During the course of their shooting, Mr. Bennet said, “My daughter declares you declared yourself amiable antagonists.”
“We certainly declared no truce,” Darcy replied as he pushed the ball down the long gullet of his hunting rifle. “That would not entertain. And she has too ill an opinion of my opinions.”
“What are yourrealopinions? Can women never be so clever as men?”
“My rejoinder shall please neither Miss Bennet, nor, it is my sad suspicion, you. Your daughter holds that it is a matter of circumstance. Women experience different modes of education than men, so they develop their faculties in a different manner. This determines the differences in accomplishment between the sexes — I confess, the ring of plausibility is present.”
“You do not believe it?”
“No.” Darcy shook his head.
Bingley called out, “Take a break from your argument, they are about to flush the covey!”
Both gentlemen lifted their fowling pieces to their shoulders. They waited alertly, and with a squawking flap the birds burst over the treetops, seeking a safe height.
With a near simultaneous crack three guns went off and two birds fell squawking from the sky.
“The deuce!” Bingley exclaimed, as Darcy and Mr. Bennet released their dogs to retrieve the catch.
Mr. Bennet said in an even voice to his son-in-law, “You forgot, again, to account for the wind. Too impatient.”
“I understand Darcy.” Bingley replied, “The man does everything deuced well. But at your age and with all the time you spend with books, you ought not be able to beat my catch so easily.”
“My eyesight is kept in good practice by the books.” Mr. Bennet looked at Darcy. “Why are you yet convinced men are superior in the mind, despite the example of my daughter?”
“Different,notsuperior.”
“Ah, men are only superior in the ways which are important, while women have superiority in those which are not important.”
“Miss Bennet became almost vicious after I suggested men have greater cleverness.”
“Any aspersion on her sharpness and cleverness will land you more grief than one upon her age and fading looks — if your goal is to court her, you have done a fine job so far.”
Darcy grimaced. Was Mr. Bennet mocking him for how he’d insulted Elizabeth, mocking the idea that he might admire her, or simply mocking him — or maybe Mr. Bennet, in his sardonic manner, told the truth, and he thought that the verbal sparring he had with Elizabeth excited and exhilarated her as much as it did him.
“Your opinion considering Lizzy’s cleverness.” Mr. Bennet tapped the butt of his rifle against the ground. “Give it. What says your frank and original mind?”
“You wish to know because I am courting your daughter?”
Bingley laughed. “A joke, Darcy. I was joking. The two of you would make a horrid couple. Mr. Bennet sees that. So much argument — it would exhaust a spirit.”
The dogs returned carrying the dead birds in their muzzles, and Darcy took his bloodied bird from his hunting hound. He opened the string of the bag, deposited the dead pheasant, and tied it up once more. Darcy wiped his gloves off on the cloth provided for that purpose by the gamekeeper and calmly reloaded his gun.
“I question,” Mr. Bennet said, “every gentleman who shows such understanding of my daughter’s character.”
“A claim about the cleverness of females deals in generalities Your daughter is a particular… I may attackfemalecleverness without saying anything againsther.”
“Slippery, slippery. But clever — Elizabeth will not accept such slipperiness.”
“The idea that men and women have the same potential endowments in mental pursuitsfeelsentirely wrong to me. I confess I have noproofbeyond the general experience everyone has of the world, which different persons interpret in different manners. It would be a most peculiar matter if the Lord created man and woman so different in all other respects, woman so well adapted to being man’s helpmeet and support in body and appearance, if she was not also formed to be his helpmeet in her mind.”
“A religious fanatic’s reply, then.”
“Nay.” Darcy shrugged. “I attend church; I believe. But I am no enthusiast.”
“I do not believe.”
“And Miss Bennet? She named her cat after that Scottish atheist.”
