Page 16 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)
Her eyes reluctantly rose to my face, she blushed again, and I had no hope that my meagre suggestion would be attended to. Mrs Annesley covered our awkward pass by asking after the roads and weather. And then a miracle occurred.
“How was Miss Bennet’s dog when you left?” my sister timidly asked.
“Bandit? Oh, well, let me see. Yes, I remember. He was confined to the loose-box in the stable for having dug a shaft so deep behind the chicken house he had to be pulled out by the tail.”
“Did he?”
“Twice. And on the second occasion he managed to breach the fence but no one noticed his handiwork. In the morning they were missing three hens and a pullet.”
“Oh dear. What will happen to him?”
“Happen to him? I imagine he was admitted to the house after only an hour of punishment, petted and scolded in the same sweetness of spirit with which Miss Bennet utters every word she speaks, and he will be begging for scraps at breakfast tomorrow morning.”
Georgiana smiled, and the dimple on her cheek made a rare appearance.
“Do not tell me you, too, are in sympathy with him,” I said. “He nearly drowned me.”
This led to the recitation of my least favourite story, for no matter how I minimised my role in Bandit’s rescue, I was seen in a far too heroic light. Nevertheless, my sister was speaking to me and smiling, and her companion looked to be holding her breath, such was the rarity of her happiness.
Shortly after, Mr Bennet came down and took tea.
His presence was not nearly as disconcerting to my sister as I feared it would be, and I wondered whether it could really be as simple as making myself agreeable to her.
I blinked to realise my ineptitude. She was not so much shy of company as she was fearful of making my opinion of her worse, should she make a mistake in front of me.
I was rescued from sinking into even more self-disgust when Mr Bennet asked to see my library. There, he expressed a marked appreciation in the form of a grunt.
“You did not tell me to expect a room the size of Hatchards.”
“You would have classed me as a mere cockalorum had I done so. You know I cannot claim more than stewardship. I have added to the collection, but this is the work of generations.”
“Do be quiet, Darcy. Let me browse in peace.”
I chuckled and left him to it.
Later, we enjoyed a pleasant dinner. Mrs Annesley is a skilled conversationalist, and she kept the old gentleman talking of his daughters, of his books, and of her particular interest in the naturalists, a topic in which he was deeply conversant.
I had never seen Mr Bennet behave with more engagement or civility, since when at Longbourn, he was comfortable enough in my presence not to have to pretend to be happier than he felt.
Still, the effort was oddly curative, and he seemed five years younger to me.
The following morning my guest accompanied me to Hoby’s and, in a moment of self-indulgence, bespoke a pair of boots for himself.
We then went to Scofield’s, Sheppard’s, and The Lighted Lamp Book Repository, and we even went to an emporium of used goods which had a little-known table in the corner stacked high with literary cast-offs.
Most of it was worthless, but we went on the slim hope we would find something of value.
When Mr Bennet pulled out a beautifully preserved early edition of Don Quixote, we snickered like schoolboys who had stolen the matron’s shoes.
Mr Bennet then further delighted me by striking a brutal bargain with the shopkeeper and sighing as though he were being imposed upon when he paid the trifling sum required.
We returned to my house where he proudly showed off his find to Mrs Annesley and my sister. The hours flew by without our notice.
“I am afraid it might be too late to pay a call on Mr Gardiner,” Mr Bennet said when the gong sounded that it was time to dress for dinner.
“We can stay an additional day if you would like.”
“That would be best, Darcy, if you do not mind,” he said, and when he came down for dinner, I thought he looked fairly splendid under Carsten’s management.
Once again, we enjoyed a comfortable dinner, and my sister even spoke once or twice.
“Does Miss Bennet ride, sir?” Georgiana asked in the whisper of a mouse.
“I do not keep riding horses for my daughters, though Jane has the occasional use of our mare. I never even let Lizzy learn.”
“No?” I asked. I knew the reason before he spoke it.
“She would have frightened the hair off my head. That child was born without fear.”
“She does not ride at all?” my sister asked in a much stronger voice. The notion clearly horrified her, for though she was timid in the parlour, she was bold as a man on the back of a horse. Not even her love of music could eclipse Georgiana’s passion for riding.
“She walks everywhere she goes which is just as well. Lizzy has too much energy to be comfortable, and if she were not spent after a long march, she would be miserable in the evenings. Our acquisition of a hound has given her even more reason for exercise.”
“I have heard of Bandit,” Georgiana said, breaking her record for words spoken at the dinner table twice over.
“Darcy can tell you all about him. My strategy is to pretend he does not exist. ”
I obliged them by relating the morning when we were confined indoors because of rain, and he caught sight of his tail while performing sit-stay-down. He spun in ever-faster circles and ended in a crash of china when he collided with the tea table.