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And as she climbed the stairs, she steeled herself for an extended stay at Netherfield Park.

∞∞∞

The first days passed quietly. Elizabeth divided her time between Jane’s bedside and the lower rooms, where she was obliged, by politeness and by the insistence of her hosts, to take her meals and spend some portion of the evening.

Mr Bingley was everything amiable. He enquired after Jane at every opportunity and wore his concern so openly on his face that Elizabeth, who was constitutionally inclined to find people amusing, found herself becoming genuinely fond of him instead. Mr Bingley was the sort of man whose goodness was improved rather than diminished by being perfectly artless.

Mrs Hurst said little of consequence, though Elizabeth could not regret the omission. Even their first acquaintance at the Meryton assembly had sufficed to show her that she and Mrs Hurst could have little to say to each other. The increase in their acquaintance only confirmed the impression. Mrs Hurst shared gossip with her sister and games of cards with her husband, seeming little interested in either, and still less so in conversing with Elizabeth.

Mr Darcy read almost without stopping.

Given the deficits of conversation among the party, that was not entirely remarkable. Elizabeth could well imagine that a man of sense might choose to read rather than to hear Miss Bingley’s repeated and rather insistent compliments towards himself. What was perhaps more remarkable was how he read: with the book open before him and his attention distributed with some inconsistency about the room.

Elizabeth noticed it on the second evening, when she glanced up from the page she was turning and found that Mr Darcy, who had ostensibly been absorbed in the second volume of something substantial, was observing her hands. He returned at once to his book. She returned to hers. Neither made any remark.

She might have thought no more of it had she not, on subsequent evenings, noticed the same phenomenon: a studied absorption in what he read that did not quite account for the quality of attention he brought to his surroundings.

But the oddities in Mr Darcy’s behaviour were nothing to those shown by Miss Bingley. Elizabeth watched her attempts at flirtation with something between fascination and dismay. Miss Bingley’s attentions toward Mr Darcy had always been marked by eagerness, but in the more intimate setting of Netherfield, that eagerness grew increasingly pronounced.

She positioned herself beside him at the pianoforte and solicited his opinion on books she had not finished, merely to hear him speak. She laughed at his remarks with a promptness bordering on anticipation. Elizabeth regarded it all with curiosity and more than a little amusement.

Was there not something a little too pointed, something almost desperate, in these attentions? Surely Miss Bingley must understand that it was the gentleman’s part to signal if he shared her interest; it must belong to him to suggest any progression in their relationship. If Mr Darcy did not wish to court Miss Bingley, there was simply nothing that she could do about it.

One evening, as Jane slept more peacefully than before, Elizabeth joined the party below. Mr Hurst proposed a game of cards, but to Elizabeth’s considerable relief, this idea was quickly set aside. Perceiving that Mr Darcy did not wish to play, Miss Bingley quickly saw to it that the idea was abandoned.

Having seen to it that they would spend the evening as he wished, Miss Bingley crossed to where Mr Darcy stood examining a volume from the shelf.

“You must allow me to recommend this,” she said, placing herself close enough that the movement of her sleeve brushed his hand. “It is universally admired.”

Mr Darcy inclined his head. “I am acquainted with Henry IV.”

Elizabeth watched with considerable amusement, her needlework almost forgotten on her lap. Poor Miss Bingley! But perhaps she had not seen in time that the author she sought to recommend to Mr Darcy was the Bard himself.

“But not sufficiently, I am persuaded,” Miss Bingley persisted. She leaned nearer, her voice lowered. “One must read it twice to apprehend its true delicacy.”

Mr Darcy stepped subtly aside, creating space without overt rejection. “Delicacy, Miss Bingley? In any case, I shall endeavour to do it justice.”

The exchange was slight, but Elizabeth did not miss the faint tightening at the corner of Mr Darcy’s mouth, nor the manner in which his attention strayed, almost involuntarily, toward the hearth where she sat. He did not appear to be enjoying any of Miss Bingley’s attentions.

This last observation was the one that interested Elizabeth most, not because she had any sympathy for Mr Darcy’s discomfort, but because it presented a contradiction that she could not immediately account for. Miss Bingley was a handsome woman, accomplished, well-educated, and elegant. She had fortune and connections, not to mention a very decided sense of her own merit. Then, too, she was the sister of his particular friend. One might have expected Mr Darcy to welcome her company.

And yet there was something odd in his expression on the occasions when Miss Bingley had arranged to stand a little too close, or had introduced Georgiana Darcy’s name with the delicate air of one who holds a special claim to its use, something that Elizabeth could describe only as endurance.

Privately, Elizabeth found this rather interesting, as well as rather funny. She was not proud of the second observation.

On the fourth evening of her stay, Elizabeth descended from Jane’s room to find the drawing room devoted to music rather than conversation. Miss Bingley perched at the pianoforte, playing with considerable skill and very decided intention. Mr Darcy sat in the chair nearest the fire reading intently, though apparently not Henry IV. Mrs Hurst remained on the sofa with her eyes half-closed and an expression of tolerant boredom, while Mr Hurst’s snores showed him to have still less patience for a musical evening.

Miss Bingley was playing an Italian piece and doing it very well. That much was not in question. What was perhaps more doubtful was the frequency with which she glanced toward Mr Darcy’s chair, and the quality of her expression when she did so: expectant, assessing, with a hope in it that the music did not quite conceal.

Mr Darcy did not look up from his book.

Miss Bingley moved into a more animated piece, with rather more by way of runs and ornament. Mr Darcy turned a page. Mrs Hurst appeared to have fallen asleep.

Elizabeth sat down and took up her own book. Or rather, she held her book and watched with the detached interest of a naturalist who was stumbled upon a particularly rare sort of butterfly.

Miss Bingley was not, she decided, in want of skill or intelligence. She had simply misjudged her subject. Mr Darcy was surely the sort of man who would be drawn by something unexpected rather than something performed, who would notice the off-hand remark before the prepared speech, the unguarded moment before the calculated one. Every campaign Miss Bingley mounted was so evidently a campaign that it could not help but put him on his guard. And a man on his guard, Elizabeth suspected, was a man very unlikely to be moved.

Mr Darcy’s character was certainly difficult to make out. That he was a proud and unpleasant man could not admit of a doubt, and yet Elizabeth felt a begrudging respect for his intelligence and even for his judgement in some matters — though the question of how one ought to behave at a public assembly was not among them.