Over the following fortnight the Bennets met the Netherfield party numerous times.
Mr. Bingley was making his tour of the neighborhood dinners, and Mrs. Bennet used her accumulated favors to be invited to those same dinners quite often. Despite Mrs. Bennet’s deficiencies, she was good at gossip, good at setting a table, freely invited guests, and she rarely acted as though she were above her neighbors, even though Longbourn was one of the largest estates in the neighborhood.
At each of these events it was noted by all that Mr. Bingley and Jane would spend the greater part of the evening speaking together.
Elizabeth further noted that Mr. Darcy spent much of each night staring at her with that serious, unreadable, frowning expression.
This was sufficient cause to convince any young woman that she had become sufficiently ugly that a well-compensated future with a circus could be arranged. It was a happy fact for Elizabeth to now know what she could do if she were suddenly forced to seek employment following the decease of Mr. Bennet.
Even though Elizabeth tried to assure herself that Mr. Darcy was looking at her only to criticize, and because he thought ill of her, or perhaps merely he looked at her from an absence of mind, other suspicions that she assured herself that she disliked sometimes arose in the insufficiently fevered brain of the young maiden.
He had wished to dance with her—a man who never wished to dance with anyone. He even asked Mary to dance because she had suggested it. Mary had told Elizabeth in private the next day that Mr. Darcy spent the whole of the dance inquiring about Elizabeth and her situation.
He had even specified that he found her more than tolerable.
To be more than tolerable, and yet unable to imagine that anything would come from it.
Elizabeth was too aware of the social distance between them, and because even if he ignored such facts to pursue her, she would need to discourage him because of secret of her bastard birth. She could not, like an ordinary girl might, imagine that the very wealthy man had settled his eyes upon the most portionless and downtrodden member of the neighborhood to raise her consequence.
Also, he had specified that he was not a man inclined to give consequence to young women slighted by other gentlemen, and Elizabeth certainly was slighted by gentlemen in general.
On occasion though another thought crossed her mind.
Perhaps he looked towards her with liking. A strange man to be so serious and intent when admiring, but he was a strange man. And perhaps he would make one of those dishonorable offers that the rakes who gathered the maidenly leaves for their burning made in the novels that Elizabeth sometimes read instead of Mr. Bennet’s Homer and Caesar.
She would reject him if he did, without any doubt.
Her mother’s example, prudence, gratitude to Mr. Bennet, and Elizabeth’s own upright character would protect her from any temptation to give into temptation.
Of course there was no doubt about that.
Yet Elizabeth imagined at night, while twisting and turning before falling asleep what he might look like while he made such an offer. The problem with such fantasies was that while Mr. Bennet did give her wide scope in reading materials, she had not been permitted to read those books that would give her pointed descriptions of The Marital Act. And any fantasy must fade away after she imagined Mr. Darcy kissing her.
Besides, he obviously despised her.
Or, at least, Mr. Darcy’s manner and the quiet but considerate way he treated the servants convinced Elizabeth that he would never seduce a maiden away from her guardian.
And even if she was wrong about Mr. Darcy’s character, Elizabeth would rather have her arm be savaged by wolves than disappoint Mr. Bennet in such a way.
One evening at Lucas Lodge, Elizabeth retreated to a corner with Mary, while the party went on around them.
Lydia had drunk too much and become a little wild. Kitty loudly complained to Mrs. Bennet about a ribbon. Mr. Bingley and Jane sat together, again, ignoring all the world—Jane with her usual placid smile.
Mr. Darcy, as he always did, looked at her.
It was something that she was now well used to.
“Do you think Jane actually likes Mr. Bingley that much?” Elizabeth asked Mary.
“Female modesty is often silent; female decorum is never bold,” Mary intoned, with her hands folded together as though she were a child of eight whose ability to memorize a poem was being trotted out to impress the guests. And then she grinned at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth found it very hard not to laugh, and Mary shrugged, not bothered that Elizabeth did not find her use of a quote from one of her books enlightening.
Mr. Darcy as always, still looked at her.
Zounds, she would grow quite frightened of him if he continued in this way.
“I cannot tell,” Elizabeth said. “She ought to like Mr. Bingley. He is handsome, he is rich, which a young man ought to manage if he at all can, and he has an open and generous temperament. Yet her expression is quite calm. I cannot estimate upon it.”
“It always surprised me,” Mary said in reply, “that you and Jane were never closer friends.”
“Jane and I!” Elizabeth replied with some surprise. “Our characters are so wholly opposite. Besides she has always been very much Mrs. Bennet’s favorite.”
Mary made a small face. She nodded her head side to side indecisively. “Jane always says what she thinks she ought to say—she hasn’t studied morality, she does not read serious books, and she makes a pretense of believing that everyone is filled with goodness. The Holy Book is quite clear upon the opposite point: All have sinned and fallen short of the goodness of God.”
“I do not think,” Elizabeth said smiling at Mary being very much like Mary, “that Jane would ever admit to irreligious opinions.”
“She has no deep sense of theology. One can have opinions that are objectionable, incorrect, and unserious due to a failure to think rigorously about what is implied by all that one thinks.”
“You mean to say that by mastering the art of decorating her hair, of walking prettily, of talking prettily, and the particularly difficult art of making excellent rose water your sister has misused her time terribly.”
“See you do not like her either—There is a falsity to Jane. She is too much like Mama.”
“I like Jane well enough. I only cannot understand her. But Mary, is there not a Biblical injunction to honor your father and mother?” Elizabeth smirked. “This is my advantage, I have none, so I cannot transgress in this point.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Mary replied, but she smiled back at Elizabeth. “You are too contrary. Much like Papa. I do not insult Mama, I only say something she would admit to freely: That her chief concerns are gossip and seeing us all married.”
“And her nerves,” Elizabeth replied. She then looked about her, as though Mrs. Bennet may have heard what she had said.
Her eye fell upon Mr. Darcy once more.
He watched her.
“Why can he not find some other person to stare upon?” Elizabeth exclaimed.
Mary looked at Mr. Darcy and then looked down. “You must hope that he remains quiet in his admiration, Mama would not like it if she noticed.”
“I am full aware,” Elizabeth replied. Then she added, “He only looks at me to study the imperfections in my dress.”
“As always, your dress is a masterful work of imperfection,” Mary agreed with one of those dry smiles that proclaimed that despite her tendency to sermonize, she was in fact the daughter of Mr. Bennet. “As Doctor Johnson said, ‘He that has abilities to conceive perfection will not easily be content without it’. The imperfection of your dress is a perfection of imperfection, and well worth looking at if one finds such things of interest.”
Elizabeth pushed Mary’s arm and laughed. She looked at Mr. Darcy again as she did so.
Perhaps perceiving them both perceiving his interest in them, he approached the two girls.
As he did Elizabeth felt very aware of the imperfections of her own dress. And of the elaborate effort she went to with it.
This dress had fit fairly well when she inherited it from Jane, and she had needed to modify it so that the bosom looked uneven and unflattering. No rouge or powder of course, and the usual severe bun. A shawl draped all wrong over her shoulders. And another ink stain, this time on the stomach of the dress.
He bowed. “Might I ask what your conversation is upon?”
Mary had become shy at Mr. Darcy’s actual approach, so it fell to Elizabeth to provide the requisite liveliness. She already knew Mr. Darcy’s character well enough to confidently state that he would not. “We were speaking about you , Mr. Darcy.”
He blinked at this, but then seriously said, “But that is a subject upon which many things might be said. What specifically about me did you speak of?”
“We wished to puzzle out the difference in your character and Bingley’s. I seldom have met a man with a more open temperament, or who is more eager for society than he—you tend to quietness.”
“You surely do not think that a man must always speak, even when he has little to say.”
“Now I anticipated that you would say precisely that ,” Elizabeth replied smiling at him. “And as such I prepared this response: I come not to criticize, but to observe. You often observe.”
Darcy frowned at that. “You have observed me so closely?”
“You are not the only human to whom the Almighty has gifted the organs of perception.”
From the edge of her eye Elizabeth saw her benefactress approaching them.
“What are you all speaking of?”
Elizabeth flinched at Mrs. Bennet’s loud voice. She immediately lowered her eyes and turned away from Mr. Darcy. She oriented herself towards Mrs. Bennet, looking at her face to see what her mood was.
Mr. Darcy said nothing, and Mary said, “We were talking about character and conversation, and the nature of friendship between gentlemen of distinct temperaments.”
“Oh, you’ll bore Mr. Darcy to his very death!” Mrs. Bennet smiled at that gentleman. “Do not bore him with your never-ending quotations—Mr. Darcy, I confess that my dear Mary is a bluestocking, but do not doubt that she is very accomplished and possessed of every female virtue. Mary, go play. Mr. Darcy cannot have heard your excellence at the piano yet—Mary is excellent, Mr. Darcy. Everyone says as much.”
As Elizabeth had not been given the opportunity to develop any facility at the instrument herself, she always liked to hear Mary play.
Mr. Darcy inclined his head, but Elizabeth thought there was a definite air of disapproval in his manner. After a minute of listening to Mrs. Bennet speak over the beginning of Mary’s piece of music, he interrupted her with a bow of his head, and walked to stand against a distant wall, though his gaze was oriented roughly towards where Mary had settled herself on the bench.
“What a rude, disagreeable man. I thoroughly dislike him, and I always shall unless he decides upon Mary. I would not wish him upon Lydia. She is too lively for such a person.”
“I think you misunderstand him,” Elizabeth said. “He is very kind. He always gathers his cup and saucer together so that it is easy for the servants to collect.”
Mrs. Bennet stared at Elizabeth in quite a similar way to how she might look upon a dog walking on its hindlegs, or a female preacher. Then she said, “He acts as though he is better than all of us. And he is not. Not a bit. You do not have my leave to like him.”
Elizabeth made an appearance of subservience.
There was a courtly kindness in how Mr. Darcy treated those who were truly beneath him. In her heart Elizabeth identified as much with the teeming servants as with the independent and well dowered daughters of gentry.
Only with those who could pretend equality with the great master of Pemberley did he act in such a supercilious manner.
After Mary’s concerto finished, Lydia begged for her to play a reel so that they could all dance. Mrs. Bennet, after seeing four couples form on the hastily opened floor of Lucas Lodge, sent Elizabeth to fetch Mary as soon as the current piece was done. “Make Charlotte play instead. No one will seek her hand to dance, not when she is so very plain. She cannot play near so well as Mary, but a country dance is not beyond her abilities.”
Sent off on this expedition Elizabeth walked past Mr. Darcy and Sir William speaking together. As she was in fact interested in Mr. Darcy she paused long enough to hear the following snatch of conversation: “There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it one of the first refinements of polished societies.”
“Certainly, sir,” Mr. Darcy replied to Sir William. “And it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world: every savage can dance.”
This line seemed so much like what Mr. Bennet might say that it was impossible for Elizabeth to not smile at hearing it. As Elizabeth stepped past them towards the piano, Sir William paused her course and said, “My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you.”
Sir William took Elizabeth’s hand to present it to Mr. Darcy, but with a start of fear, and full awareness that Mrs. Bennet might be watching, Elizabeth pulled back and said, “I assure you that I have no intention of dancing.”
“You dance so seldom, Miss Eliza,” Sir William said grandly, “but I have seen you sufficient times to know that you will bring no shame to my house if you embark on the effort.”
“I would,” Mr. Darcy said, bowing, “be happy to take your hand.”
“Oh, no—I assure you. Oh, not at all. I never dance. Mrs. Bennet wished me to—I do apologize, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth looked at him, struck with a sudden feeling of longing, and a certainty that there was in fact admiration in the way he looked at her—despite how she always did her best to prevent gentlemen from finding anything in her appearance to admire. “I fear I cannot.”
And with a small, hurried curtsey, and a pretense of not hearing Sir William further attempt at persuasion, Elizabeth went to Mary’s side.
The substitution for Miss Lucas was made, and Elizabeth and Mary returned to Mrs. Bennet.
“Mr. Darcy paid you little attention,” Mrs. Bennet said unhappily. “Oh, why did he dance with you at all, if he would care nothing for your playing? Heavens, these gentlemen will be the death of me. And Mr. Bennet has no compassion for my nerves.”
“Mr. Darcy?” asked Mary with every appearance of shock at hearing that name brought forward. “ I did not anticipate that Mr. Darcy would favor me with any particular attention.”
“Oh, if only you were prettier—I had hoped. Oh, why would he choose you, my ugliest daughter, to dance a full set with? Out of all the room you were the only person not of his own party. And he even did this after Lydia had not met his high standards.”
Mary’s expression was flat. She was trying to hide any emotion, but she clearly was hurt by the fervor with which Mrs. Bennet said this. “It does not signify. It has no import. As many have written, ‘Carnal beauty is but skin deep.’”
“Nonsense! Stop saying such hateful nonsense. There is nothing more important about a girl than how she looks,” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. “These books have rotted your brain. Mr. Bennet should not have let you read so much. It has not been good for you. Look at me. It was not my brains which drew Mr. Bennet to marry me.” She laughed thinly. “Quite the opposite.”
“I know that I am not as pretty as the others, nor so likely to make a good marriage. It is for this cause that I dedicate myself to useful accomplishments,” Mary replied in a tone that showed to Elizabeth that while she was striving to show the respect these books told her ought to be directed towards her parents, that the girl was deeply upset by the words of her mother.
“If only you were pretty!” Mrs. Bennet said again. “You have a face which only a mother such as I could love—It tortures my nerves! I feel such fluttering and pangs when I think of how little worth looking at you are.”
Mr. Darcy was near them again, and he gravely observed this conversation.
“Heavens,” Mrs. Bennet added, “I do not know how we’ll support you when Mr. Bennet dies. Nor you either, Lizzy. I do care for you, but you shall need to find a place for yourself. My resources will be saved for my blood.”
“That is only proper,” Elizabeth replied automatically. “I am always very grateful to you.”
“Don’t think Mr. Bennet shall do anything for you. He only thinks of us. You have gotten enough from my resources by being raised as a gentlewoman. Oh! I am so anxious. So anxious when I think of how I have four girls, all out, and not one of them in the way of being married.”
Mr. Darcy withdrew. Perhaps he had noticed that Elizabeth had noticed that he was close enough to hear them again.
Elizabeth did not feel any of the anxiety which Mrs. Bennet no doubt hoped to reduce in herself by pushing it on Elizabeth. She rather expected that Mr. Bennet would do something for her, though it would no doubt be quite modest. But unless circumstances made it requisite for Elizabeth to be informed earlier, Mr. Bennet would only inform Mrs. Bennet about this terrible kindness in his will.
Even if she should not rely upon this, it was difficult for Elizabeth to think about the future.
She could not try to attach a gentleman while her illegitimacy was hidden. This may have been why Mr. Bennet kept her birth hidden. If no one, including Elizabeth, knew, she could have tried to find a gentleman to marry. No one’s conscience would need to be guilty but Mr. Bennet’s own.
Elizabeth could not forget. Her bastardy had been beaten into her.
But besides marriage, there was nothing that she could do. Elizabeth did not have the education to become a governess. Except in the case of dancing, where Mr. Bennet had insisted that Elizabeth would learn what was necessary, Mrs. Bennet excluded Elizabeth when masters had been brought for the other daughters.
Instead, she had learned Latin and Greek from Mr. Bennet, sitting on his knee. He’d taught her to shoot, both hunting rifles and a small lady’s pistol that he encouraged her to keep about her, and he’d taught her mathematics and astronomy.
The man she wished she could call Papa had taught her to take joy in the things that he took joy in.