Page 8 of Vain and Useless

He discovered that he had been placed between Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, which further lowered his mood. Across the table, Bingley sat happily between Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth. The numbers of gentlemen being unequal to those of the ladies, Miss Lucas was on Miss Elizabeth’s other side, which appeared to please them both.

As everyone was getting settled and the footmen brought in the first course, he discreetly observed the lady he meant to speak with at some point in the evening. He had been unjust, he had to admit, not only in speaking so in public, but in denigrating her appearance at all. She was not, perhaps, a great beauty, but she was undeniably handsome; her eyes were remarkably fine. When she smiled, she was luminous, and when she laughed, she outshone the moon.

On that unexpectedly sentimental thought, he forced himself to avert his eyes, and determinedly brought his gaze no nearer to her than a glance at Bingley for the remainder of the meal.

Little though he liked it, he did try to do his duty as a dinner partner, if only to demonstrate his manners to Bingley’s new neighbours. Mrs Hurst complained that the soup was over-salted and the suckling pig rather small for the number of people—fair criticisms, but they ought not to have been voiced at the event itself. Miss Bingley, contrariwise, contented herself with commenting favourably on the turnips and the sauces and asking if his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam was still engaged in training new recruits.

Strange, he thought at the end of the meal as the ladies stood to leave, that she should prove the more pleasant of his dinner partners. Ladies were so often a mystery, and he felt he should never truly understand them.

When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing room following their ritual consumption of port, Darcy knew he would have to find some opportunity of speaking with Miss Elizabeth Bennet if he were to fulfil his promise. Unfortunately for him, the lady appeared to be quite popular. It seemed that everyone wished to speak with her, and hardly could she step away from one group before she was drawn into another. He resorted to discreetly trailing her about the room as best he could while also keeping his other promise to Bingley by speaking civilly with the gentlemen. Their concerns and topics of conversation were not very different from those of the smaller landowners near Pemberley, and he found he could tolerate them well enough.

During his pursuit of a moment of the lady’s time, he overheard a curious exchange between her and Miss Bingley. The latter, in teasing tones—he had not thought her capable of such harmless levity!—said, “Have you come prepared to recommend a novel to delight me?”

Miss Elizabeth then laughed and said, “Not quite yet, though I did spend part of today looking through my collection with your pleasure in mind. Jane and I shall call upon you Monday, if that is agreeable, and I shall arrive bearing the very volumes I have determined to recommend.” Miss Bingley expressed her agreement with the plan, and Miss Elizabeth added, “But I meant to tell you that Mary visited the lending library today; I had asked her to look out for the titles you mentioned to me, and what do you know? She returned with An English Lady in Madras and Bombay!”

“I do hope you enjoy it,” Miss Bingley replied, and whatever else they might have said on the subject was lost to him as Mr Goulding directed a question to Darcy about the crops raised at Pemberley and he was required to turn his attention fully to his own conversation. The evening ended without presenting him with a chance to speak to Miss Elizabeth directly, but at least he knew she would be at Netherfield on the day after tomorrow.

When Darcy agreed to join Bingley in Hertfordshire, he had expected to find little pleasure in the endeavour, and dreaded Sundays in particular. Largely confined to the house except for the morning church service, he would be very much at Miss Bingley’s mercy. He expected that her recent tactic of pretending disinterest would end when he was forced to spend much of the day in her presence, but she surprised him yet again by treating him as a welcome guest, but no more. The entire party spent much of the day in the parlour, engaged in reading, conversation, or attending to correspondence, as the mood took them. The ladies each took a turn on the instrument, playing light airs suitable for a day of quiet relaxation. Coffee and tea were replenished at regular intervals, and the only time the lady addressed him outside her duty as a hostess to see to his comfort was when, hearing him tell Bingley that he owed his sister a letter, she politely requested that he convey her greetings to Miss Darcy.

Either she was playing a longer game than he had anticipated, or Bingley had been correct in telling Darcy she had given him up. He felt that the position of not knowing was nearly as uncomfortable as her previous pursuit. When Bingley invited him to play billiards, he was relieved to escape the parlour and his unanswerable questions.

They set up the balls, and while they did so they agreed upon the scoring. As they chalked their sticks for their first attempts, Bingley asked, “Did you enjoy dinner at Haye-Park last night? I saw very little savagery at the table,” he teased, “but perhaps your satirical eye caught something I did not.”

“It was all well enough,” Darcy replied. “I was not able to secure Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s attention long enough to make my apologies, however.”

“An opportunity shall arise, I am sure. Caroline seems quite taken with her as well as Miss Bennet and Miss Lucas. No doubt they shall be constantly visiting one another.” Bingley’s smile at this thought was entirely satisfied.

“And you, I suppose, shall not object to seeing more of Miss Bennet.”

“Indeed not.”

“I must urge you to caution, Bingley. These ladies move in a confined society, and may develop expectations based on much slighter attentions than a woman of higher circles would.”

“I have no intention of injuring Miss Bennet, but I must say I have never before felt such a profound attraction. I am not so insensible as to declare it ‘love at first sight’. However, I do wish to know her better, and I can hardly do that if I avoid her. Will you shoot first?”

Darcy narrowly missed potting the object ball. He eyed the felt of the table for a moment, searching for imperfections, before continuing the conversation while Bingley lined up his own shot. “I am urging prudence, not flight. Limit your time spent tête-à-tête. You may still learn her opinions if one or two others are part of the conversation.”

Bingley lined up his stick and struck his cue ball into Darcy’s, which drove the object ball to the very edge of a pocket, where it glanced off the rail and veered back towards the centre of the table. “Ah! A hair’s breadth from it!” he cried. “That would have been five points.”

The object ball lay in an awkward spot, but Bingley’s cue ball was inches from a side pocket and Darcy wasted no time in knocking it in. “Two to me.”

Bingley threw his hands in the air and laughed before retrieving his ball. Setting it back in its designated starting position, he contemplated the lay of the table for a moment before sighting and shooting. The object ball, dealt a glancing blow, wobbled its way into the nearest pocket. “Ha, that’s three.” He set the stick over his shoulder like a rifle. “I shall take additional care to moderate expectations, Darcy. I have no desire to cause anyone harm, but I have recently learnt that is as easily done by saying or doing too little as too much. Had I been more forthcoming and more willing to argue my point, I might have spared someone I care for a good deal of distress,” he concluded thoughtfully.

“You are not wrong,” Darcy replied, thinking of his sister. “Someone close to me was recently wounded by the cruelty of another. I knew of that person’s poor character but did not expect that he would ever again encounter anyone for whom I cared, or dare to act so if he did. Had I issued a warning…”

“It can be difficult, determining whether it is best to hold one’s tongue or speak uncomfortable truths. I have generally favoured discretion, but I now believe I have tended too much in that direction. At times it must be a gentleman’s responsibility to ensure that those in his circle hear what he knows which may help them, even if it does not please them. Whether they choose to believe or act upon it must then rest with them.”

“I cannot argue with you, my friend. I think I have been learning that lesson myself.”

CHAPTER 7

Charlotte had called at Longbourn on Saturday and accepted the invitation from Elizabeth and Jane to join them in calling upon Miss Bingley. Climbing into the Bennet carriage when it stopped before Lucas Lodge, she announced, “I tried to convince Maria to come along as well—I should very much like to see her spend more time with sensible people like Miss Bingley—but she was hoping to meet Lydia and Kitty in Meryton. What is that you have there, Lizzy?”

“Books for Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth replied. “She did not enjoy the novels she read at school—it sounded as though they were very much of the silly sort—and I have endeavoured to find her something more fitting to her tastes.”

“What have you selected?” Jane enquired.

“Miss Newton’s Tour and The Dire Pyramid.”