Page 7 of Some Natural Importance (Pride, Prejudice and Romance #3)
CHAPTER FIVE
Fitzwilliam Darcy did not anticipate anything with eagerness, but he could admit that he was pleased to leave Netherfield for Longbourn and have a place to while away a few hours, with talk of books and history and the sounds of lively girlish voices.
Especially one voice. He had heard Elizabeth Bennet laugh, but in his company, she had only smiled.
And since that chess game a week prior, none had been directed his way.
He had been pleasant in her company, even witty at times, asking her to instruct him in local chess manoeuvres.
He had practically flirted with the girl! He must be more restrained around her.
“Darcy, now that they have unpacked their trunks, taken charge of the servants, and decided to change every wallpaper and carpet, I have told my sisters they must meet the neighbourhood.” Bingley leaned back in his chair, staring at the drawing room wall as if he too was considering its decoration.
“You have made the acquaintance of the Bennet sisters and the Miss Lucases. What are your thoughts? Do you think it a good idea to invite them for tea?”
Darcy paused and after speculating inwardly on which party would most dislike such a gathering, turned to his friend. “I should think Miss Lucas and Miss Elizabeth could provide intelligent conversation and pleasant company for an afternoon; their sisters however are rather…youngish.”
“How may my sisters extend an invitation to only one sister per household?” he cried with equal parts confusion and indignation. “To make friendly with one sister and slight the others?”
Darcy frowned. How is the countryside so fraught with social dilemma? It is dull yet requires such effort. “Indeed, you are correct,” he replied. “One for all and all for one.”
Hurst snorted. “Yes, all in together on making my brother a success in the country.” He turned to Darcy and squinted. “What is that book you are reading?”
Darcy glanced at his page number before closing it and handing it to Hurst.
“ General View of the Agriculture of the County of Hertford, with Observations on the Means of Its Improvement ,” Hurst mumbled to himself. “This looks to be dry as a bone but for the maps.”
In his idle moments, Darcy had wondered how a man so gregarious, with arcane but learned interests in Captain Cook’s travels and jungle explorations, had committed his life to Louisa Bingley.
He assumed, but had never asked, that Hurst had been caught in an unfortunate situation, perhaps one which had been planned for monetary gain.
Granted, Louisa had brought twenty thousand pounds to the marriage, but she had neither gift of conversation nor notable intelligence.
Five years on, Hurst surely had lost notice of his wife; he preferred the globe, and books about maps, apparently.
Darcy reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out the coin he had found at Longbourn. Squills had used a delicate hand to clean and polish it, but only after a pronounced and dramatic frown at the dirty, misshapen disc he found in Darcy’s coat .
Darcy held it between his thumb and forefinger and offered it to Hurst. “What think you of this?”
Hurst leaned towards him, frowning. “Greek? No, Latin.” He sat back in his seat to examine the coin. “You are a numismatist?”
While Darcy exerted an effort not to show his surprise at Hurst’s extensive lexicon, Bingley had no such scruples and turned in shock to his brother.
“Hurst! What did you call Darcy?”
“A coin collector,” Darcy assured him before turning back to Hurst. “Not at all. This came into my possession and I wonder at its origins.”
“I would guess it part of a hoard.”
“A horde?” Bingley sat up. “An uprising?”
“ Hoards of treasure left behind and buried in England’s ancient Roman towns. There was a find near Tyne and Wear last year, the Backworth Hoard. Mostly silver and some spoons.” Hurst squinted at the coin. “Is this from there?”
“No, it is from this area, I believe.”
Hurst whistled. “Really? Mayhap from near St Albans. My brother has talked of it, wondering whether any of it had been found.”
“Has it?” Bingley was fully alert now.
“I think not,” Hurst said, handing the coin back to Darcy and settling into a chair.
“St Albans.” Darcy closed his eyes in thought. “It was the site ofVerulamium.”
“Would it be from that area?”
“I have no idea.” Darcy gave the coin a last glance before tucking it back in his pocket. “I shall look into its provenance.”
Hurst shrugged. “Would that it be comparable to what was found in Suffolk! Six hundred gold coins.”
“Zooks!” Bingley cried. “Where are the shovels?”
The three men laughed before parting for the evening .
At breakfast the next day, Darcy was quickly reminded of the need to escape Netherfield when Miss Bingley began complaining of the impending visit from the Lucas and Bennet ladies. He headed to the stables after leaving Hurst and Bingley in the billiard room.
Mr Bennet, he reflected, would be pleased to have his home emptied of the silliest, shrieking girls in the world. He cringed thinking on the welcome they would receive at Netherfield, and how he could likely pen the lines spoken by Bingley’s sisters; he knew them too well.
“Relatives in trade?”
“All five, out at once?”
“No season in town?”
“Neither governess nor masters?”
It was the replies they would receive that he could not sketch.
When he entered the house near the end of the visit, Darcy sensed quickly that the Bennets’ call had proceeded off script. From the worried expression on Miss Lucas’s face and the heightened colour on Miss Bennet’s, he wondered when and how badly the plot might have gone awry.
He felt Miss Bingley’s glare but his eyes sought out another’s, where he read embarrassment and disgust in equal measure. Her distress provoked a disquieting need to apologise.
“Mr Bingley,” cried Miss Lydia. “Your sisters cannot be persuaded to attend but you must come to the assembly this week! You and Mr Darcy and Mr Hurst must come and stand up with the ladies of Meryton, who are always in need of partners.”
Her delighted cry when Bingley nodded eagerly could only mean a grim evening was ahead at Netherfield.
Within a moment of the door’s closing, Miss Bingley whirled about on her brother .
“An assembly? You agreed we are to go to an assembly? I am shocked you did not jump about and undertake to roll up the carpets here for a ball!”
The words had been considered before she could retract the idea.
“A splendid idea,” Bingley cried. “I should hope to see the people here enjoying Netherfield before too long.”
“Oh Charles,” Mrs Hurst groaned.
Darcy found himself in rare agreement with Mrs Hurst. I have promised him another fortnight, and no more.
“There are some pretty girls here, Darcy. Pretty and sensible girls,” Bingley countered. “Miss Charlotte Lucas and Miss Elizabeth Bennet are exemplars of what one might find in the country.”
It was no effort for Darcy to maintain his silent grimace.
“Neither is a beauty nor a wit, nor part of the society to which we are accustomed,” Miss Bingley retorted.
Charles paled before affecting an almost haughty expression.
“I disagree, Caroline. There are handsome ladies all over England, but few with the charm and fullness of spirit I saw in Miss Bennet or with the sense exhibited by her friend. Their sisters are young, but I recall you once exhibited similar manners.”
“We were besieged, Charles.” Mrs Hurst sank down onto the settee. “Six country girls with the manners of half that many amongst them.”
A rather generous ratio.
“Not you as well, Louisa!” Bingley cried. “The Bennets are the daughters of a gentleman. The eldest Miss Bennet is said to shine above them all in her appearance and comportment,” he continued. “Rarely have I heard one sister speak so lovingly of another as Miss Elizabeth speaks of her sister.”
Darcy stifled his chuckle with a cough, but he had not missed the far-off gleam in his friend’s eye.
Neither paperwork nor maps, books about soils or tracts on crops could hold Bingley’s mind for more than a few moments.
No, his friend had, as always, devoted his attention to a lady, and this time, to one he had not yet met.
It was a revelation. I am not the only one here who finds it tedious.
“That was interesting,” Charlotte said as they drove off away from Netherfield.
“More like insufferable,” Elizabeth muttered. “How can a man as kind and well-mannered as Mr Bingley have such sisters?”
“You and Jane are kind and well-mannered and your father has asked the same question about Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.” Charlotte smirked at the look of horror she had provoked on Elizabeth’s face. “We are all tied to family we love but do not always like.”
“There is not an imperfect Lucas among you!”
“My mother was fortunate in her husband,” Charlotte said. “She says a woman must choose her husband well—get to know him but little and pray for children she can like.”
Elizabeth was considering the sad logic of such a match when they arrived at Longbourn.
Mrs Bennet beckoned the group into the sitting room, where Lady Lucas eyed Charlotte closely, her hopes bright for a match with Meryton’s newest bachelor.
No blush was to be seen, and Maria failed to provide clues with any sidelong glances or giggles.
Subtlety, never a friend to Mrs Bennet, was again pushed aside. She looked to her youngest daughter.
“Lydia, how is the house? How was the hostess and her sister?”
A full and throaty recitation on lace trim, the lack of lemon tarts, and sharp tongues of the Bingley sisters poured out of the girl. Kitty nodded with some vigour while Mary moved her head from side to side .
“But what of the food? And the furnishings?”