“An ability to admit wrongdoing is theonlyadmirable quality in your view.”
Elizabeth stuck her tongue out again at Charlotte.
Autumn was her favorite season: lovely, golden, almost warm. She loved to watch the scurrying squirrels hurry to hide food against the winter, and the human farmers in the fields harvesting their crops for the same purpose.
“I think it is that he offended your vanity,” Charlotte laughingly said, “and you have not yet forgiven him for that — it is the only explanationIcan find for why you are not determined to speak to him at every opportunity.”
“What makes you think I am not?”
Charlotte did not reply to that, but instead said in a contemplative manner, as she paused and looked around at the trees, dripping golden leaves, “I must say, in my view, withsomuch to his favor — wealth, grand estate, the adulation of his friends, such very good looks—” Elizabeth clucked her tongue atthatstatement, “and his excellent and intelligent character, I confess that I am not at all offended by his pride. For such a mannotto be proud would be a false affectation, or a sign of some hidden infirmity.”
“That he insulted my beauty,” Elizabeth replied with a rosy blush, “that is very much forgotten.”
It was. What was remembered was when he said:I have seldom watched anyone play with more pleasure.
Zounds! His eyes then could have charmed a nun into renouncing Papism so she might marry.
Her mind ceaselessly replayed the way he’d looked at her — his large expressive eyes. The intensity in his manner. His fine strong hands, with calluses where he gripped his crutches, the healthy glow in his skin, and the way he then flushed in embarrassment when he realized he had been too pointed in his compliments to her.
The leaves softly crunched beneath them as they waded through the detritus on the ground.
“I confess it.” Elizabeth ruefully smiled at Charlotte. “You may say ‘I told you so.’”
“Of course I did, youdolike him.”
“Yes, but donotdo it.”
“Do what?”
“Donotjump from admiration to love, and from love to marriage. You will sound like my mother, who is apt to do that upon an even slenderer basis.”
“You admit thatyourmind has already made the jump?”
“He likes his family name far more than me, believe me.” Elizabeth was suddenly annoyed. She picked up a stick from the side of the road and banged it against the trunks of the trees they passed until she hit it hard enough for the wood to splinter. “The man cannot stop — I swear he cannot — talking about how superior the Darcy name is to that of everyone in this whole neighborhood. How he was of greater consequence than everyone else in the assembly hall put together, and how for that reason he need not stoop to please those in this company if he does not want to — one would think he was related to the King, rather than a mere earl.”
“A mere earl,” Charlotte laughed, imitating Elizabeth’s tone and voice. “But did he say all that? Truly?”
“That and more — such was at least implied.”
“Hmmmmm.”
At last Charlotte frowned.
Elizabeth replied with a triumphant exclamation, “So you see, he is not perfect, no matter how tall and noble he looks when he pushes himself to his full height.” At Charlotte’s knowing smirk and raised eyebrow, Elizabeth added, “I am not blindeither.”
“If he openly spoke in the way you suggest, that does suggest he may also bevainof the family name.”
“You mean to say, you are no longer so sure that he’ll make an offer to me simply on account of liking me, and my liking him. He’ll never be the husband of a girl with an uncle who lives in sight of his Cheapside warehouses.”
Elizabeth was again filled with irritation at that thought. As though she cared.
It appeared she did.
No one had ever irritated her the way Darcy did. She had never feltinferiorwhen speaking to anyone. No one else ever made herwantto impress him, and never before had she been convinced of her inability to measure up to the standard he held.
That made her angry, and part of her wanted to find some elaborate way to prove to Darcy that she did not care a whit for his disdain for her family condition.
Which, as already noted, it appeared she did.
