For his part Lord Matlock said, “Hear, hear. I always preferred women who didn’t spend much on clothes and who did not chase the fashion of the year.”
Lady Matlock elbowed him with a smile.
That made the earl add, “Perhaps one might chase the fashion of the decade.”
“It is not,” Viscount Hartwood crossed his legs and leanedback, the picture of relaxation, “usually something a woman wishes to be known for, not pursuing the fashion of the year.”
Lady Susan smiled widely and looked at Elizabeth with a raised eyebrow. “Though I would not have said it so bluntly as he did, it is clear that even your husband agrees that you must improve your selection of dresses before we meet all thetonin spring.”
“It is unfortunate then for you all, including Mr. Darcy, thatIam the one to select what I shall wear, and I have not the slightest intention of ever spending more than fifty pounds in a year on my clothing, no matter how ridiculous it makes me appear.”
That speech, clear, simple, and delivered with a pert smile left an impact on his assembled relations rather like that of grapeshot on a column of soldiers.
“You surely do not think,” Lord Matlock said, recovering himself first, “that limiting yourself to such a small amount will make either us, or the world, forget that the, ah, material advantages in your marriage to Mr. Darcy were wholly on your side. Or that the, ah, rumors around the quick engagement suggest some manner of irregularity in its formation.”
Elizabeth's wide eyes looked at him, with an impression of childhood innocence. “No, whatever do you mean? Mr. Darcy is rich? No one told me.”
Lord Matlock actually laughed. “Fine point, fine point. I like you, young lady. I did not expect to do so. I can already see thatyou’llmake the conversation here more interesting.”
“Is that why the estate is so large? I was quite confused, the park must be ten times” — Elizabeth spread her arms out wide as she spoke — “ten times the size of anything my father owned.”
Lord Matlock reached over his wife to pat Elizabeth on her knee. “I see why Darcy made a fool of himself for you.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Darcy said this to his own surprise. “You will spend a decent part of your private money on clothes —Ispend much more than fifty pounds on my clothes, and I am not a woman.”
“Or an impressive dresser,” Viscount Hartwood drawled. “No fine taste to go with the money. It is wasted on him.”
“You must at least,” Lady Susan said, “wear a bigger hat, stay inside, and let your complexion go white over the next months — how you keep it so brown in the middle of winter I cannot understand. But a brown tanned look is very much notthe crackthis year — or this decade — and it is not so uncommon as to be striking, like Georgiana’s height will be. It merely looks, ah… peasantish”
Darcy had noticed that Elizabeth spent a great deal of time out. She walked round and round and round in her private walks. He suspected that after only a week she was well on her way to having memorized all the near walks in the park. He felt an odd, but deep, satisfaction to watch hiswifeso eager to know his land.
Snow did not stop her, and she had proclaimed that she rather liked it — though he had a little concern the first few days to make sure that she was accompanied, as he knew that she was not used to the heavier snows they had in the Derbyshire hills.
“Peasantish?” Elizabeth replied, adopting the same wide-eyed expression she’d looked at Lord Matlock with. “You mean like Marie Antoinette and her sheep with the ribbons?”
Everyone laughed, even Lady Susan.
“Yes,” Lady Susan replied, “and we’ll take your head too, if you do not make a respectable showing of yourself.” She then mimed repeatedly the dropping of a guillotine blade with her hand while giggling each time.
“We will have a ball to celebrate my marriage to Mrs.Darcy on the day the calendar turns over, and I thought we might have Christmas singing along with the pudding to celebrate the date. Otherwise, the traditional hunt tomorrow — we’ve got a party from all round the neighborhood, but it will start from here. Sir Ravenswood’s lands are open, as is everything up to the turnpike to the east.”
“And the feast following the hunt? Your generosity, or will we depend on Ravenswood’s kitchen like two years past?” Lord Hartwood asked, “Does he still have that awful French fellow?”
“Not since his mother died. The French chef was to her taste, not his.”
“Good, good.” Darcy's cousin rubbed his hands in a way that seemed almost to imply that it was the death of the baronet’s mother that was good, and not the dismissal of the French chef.
English dishes, without too much ornamentation or sauce, was the general preference of the Fitzwilliam family.
“And beyond that—”
“We’re settled for the next few days,” Hartwood said. “I’ll rely upon you to surprise me with a good time — will there be archery for the ladies?” He turned to Elizabeth, “Can you shoot?”
“With a gun,” Elizabeth replied dryly.
“Susan is archery mad. It is the game among her friends this year.”
