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Jane, walking home, was warm and carefully neutral on the subject of Mr Bingley. "He seemed very agreeable,"she said.
"He did seem most agreeable." Elizabeth smiled at her sister's pinked cheeks.
"Very easy to talk to."
"Ohhhh…very."
"He knew quite a lot about the local walks and flora. He had asked around before he arrived. He seems quite interested in the area and in coastal farming most particularly."
"I agree he seems most interested in the beauty of this locale," Elizabeth said, glancing knowingly at her sister.
Jane was quiet for a moment. "He was perfectly polite, everything a gentleman should be."
"He was perfectly smitten. Which is not a criticism. It was, honestly, the most entertaining thing I have witnessed since we left Hertfordshire."
Jane smiled, looking straight ahead. She was still smiling when they reached the lodgings, and Elizabeth decided this was the best thing that had happened since they arrived.
Behind them, a half-step back, Mrs Bennet walked with her hands loose at her sides and her face tilted slightly toward the last of the evening light. She was smiling too.
Chapter Six
She did not have any particular feelings towards Mr Darcy. She felt a small measure of esteem for his gentlemanly-like manner and the care he showed to his retiring and nervous sister and his ebullient friend. But it was the thin, glancing esteem of short acquaintance and nothing more.
She did not think of his shoulders. Of the depth of his eyes when they met hers, or of the errant curl that seemed to inevitably escape his otherwise perfect coiffure. And if a glancing thought did veer in that direction it was only the natural consequence of being stuck in close quarters with him on a damp Wednesday.
And with so little thought for him, it was terribly frustrating that they should have come to blows in such a way to make her blush fiercely and wish for the ground to open up and swallow her whole.
It had begun well enough. Better than well, if she was being honest, which she was finding increasingly inconvenient.
They had been thrown together by the social mechanics of a wet morning, a cancelled walk, and Mrs Makepeace's firm opinion that everyone would be more comfortable in the front parlour with a fresh pot of tea than standing about stupidly looking at the rain. Bingley had installed himself beside Jane with a contented air. Georgiana had settled near Mrs Bennet, who had asked her something quiet about the embroidery on her dress and was listening to the answer most attentively. Which left Elizabeth and Darcy at the window, both ostensibly watching the rain, which had obscured the smallest sliver of sea and was not interesting enough to sustain their attention for long.
"You walked out this morning," he said. "I cannot think it was a prudent choice. The storm had been anticipated for hours." He had seen her from an upper path, apparently. She had seen him too and had said nothing about it. She bristled but only slightly.
"The rain held off until the Cobb," she said. "Although then to its discredit it did not hold off at all and I was dampened in both spirit and body."
"Was it worth it?"
"Almost certainly not. Though I always feel lighter after such exercise. I cannot abide being stuck indoors"
The corner of his mouth moved.
They talked after that for some minutes. He was drier and funnier than she had expected. She was more forthcoming than she had intended. He asked about her walking and she said it was a deficiency of character she had long since stopped attempting to correct. He said Bingley had been attempting to cure him of early rising for the better part of fifteen years. She said some deficiencies were clearly constitutional. He agreed, with a gravity that was not entirely serious, and she was as content as she could be while remaining trapped in a small parlour with an over-abundance of lace and porcelain figurines.
Across the room, Bingley was explaining something to Jane with earnest concentration. Jane was listening with her whole face, her lips tilted upwards in a most becoming air.
"She is very kind to him," Darcy said quietly, watching. "Particularly, as I fear he is talking on agricultural drainage, his latest great obsession. He means to lease an estate in the near-future and the minutiae of land-management is a topic of great interest to him at the moment. He perhaps does not realise that everyone else does not share his… passion."
"My sister is kind to everyone. And with Mr Bingley I think she might also mean it particularly. He is an amiable soul suited to the lightness of Jane’s temperament."
He looked at her and she turned her head again to the view, prickles of discomfort moving over her skin.
"You express your opinions very freely for such a short acquaintance on both sides."
"I am a great studier of character, sir," she said in a voice that was firmer than she felt. "And I at least have the benefits of being intimately acquainted with my sister."
To her surprise, he offered no rebuttal, just a slow nod.
