Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (126 page)

The rain continued. Caroline and Louisa amused themselves by deciding what they will wear for the ball, whilst Bingley and I discussed the war. I am beginning to find the country tiresome. At home, at Pemberley, I have plenty to occupy me, but here there is little to do beyond reading or playing billiards when the weather is poor.

I will be interested to see if this spell of wet weather dissuades Bingley from buying Netherfield. A country
estate in the sunshine is a very different thing from a country estate in the rain.

Monday 25th November

I am glad of the ball. At least, if we have another wet day tomorrow, we will have something to occupy us.

Tuesday 26th November

The morning was wet, and I spent it writing letters. This afternoon, Bingley and his sisters were involved in final preparations for the ball. I had little to do and was vexed to find myself thinking of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, so much so that when the party from Longbourn arrived this evening I found myself looking for her. I thought I had put her out of my mind, but I am not as impervious to her as I had supposed.

‘Jane looks charming,’ said Caroline, as her brother moved forward to greet Miss Bennet.

‘It is a pity the same cannot be said for her sister,’ said Louisa. ‘What is Miss Elizabeth Bennet wearing?’

Caroline regarded her with a droll eye.

‘Miss Eliza Bennet scorns fashion, and is wearing a dress that is three inches too long and uses a great deal too much lace. Do you not think so, Mr Darcy?’

‘I know nothing about ladies’ fashions,’ I said,‘but she looks very well to me.’

Caroline was silenced, but only for a moment.

‘I wonder who she can be looking for. She is certainly looking for someone.’

‘She is probably looking for the officers,’ said Louisa.

‘Then she is not as quick as her sisters, for they have already found them,’ said Caroline.

The younger girls had run noisily across the ballroom, and were greeting the officers with laughs and squeals.

‘If they move any closer to Mr Denny, they will suffocate him!’ remarked Louisa.

‘You would not like to see your sister behaving in such a way with the officers, I am persuaded,’ said Caroline, turning to me.

She did not mean to wound me, and yet her remark could not have been less well chosen. It sent my thoughts to Georgiana, and from thence to Wickham, who was to don a red coat. No, I would not like to see it, but I was uncomfortably aware that if I had not arrived in Ramsgate without warning, it could almost have come to pass.

Caroline looked alarmed as my face went white, but I managed to reply coolly enough: ‘Are you comparing my sister to Lydia Bennet?’

‘They are the same age!’ said Louisa, with a trill of laughter.

‘No, of course not,’ said Caroline quickly, realizing she had made a mistake. ‘There can be no comparison. I meant only that the Bennet girls are allowed to run wild.’

I gave a cool nod and then moved away from her, hoping that Elizabeth’s glances round the room had been for me. As I drew close to the officers, I heard Denny saying to Miss Lydia Bennet that Wickham was not there as he had been forced to go out of town for a few days.

‘Oh!’ she said, her face dropping.

Elizabeth had joined them and she, too, looked disappointed. I remembered the look she had bestowed on Wickham in Meryton and I felt my hands clench as I realized with an unpleasant shock that when she had entered the ballroom she had been looking for Wickham, and not for me.

‘I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now if he had not wished to avoid a certain gentleman here,’ I overheard Mr Denny saying.

So he had turned coward, had he? I could not wonder at it. Courage was never a part of Wickham’s character. Imposing on the gullible, deceiving the innocent and seducing young girls, that was his strength.

But surely Elizabeth was not gullible? No. She was not to be so easily taken in. She might not have found him out yet, but I was confident she would do so. In the meantime, I did not want to miss the opportunity of speaking to her.

I continued walking towards her.

‘I am glad to see you here. I hope you had a pleasant journey?’ I asked. ‘This time, I hope you did not have to walk!’

‘No, I thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘I came in the carriage.’

I wondered if I had offended her. Perhaps she felt I had meant my remark as a slight on her family’s inability to keep horses purely for their carriage. I tried to repair the damage of my first remark.

‘You are looking forward to the ball?’

She turned and looked at me directly.

‘It is the company that makes a ball, Mr Darcy. I enjoy any entertainment at which my friends are present.’

‘Then I am sure you will enjoy your evening here,’ I said.

She turned away with a degree of ill-humour that shocked me. She did not even manage to overcome it when speaking to Bingley, and I resolved I had done with her. Let her turn her shoulder when I spoke to her. Let her prefer Wickham to me. I wanted nothing more to do with her.

She left her sisters and crossed the room to speak to her friend, Miss Lucas, and then her hand was sought by the heavy young clergyman I had seen with her at Meryton. Despite my anger, I could not help but feel sorry for her. I had never seen a display of more mortifying dancing in my life. From her expression, I could tell she felt the same. He went left when he should have gone right. He went back when he should have gone forward. And yet she danced as well as if she had had an expert partner.

When I saw her leaving the floor, I was moved to ask for the next dance. I was frustrated in this by her dancing with one of the officers, but then I moved forward and asked for the next dance. She looked surprised, and I felt it, for as soon as I had asked for her hand I wondered what I was about. Had I not decided to take no further notice of her? But it was done. I had spoken, and I could not unspeak my offer.

She accepted, though out of surprise more than anything else, I think. I could find nothing to say to her, and walked away, determined to spend my time with more rational people until it was time for the dance to begin. We went out on to the floor. There were looks of amazement all around us, though I am sure I do not know why. I might not have chosen to dance at the assembly, but that is a very different situation from a private ball.

I tried to think of something to say, but I found that I was speechless. It surprised me. I have never been at a loss before. To be sure, I do not always find it easy to talk to those I do not know very well, but I can generally think of at least a pleasantry. I believe the hostility I felt coming from Elizabeth robbed me of my sense.

At last she said: ‘This is an agreeable dance.’

Coming from a woman whose wit and liveliness delight me, it was a dry remark, and I made no reply.

After a few minutes, she said: ‘It is your turn to say something now, Mr Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.’

This was more like Elizabeth.

‘I will say whatever you wish me to say,’ I returned.

‘Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But now we may be silent.’

‘Do you talk by rule then, while you are dancing?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.’

‘Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?’

‘Both,’ she replied archly.

I could not help smiling. It is that archness that draws me. It is provocative without being impertinent, and I have never come across it in any woman before. She lifts her face in just such a way when she makes one of her playful comments that I am seized with an overwhelming urge to kiss her. Not that I would give in to such an impulse, but it is there all the same.

‘I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds,’ she went on. ‘We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.’

I was uneasy, not sure whether to laugh or feel concerned. If it was part of her playfulness, then I found it amusing, but if she thought it was the truth? Had I been so taciturn when I had been with her? I thought back to the Meryton assembly, and the early days at Netherfield. I had perhaps not set out to charm her, but then I never did. I had, perhaps, been abrupt to begin with, but I thought I had repaired matters towards the end of her stay at Netherfield. Until the last day. I remembered my silence, and my determination not to speak to her. I
remembered congratulating myself on not saying more than ten words to her, and remaining determinedly silent when I was left alone with her for half an hour, pretending to be absorbed in my book.

I had been right to remain silent, I thought. Then immediately afterwards I thought I had been wrong. I had been both right and wrong: right if I wished to crush any expectations that might have arisen during the course of her visit, but wrong if I wished to win her favour, or to be polite. I am not used to being so confused. I never was, before I met Elizabeth.

I became aware of the fact that again I was silent, and I knew I must say something if I was not to confirm her in the suspicion that I was deliberately taciturn.

‘This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,’ I said, my uneasiness reflected in my tone of voice, for I did not know whether to be amused or hurt. ‘How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait, undoubtedly.’

‘I must not decide on my own performance.’

We lapsed into an uneasy silence. Did she judge me? Did she despise me? Or was she playing with me? I could not decide.

At length, I spoke to her about her trip to Meryton, and she replied that she and her sisters had made a new acquaintance there.

I froze. I knew whom she meant. Wickham! And the way she spoke of him! Not with contempt, but with liking. I feared she meant to go on, but something in my
manner must have kept her silent.

I knew I should ignore the matter. I did not have to explain myself to her. And yet I found myself saying: ‘Mr Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends. Whether he may be equally capable of retaining them is less certain.’

‘He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship, and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.’

What has he said to her? What has he told her? I longed to tell her the truth of the matter, but I could not do so for fear of hurting Georgiana.

Once more a silence fell. We were rescued from it by Sir William Lucas who let slip a remark that drove Wickham out of my mind. For that, at least, I must thank him. He complimented us on our dancing, and then, glancing at Miss Bennet and Bingley, he said he hoped to have the pleasure of seeing it often repeated when a certain desirable event took place.

I was startled. But there could be no mistaking his meaning. He thought it possible, nay certain, that Miss Bennet and Bingley would wed. I watched them dancing, but I could see nothing in the demeanour of either to lead to this conclusion. Yet if it was being talked of then I knew the matter was serious. I could not let Bingley jeopardize a woman’s reputation, no matter how agreeable his flirtation. Recovering myself, I asked Elizabeth what we had been talking about.

She replied,‘Nothing at all.’

I began to talk to her of books. She would not admit that we might share the same tastes, so I declared that then, at least, we would have something to talk about. She claimed she could not talk of books in a ballroom, but I thought that was not what was troubling her. The trouble was that her mind was elsewhere.

Suddenly she said to me, ‘I remember hearing you once say, Mr Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created?’

Was she thinking of Wickham? Had he told her of the coldness between us? She seemed genuinely anxious to hear my answer, and I reassured her.

‘I am,’ I said firmly.

More questions followed, until I asked where these questions tended.

‘Merely to the illustration of your character,’ said she, trying to shake off her gravity. ‘I am trying to make it out.’

Then she was not thinking of Wickham. I was grateful.

‘And what is your success?’ I could not help asking.

She shook her head. ‘I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.’

‘I can readily believe it,’ I said, thinking with a sinking feeling of Wickham. I added on impulse, ‘I could wish that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.’

‘But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.’

I had begged for clemency. I would not beg again. I replied coldly, stiffly: ‘I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours.’

We finished the dance as we had begun it, in silence. But I could not be angry with her for long. She had been told something by George Wickham, that much was clear, and as he was incapable of telling the truth, she had no doubt been subjected to a host of lies. As we left the floor, I had forgiven Elizabeth, and turned my anger towards Wickham instead.

What had he told her? I wondered. And how far had it damaged me in her esteem?

I was saved from these unsettling reflections by the sight of a heavy young man bowing in front of me and begging me to forgive him for introducing himself. I was about to turn away when I remembered having seen him with Elizabeth, and I found myself curious as to what he might have to say.