Page 5 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)
CHAPTER FIVE
M y homes were as far from boisterous as possible, and yet, Longbourn was as staid and restful a place as I had ever visited.
The interior was always pin-drop quiet, and the mistress of the house, Miss Jane Bennet, had an air of all-pervasive serenity that seemed to keep the inhabitants in thrall to quietude.
A subdued and undemanding conversationalist, Mr Bennet must have recognised a similar tendency to taciturnity in me, and we struck out tentatively on a course of amity. Early in one of my visits, he had asked me if I was a reading man.
“I consider myself to be, sir,” I said, and then striving to encourage the lagging conversation, I added, “Unfortunately, the library at Netherfield Park is poorly stocked. ”
“Is that so? I am surprised. I would have thought such a place would have a large, interesting collection. What do they have?”
“The sonnets, of course, and Gibbon’s histories. And other than what looks like a textbook on Greek culture from the last century, and a smattering of mediocre poetry, there is little else.”
Mr Bennet scowled his disgust, an expression more animated than any I had seen him adopt.
“It is always enraging to me to hear of what some men consider to be essential reading,” he said.
In fact, he was so much moved by my description that he added, “You are welcome to select something from my meagre collection if you become desperate.”
“I may very well partake of your generosity. What are you reading these days, sir?”
This led to a comfortable hour in his book-room as he called it, which was certainly compact but filled to the ceiling with a respectable number of rare and interesting reads. I let down my guard. How could I not? This was a man who wanted nothing from me.
I told him of my latest acquisitions of fully illustrated Oriental histories, of biographical accounts of the wilds of the Americas, and of a few of the more scandalous, farcical bits of literature that were becoming all the rage in London.
“Those satires are more to my daughter’s taste,” he said with the ghost of a smile in his voice. This was the first glimpse of humour I had yet seen from him.
“Miss Bennet?” I asked in surprise.
“No, no. Jane is only ever moved by mundane poetry. I was speaking of Elizabeth. She has read most everything here that is not written in Greek or Latin, and yet she revels in farce. I suppose she got that predilection from me. I used to be similarly enamoured of words that bite.”
I did not quite know how to reply. First, there was about the entire household the air of mourning.
The ladies’ dresses, though not black, were invariably dark and nondescript.
And Mr Bennet’s reference to how he used to be hinted at loss.
I could not enquire into such a delicate topic, and so I turned my thoughts towards the perplexing notion that Elizabeth Bennet had read so widely, unrestrainedly, and deeply.
That she enjoyed satire, I could not possibly doubt.
Her every expression, at least where I was concerned, smacked of an exceedingly dry wit simmering below the surface.
The fact that she longed to unleash her most stinging rejoinders and witty criticisms upon me engaged my newly emerging contrary spirit.
I was simply tired of being so damnably well-regulated.
Thus, I thwarted Miss Elizabeth in much the same way I did Miss Bingley.
Where I had learnt to be aloof around ladies in general, I became almost courtly in my attentions to the ladies of Longbourn.
Miss Elizabeth could hardly rake me with scathing observations of my character when I was so obliging to her sister.
Nor could she protest outright whenever some mention was made of my bold and daring rescue of the family dog.
To my amusement, these occasional, passing references seemed to cause her blood to boil.
Miss Elizabeth, I realised now , had wanted to rescue Bandit herself.
Simply put, she hated to be helped, could not stomach appearing weak or incompetent, and loathed the common perception that women were either frail or stupid.
The fact that I had nearly sent us pell-mell down a raging current, dragged under by our heavy clothing, patently threw the lady into a state of outrage whenever she was forced to sit meekly by while I was praised for my heroism.
I looked at the lady complacently and, I admit, somewhat smugly when this sort of thing went on. She threw daggers at me with her fiery eyes on those occasions, and I suspected she wished I had not managed to pull us out so quickly, so she could enlighten her family that I had nearly drowned her.
And yet for all my bland smiles, meekly downcast eyes, and sanctimonious deflections of her disgust, she still managed to goad me into crossing swords almost imperceptibly and with great regularity.
When we went out of doors for Miss Bennet to begin to learn how to manage Bandit’s lead, Miss Elizabeth perforce attended us for the sake of propriety.
As I critiqued her sister’s tone and coached her vocabulary of commands, I could not help but feel as though I were being judged, weighed, measured, and classified.
In a juvenile game of tit for tat, I likewise monitored Miss Elizabeth’s movements in the parlour after our lessons.
I looked at her sewing critically, widened my eyes in disapproval at her occasional opinions—always independent and occasionally too brilliant to be flattering—and otherwise classified her coiffure, her complexion, her symmetry, and even her smallest mannerisms. I knew my countenance suggested I was categorically unimpressed and that my observations were very close to jaded in how they must appear to her.
I was certain of this because it took concentration and determination to stifle an occasional yawn and otherwise manipulate these apathetic expressions onto my face.
In fact, there were many things about the lady that made a lasting impression and would have earned her stares of admiration were I not careful and determined to play this game.
To classify Miss Elizabeth as merely energetic would have been to understate the case.
She looked perpetually on the verge of leaping out of her chair to fly around the room.
She also projected the vibrating readiness of a person who could do twelve things at once and expertly to boot.
There were many clues in casual conversation that implied she could hold more than one train of thought.
Besides that, I could not wonder that while I had caught a cold in the river, she had only grown more robust. She was filled to bursting with energy, with raw intelligence, and with unfulfilled potential.
And in such a retiring house, I wondered how she managed to contain her unnaturally high spirits.