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Upon entering the Lucases’ parlour, Mr. Darcy immediately looked about for his delightful friend. When he found her, standing with Mr. Madison and Miss Lucas, their eyes met, and hers lit up. At least he thought they did, but then she turned away, presenting her back to him.

Was she shunning him? Had he somehow managed to offend her? But how? They had parted on good terms after their walk. And he was confident that they had been getting along extremely well up until now.

Could something have changed her mind in the past few hours? A horrifying thought suddenly struck Mr. Darcy. Had Mr. Wickham managed to turn her against him after all?

This dreadful notion had him stunned for a moment, but then he collected himself, shaking his head at his own foolishness. Elizabeth distrusted Wickham too much for him to be able to persuade her of anything. If he told her the time of day, she would check the clock for herself.

And there was a perfectly logical explanation for her lack of acknowledgement—she had simply not perceived his presence. Probably because she had been riveted by whatever Mr. Madison was saying. Conversations with him were very interesting, as Mr. Darcy had himself experienced.

In that frame of mind, he went to discover what they were talking about. Once he made his presence known, Elizabeth greeted him as warmly as the others, and she was the one who encouraged him to add his voice to their discussion, which was indeed riveting. There was nothing awry.

Everything was boding well for another extremely agreeable evening.

Serious conversation was succeeded by some amusing banter, which included Elizabeth making another reference to her musical ineptitude.

During their earlier walk, Mr. Darcy had not been certain if she had only been joking about neglecting her musical practice, and when Charlotte Lucas insisted that she must play for them now, he was curious to know the truth of it.

But either way, he could not imagine being disappointed by anything Elizabeth did.

He was, however, disappointed by a delay in the anticipated pleasure of hearing her play. As Charlotte removed the cloth from the instrument, Mrs. Crane suddenly appeared, propelling her daughter toward the seat.

“I see we are to have some music,” Mrs. Crane said.

“Marianne will perform first. Sit yourself down, my dear. She has had the benefit of the finest instruction, Mr. Darcy, and she practices for hours every day. I am confident that you will be greatly impressed by her talent. And where is Mr. Bingley? I know that he will want to hear this. There he is! I shall just fetch him. Do not begin until he is in place, Marianne.”

Mr. Bingley was dragged over to the pianoforte and compelled to listen under Mrs. Crane’s surveillance.

He did so with an expression of pleasure, but Mr. Darcy thought that was only politeness, as was his own effort to appear appreciative.

Miss Marianne’s performance was no testament to the quality of her lessons or the quantity of her practice.

She was followed by her elder sister, who had no greater skill. Mr. Darcy breathed a sigh of relief when she was done. Seeing Mrs. Crane frown at him, he hastily turned this into a false noise of appreciation.

That frown turned into a smile. “I see that you are a connoisseur of music. I shall save you a seat in the front row at our musical evening next week,” she promised. “And Mr. Bingley.”

Mr. Bingley had slipped away. And now another young lady was taking the place in which Mr. Darcy was wanting see Elizabeth. His patience was further tried as more young ladies flocked to the pianoforte, some of their own accord, and others under the wing of a determined mother.

Miss Partridge was one of the latter, and also the most reluctant performer, yet the best of the lot.

Despite being rather timid in her execution, she demonstrated the level of skill which generally resulted from lessons and dedicated practice.

She also endeared herself to Mr. Darcy by eagerly encouraging Elizabeth to take her place.

But now Mrs. Partridge was making a nuisance of herself by speaking of her daughter’s exceptional musical abilities and the many other skills which she had acquired at her school. And she continued speaking as Elizabeth began to play.

He was grateful to hear Miss Partridge say, “Don’t you want to hear Lizzy, Mama? I always think she plays so well.”

“I don’t know why,” Mrs. Partridge said. “Can you not hear her fudging the notes?”

Irritated beyond tolerance, Mr. Darcy tersely said, “I would like to be able to hear the music.”

Mrs. Partridge departed in a fit of pique, but he felt no contrition for having upset the lady. Nor did he think the fudged notes, of which there were a few, had any detrimental effect.

Elizabeth had not been joking. But the man who had always encouraged his sister to practice diligently was suddenly of the opinion that practice was nothing. The natural use of a pleasing voice and the absence of any effort to impress made this the most delightful performance of the evening.

At its conclusion, Charlotte drew forward Mary, who had not been among those who flocked to the instrument. Mr. Darcy was again curious. Were they about to hear a requiem?

Thankfully that was not the case, but there was a poignancy to her music. However, the moving notes appeared to be well received by those who were listening. Mr. Darcy saw some upturned faces and pensive expressions—

And then a scornful one. “Nobody wants to hear your dismal music, Mary. This is a party, not a funeral. Play something we can dance to. I want to dance with the officers. And they are all desperate to dance with me.” As Lydia laughed uproariously, Mr. Darcy cringed.

So, he saw, did Elizabeth. But Miss Bingley was looking gleeful.

Unsurprisingly, she was eager to relate the incident to her brother at the end of the evening. Called upon to verify the facts, Mr. Darcy tried to play them down, but words were not easy to come by. The evidence spoke too well as to the baseness of Lydia’s manners.

He couldn’t even make much of the graciousness with which Mary declared herself happy to oblige all those who were fond of dancing. Unfortunately she had only done this after expressing a blunt opinion of Lydia’s behaviour, which had served to call her own manners into question.

Miss Bingley happily detailed Mary’s rudeness for her brother.

Then she moved on to some criticism of Mr. Bennet, who, according to her, had made a tasteless boast of being able to claim parentage to the silliest young lady in the room.

Although Mr. Darcy did not believe that her accounts could be trusted, he had a niggling feeling that there might be some degree of truth in this one.

It had not escaped him that Mr. Bennet was a bit of an oddity.

And Mrs. Bennet was perhaps not quite as harmless as he had been wanting to think.

He had overheard her complaining to Lady Lucas that none of her daughters appreciated the opportunity to marry some gentleman by the name of Collins.

She had also made a somewhat questionable remark which might be described by some people as vulgar.

But Mr. Darcy was wanting to believe that he was not one of those people.

***

“I think we are starting to get Charles’s attention,” Miss Bingley said. “He appeared to be mulling over my information.”

“I thought he was staring into space,” Mrs. Hurst said.