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Mary asked quietly, “Now that you are peacefully aboveground, Mr Darcy, perhaps you could explain why you acted as you did?”

Darcy looked at her and spoke gently. “The only answer for such behaviour is I chose to do so despite knowing better. Anything else is simply excuse making.”

“Perhaps… but I would assume you have made it through dozens of balls and assemblies without giving offence. How was this one different?”

“It was not —”

Jane spoke softly. “We have forgiven but not forgotten. I do think it would be helpful to understand your frame of mind.”

Darcy rubbed his chin in thought, then looked carefully behind the ladies to ensure nobody could overhear.

Mary noticed his movements. “We are watching your back, sir. This is as private as we are ever likely to get.”

Darcy sighed. “Let us imagine I just entered the Assembly Hall.”

Elizabeth giggled and looked embarrassed, but she decided to carry on anyway. “To make this pantomime work, one of us would have to grab your arm hard enough to make your hand go numb.”

Jane and Mary laughed nervously, while Darcy gave a more robust version—though quiet enough to avoid undue attention.

“It is too late to make the tableau perfect as I would also need to have spent the last three hours stuck in a coach with some perfume that would—”

Elizabeth suspected he was thinking something like ‘kill a horse’ and surmised he was trying to refrain from compounding his offences.

“No need to worry about falling back on bad habits. We understand your meaning, and if you manage to offend us, we will only be reaping what we have sown.”

“I vaguely recollect Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth were standing with Miss Lucas at about the church doors,” he said, gesturing vaguely in the correct direction.

“That seems right.”

Darcy let out a bigger than average sigh, accompanied by a ferocious frown.

“I managed to traverse about fifteen yards—perhaps where Mrs Long is—before I overheard, ‘10,000 a year and probably more’, along with various other descriptions of my wealth, fine estate, relative handsomeness, etcetera. Naturally, I would not be quite so handsome if I were not so rich.”

All three sisters stared down in chagrin, realising the likely source of that bit of eavesdropping, and subsequently realising it was not only Mrs Bennet who was gossiping.

They had been hearing almost the same words from Charlotte at the same time (though more discreetly).

In fact, the gentleman would have heard substantially the same from any matron chosen at random and half the gentlemen.

Mary said, “I admit, that was awful. Is it always so?”

“Yes… but pray allow me to finish. I went another fifteen paces before I overheard, ‘he has already inherited’. I believe that was from Lady Lucas, and I was unimpressed, to say the least, that someone could speak about my parents’ death as a benefit .”

The sisters were silent, unable to produce a retort for some time, while Darcy was ignoring them in deep reflection.

He finally finished, “I believe I was introduced to the Bennets half an hour later.”

Elizabeth said, “I am more astonished by your apology than ever. I can assure you that I would never do such a thing if I were simply returning like with like.”

“Ah, but it was it like for like?”

“How so?” asked Elizabeth gently, genuinely perplexed.

“I was repaying commonplace gossip that happens in every single society I enter, with specific cruelty.”

“I no longer think it was cruelty, though I did at the time,” Elizabeth practically whispered.

“It was perhaps a bit mean-spirited, but it would have to descend considerably to reach the level of cruelty. May I ask why you are disinclined to dance? Mr Bingley is obviously a much more gregarious man, but it seems to me you could have danced with one or two of the ladies without a great deal of difficulty. You resisted the temptation to step on the Bingley sisters’ gowns or stomp their feet, so you are light enough on your feet.

It could not have been so difficult to pick out a few wallflowers to dance with.

I could name you five who would not in a hundred years believe you meant anything by it. ”

Darcy let out a great heaving sigh. “Do you want even more whining?”

Elizabeth laughed nervously. “You could search the width and breadth of England without finding any three ladies more accustomed to whining. We only hope you did not hear our mother before you arrived.”

“I make it a point to not hear Mrs Bennet,” Darcy said with a chuckle, echoed by the ladies.

Elizabeth looked pointedly.

“Have you any idea how many ways there are to compromise a gentleman in an unfamiliar ballroom?”

The sisters stared at each other with frowns, not having given the matter any real thought. Wealthy men were so rare in Meryton society that nobody had attempted a compromise in living memory. Most thought they were a myth.

Jane said, “I would imagine quite a few, though I would be hard pressed to come up with more than the obvious two or three.”

“I cannot claim to be an expert on the subject. All I can say is that six different attempts have been made on me--…”

The sisters gasped in shock, and Mary said, “That is a lot of attempts for a decade in society.”

Darcy chuckled grimly. “You did not allow me to finish, Miss Mary. The rest of that sentence consists of… this year.”

The sisters looked back and forth in wonder, trying to imagine what it must have been like.

All they had to do was imagine the last conversation between Mrs Bennet and Lady Lucas, or their father’s casual cruelty to work out how it must have felt to a stranger meeting the neighbourhood for the first time.

Elizabeth finally said, “I confess, this conversation has gone very differently than we imagined. I believe we can not only forgive your words but understand them as well. In fact, I am tempted to congratulate you on your forbearance.”

“Fear not, ladies. I appreciate your generosity, but I must claim my share of the fault. If you perfume a pig, it is still a pig. You cannot dress vice up with a dinner jacket and make it a virtue.”

Elizabeth, surprisingly, smiled. “That is a well-chosen idiom, sir. It is hard to argue, but it has one fatal flaw.”

“Which is?” he asked nervously.

“We all adore pigs.”

The group laughed uproariously (somewhat), which finally brought the attention of the rest of the congregation, who had been politely trying to ignore them.

Mary noticed the attention. “If we wish to beat our poor little ‘digging his own grave’ analogy to death, it is time for Lizzy to help Mr Darcy shovel the dirt back in.”

Jane looked suspicious, while Elizabeth looked perplexed.

Darcy said, “Should we throw the poor analogy in first. It seems a shame to waste a fine grave.”

Elizabeth laughed gaily, while Mary and Jane joined in a moment later.

Mary said, “On the one hand, it seems appropriate—but on the other, I wonder if it is fair to bury poor Mr Bingley with our dead analogy.”

Jane frowned. “He can get himself out! Mr Darcy has done all the heavy digging.”

Elizabeth and Mary nodded, though whether in agreement or simple acknowledgement was not clear.

“Perhaps you might take pity on me and explain what you mean in terms simple enough for even a lunkhead like me to understand?”

Mary glared at Elizabeth disconcertingly for the space of half a minute.

Elizabeth finally sighed. “I believe you have the right of it.”

Jane queried, “I presume you know what you are doing, as I certainly do not.”

“Nor I,” Darcy said.

Elizabeth laughed and moved over to stand beside him.

“Come with me and follow my lead, Mr Darcy. We are going to rehabilitate your reputation.”

“How?” he asked in puzzlement.

“Watch and learn, sir. Watch and learn.”