned, and the request made.

The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was then almost sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her feelings for the younger sister presented a far greater danger than her affection for the eldest. With Louisa’s hawkish gaze close upon her, she wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should escape her, nothing that could alert her sister to the rising tide of her felicity; sensible that her behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing Louisa’s suspicions. Steady to her purpose, she scarcely spoke ten words to Elizabeth through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, she adhered most conscientiously to her book, and would not even look at her.

To Mr. Darcy, news of the Bennet sisters’ intended leave-taking was welcome intelligence. Elizabeth interested him, but Caroline was clearly drawn to her—another affair doomed from the start, as far as he could tell—and was considerably more mocking than usual to him in Elizabeth’s presence. He would be just as glad to see the Bennet sisters leave Netherfield. Only the master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be safe for her—that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right.

On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost all, took place. Caroline’s civility to Elizabeth increased at last very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted, after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most tenderly, she warmly shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of the whole party in the liveliest of spirits, assured that her happiness arose from their imminent homecoming.

The sisters were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation and almost all of its sense by the absence of Jane and Elizabeth.

They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough-bass and human nature; and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of threadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information for them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married.

Chapter Thirteen

"
I
HOPE, MY DEAR,"
said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, “that you have ordered a good dinner today, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party.”

“Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in—and I hope my dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home.”

Elizabeth touched the locket at her throat, a gift from Charlotte these several years past. She had been privately rehearsing how to describe to Charlotte her visit to Netherfield, and the behavior of Mr. Bingley and his friends. Charlotte was the one person to whom she had always told everything, even the things she could not tell Jane. But since their recent disagreement, she was uncertain their friendship could continue on the same intimate footing. At the same time, how could it not? She had loved Charlotte for so long now that doing so had become a comfortable habit.