Page 5 of The Countess and Her Sister

She pursued him into the corridor. “Darcy, whatever is the matter with you? Are you unwell? Surely….” She dropped her voice, a look of panic coming over her.

“Surely you are not displeased with Jane? She frets that her illness diminished her beauty, but she is as lovely as she ever was, and the kindest, gentlest creature – can you slight her so cruelly? I could see she was alarmed that you were at the ball and did not dance with her – surely you could have been introduced. You must return and apologize at once, or Richard will likely call you out! He loves those girls, and so do I. Really! Lady Anne Darcy did not raise such a blundering blockhead, I am sure she did not!”

“I was not displeased or disappointed with her; quite the reverse. She was gracious and most agreeable, though I fear – you must allow me to return tomorrow. I will return, you have my word – though you may wish a word with your son, first.”

The dowager relaxed a little. “There was a look of devilry about him, but then that is always the case – Rebecca, too. Oh dear. And you were not long at the ball – Darcy, what did you do?”

Hating himself for such cowardice, Darcy shook his head, his lips tightening around the explanation she was due.

“I will return, tomorrow, Aunt. You may expect me at half past ten, and I shall pay your charges every courtesy.” At that, Darcy hastened from the house, his vision foggy from panic and chagrin as more of that musical laughter rung in his ears.

He passed a lady and a gentleman just coming up the stone steps to the house, vaguely recognizing them but saying nothing.

These new visitors would be well-received, but he had entirely spoilt his own chance of agreeable meeting with the woman his aunt wished him to marry, and he was not accustomed to such dismal failure.

***

When Lady Augusta returned to the parlor, a chaotic scene was unfolding within.

Elizabeth was sitting up on her knees, beating Richard with a large cushion as he curled his legs up on the sofa beside her, howling with laughter.

On the settee, Jane and Rebecca hugged one another as they gave in to their own hilarity; Rebecca even shed a few tears of mirth.

Jane quickly corrected herself at the sight of the dowager, noticing that she was not alone as she lingered in the doorway.

Elizabeth was slower to react. She stood and dropped the cushion, realizing that one of her slippers had come off while she attacked her wicked brother; her stockinged foot poked out from the hem of her gown, and she shifted herself to conceal it.

Lady Augusta stared at them in a daze of shock and concern, and perhaps just a little appreciation for the sheer absurdity of their tableau. “Children, what is this?” She gasped and brought her fingers to her lips – definitely concealing a smile.

Mr. Tilney grinned and stepped forward, picking the cushion up from the floor and brandishing it at Richard.

“What offense has my wicked cousin given you, Miss Bennet? I am ready to step in as your champion – I confess, it rather looks like good fun. If it amuses the ladies as much when I assault him, I should be much obliged.” He directed his smile to Jane and Rebecca, then back to Elizabeth.

“I should prefer to explain,” Richard replied. “It is an amusing story; even Lizzy must concede I am a genius, if also a bit of a devil.”

“I am not sure I wish to hear it,” Lady Augusta said, though the twinkle in her eyes suggested otherwise.

Elizabeth gave Richard a playful nudge of her elbow. “I believe I must begin this sordid tale, if you wish to hear it, sir.”

She and her sisters assured Eleanor that it was a pleasure to see her, and the dowager called for tea.

They all began to behave normally again, and Elizabeth was eager to begin the retelling of what had earned her displeasure with Richard, if only to deny him the satisfaction of recounting a highly embellished version.

“Last evening at the ball, I was without a partner and meandering the ballroom, content to enjoy the sight of my fine friends all dancing. I had some hope of being introduced to Mr. Bingley, who had just danced with you, Jane. I was moving toward him when I observed Mr. Darcy, who was then unknown to me, speak with Mr. Bingley. And it pains me, Mamma, to tell you such ill of your nephew, but he was not at all pleased with what he saw. Oh, he did acknowledge that Jane was the handsomest woman in the room, but insisted that he would not dance, and that it would be a punishment to stand up with anyone else, save Mr. Bingley’s sister. ”

Richard interrupted with a throaty sound of disgust, and Elizabeth smirked.

Miss Bingley had proved to be a fawning and supercilious creature, very eager to please Jane, but for all the wrong reasons.

She had thought, upon meeting the woman, that it seemed only right for the odious man to prefer such haughty company.

“Mr. Bingley observed that I was Jane’s sister – I suppose you must have pointed me out to him while you danced, Jane. He suggested that I would make an agreeable partner, but Mr. Darcy did not share that opinion.”

Rebecca hiccoughed with laughter. “He said that she was tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt him, Mamma! That he was not in consequence to give humor to young ladies who were slighted by other men!”

Lady Augusta’s mouth fell open for a moment before she composed herself.

“Good Heavens! I know Darcy does not generally enjoy Lady Thurston’s entertainments, but if he did not wish to dance, he ought not to have attended at all.

Oh, dearest, I am very sorry – and exceedingly astonished!

I wonder what came over him, to speak in such a way. ”

Jane had gone pale. Her late husband was prone to such vitriol as this in his addresses to his wife.

She would not welcome the attentions of another such man; it was perhaps for the best that Jane understand what Mr. Darcy was like, even though Elizabeth hated to give any pain to her sister or the dowager countess.

“The lighting must have been very dim in whatever part of the room Mr. Darcy observed you from,” Mr. Tilney said, smiling into the awkward tension that had fallen over them.

“He surely could not see you well from his vantage point, for you were in very fine looks last evening, and at present as well, Miss Bennet. I am once again overcome by so many lovely ladies – perhaps that is why I saw Mr. Darcy staggering from the house in such a stupor, as we arrived.”

Beside her brother, Eleanor offered an encouraging smile. “I hope he has made some account of himself, for his behavior.”

Richard grinned. “I must confess I rather made matters worse. Elizabeth repeated Darcy’s words to me last night. I chose not to inform him of just whom he had spoken of so unfairly.”

“I see,” Mr. Tilney said, glancing between Richard’s shameless satisfaction and Elizabeth’s begrudgingly amused vexation. “A little trick to make him uneasy for his iniquitous crime?”

Lady Augusta chortled, then shook her head. “You have paid Darcy back for his offense, Richard, but I fear you upset Jane and Lizzy. She was right to beat you for it; I suspect I ought to have allowed her abuse to go on a while longer.”

“I am prepared to make every amends to my charming and very tolerable sister, if the pleasure of seeing Darcy flee in disgrace is not sufficient.” Richard inclined his head, his smile more affection than devilry.

Elizabeth laughed, as she had done at the very sight Richard described.

Mr. Darcy had looked chastened as he departed so abruptly, and it had been gratifying.

“I suppose his greatest punishment must be that he might have been amusing himself just as we do now, had he behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.”

“Quite right,” Mr. Tilney agreed. “And his loss must be our gain – what do you say, Eleanor? I, for one, am perfectly ready to make myself agreeable to you ladies.”

Mr. Tilney was not the only gentleman with such a notion in mind, for Mr. Bingley was announced a few minutes later. The visit took a happier turn as Richard’s mischief and Mr. Darcy’s rudeness were forgotten.

Mr. Tilney was as conversant as he had been at the ball, and just as disposed to divide his pleasing attentions equally between Jane and Elizabeth, and even Rebecca, whose oft-repeated insistence of never entertaining any suitors was a treated as a great joke, or perhaps a challenge to her charming cousin.

Mr. Bingley instantly won Elizabeth’s esteem and approbation in his apparent admiration of Jane.

He was perfectly amiable to Elizabeth and Rebecca as well as the others, but toward Jane he was in awe and raptures, at times appearing too bowled over to speak sensibly.

Jane might have been a good match for him as merely the daughter of a country gentleman; as the mother of an earl with such status and connections as the earldom granted her, she might be considered beyond Mr. Bingley’s reach, and he seemed to feel it.

Elizabeth was content to help him on. She abandoned Richard to the sedate conversation of his cousin Eleanor, and Rebecca to the indefatigable charms of Mr. Tilney, and applied her own open-tempered candor to be of use in facilitating a conversation between Jane and Mr. Bingley.

It was clear that her sister admired him, for he was handsome, good-humored, and artlessly candid in his address, and Jane’s countenance glowed with contentment as they spoke.

Mr. Bingley seemed a little easier in directing his affable japes at Elizabeth.

It was clear that pleasing Jane was his first object, though he was not sure that he was worthy of paying a countess his addresses.

By the end of the visit, Elizabeth needed to do little more than smile encouragingly as Jane became more expressive and Mr. Bingley more relaxed, and she felt it a good sign that both appeared to forget about her entirely.

It struck Elizabeth as strange that a man such as Mr. Bingley, who seemed determined to be pleased by everything and everybody he met, was a friend of Mr. Darcy, who was decidedly the reverse.

When he mentioned his friend, Elizabeth took the opportunity to ask Mr. Bingley more about him, sensing that no subtlety would be required to learn more of the man.

She hoped that his positivity would shine a better light on the gentleman Lady Augusta had championed as a suitor for Jane.

Mr. Bingley gave a glowing character of his friend, who had apparently been a mentor of sorts since they had been at Cambridge together, and who had even advised him for a brief period in the management of an estate Mr. Bingley had rented, though he had quit the lease at the new year.

It was discovered that this estate had been Netherfield, and that he had become acquainted with several families known to them during his months in Hertfordshire.

The subject of Mr. Darcy was not brought up again until supper. Lady Augusta could not like that her nephew had acquitted himself so poorly, that Richard had made a great prank in concealing the truth from his cousin and sister Elizabeth, and that the Tilneys had seen them in such disorder over it.

“They are family, but it was highly indecorous. And why did you make such sport of something so ghastly, Richard? It seems to me that you had the opportunity to smooth it all out last evening, and instead you chose chaos. You gave your sisters discomfort they did not deserve.”

“It was the wicked impulse of a moment, I suppose,” he said with a plaintive look between Elizabeth and Jane.

“I did not intend to sabotage his introduction so thoroughly, though I cannot imagine how it might have gone well after his own misstep. But I imagined that Lizzy would give him the business about it, rather than silently seethe and plot my demise. I am sorry for giving you such a shock, Lizzy, and for shading your opinion of him, Jane. I wished only to make him uncomfortable, for I was very cross with him for insulting one of my favorite sisters.”

“You might have given me the advantage of knowing what to expect this morning,” Elizabeth said archly. “I had not even told Jane of the insult, for I did not wish to diminish her enjoyment of the ball.”

Jane frowned. “Oh, no Lizzy, you need not keep such things from me! But I cannot account for how Mr. Darcy could behave in such a way, when his relations and even his friend Mr. Bingley have spoken so well of him. It must be a great misunderstanding.”

Lady Augusta looked skeptically at Elizabeth. “Is it possible you misheard him?”

“If perhaps there was some other lady wearing green standing near me, looking unappealing and rejected,” Elizabeth said with a laugh. “I was more amused than affronted, but what a preposterous thing to say at a ball!”

“He has never enjoyed such occasions, but it is no excuse for poor manners,” Lady Augusta said.

“He will call again tomorrow and account for himself. At least we can take heart that his abrupt departure was no fault of yours, dear Jane. And if he is not perfectly civil, I shall allow you to thrash him with the sofa cushion as you did your brother, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth grinned, coaxing a little smile from Jane. “Then it seems his second attempt shall be impossible to disappoint.”