Page 109 of The Secret Diary of Anne de Bourgh

How interesting.

16 December

Mary has written that her parents arrived safely, and are comfortably established.

Mrs Bennet has already suggested that the drawing-room furniture might be arranged to greater advantage. Mary says Christopher likes the chairs where they are, and her father has discovered a comfortable chair with excellent light in the library which satisfies him entirely.

Elizabeth laughed when I read that part aloud.

“I think Mary will manage very well,” she said.

Kitty was more interested in the news that Mrs Bennet admired a gown Mary had ordered made up from one of her designs. She declared that this was very gratifying, though it would have been more so had her mother thought to include a sketch of Mary wearing it.

We went to a ball this evening, where Kitty found somebody whose interest in such matters was much more satisfactory.

Kitty and I were standing with Jane when a gentleman entered whose appearance immediately caught our attention. His coat had clearly been cut by the hand of an expert, his cravat was arranged in folds which I thought must have required considerable patience, and his waistcoat was of a figured silk which caught the light as he moved.

I thought him rather a dandy. He was tall and dark-haired, and rather handsome, with a darker complexion than most English gentlemen of my acquaintance.

Kitty appeared to think him the most interesting person in the room. “Look at that silk, Anne!” She plucked at my sleeve. “Do you see how it is woven?”

I could see that it was very handsome, but before I could say so, the gentleman came towards us on his way into the room.

Kitty stepped forward.

“Pray, sir, where did you obtain the silk for your waistcoat?”

I was appalled. We had not been introduced. I expected him to look past her, or give her some answer which would make her wish she had never spoken.

He stopped. His eyes went from her face to the hand she had raised slightly towards his waistcoat.

“May I first ask who designed your cuffs?” he asked, in strongly accented English.

Kitty looked down at them.

“I did.”

“Indeed?” He bent a little to examine the nearer one. “The arrangement is very unusual. Was it made from your drawing?”

“Yes. Though we had to alter the fold here before it would lie properly.”

She turned her wrist to show him, and he attended as closely as though she were explaining something of the greatest importance.

Jane joined us before I had quite recovered from my shock at Kitty’s audacity. She had already made the gentleman’s acquaintance, fortunately, and supplied the introductions which Kitty had omitted. He was Count Valdieri, an Italian visiting friends in England.

He bowed very pleasantly, but soon returned to the subject of Kitty’s cuffs. She answered his questions, then reminded him that he had not yet told her about the silk.

He laughed and supplied a most particular account of finding it in a strange little shop in Rome, where the tailor refused to sell him the silk outright, only insisting that his were the only hands that could fashion it into a garment.

It was an entertaining story, made more so by his accent and droll way of speaking. Kitty was laughing before he was halfway through the tale, and Count Valdieri clearly found her pretty when she was animated and merry, not taking his dark eyes from her face. He asked her to dance at the conclusion of the story, and every time I glimpsed either of them through the rest of the evening they were either dancing or standing together talking, clearly critiquing the fashions worn by the ball’s attendees.

It seems both Georgiana and Kitty have found potential suitors, just as I rejected the only man who has shown any serious interest in me.

18 December

Miss Bingley is to marry Mr Byerly.

She told me herself when we called at the Bingleys’ this afternoon. Jane had scarcely welcomed us before Caroline came forward, smiling in a manner which made me suspect that she had something particularly agreeable to say.