An Assembly Such as This (5 page)

Of the two ladies, Miss Bingley regained her composure first, but not before she had resorted to her napkin, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “But what of the ladies, Mr. Darcy?” A cruel gleam of anticipation illuminated her eye. “Surely you do not include the local females in the supply of brawn?”

“Not at all, Miss Bingley. I would not be so ungracious.”

“But, sir,” she pressed on, “you have acceded to their lack of brawn and have discounted their wit. On what basis, then, may we discriminate among the ladies of Hertfordshire?”

“You hint at the most obvious where females are concerned, Miss Bingley. You wish me to comment on their physical attributes, their beauty, if you will.” Vastly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation, he motioned to Bingley. “It is your brother rather than myself to whom you should apply for that judgment.”

“We know what Charles thinks,” she replied, a note of peevishness in her voice. “To him they are all diamonds of the first water. It is your opinion we would hear; is it not, Sister?”

“Yes, Mr. Darcy, do tell us,” Mrs. Hurst requested brightly, then glancing at her sister, added mischievously, “I would especially enjoy your further views on the Bennet girls.”

“Darcy,” intoned Bingley with a pretense of menace, “I will not countenance a comment on Miss Jane Bennet save of the highest order. You may confine your assessment to her sisters…to Miss Elizabeth, perhaps? Now, she would be
my
idea of beauty if it were not for her elder sister.”

Silence fell as all three of Darcy’s dinner companions awaited his reply. It passed through his mind as he wiped his hands with the napkin on his lap that in some mysterious way Miss Elizabeth Bennet was continuing to exact her penance for his stupid blunder. So, with as much insouciance as he could summon, he made it clear as he criticized her face, her form, and her manners that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was not
his
idea of perfection in a woman.

T
he morning of the shooting party dawned crisp and clear, affording the gentlemen an excellent day’s sport. Armed with advice gained from Darcy’s experience in arranging these matters, his own engaging nature, and his new fowling piece, Bingley handily established himself among the prominent sporting men of the district. His weapon was exclaimed upon, his kills congratulated, and his company so required at future hunts that he could hardly be blamed for considering himself the most fortunate of men.

Despite repeated attempts by the other gentlemen to draw him out, Darcy stayed obdurately in the background, concentrating on the further training of the young hound he had brought with him rather than the conversation of the party. He reasoned that it likely would be as Caroline Bingley had complained, “all horses and hunting,” and therefore something to which he need only half attend. Even that was merely for Charles’s sake, to help him sort everyone out later when they discussed the events of the day over a glass of port in the library. This was Bingley’s time to make his mark, and Darcy had no wish to divert the attention of the neighborhood away from his friend.

Darcy took a deep draught of the cool, fresh air, holding and savoring it as he had the wine at dinner the night before, then exhaled slowly, causing the field and wood before him to waver in the vapor of his breath. The party had continued across the field without him, their voices fading into a quietness that nourished peace in his soul. The peace was soon broken, however, by an urgent appeal for recognition from the region of his knee. He stooped down, balancing on the balls of his feet as he scratched the hound behind its ears.

The animal was just out of puppyhood, all legs and big feet, with a passion to please his master that verged on the comical. The look of unabashed adoration he lifted to Darcy plainly battled with the sheer joy he was experiencing to be, at last, out in the fields. Darcy laughed softly as he watched the struggle between obedience and impulse cause the dog to quiver with suppressed excitement. The bundle of confliction finally cast him a look filled with such pleading that he would have had to have been made of stone to resist it even if he had not suddenly felt an echo of the same struggle within himself. He gave the beast a brisk caress and, snatching a good-sized stick from the ground, stood up again to his full height and looked down on the animal in stern command. Hound and master eyed each other, each watching closely for any blink of movement on the other’s part that would indicate a weakening of resolve. Darcy allowed the tension between them to mount until, with a great heave, he flung the stick and shouted out the most beautiful word for which a dog might hope. “Fetch!”

Like a tightly coiled spring suddenly released, the hound leapt forward in silent, total concentration on its quarry. In a matter of seconds, sounds of scuffling indicated that he was searching for his prize in the high, dry grass. Darcy sauntered in the direction the hunting party had taken, confident that the dog’s enthusiasm for the game would shortly bring him to heel. He was not disappointed. Wresting the stick from him, he flung it again but gave no command. The hound sat directly before him, blocking his way, a question in his large, young eyes. Darcy waited. A small, impatient whine escaped his muzzle and ended with a sharp bark.

“Fetch!” The command almost caught the hound unprepared. Off he bounded, and Darcy continued on his way, quickening his pace. He caught up with the others just as the hound returned, proudly bearing his treasure securely in his jaws.

“I say, Darcy, your dog must be of extraordinary use to you. Mine will retrieve only game, while yours provides for the fire to cook it as well!” quipped one of the gentlemen standing with Bingley. The group laughed genially, Darcy joining them.

“Gentlemen, this has been a most agreeable morning’s work,” said Bingley, pausing with pleasure as he was interrupted by several hear, hears. “Thank you…my pleasure.” He nodded back, acknowledging their accolades. “I, for one, have found it to have worked up a considerable appetite. Shall we turn back and see what my cook has deemed appropriate provender for gentlemen returned from a successful morning’s hunt?”

Hefting his weapon over his shoulder, Darcy recalled his dog from his intense perusal of the prized stick and turned back toward Netherfield. A clap on his other shoulder brought his head around sharply, but he relaxed immediately when he realized it was Bingley coming up behind him.

“What do you think?” his friend asked in a whisper as they tarried behind the others. “May I report my mission accomplished to my sisters?”

“Without question,” Darcy assured him, and added with a wry smile, “Take care you do not stand for a seat in Parliament next election, for you will surely win if you continue as you have begun!”

Bingley laughed heartily, then leaned toward Darcy conspiratorially. “I have it on reliable authority that the family of a certain young woman has also accepted an invitation to dine at the squire’s tomorrow evening. And,” he continued, blind to the martial light that appeared in Darcy’s eyes in response to his news, “while it is
likely
that we may find them at the Kings’, it is
certain
that they will be at the colonel’s, for the youngest daughter, I have learned, is a particular friend of the colonel’s wife.”

“You have neglected to mention the assembly at Sir William’s. Why is that, I wonder?” Darcy decided that Bingley’s ballooning exuberance could stand a judiciously delivered pricking.

“Oh, I knew that they would be included at the assembly,” Bingley replied, oblivious to the intent of the question. “
I
wonder you did not notice that Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Miss Lucas are fast friends! They are often in each other’s company.” Bingley shook his head incredulously at Darcy. “Really, Darcy, you are usually more observant!”

Darcy snorted at Bingley’s naïveté but forbore to correct his misapprehension.
So, Miss Elizabeth, we are to be continually thrown into each other’s society?
he thought.
What will be your next tack, I wonder.
Bingley moved away to rejoin the other gentlemen, leaving Darcy to contemplate what forces he would need to marshal for tomorrow night’s engagement.

By the end of the evening at Squire Justin’s, Darcy knew himself to be thoroughly routed. Nothing had gone as he expected. Eschewing any form of strong drink that day to ensure himself a clear head, he had come prepared to parry wit and grace with his disturbing adversary. If the opportunity arose and all went well, he also intended to offer her his apology. Neither was to be.

Looking back, he realized he should have known that an evening beginning as inauspiciously as this one had could never, once in motion, be recouped. They had arrived at the squire’s more than fashionably late due to some detail of Miss Bingley’s dress that displeased her at the very last moment. They were further encumbered by the unfortunate throwing of a horseshoe by the carriage’s team leader, necessitating a slower than usual passage through the countryside. The muskiness of Mrs. Hurst’s perfume, which seemed to pervade the carriage, was nigh on giving him a headache, so that by the time they had finally gained their host’s drawing room, Darcy was hard-pressed to maintain an even temper.

Insisting that he be the last of the party to make his bow to their host, Darcy paused a moment just within the door to clear his head and regain his equilibrium. Miss Bingley was heartily welcomed by the squire and then handed ceremoniously on to his wife, who, with the daughters of the house, returned her curtsy in awed silence. Visibly pleased with the effect of her entrance, Miss Bingley condescended to inquire after their health and soon thereafter was gratified to be the center of attention, consisting of clothes envy on the part of most of the ladies and appreciation for the drape of those clothes on the part of the gentlemen. The Hursts followed, and then Bingley made his bow, receiving also a great shaking of his hand as the squire apologized for the pressing nature of his duties, the urgency of which had denied him the pleasure of joining the previous day’s hunting at Netherfield. “You must tell me how you like your new weapon, Mr. Bingley. I have been considering the purchase of just such a model.”

“I would be delighted, sir, to tell you all, but would not a demonstration be worth a thousand words? You must come to Netherfield at your earliest convenience and try it for yourself,” Bingley generously proposed, the invitation further cementing his approval among the denizens of Hertfordshire. He moved on to make his bow to the squire’s lady and was received with much apparent pleasure by the good woman and her daughters.

Darcy then presented himself to his host. “Mr. Darcy, sir,” began the squire, “I hear you have a most accomplished hound. The word is that after it has presented you with your trophy, it gathers wood for a fire, unpacks your hunt bag, and prepares the game in the Italian style for your dinner!” The small group of gentlemen in their vicinity laughed appreciatively. “Sir, name your price! I must have this wonder.”

“My apologies, Squire, for you have been seriously misled,” Darcy replied. His lower lip twitched slightly but he did not cease his sober regard of his host. “The hound is but young and still in much need of training. I regret to say that the Italian style is quite beyond its capabilities, but as the hound insists on putting garlic in everything, your informant’s mistake is understandable.” Darcy’s understated humor was greeted with dead silence for a moment, then the squire roared with laughter and the others joined him.

“Well done, Mr. Darcy! I see more goes on in that brain-box than your face betrays. May I present my wife?” The squire did the necessary, and Darcy soon found himself free to join whatever knot of fellow guests he might choose. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were well occupied with admirers. Mr. Hurst was arguing the merits of Gentleman’s Pride against Gray Shadow in their last race. Bingley was ensnared in a hunting conversation that Darcy could plainly see he wished to escape, as every few sentences he craned his head around, looking about the long room.

Yes, where are the Bennet sisters?
Darcy began to search himself. Dismissing the group around Miss Bingley, he began a perambulation of the room. He was about to move past some people gathered around a settee when the gentleman in front of him stepped back, nearly colliding with him. Sidestepping in time not to be trod upon, he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

“May I wish you good evening, Miss Bennet?” he began quickly, his bow to her as elegantly correct as if he were under the eyes of the queens of London Society. Her curtsy was his equal in correctness.

“You may, sir,” she said, paused, and then added somewhat distractedly as she looked up at him, “though whether it be good will depend upon ourselves, will it not?” Her lips curved into a perfunctory smile that appeared and then vanished in a moment, but not before Darcy was captivated by the sparkle that even such a slight smile could not help but put into her eyes. His confusion increased as she stepped to one side and peered around him, a slight frown creasing what he was forced to concede was a lovely brow. “If you would please excuse me, Mr. Darcy, there is something that needs my immediate attention.”

“Certainly, Miss Bennet,” he managed to say, if only to her back, as she hurried away. Taken somewhat aback by this treatment, Darcy first thought that she was continuing to pay him out his punishment for his ill-considered words on both of their last meetings and that her seeming avoidance of himself was part of her game. But as he watched her engaged in soothing the flutterings of her mother and “having a word” with a younger sister, he saw that her abrupt leave-taking had some legitimacy and that his suspicion was unfounded.

At dinner Darcy experienced some regret that he was not strictly within Elizabeth Bennet’s sphere of polite interchange, being seated across the table and two chairs down; but he was close enough to witness her easy and engaging manner with those fortunate enough to share her end of the table. With grudging admiration, he could not help but note her delightful way of teasing gruff, old Major ——— into good humor on the one hand and, later, assuring a shy, young country dandy that the knot of his neckcloth was “bang up to the mark” on the other. Whether she was exchanging wit or listening in sympathy, he marked the uncommon intelligence displayed in her beautiful, dark eyes and wondered that he had dismissed her so thoughtlessly at the assembly.

His opinion sought on a matter by a fellow guest to his other side, Darcy was a few moments before he could return his attention down the table. It happened that the conversation around Elizabeth Bennet had ebbed, affording her an opportunity to partake of some refreshment. She extended a slender, dimpled arm and grasped the stem of the wineglass between delicately formed fingers. Darcy watched, inexplicably fascinated, as with unconscious grace she slowly brought it to her lips. She sipped the wine, ever so slightly, and gently returned the glass to its place. As she released it and returned her hand to her lap, Darcy released the breath he had not realized that he had been holding. He quickly averted his eyes before she could notice his inappropriate behavior, directing them instead to his own glass of wine. His pulse somewhat elevated, his grip on his glass was not as sure as hers had been, and the wine sloshed dangerously in the bowl as he raised it.
What is the matter with you?
he scolded himself, then swallowed the contents without tasting anything.