Sweat glistened in small beads on Sir William Lucas’s bald head, and he absolutely refused to meet the eyes of either Mr. Bingley or Mr. Darcy. His eyes lit for a second on Georgiana, sitting next to Mrs. Bingley on a blue and yellow sofa with a floral pattern. He flinched away from Georgiana’s white, calm face. “Not London! We are not London — or Derbyshire where you have such great houses and scandals. Miss Darcy’s delicate situation — her...well… This is quite… You know. Moral standards must be maintained! Propriety! You cannot blame me. Or the committee—”
“Do not expect me to approve of you.” Darcy sneered. “My sister had a child out of wedlock, and we have not done the fashionable thing and found some way to hide the whole event. So your little, small country assembly will not allow her attend a ball, because you have raised your daughters so poorly that you are convinced imprudence is catching. You have had your say. Be gone.”
Darcy waved his hand dismissively, and turned and walked towards the divan Georgiana sat upon. Sir William sputtered and attempted to reply. Bingley winced at Darcy’s curt dismissal of his neighbor from Bingley’s house, and then clapped his hand on Sir William's shoulder and talked in a quiet voice trying to convince Sir William to go back and change Lady Lucas's mind.
This was a mistake. This whole trip had been a mistake.
Darcy silently gripped Georgiana's hand, once Bingley and Sir William left the room toward the hall. After a few minutes Bingley returned.
“Well, I never! I had no idea—” Bingley hemmed, hawed and stamped his feet. “I have more than half a mind to never attend an assembly myself again. Certainly we shall all stay home. I understand Sir William — a kind man — he should not—” Bingley finished with an angry snort. He stamped his foot again.
Darcy eyed his friend with a little disgust. HetoldBingley — but Bingley insisted. Bingley insisted the neighborhood would not care. Then Bingley and his wife gave Georgiana hope. Now she was fighting tears. Darcy saw her sadness in the strained set of her mouth and the tightness around her eyes.
Bingley held his hands up defensively. “Really no idea. We'll not attend anything to which you are not invited. Not while you are guests here. Tomorrow we'll hire musicians. We shall have a ball here — I won’t invite any of the neighborhood — they’ll learn how angry I am.”
“No.” Georgiana spoke with a teary catch in her tone. “You must go. Do not offend your neighbors on my account. I deserve my treatment, I know it. I don’t expect other people to — you and Jane should go to the assembly. Jane, you looked forward to it very much. You too, Fitzwilliam. You would be bored with just me and Anne here. And it would be terribly rude to Bingley to not go with him.”
“Now, Georgie, you are our guest. Awful hosts if—”
“Don’t…don’t ruin your enjoyments on my behalf.”
Georgiana was near tears, and Darcy sat next to her and put his arm around her.
Georgiana slid closer into Darcy’s embrace. “Please, Fitzwilliam, you give up your own pleasures for me so often. You don't plan to go for me, but...I’ll be terribly unhappy unless you go to the ball.”
Darcy sighed. He did not even wish to go to the ball except for Georgie's sake, but he had never been able to refuse his sister when she had those tears in her eyes.
Chapter Five
The Netherfield party arrived late to the Meryton Assembly rooms. Elizabeth was already dancing when Bingley and Jane introduced Mr. Darcy to Mrs. Bennet. So, without introduction Elizabeth watched from the edge of her eyes his progress round the edges of the room.
He sneered magnificently.
Mr. Darcy had a tall noble figure, with thick handsome sideburns and piercing eyes. He turned about the room with an expression that shifted from bored, to a curled lip showing disgust, and then back to bored. He avoided all opportunities to converse, and when he settled in a seat for a few minutes, and Mrs. Long tried to speak to him — no doubt hoping to settle the last of her nieces upon such a rich gentleman, even if his sister was a fallen woman — Mr. Darcy had nothing of her conversation. Instead of replying he showed that haughty curled lip and drew his bed head back, as though recoiling from a smelly gift left by a dog.
Elizabeth saw his eyes dart about the room and when he saw that Mr. Bingley was otherwise occupied, he stood and walked away without replying to Mrs. Long.
The rudeness was delightful. She had never quite seen its like.
Everyone, of course, knew everything there was to know about the rich friend of Bingley’s. But, while the room was predisposed to think well of any friend of Bingley — even one with an illegitimate niece — Mr. Darcy finely disappointed every such hope to like him.
Elizabeth danced almost every set, and she paid all the attention to her partners they deserved, and she had a fine party. The ball lacked the spice of novelty such events held when younger, but a fast dance with a handsome young gentleman — or even with a not so handsome, not so young gentleman, if fate was unkind — was a pleasure which never lost its luster.
Once Elizabeth would have been confused by the friendship between Darcy and Bingley given the obvious dissimilarity in their characters. However she had known her brother-in-law long enough to discover that he could easily form an affection towards a large rock and decide it was a dear friend. More amazing yet, his friendliness would drag out of the rock a reciprocal feeling.
Were they Papists, after his death Bingley would be declared the patron saint of good-natured amiability.
Still, if Mr. Darcy was determined to despise the neighborhood, why had he come to the assembly? He was a philanthropist, Elizabeth decided after some consideration, for he had done the neighborhood a good turn. He had given them an excellent subject of conversation, and a man — even better a handsome man — to look upon with dislike.
Everyone loved to have a villain nearby to hate.
Near the middle of the evening Elizabeth found herself obliged to sit out a dance due to a temporary lack of partners. As Elizabeth always had a partner for the far greater part of her evening, such was an event she took philosophically. And Elizabeth was always a vigorous dancer, so her legs were sore. She enjoyed the tall spectacle of Mr. Darcy walking his tall self about the room.
He came near to her, only a bare ten feet away. He examined the large portrait of the King hanging on the wall, well lit by a pair of silver candleholders set into the wall on either side of it.
Mr. Darcy sneered.
Elizabeth bit her lip with a delighted smile.
