Page 8 of Some Natural Importance (Pride, Prejudice and Romance #3)

Half an hour later, when the Lucases had gone home, Elizabeth excused herself. She needed silence, some quiet time before she would gather again with her family to dine on goose and gossip. She glanced at her father’s door; her mother’s voice stopped further action.

“Lizzy, leave your father be. He was fatigued earlier and has laid down for a rest.”

Surprised, she repaired to her rooms; almost instantly, the walls were too close and the room too small, its confines unable to contain her restlessness.

She had borne an afternoon of outbursts and pauses, throat clearing and subject changing, and those were the kinder moments.

Whatever Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst had anticipated in the ‘wilds of Hertfordshire’ had been delivered with panache by Lydia, Kitty, and Maria.

Elizabeth could only give thanks her mother had not been a member of their party.

She wished to write to Jane of it all, but it would serve only to distress her.

Jane would not, could not, believe such coldness existed in the world.

Elizabeth’s letters to her sister had drifted away from spirited recitations of their family foibles and questions about her aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Of late, as Elizabeth felt dull and put upon by her mother and neglected by her father, her writing reflected her domestic tedium.

Our dinner was very good yesterday, and the chicken boiled perfectly tender, she had written in her latest missive.

Of Kitty’s restless hands pulling at the bowl of fruit in the larder, she penned, I understand that there are some grapes left, but I believe not many .

Elizabeth did not wish her sister to know she envied her time in London and limited her complaints and grievances.

Jane was not keen to understand any unkind thoughts.

After assuring Elizabeth that even old grapes could be indeed quite tasty as currants, Jane had encouraged her sister to be kind in her treatment of the gentlemen as their sisters could become good company.

Elizabeth teased her with mentions of the handsome and kind Mr Bingley but dreaded recounting the true nature of their new neighbours.

Jane, sweet Jane, would not see the ladies as they truly were.

“Jane is all that is kind,” Kitty had cried, “and so beautiful. Mama calls her the greatest beauty of us all.”

Lydia had scowled, but her expression cleared when Mr Bingley smiled at the three across from him and shook his head. “I greatly anticipate meeting Miss Bennet upon her return from London. Mrs Bennet says she is assisting her aunt with a new child?”

“My aunt and uncle were blessed with a son a fortnight ago,” Elizabeth replied. “Jane is helping with the older children, two of whom had fallen ill.”

“Oh my,” Mrs Hurst cried. “Not a place to be.”

“Unless one is aiding those in need of assistance,” voiced the newly arrived Mr Darcy. “Then it is a kindness.”

Miss Bingley broke into the awkward silence. “And your aunt and uncle? They reside where in town?”

“In Gracechurch Street,” cried Lydia, who helpfully detailed the house and the distance it sat from the glories of London’s centre and its nearness to Cheapside.

Although Mr Bingley’s attention did not waver, his sisters’ distaste was made clear.

Elizabeth turned from gazing at their pinched expressions and watched as Mr Darcy rose and drifted to the window.

How fortunate it was that the clock soon struck and their escape made, only to find her own home no haven from waggling tongues.

Truly, what was to be written? My spirit, dear sister, is as dried as dropt raisins, as curdled as spilled, neglected milk.

I am without occupation or preoccupation.

Elizabeth’s good humour was lacking, her sense of mischief gone.

Her mother was as ever, and her sisters unchanged.

Her father was occupied with his new friend, the apparently highly interesting Mr Darcy, who would routinely abandon his own company at Netherfield to sit in Mr Bennet’s book room at Longbourn.

Or so it seemed to the daughter who—though still in her father’s affection—had been supplanted from her own seat in his study.

At least now, after a morning walk, she had found relief in time spent with her father recounting the woeful tale of Miss Bingley and the Netherfield tea.

“What a horrid creature she is,” Elizabeth concluded.

“You would enjoy buzzing about, then perching on a leaf after giving her a sting or three.”

Mr Bennet laughed. “With such a ‘horrid creature’ nesting at Netherfield, I shall command Mr Bingley to keep his courting manners away from this house as I could not abide the squawking from your mother.”

She watched her father. “Please do not tease Jane about Mr Bingley. She has yet to so much as meet the man. Kind as he may be, we know little of him and much of Jane’s inclination to protect her heart.”

It was a long moment before Mr Bennet spoke. “We all have but one heart, Lizzy. Giving it, and accepting another’s, is easy work for some, but near to impossible for others.”

He stared down at his hands, stirring Elizabeth to settle her own gaze on his tired, distracted expression.

He had remained in his rooms yesterday and not come to dinner, leaving her to wonder at his fatigue.

Did he worry still over the threatened visit by Mr Collins?

Or was he spending too many hours talking to Mr Darcy?

Before Mr Darcy’s arrival, her father had been sedentary, expending his energy on as few estate matters as he could manage, and entertaining as few visitors as possible.

Now he spent hours a day with that man, playing backgammon or chess, writing letters to put off Mr Collins’s visit, and looking into estate matters.

What had Mr Darcy begun? It was not right.

He had no right. He was a guest elsewhere.

“Papa, why?—?”

A knock on the door interrupted them .

“Ah, Mr Darcy is here to return my book. Off with you now, Lizzy.”

Vexed by a dismissal that, although increasingly common, she saw as unjust, she spoke not a word to Mr Darcy when she left the room, and if the door closed more loudly than was polite, she would not dispute it.

Although he had grown up in houses where footmen stood ready and doors were closed firmly, Darcy knew the sound of a slammed door.

It was not uncommon in his family. Lady Catherine had been known to order a footman to slam the door on her way out of a room.

Miss Elizabeth might not have slammed the door, but its determined click communicated her feelings all the same.

For reasons he did not dwell on nor understand, Darcy knew his presence angered Elizabeth Bennet.

Her father sensed it as well but chose to make light of it.

“Lizzy does not care to give up her seat, prized as it is, within this room.”

Darcy’s eyes darted over the various chairs; two were piled with books and papers, one was occupied by his host, and the fourth—which he had grown accustomed to claiming for himself—sat empty, its cushion likely still warm.

He shifted on his feet before walking across the room to stare out the window. The view was unremarkable, and empty of anyone. Miss Bennet had not fled the house. The thought made him feel marginally better.

“I see you returned with my Virgil. Come sit down, Mr Darcy, and tell me your thoughts on the man.”

Darcy turned and walked slowly over to the chair. A lively discussion on the Aeneid’s theme of perseverance against failure ensued for more than half an hour before Mr Bennet sat back, removed his spectacles, and began wiping the lenses .

“My daughters tell me you and your friends will attend our little assembly.”

Darcy shook his head. “Bingley takes great pleasure in the gaiety and exercise of dancing, and enjoys ensuring his own friends and family have an equal share of whatever entertainments he finds.”

“Will you dance with all of them, and the Lucas girls?” Mr Bennet grinned. “It will make for a long evening for you, and I fear a longer one for me when I am made to listen to the prattle after they return home from the event.”

His lips thinned at the amusement he saw on Mr Bennet’s face. He gazed towards the window. “Every savage can dance, but a gentleman has a choice to do so.”

“You have at least eight ladies within your circle of acquaintance in the neighbourhood,” Mr Bennet said in a low but merry voice. “There is ever a dearth of gentlemen to pair with the ladies of Meryton, let alone savages. I hope you will chance it.”

Darcy looked up sharply. “Is there a young lady to whom you refer? A daughter you wish to marry off?”

Mr Bennet laughed as he cleaned his spectacles. “Silly as they are, I wish for none of my daughters to come home with hearts broken and dance slippers unused. This is your chance for Lizzy to teach you the Hertfordshire manoeuvre.” He winked at Darcy and tucked away his handkerchief.

Shifting in his chair, Darcy levelled a steady gaze at the older man and changed to the topic of greater interest to himself. “Have you done any reading on French drainage systems?”

A one-sided conversation followed before Darcy made his goodbyes.

His journey through the gauntlet of giggling Bennet ladies added another ten minutes to his departure.

As he strode to the stable, his hands were as free of books as his mind was full of thoughts.

He took the reins from the stableboy and waved him away from assisting him into the saddle, instead leading his horse towards the gate.

He needed to calm his temper before mounting.

All his trepidations from ten days earlier, when Bingley announced his closest neighbour had five unmarried daughters, had come to fruition.

He should have foreseen this! Bennet finally had roused himself to action when he saw a solution for his surfeit of daughters: befriend a wealthy neighbour and attach him to the favourite one.

“Unused dance slippers,” he muttered, looking up at the sky overhead. “They are tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me ; I am in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Darcy mounted his horse and pushed the memory of Elizabeth Bennet’s more than tolerable eyes out of his mind as he rode away. The stableboy’s eyebrows rose and his wave faltered as his gaze fell on the incredulous expression of Miss Elizabeth Bennet standing just inside the garden wall.