Page 3 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)

CHAPTER THREE

S ome form of deviltry entered the house then, for in the days that followed, and I hoped for the foreseeable future, I had more freedom than I expected.

No one could track my movements accurately, and when my hostess demanded to be told where I had gone, she was sent on fool’s errands all over the house and grounds.

It was just as well. My throat was somewhat scratchy, my voice thick with congestion, and I suspected that the hoyden down the road had caused me to do the unthinkable. I was coming down with a cold.

I could not bring myself to refer to the woman as a lady, for she was a rash and venturesome miss who did not deserve the designation.

And though I wished never to think of her again, my thoughts of her ill-treatment of me became quite exercised every time I looked down at the state of my poor, old boots.

How was I to hold my head above the rabble, to maintain my dignity, when I looked like a mere country squire about to spend the day in his kennels?

I was not inclined to wear silk stockings and satin knee breeches all day long when in the country, but I resented that I could not strut down the lanes in boots that shone like black tar in sunlight, nurtured to spotless perfection by the attentions of a career valet.

Carsten even had the effrontery to look upon me that same morning, two days after my dunking, with something like defeat in his eyes, as though he longed to explain that his genius could only go so far.

Thinking to avoid his lugubrious examination of my appearance, I escaped both him and Miss Bingley by suggesting I would spend the morning in the library.

I then took the service entrance, which had become my haunt and refuge, out of doors.

There, in nature, a place Miss Bingley generally did not understand for lack of familiarity, I thought I would simply conquer my nascent cold by pretending it away and doing exactly what no one recommended.

I walked along briskly, looking like an ordinary nobody in old boots, while considering Netherfield’s lands as I went.

Middling to be sure, the yield from the farms would be unremarkable, and in certain years, below what was spent to produce it.

If Bingley leased the place, he could make the choice to let it limp along, or he could decide to do some good in the world.

Unfortunately, while his heart was generally in the right place, his head was firmly anchored in a cloud.

I had no faith the estate would prosper under Bingley’s management, and it irritated me.

If I was anything at all, I was a stickler for stewardship.

The grass on the verge bore the brunt of my annoyance. I whipped at the seed heads with my cane, walking a good distance from Netherfield lands, until I was brought up short by the sound of a dog barking up the lane.

Damnation. There she was! I steeled myself for a meeting, and upon looking closely, saw that at least she was not alone. The horrid animal was restrained on a lead, as it should have been on that fateful day, and was dragging along the harridan’s genteel sister.

As I approached them, some spirit of provocation moved me to speak, as opposed to my first impulse, which had been to merely tip my hat and walk on.

It might have been the look of irony that swept over Miss Elizabeth’s face upon noticing me.

Obviously, she would rather not be civil to me, and sheer perversity required I force a conversation.

I spoke with the specious humility that so completely frustrated Miss Bingley. “Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth.”

Predictably, Miss Bennet came forward with a welcoming, open expression. “Mr Darcy, how pleasant to see you this morning.”

Unfortunately, she could not be quite as polite as she wished to be, since at that moment, her dog was compelled to investigate some smell across the road.

Miss Elizabeth graced me with a saucy curtsey before preempting her sister’s control and taking Bandit where he demanded to go. This left me free to speak to her sister, which given she was both beautiful and beautifully behaved, was not a chore.

I was not inclined to return to Netherfield to play hide-and-seek with Miss Bingley, so I made myself agreeable and began to walk in the same direction as the Miss Bennets.

My conversation with the eldest was perfectly circumspect.

We spoke reservedly and with pointed attention to every possible topic bland enough for indifferent acquaintances of every age and disposition.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bennet passed us with the eager hound, glancing at me as she did so, and discomposing me into momentarily forgetting what I had been saying.

Was it my imagination, or did she really have the effrontery to look askance at my boots?

The lady’s face was perfectly agreeable, but the cast of her expression was ever so slightly unruly, tinged perhaps, with diabolical mischief.

It may have been the sharpness of her brows as they lifted in judgment, or the barely perceptible thinning of her lips and flaring of her nostrils.

She was amazingly delicate in her bone structure for someone who could so expertly pantomime mockery and broadcast derision all at the same time.

I pointedly dismissed the shrew and turned back to her sister. Over the course of our walk, however, Miss Bennet decided she should take a turn managing the most unmanageable dog ever born. This left me to walk ahead with Miss Elizabeth.

She smiled at me with closed lips and said, “I see you have dried out at last, sir.”

She had the poor taste to bring up such a topic without preamble, did she? I could not help but engage her. “And you? Have you found your bonnet?”

“Indeed. I mean to wear it to church on Sunday, though it is shrunken and misshapen beyond recognition.” She then looked at me fairly directly. “But have you caught a cold, Mr Darcy? Your voice sounds a little thick to me today.”

“Perhaps it is only hoarse from being required to shout at you,” I said blandly, glancing behind me to assure myself her sister was not within earshot of my ungracious reply. “And you, do you not fear your drenching might make you ill?” I confess, I sincerely hoped it would.

I had meant to discompose her through the expediency of incivility, but the lady handily shrugged off my set-down.

“I believe a strong determination to be well is the best deterrent to falling ill. I never entertain the possibility, particularly when everyone around me tells me I shall surely die from a drenching.”

“I see. But that is perhaps a difficult stance should you indeed fall sick.”

“Oh well. If I do get sick, which I have not done since I had mumps and measles, then I hope I shall do so with a modicum of humility. At the very least, I expect I shall be philosophical about it.”

“Your approach is profoundly unscientific,” I observed from the platform of a superior education. “Persons fall ill from specific causes, not from lack of will,” I said, even as I was forced to clear my congested throat.

“Oh? I suppose my evidence is purely anecdotal. Have you never known a person to sicken and die after having long-entertained an imagined frailty?”

I instantly thought of my uncle Lewis de Bourgh, who was obsessed with every pain and sniffle, attended by five physicians, seen almost every week for some cause or other, and who shuffled off his mortal coil at the ripe age of only forty after living a life of supposed invalidism.

But it was the astringent note in Miss Elizabeth’s voice that truly struck me. She was speaking from experience and still raw to think of it. Rather than answer, I fell into a respectful silence. I knew the sound of tragedy when I heard it, even if it came out of the mouth of a?—

“Bandit! Oh no!” Miss Bennet interrupted my reflections, and I turned to see the unruly dog had wrapped his lead around her legs and was on the verge of pulling her to the ground.

“To heel,” I shouted, leaving Miss Elizabeth’s side to relieve Miss Bennet of her tormentor. “You must behave yourself when walking with ladies,” I commanded as I took the lead up short, forcing the dog to sit while I spoke to him.

“Now, if you wish to enjoy your exercise, you had better do so as a civilised dog. You are not a monkey, sir, and you will cease flinging yourself about.”

Bandit seemed to appreciate plain speaking. He became docile as a lamb, glancing hopefully at me from time to time, as though he wished for a little reward for good behaviour.

“You shall get no praise from me, sirrah,” I said in an aside to him, and began to put him through his paces.

Whenever he began to think of capering, which he communicated through his leash, I pulled him up short to remind him of his dignity. Soon, we turned and proceeded back the way we came, and I was quite absorbed in my corrections. Before I knew it, I could see Longbourn through the trees.

“You have wrought a miracle on our Bandit,” Miss Bennet said in wonder. “I have never seen him so well behaved. Will you not come in for tea and greet my father?”

I glanced at Miss Elizabeth, who looked wholly unimpressed by the prospect of my visit, and said I would be happy to do just that.