Page 7 of Old Boots (Pride and Prejudice Variations #3)
CHAPTER SEVEN
I have been my own master since the age of two and twenty. As such, I decided to wean myself from the comforts of Longbourn and attend to the business for which I came.
This ambition, however, proved to be impossible. Bingley was never at home. He had been invited to the homes of the Longs, the Gouldings, and to Lucas Lodge, in addition to visiting the vicar, the magistrate, the squire, and most recently, the newly arrived colonel in charge of the militia.
I reluctantly crossed Netherfield’s lands off my list of present concerns. I was preoccupied and found it difficult to worry about something as abstract as next year’s harvest on an estate my friend may or may not choose as his country home.
I confess I was a touch more than preoccupied.
Truthfully, my spirits were ruffled. The cause was yet another letter from Georgiana.
My sister’s correspondence was strangely disheartening.
Her carefully penned letters were timid and devoid of all feeling, much less any sort of truth.
She pretended to be enjoying herself, while expertly weeping between the lines.
So instead of retreating to Longbourn where I risked being struck by the lightning bolt that was one sister or lulled further into a serene dream by the other, I followed Bingley out into the society of Meryton.
I met everyone and approved of no one. The grinding rounds of polite inanities, of attending to Miss Bingley, who was increasingly prone to swooning, of wondering in vain if anyone in this county had any notion of dignity, all wore on me.
But excusing myself to return to my sister was still too daunting, and I could not justify a long journey to Pemberley alone, only to turn around and collect Georgiana for the festive season.
Resignedly, I went with the Bingleys and the Hursts, and against my will, I searched for any sign of the Bennets.
Though they never stepped out of Longbourn, I eventually heard snippets and references to that family.
As I suspected, they were in mourning, though no longer deep, and according to the prevailing opinion, they would soon peek out into society.
The community seemed rather inclined to support them, and I came to understand the date of the regular assembly had been postponed in hopes they would attend.
I then met Mr and Mrs Philips, an inglorious pair of village busybodies.
He was an attorney, and she served as the principal posting house for all news, whether factual or not.
Every place had one of these couples, and they were uniformly and vulgarly curious.
Gossip and tittle-tattle were their bread and butter in society.
They were also aunt and uncle to the Bennet sisters!
This was a strangely depressing development. I stared at Mrs Philips even as she baldly me asked to state the sum of my fortune and wondered how she could be related to that infinitely proper family.
“My lord, sir,” Caroline Bingley said to me in an aside, “I wonder that Charles is not disgusted by these people.”
Though I thoroughly agreed with her, I was determined not to play into any one of her ploys for my attention, and so I said, “Surely you know that country society differs from town society. These people are much like those with whom I converse every day at Pemberley. I find these unassuming manners rather more welcoming than the pretensions of their more elegant counterparts.”
“You surprise me, Mr Darcy. Do you indeed enjoy this society?”
In fact, I deplored it, but at the same time, it was more comfortable to me than the soiree my aunt the Countess of Matlock was invariably hosting at this very same time on this very same day.
This realisation, which was news to me, sank home by degrees as I went from parlour to parlour.
Perhaps, without my superior boots, I felt less of a superior man.
In any case, my appointment with Miss Bennet, which I had delayed for nearly a week out of the need for circumspection, came due, and I went to Longbourn in a somewhat reflective, cautious mood.
My reception, I decided, would tell me much of what I needed to know about whether to keep or cut the connexion.
I suppose I expected to be enthusiastically welcomed, to be petted and doted upon, playfully scolded, and forced to account for my absence. This sort of sycophancy was easy to despise, and I hoped for it to justify and ease my gradual distance from the family.
But I was not to be gratified with an easy answer to my dilemma.
I was greeted with amiability, with welcoming smiles, even from Miss Elizabeth, and with a warm handshake from Mr Bennet.
But the tone of my reception was decidedly underwhelming.
They were happy I visited but would not have repined had I stayed away.
Only Bandit rewarded me with a wild, leaping show of uncontainable joy at my return.
He made us laugh in spite of ourselves as he ran in tight, frantic circles in the drive, low to the ground, scattering gravel, and gaining speed, ending the display only when he caught sight of and felt compelled to conquer his own tail.
With his tongue lolled out in happy exhaustion, he finally decided I needed to be jumped upon.
“Sit,” I commanded.
He did, but he broke ranks after five seconds and began capering again.
Miss Elizabeth then intervened in a tone that suggested her tolerance for nonsense was at an end. “You had better come here and sit down,” she warned with a snap of her fingers, and to my surprise, the dog went to stand beside her and sat down.
“Very good,” I remarked.
She smiled at me but rather more coolly than I would have liked, and we went into the house.
Mr Bennet and I spoke for a while about a history he had just purchased, I asked Miss Bennet about the cottagers and about Bandit’s progress, and I spent time speaking with Miss Mary about the novel she was reading, Pamela.
Eventually, I suggested we should take Bandit for a walk to evaluate the degree to which he had regressed.
“Oh Lizzy, do go,” Miss Bennet said. “I am at a critical point in my embroidery, yet I do not want to delay Mr Darcy. You do not mind if I stay back, do you, sir?”
I smiled. There was nothing to mind. I was not being pushed or teased for some mercenary purpose.
Jane Bennet did not have a manipulative bone in her body, and I stepped close to see the complexity of her design that with three needles and three different colours of thread, was believably difficult to interrupt.
Miss Elizabeth, on the other hand, seemed anxious to go.
She slipped the lead over Bandit’s head, and we sailed out the door.
I had expected Miss Mary to walk with us, but she did not and would not have easily caught up to us if she had wished to.
We walked at a pace suitable to the dog’s enthusiasm, and there must have been a smell in the air that pulled him forward, as opposed to his usual habit of stopping to no purpose every third step.
For a considerable stretch of time we were quiet. Elizabeth Bennet seemed to be captivated by some private train of thought, and I was captivated by a little curl that persisted in tickling her ear. At last she spoke and took me completely by surprise.
“I will own,” she said airily, “I had not expected you to return to visit us.”
“What?”
She slanted her eyes at me and said, “I have heard from my aunt Philips that you had met.”
I walked along and began to seethe as I did so.
“Your silence speaks volumes, sir,” she said crisply.
“If I am silent,” I said finally, “it is because I cannot believe you wish to confront me in this way. What am I to say? Hmm?”
“Why, if you are sincerely interested in my wishes, you would say something resembling the truth.”
“Such as?”
“Such as you were dismayed to make their acquaintance and by association, would rather not befriend us so completely as you already have! You might not cut us overtly, but you shall retreat by degrees and your warmth in our society will gradually turn a little chilly. When we part, which I am sure we shall, you will be glad of your escape, and we shall be relieved of all of our apprehensions as to how to regain your full regard. In time, none of us will remember we were once on the verge of being very good friends.”
“And your conclusions as to how I should feel, what I should think, and whom I should choose to know are based on what precisely?”
We had pulled Bandit to a stop and faced one another.
“They are based on what I have learnt from my aunt Philips and from Lady Lucas—your maternal uncle is an earl, his sister is a baroness, your estate is worth a fortune, and your society is coveted in the highest circles.”
“You assume a great deal with regard to my preferences based on my history alone. ”
“I do not, sir. You have always impressed me with your sense of superiority, of entitlement, and of your very lofty place in the hierarchy of society.”
“How have I done so?” I barked, and then, from an excess of frustration, I bellowed at her restless dog, “Lie down!”
“By your every tone and gesture. By that tone of voice alone with which you have just subdued Jane’s dog. By force of habit—by privilege alone! You are who you are.”
“I fail to understand why a sense of self-command condemns me to the ranks of those who refuse to visit a country gentleman who happens to have uninteresting relations.”
She paused rather dramatically. “I wonder, Mr Darcy, whether you shall continue to visit us when I tell you that my other uncle is in trade and lives within sight of his warehouses in Cheapside.”
By the grace of God, I did not gasp in horror.
But like any man who has had a glove thrown in his face, some vein of grisly resolve burst and warmed me with righteous anger.
I would prove this woman so far in the wrong her head would swim.
I would serve her an enormous helping of humility and positively choke her with civility.
How dare she assume I was such a small-minded man!
With my jaw firmly shut, I willed my body to shrink to normal proportions after having swelled in protest. I calmly took her arm and Bandit’s lead and moved us forward. When I spoke, I did so with careful, smouldering dignity.
“As you see, I am still here.”
“Apparently so,” Miss Elizabeth observed blandly, looking at me head to foot before offering me a pert little smile. Clearly, she was as unconvinced of my sincerity as she was of my longevity as her family’s acquaintance.