Page 14 of Most Truly the Gentleman

The colonel, too, made his bow over Jane’s hand and spoke with her for a moment, but it was Bingley who established himself at her side with affable tenacity, despite Mrs Hurst’s repeated suggestion that he ought to entertain her husband with a hand of piquet again. Elizabeth was highly entertained in observing the unstoppable forces of Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst meeting the immovable objects of Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley.

The former politely refused to be drawn into a tête-à-tête with the lady, stubbornly including his cousin, Elizabeth, and Mrs Hurst in the conversation at every turn, while the latter smilingly made known his opinion that Mr Hurst was quite likely to survive an evening without cards, and if he did not, Mrs Hurst should always have a home with her brother. That the gentleman under discussion was quite soundly asleep on a chaise across the room only made it more difficult for Elizabeth to keep her countenance. In this, she was not at all assisted by the colonel’s laughing glances and frequent need to ‘cough’ behind his hand.

The following day Elizabeth wrote to her mother to request their return, but Mrs Bennet replied that it would be much better if Jane stayed several days more, and she would not send the carriage before Jane had been at Netherfield a week. Neither sister was made happy by this response, conscious as they were of overstaying their welcome, and Elizabeth was particularly aware of Miss Bingley’s wish that they had never come.

At breakfast, Elizabeth was happy to find Mr Bingley at the table before his sisters, which greatly lessened the mortification of asking if he might send them home in the course of the morning. He frowned and sipped his coffee, while Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam looked on with interest.

“I do not like it,” he said at last. “Only yesterday morning, Miss Bennet still had a fever, by your own report. I should never forgive myself if she were to become chilled on the way home. Pray, stay one more day, that your sister may rest more, and if she continues to improve, you both might come to church with us tomorrow, and return to Longbourn with your family after the service.”

This was an agreeable compromise which Elizabeth was happy to accept. Bingley was delighted that he had succeeded in protecting Miss Bennet from the risks inherent in spending twenty minutes in a cold carriage for an additional day, while the colonel and his cousin expressed their pleasure that they would have Miss Elizabeth’s company a little longer. When Elizabeth went down to the library in the afternoon and found them both there, they enjoyed a lively debate on the modern poets until Elizabeth’s conscience recalled her to her sister’s side.

The next morning after the church service, Mr Bennet was delighted to receive his eldest daughters back into his care. His wife, contrariwise, greeted them coldly. Elizabeth, having expected nothing else, returned home in lively spirits and spent much of the time between dinner and supper in her father’s study with him, relating the events of her Netherfield stay with particular attention to every instance of absurdity and folly she could recall.

Darcy watched Miss Bennet and her sister step into their father’s carriage with mixed feelings. Netherfield had been enlivened by Miss Elizabeth’s presence, and he could not deny that he admired her, that he found her attractive as a lady and as a conversation partner. Yet he could not consider deepening their acquaintance, much less pursuing her outright—he was expected to make a notable match to a lady of breeding and wealth. That he had yet to meet any such lady whose company he could tolerate for long, much less anticipate for a lifetime, did not change his expectations or those of society.

His cousin’s assertion that men of station and wealth might marry where they choose and ignore whatever censure came their way flitted through his mind, only to be dismissed. Fitzwilliam was oddly idealistic for a man who had seen war, Darcy often thought. It did not occur to him that a man of sense who had beheld the depths of the human condition might be better able than he to understand the reality of its purported heights.

He must, he resolved, keep her a little at arm’s length. He would not snub her, or fail in civility, or work to avoid her company. He would merely be conscious of how much attention he paid her, and ensure that it was not much more, in quantity or intensity, than he paid to any other acquaintance here. He could still enjoy her conversation while he resided in the area, but it was best done in groups. He must resist the temptation to claim her attention for himself alone.

His greatest fear was not for himself; he was absolutely certain he would conquer this fascination once he returned to his own home, his own routines. No, he only dreaded the thought that she might even now have hopes of him. If it were so, they must be discouraged by his failure to single her out, and if it were not, the formation of such hopes must be prevented.

“How wonderful it will be to have Netherfield to ourselves again!” exclaimed Miss Bingley happily some minutes later, as Bingley’s carriage pulled away from the church.

“I, for one, shall miss the Bennet sisters,” Fitzwilliam commented. “They are good company, and they evened out our numbers, too.”

“Jane Bennet is a dear,” replied Miss Bingley dismissively. “I am quite fond of her. But as for Miss Elizabeth, I cannot like her. She has no connexions, no wealth, no accomplishments, and yet she carries herself with such an excess of confidence. It is unpalatable.”

Fitzwilliam’s amusement showed clearly in his expression and his voice when he said, “She has accomplishments enough. She plays and sings, as we witnessed at Lucas Lodge, and she speaks French as well as I do.”

This, they had learnt the previous day in the library, when the talk had turned to the French poets. They had conversed for some minutes in that tongue, and Darcy could not but concede that Miss Elizabeth’s fluency and accent were the equal of Fitzwilliam’s, and somewhat superior to his own.

“I have had many a young lady presented to me as accomplished who could claim no more than that,” the colonel continued.

Seeing Miss Bingley draw breath to argue, Darcy interjected, “And to this she has added the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” It was an accomplishment Bingley’s sister could not claim. “That, I should say, is of far more value than the ability to cover a screen.”

“And for all we know, Miss Elizabeth might have covered every screen in Longbourn,” Bingley added. “I do not recall that the subject has ever arisen between us! But that does remind me, Caroline—did not Miss Bennet say that the reticule of hers which you admired at Haye-Park was netted for her by her sister?”

“Perhaps she did,” Miss Bingley ungraciously replied. Then she summoned up a smile, fixed her eyes upon Darcy, and determinedly turned the subject. “I do hope you will all enjoy the Sunday dinner I have arranged when we arrive at Netherfield. I took great care with the menu in hopes of delighting each of you with at least one favourite.”

“Will there be ragout?” asked Hurst eagerly.

“Of course.”

Hurst sat back once more, his face alight with anticipation, but no more so than Miss Bingley’s as she turned her gaze to Darcy.

“I look forward to it,” he replied politely. She beamed as though he had declared her the finest hostess in the south of England.

10

THE REVEREND MR COLLINS

The next morning over breakfast, Mr Bennet surprised his family with the news that the heir to Longbourn, his distant cousin Mr William Collins, would be arriving to visit them just before dinner-time and staying a little less than a fortnight. The imminent arrival of the man who would, as she so often claimed, see her and her daughters living in the hedgerows within a week of Mr Bennet’s demise, drove Mrs Bennet perilously close to a fit of hysterics.

This, her husband diverted by reading the man’s letter aloud. It was a remarkably silly piece of work, Elizabeth thought, from the pen of a remarkably silly man. A newly-ordained clergyman, he had somehow been preferred to what he termed ‘a valuable living’, under the auspices of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whom he seemed to regard with mindless devotion. Thus settled in life, he had determined to heal the breach between the Bennet and Collins branches of the family. He mentioned a consciousness of being, as heir to the estate, the means of injuring Mr Bennet’s daughters, and spoke vaguely of an olive branch. He then proposed that he attend them all in person, beginning on Monday, November 18th, the present date.

That he acknowledged the effect of his future inheritance upon her daughters’ expectations and expressed an intention to make them some sort of amends was enough to temporarily mollify Mrs Bennet.

Mr Collins arrived, as he had written that he would, scarcely an hour before dinner. He was a tall man of five and twenty, rather stout and possessed of a self-consciously stately air. He was, he said in a positive flood of words, delighted to at last meet his Bennet relations, and happy to discover that the word he had received of his five cousins’ beauty was not at all exaggerated. The house and its appointments, too, received his praise.