“We shall know very soon. Mr Bingley said he was going to town fora few days, a term whose ambiguity falls in a fairly narrow range. I hypothesise his sisters will try to dissuade him, and possibly Mr Darcy as well, though that is pure conjecture.”
“What about Mr Darcy leads you to suspect that, if I am not prying too much?”
“Not at all. Mr Darcy never liked it here—neither the place nor the people. He publicly slighted me within my hearing on the first evening of his stay, after refusing to be introduced to anyone. He spent most of the last 6 weeks looking at everyone and everything with disdain. He never danced more than the absolute minimum, and rarely spoke with anyone outside his party. The only surprise is that he took this long to leave.”
Mary smirked. “He danced1 morethan the absolute minimum, Lizzy.”
“Mr Newton, can you account for a man disdaining a woman for 6 weeks, then abruptly asking her to dance?”
“How did thisdisdainmanifest itself?”
“The first time he saw me, he said publicly that I was not handsome enough to dance with—nay, even totempthim to dance. After that, he stared at me a great deal, which was unnerving. I stayed a few days at Netherfield, and we spent most of the time arguing.”
“If your disdain hypothesis is correct, the dance might have been a wager. Young men are prone to such flights of fancy, and it would not be the first time, nor even close to the mostoutlandish bet I ever saw. Or perhaps he thought Bingley might form an attachment to your sister, and decided to be less… ah… confrontational with her family. Both explanations have merit, though both disregard Occam’s Razor[ix].”
“Finally, a man with some sense. You see the same simple explanation that I do, do you not?” Mary asked.
“Probably,” Newton said with a chuckle. “I shall leave the revelation in your capable hands.”
“What revelation is that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Perhaps he admires you,” Mary said blithely.
Elizabeth started laughing and could not stop for half a minute; but when she noticed Mary and the Newtons were not joining her, she stopped abruptly. “You are not serious!”
“I am completely serious,” Mary said, giggling.
“I see. He admires me, so naturally the next step is to run from the county as if it were infested. You are not making much of a case.”
Mary sighed but did not stir from the warmth of her greatcoat. “Even that makes sense, Lizzy.”
“How so?”
“Mr Newton? Kep?”
“It makes perfect sense, Miss Elizabeth. Mr Darcy is a member of the first circles. He is master of an estate more than 4 times the size of Netherfield, and his family has held it for centuries. He is grandson and nephew to an earl. He could marry into the highest circles with no great difficulty. He may have found himself attracted to a country miss who does not match the stature expected of the Mistress of Pemberley, and left to avoid any… ah… entanglements.”
Elizabeth laughed gaily. “So, your best theory is that he left because he isafraid of me?”
“It is only a suggestion, but it does make a certain type of sense.”
“It beats your wilful penance theory,” Mary added.
Elizabeth considered it for a minute. “Afraid of poor little old me… who would even entertain the possibility?”
“I have seen men do much sillier things on far less provocation, particularly where women are concerned,” Newton observed. “In fact, if said women are as handsome as you, there is no telling!”
Elizabeth laughed gaily, still thinking they were half-mad—as were most men in her limited experience—but they had exhausted the subject.
“Unless Mr Bingley returns to court Jane or take his leave, I imagine I shall never see Mr Darcy again; so, it is all a moot point.”
“Moot but highly entertaining,” Mary said with a shrug.
“Perhaps to you, Mary… perhaps to you.”
Mitigation
Mr Newton asked, “What, if anything, should I tell my employer or Mr Darcy about the events of the day?”
