“And it would be ungentlemanly,” he replied stiffly, “if I were to wish anything but the opposite, so we are at an impasse. It shall then fall to Miss Elizabeth to determine whether we apply to Mr. Bingley to have a ball.”
Elizabeth laughed. “That will not do. No, not at all! You already knowmyopinion, and that it is contrary to yours — but do you not admire Caroline’s circumspection upon the matter?”
Darcy looked at Caroline, who blushed and smiled. “I hardly want anything while you are with us but quiet evenings amongst the domestic circle, with other dear friends added at times—” So saying she smiled at Elizabeth. “Even these rooms are in my view quite too crowded, with too many people. But then the roof is not very high — that always makes a room appear smaller.”
Charlotte’s face tightened in a way that showed Elizabeth that her friend was wholly aware of the not particularly veiled deprecation of her family home. So much for unity and accord.
Hail, we welcome you both: Discord and Disunity!
Oh! Why couldn’t everyone she liked very much like each other?
Silly, goose-like desire. And it really was not a matter of importance to Elizabeth that all of her friends liked all of her friends. She was wholly capable of enjoying their company separately.
Caroline’s mild rudeness still annoyed.
“Not everyone,” Elizabeth smiled a little too brightly at Caroline, “was blessed with such success in their line of business as our fathers.”
Caroline flushed, and slightly tilted her head towards Darcy. “Of a certainty not.” She then bent to Elizabeth’s ear and whispered passionately, “Do not remind him!”
“An excellent suggestion,” Elizabeth replied aloud. “And I shall make an effort to respect that request in my every future speech.” She looked sideways at Mr. Darcy, “And I am most impressed withyou.”
“Oh. That is the first time I have heard such praise from you.”
“Come now, come — you are so insensible. If you were a smitten gentleman, you would tease us both desperately till we told you what secret confidence Caroline and I just shared.”
“Ion the other hand believe myself to always be a respecter of female confidences.”
Elizabeth elbowed Caroline. “That will not do. Not at all. Caro, you must tease him till he begs you to tell him what you said to me.”
“Tease Mr. Darcy?” she said wide eyed. “On such a matter of proper behavior? It is impossible.”
“Impossible to tease Mr. Darcy!” Elizabeth looked at him and shook her head. She studied the gentleman. He was tall, wore a fine fashionable green wool coat. Broad shoulders and that perpetually serious and sensible look upon his face.
He studied her back.
Fine, serious eyes.
But did he ever smile? — or laugh? Elizabeth dearly loved a laugh.
Caroline would be most fortunate if she succeeded in fixing Mr. Darcy’s attention. Even if he did not laugh nearly as easily as Elizabeth thought a man ought.
Elizabeth said, “I have never met a man before who cannot be teased. What a strange fate — Caroline, you must make some attempt.”
Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy observed Caroline with some interest.
She turned redder at being placed upon the spot, and then she exclaimed with wide eyes that she kept tight on Darcy, “Mr. Darcy, I admire you beyond all words for being able to keep your curiosity in check! But it is truly the case that I do not wish you to know what I said to Eliza.”
Darcy regally tilted his head at her in response to that.
With glances between the two of them, Elizabeth ruefully shook her head, and suppressed the urge to giggle.
It had never occurred to her that it would be sodifficultto shape the conversation in a manner which would display Caroline to the best light. But Caroline’s personality seemed to be wholly different, and an odd combination of superciliousness, desperate desire to please, and caution around Mr. Darcy.
He did not make Caroline behave as her best self.
An idle thought crossed Elizabeth’s mind that it would be a terrible pity to spend one’s whole life with a man with whom one could not behave as one’s truest, deepest self.
Elizabeth also deeply hoped that she had not harmed matters for her friend.
