Page 7 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)

Elizabeth confessed to herself as she arose the next day that she had been disconcerted by the way that Mr. Darcy’s eyes lingered on her the previous night as she talked with Colonel Fitzwilliam, obviously for the purpose of keeping his attention away from Caroline — not with any noted success to be clear. The officer delighted in saying outrageous things, and he had a particular and determined delight in saying them to Caroline.

But Darcy had been dumb most of the previous night, even by his ordinary standards, only speaking when directly spoken to.

Elizabeth could not help but feel that he was displeased about something.

It was unfortunate, but all of Caroline’s efforts seemed to have as much effect on Mr. Darcy’s attitude towards her as they did on the wall or vases of flowers — rather less effect than Caroline would have had if she had talked directly to the window, because then at least condensation might have formed.

Darcy did not like Caroline.

That was what Elizabeth admitted to herself.

Watching them spend two nights together in a small domestic circle was enough to prove that to Elizabeth. And it made her feel very… sad.

Of course he was in no way worthy of her friend, even with his excellent appearance and wealth. He was a cold man, and he had no interest in the honest affections of a woman who adored him. Caroline ought to think no more of him, and consider herself lucky. As for her part, Elizabeth was glad that he probably disapproved of her.

But rather than continuing to abuse Darcy in her thoughts, as she knew she ought to as Caroline’s friend, this question caught Elizabeth’s mind and stuck like honey and jam: Just what did Mr. Darcy think of her?

He was quiet. He did not flirt. He looked at her with that serious studying eye that she would assume was disapproving in anyone else. But Mr. Darcy was such an odd, quiet man. He certainly paid far more attention to her when they were in the room together than he did to Caroline.

She had no compelling reason to think that he disliked her, but if he liked her, why did he not flirt with her? Most gentlemen knew well enough to flirt with the women they liked. Of course she did not want Mr. Darcy to like her — that would be simply awful as Caroline loved him.

Simply awful…

Yes, it definitely was a good thing that he definitely and definitively disliked her, and that those intent stares could not signify anything more than absence of mind and a studied desire to mark out her every defect.

Elizabeth certainly preferred to believe that.

The next morning Mama came shortly after breakfast with Kitty and Mary to visit the recovering Jane, and after visiting the invalid in her sick room, the group returned to the drawing room.

As soon as they sat down to the richly scented tea and ample cakes provided by Caroline, Mrs. Bennet announced that she was wholly satisfied with the girl’s improvement, and that she thought that Jane would likely be able to return home in another day or two.

Mary had sat down on the edge of the couch, and rather rudely pulled her book of sermons out to start reading. It was not so surprising though, Mary usually acted as though she were among family at the Bingleys.

When Mama announced that she thought Jane could soon come home, Caroline looked at Elizabeth with those “please stay here” eyes.

While Elizabeth was now convinced she could not help Caroline’s hopeless case with Mr. Darcy, still, for reasons she could understand and easily articulate, and due to some she could not, was happy to remain longer at Netherfield. Elizabeth said to her mother, “We would not want Jane to relapse in the carriage.”

“Oh nonsense. People don’t fall sick again just because they are in the carriage for twenty minutes.”

“But she would be exposed to the cold,” Charlie nervously chewed on his lip. “Much, much better if she remains here until she is completely well. Even longer perhaps.”

Mama patted Charlie on the cheek. “Sweet boy. Well if you both insist on staying longer, you can stay here at Netherfield as long as you want, though I miss all of you.”

With a roll of her eyes, Kitty said to them, “It is hardly fair! It is quite too quiet at home when I’m the only one there. And Papa just sits reading all day from his books without you there. I miss Lydia, I wish she’d been brought out of school with me.”

“When she is sixteen,” Mrs. Bennet said.

Louisa and Caroline looked between each other, Elizabeth knew that neither of them was particularly fond of Kitty, who had always been a slightly annoying creature who thought that a world dominated by older siblings was unfair.

Charlie cheerfully clapped Kitty on the shoulder. “If you wish to stay here also, I’ve rooms, and rooms, and rooms. You can have three of them.”

Kitty’s eyes widened. “Oh no! Not Netherfield. You’d give me a room in the drafty wing. No, no.”

“Ah, well.” Charlie shrugged.

“Mr. Bennet does miss you and Jane,” Mama said. “He has begun making sketches of machines again, and he mumbles about maybe establishing another business — he won’t though, not without poor Mr. Bingley.”

Darcy looked sharply at Mrs. Bennet. “In trade? Again?”

The disapproval in the tone was clear to Elizabeth.

“One cannot simply read all day — or Mr. Bennet can, and I enjoy seeing him so happy with his books. But it is no surprise to me that he sometimes wishes to be active again.”

“No matter what Mr. Bingley has said on the matter,” Darcy replied stiffly, “it astonishes me immensely that any gentleman with a substantial estate of his own would decide to spend such a great amount of his time directly involved in trade.”

“He always enjoyed it,” Elizabeth said. “Besides, how else was the construction of all those machines to be funded?”

“Hmmmm,” Mr. Darcy replied noncommittally, and Elizabeth was not sure whether she should despise him as a snob who despised her father for his involvement in trade, or not.

Mama knew her choice. She frowned deeply at Mr. Darcy. “It astonishes me that you’ve such a narrow acquaintance — Oh by the way,” she said to Elizabeth, “Mr. Collins is coming to visit next week. That cousin of your father’s, the one who will inherit Longbourn.”

“Mr. Collins?” Elizabeth said with some surprise. “I shall be quite interested to meet this almost mysterious cousin.”

“Do be cautious around him — like as not he hopes to marry one of you. And he is at present only the vicar of a modest parsonage, whatever his hopes may be. Mr. Bennet makes fun of me by saying that he shall be able to throw us all into the hedgerows when he should die, but that is quite nonsense, as I will be very well provided for. Longbourn is not a half part of your father’s income, you know — I do not fancy these people who look down upon fortunes made in trade. I have always said that a man in trade is quite as respectable as any gentleman with an estate — more respectable I think, since they are useful sorts, unlike some .”

She glared at Mr. Darcy, looking rather like a peevish old cat.

“Mama,” Elizabeth said, feeling an odd anxiety at the thought of her mother embarrassing herself, “You quite misunderstand Mr. Darcy — quite. That was not what he meant at all.”

She flushed as she looked sidelong at Darcy and shifted on the velvet fabric of the couch.

Charlie also noticed the tension, and he jovially laughed, and exclaimed, “I am a wholly useless and idle sort of fellow! I did not learn the business in any way, and I do not worry myself much over Greek or Latin, though I did learn to dance quite admirably.”

“Oh Charlie,” Mama exclaimed, smiling at him. “You always make a laugh about yourself. But you are a quite useful fellow — everyone loves to have you near in conversation. And you do not need to worry yourself away with business, because your father and Mr. Bennet did so for you. There is no sense in the son worrying himself to an excess when his father already did so.”

Mrs. Bennet then launched into one of those lines of reminiscence about their days in Manchester.

Elizabeth felt — and not only on Caroline’s account — more than slightly embarrassed to hear the tale bandied about in front of Mr. Darcy.

“I assure you,” Mama began, “that we had enough worrying over business for several generations. Have you any notion,” she said speaking to Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, “what it was like in those years? After my dear husband set up in trade with Mr. Bingley, Mr. Bennet’s father cut off his allowance — he said it was a shame before the family. But Mr. Bennet simply wanted to see those machines made! For him it was always a matter of advancing the arts and sciences of England as much as the fortune — we were quite narrow in those days.”

“I am impressed with your husband’s fortitude in acting so,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “As a dependent son I am always keenly aware of what might put me beyond the good graces of my father — though your husband had to his advantage of the entail, so he knew that he could not be separated forever from fortune.”

“Yes, yes!” Mama cried. “There is no legal arrangement I admire so much as an entail — even though it will take Longbourn away from us one day, I always advise my friends to establish one if they might. Mr. Bennet took everything he had from his mother, and a great loan from my father to make up his part of the capital. My brother also contributed a little, but he earned a greater portion back by managing the London contacts for our business in addition to his own. We lived only off the income from my funds — a little less in fact. Mr. Bennet always found some cause to give a pound here or there to some workman, or to smooth some small matter over when the working capital was overrun.”

Charlie sat on the corner of the blue chesterfield sofa next to Mama, and flung his leg over the side. He said, “Papa loved to talk about those days, and how he put in everything he could beg, borrow or steal from my grandparents, his friends, and random persons on the street.”

“Quite right! Quite! We lived, all of us, in that small house in Manchester. We were right on top of each other, sharing a maid of all work between me and Mrs. Bingley. It was quite ridiculous — we were so young. I was quite angry for the first months at Mr. Bennet for taking me north and placing me in such circumstances, but… I began to find the… fun in it. I hardly realized it at the time, but those years were the happiest in my life. I am wholly happy now — but there was something about being surrounded by a young and growing brood, the way that Mr. Bennet worked all day, each day, and then he’d talk to me at night about the business and his worries — I hardly understood a half of what he said, but I tried to listen — when you marry, girls, you always must get your husband to speak to you. The best men often are rather quiet if you do not put yourself to some effort to draw them out.”

That speech struck Elizabeth a bit oddly. It made her think of Mr. Darcy.

And she then tried to compare Mr. Darcy and her father, and while in surface ways they were not at all alike, perhaps there was a similar cleverness, and maybe even a similar tendency to be amused by others without showing it at all.

Caroline said with a blush, “Oh, I certainly shall delight in nothing so much as listening to my husband when I marry.”

“For my part,” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed and stretched his legs out in front of him, “I’d find it a terrible bore to have to constantly listen to myself talk — I’d much prefer the nattering of a woman. Tell the rest of it — how did you get the dowries of all your girls so packed with fat?”

“So packed with fat.” Mama giggled. “I’ll need to remember that. Our life became easier after Mr. Bennet inherited Longbourn. He let out the estate, and put almost all the money into the enterprise, borrowing against his expectations even, but business was expanding, and we moved into a much bigger house. Two maids and a cook — though no footman. Manservants are so dear in the north. The mills and canals, the mines and factories — they hire them all up at good wages. It is quite a good thing for them , but makes keeping up one’s consequence harder — Kitty had just been born, and Lydia followed soon after.”

“I loved nothing so much as that house! And the yard!” Charlie grinned. He always enjoyed hearing these sorts of stories about their childhood. “I shall always remember the scent of the apple trees during the summer — I’d barely started school when we moved into the larger house. I remember my delight at having my own room — I’d had to share with Caroline and Louisa before.”

“Don’t talk about that!” Caroline said, her color high. She looked at Mr. Darcy, who listened intently to Mrs. Bennet’s story.

He was studying Elizabeth again.

Those same dark, serious eyes. She felt a flutter in her stomach that could not be attraction.

“I am not ashamed that my husband made his fortune through determined work, cleverness, and by advancing the progress of the manufactures of England!” Mama said to Caroline, using one of Papa’s favorite phrasings. “I would be ashamed to be ashamed of it — Caroline, you should be proud of your father — they were such excellent partners.”

Mama looked again at Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam whose attention to the story seemed genuine — it was wholly new to them . “Mr. Bingley could sell a stone to a rock wall, and he could borrow a thousand pounds from the worst miser in England. On good terms. Managed all the workmen perfectly — I’m afraid my husband has no talent for dealing with anyone beneath him. Tries to treat every workman or clerk like a student who could be convinced through Socratic dialogue. But those machines Mr. Bennet designed — he’d talked gears, and pressures, and lathes through the whole of it the first time we danced. I hardly paid any attention to what he said… he looked so handsome and fine in his green coat,” Mama sighed with a misty eyed smile, “and he had such thick black hair then, and lovely hands — it was his hands I noticed first. Put me quite beside myself. All the other girls envied me for having caught the eye of Squire Bennet’s only son.”

“Mama,” Kitty squealed with annoyance. “Don't tell us about how handsome you found Papa.”

Mary looked up at that squeal, and then nodded in agreement with Kitty before she buried her nose in her book again.

“Lord! He still is a fine looking man! Men are like wine — they become more delightful with age.”

“And women as well,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Mama. “As you prove. By Zeus, I perceive that you are handsomer today than you ever might have been.”

Mama blushed at the raillery, but she smiled. “Oh I once was very beautiful, but I am nothing now . When a woman has four grown daughters, and a fifth nearly so, she ought to give up thinking of her own beauty.”

“I believe that is because,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, “very few such women have so much beauty as you — Miss Bingley, would you not say that Mrs. Bennet is as lovely as any unmarried girl of twenty and five, such as yourself?”

“I am twenty ,” cried Caroline without delay.

“Ah, my compliments then, you show that maturity and perfection of beauty that is only usually found in those older.”

Elizabeth studied the colonel. She honestly could not tell if he in fact admired Caroline, or if he was merely teasing her out of habit and amusement at her annoyance. But she had a sudden certainty that it would likely be wholly better for Caroline if she shifted her attention towards a gentleman who in fact paid her attention.

Caroline glared at Colonel Fitzwilliam, wholly unmollified by his response.

Mr. Darcy said to Mama, “But tell me, was Miss Elizabeth born at that first house?”

“Let me think… no, she was a year old. It was in the year ninety-two that Mr. Bennet and Mr. Bingley signed the articles of incorporation for their company — I remember it must have been ninety-two because it was the year when this long war with France first started. We were there until the year ninety-six — both couples and all the children in the same house. Everyone running around underfoot, and everything such a mess of noise that you cannot imagine. It was a delight. Lizzy insists she cannot remember that house.”

“I do, the room at least, with Mary and Jane also sleeping together with me,” Elizabeth said.

“We were not so poor anyways then,” Miss Bingley insisted to Mr. Darcy. “It was only that all of the income was added into the paid in capital. We really were not as poor as Mrs. Bennet makes it sound.”

“Well of course not. Mr. Bennet had the promise of Longbourn. Though your father would have been ruined had the business failed. He’d put all his capital, and all he could beg or borrow from friend or foe, or relation into it. Between them they raised more than twenty thousand pounds as working capital. The cost of those large machines, and also the wool. There was no guarantee matters would work — but I’ve bored you all sufficiently.” She rose and embraced Charlie. “Thank you, thank you! For caring for Jane and Lizzy.”

“There is nothing,” he replied fervently, “that I would rather do than care for Jane.”

Mama patted him on the arm. “I know.”

“Also, soon as Jane is better and Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall throw a ball here.”

“Are you sure that we should have a ball?” Caroline said nervously. “There is at least one here who would consider a ball a punishment rather than a pleasure.”

“Do you mean Darcy?” Bingley exclaimed, looking at his friend and grinning. “He may go to bed if he chooses, before it begins. But to hold a ball is a settled thing.”

“Would it not be better,” Caroline replied, “if balls were carried on in a different manner? It surely would be more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.”

“Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball,” Mr. Bingley replied, laughing at his sister.

Mr. Darcy, for whom this display was intended, observed Caroline with what Elizabeth perceived as a detached curiosity. He said nothing.

However Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “I am convinced! You are a singular woman. Preferring conversation to dancing! I have never met such a woman, and now, in response, I must beg, before anyone else has the opportunity, for your first two dances at the ball — except, to please you, I shall forgo the pleasure of dancing , and we shall stand in a corner of the room, and talk to the music.”

Poor Caroline.

Elizabeth could not keep from smiling, but it was also her duty to rescue Caroline if she could.

“No, no!” She exclaimed, “Colonel Fitzwilliam — it is not my place, I know it is not my place, the man asks and all. But might you open the ball with me instead? And reserve the second two for conversation with Caroline?”

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at her with some surprise, but what Elizabeth chiefly noticed was that Mr. Darcy intently stared at her, his face a deep frown.

Elizabeth added, “Most unusual, of course. But allow me to explain. You see, the instant Mr. Bingley announced the ball, I had this image fill my mind: Some certainty that the cousin of Papa’s who will visit shall be a fat toed clergyman who falls in love with me the instant he sees me, and begs for the first two dances. I am afraid he shall step on my foot again and again till I’m in such pain that I must sit out the rest. ‘Tis a ridiculous worry, I know — but I need the promise of some gentleman who can dance creditably if I am to face my meeting with him when he visits.”

Darcy’s stare was as incredulous as ever.

Elizabeth flushed with embarrassment. What a ridiculous speech! She looked down.

But Colonel Fitzwilliam studied her, and then he grinned. “Of course, Miss Elizabeth. No fate could be worse than having your foot stepped on by a clergyman. I’d far rather face French grapeshot and musketry. The first two are yours — Dear Miss Bingley,” he added in an ironical tone, “I know how deeply this loss has pricked you in the heart — but please console yourself for you shall still share the second two with me. But then, I’ve no notion of who could dance the first two with you? Your brother?”

“Not me,” Charlie raised his hands. “I’ve promised them to Jane.”

“Already!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“Already,” replied Bingley.

“She has no need for such consideration — you know Jane’s dance card fills every evening.”

“I was aware.” Bingley grinned rather wider than even his ordinary course. “It was for that reason that I have already secured her hand.”

“Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam winked at Elizabeth, “it falls upon you. You are not engaged yet for the dance.”

“Certainly not,” he replied coldly.

“Then I insist you dance with Miss Bingley for the first two.”

The way that Mr. Darcy looked at his cousin was… intense, and not kind.

In a wholly uninflected voice Mr. Darcy said, “Miss Bingley, it would deeply honor me if you were to dance the first two with me.”

“Oh, of course. That would delight me as well,” she replied and curtsied. Caroline looked at Elizabeth with glowing eyes and pink cheeks, and she mouthed, Thank you .

“It is not fair!” Kitty exclaimed. “Not fair! Both Jane and Lizzy have dances already secured, and I do not.”

“I am at your service, Miss Catherine,” Charlie replied gallantly, “for any set except the first two and the last two, both of which have been promised to Jane.”

“Oh, that is not so bad, then I shall take the two second with you.”

“You may inscribe it into your card, dear madam, and I will be there.”

“Oh, Charlie,” cried Kitty, “you always joke. Of course you will be there, for the ball is at your house.”

“I am not at all unhappy,” Mary said, “to not have a dance partner already established. For I wholly agree with Caroline, and I think that balls would be far preferable if conversation rather than dancing were to be the order of the day.”

“And I yet insist,” Charlie replied, “that it would then be not so near like a ball. But if dancing is the order of the day, we must endure it. Mistress Mary, quite contrary, might I beg your hand for the two third?”

She looked at him consideringly with pursed lips, quite living up with her expression to the appellation of “Mistress Mary, quite contrary” from the nursery rhyme. “Oh very well. But only because I must dance with someone .”

“I shall take the appropriate joy,” Charlie said, “in my superiority to no one .”