Page 59 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
“Oh, it was nothing—the roads are dusty—are you thirsty? There is lemonade. We are setting up for battledore. You will play, of course?”
“We should be delighted, Mr. Bingley.” Jane took his offered arm with the grace of a woman who had no idea what her arrival had done to the man’s throat and lungs. “Though I must warn you, I am only a middling player.”
Jane was too humble. Papa had taught us all, and Jane’s height gave her a reach that was the envy of every Bennet sister, but Jane believed that understating one’s abilities was a form of kindness toward those who would shortly lose.
Mary surveyed the lawn, the boundary posts the footmen were hammering into the turf, and the collection of battledores arranged on the stone bench like implements of genteel warfare. “I have read that battledore improves reflexes and respiratory function,” she announced. “I anticipate the exercise will be most salutary.”
“Miss Mary, you fill me with enthusiasm,” Bingley said, and meant it, because Bingley was constitutionally incapable of sarcasm. “We shall be so merry.”
Caroline appeared at the terrace door in a white muslin that would show grass stains at a whisper, her hair arranged with a perfection that suggested she intended to exert herself as little as possible while positioning herself as close to Darcy as physics would allow. She descended the steps, and her ankle bore her weight without so much as a wince.
“Miss Bennet. Miss Mary. How kind of you to call.” The warmth in her voice was calibrated to the exact temperature that displayed civility without encouraging a return visit. “Now then, we must arrange our pairs. Mr. Darcy, you must partner with me. My anklewill not permit much running, but I can manage a rally if you are willing to cover the ground. You will not mind, I am sure.”
She placed her hand on Darcy’s arm as she said this, and the placement was light, casual, the touch of a woman who assumed the gesture was welcome because she had never considered that it might not be.
Darcy did not remove her hand. He produced the expression I had come to recognize as his diplomatic mask—neutral, offering nothing that could be interpreted as either encouragement or objection. “As you wish, Miss Bingley.”
I looked away, not because it was painful but because my primary objective would be for Bingley to be paired with Jane. Opening my mouth, but not sure of my place as a companion, I hesitated a moment too long.
“Charles,” Caroline’s imperious voice pronounced her command, “you must partner Miss Darcy. The dear girl has had so little country exercise, and you have such a talent for encouragement. Miss Eliza may play with Louisa, while Miss Bennet and Miss Mary—” she waved a hand at Jane and Mary as though they were items on a shelf she had not ordered but would accommodate, “—shall make up the fourth pair.”
She did it so smoothly that a casual observer would have thought the arrangements entirely natural, a hostess distributing her guests according to convenience and compatibility. But I had been watching Caroline Bingley operate since my first morning in this house, and what I saw was strategy—each pair assembled not for pleasure but for purpose, and every purpose served Caroline’s.
I didn’t mind playing beside Mrs. Hurst as it would allow me to eye Darcy as a competitor, but Jane, the real threat as far as Bingley’s affections were concerned, would be stowed safely across the lawn with Mary.
“Shall we begin?” Bingley picked up a battledore with the eagerness of a golden retriever presented with a stick, or rather a flat wooden paddle, slightly larger than his hand, its facestretched tight with parchment that gave a satisfyingthwackwhen he tested it against his palm. “Miss Darcy, have you played before?”
“At Pemberley,” Georgiana replied, taking the offered paddle and testing its weight with a seriousness that reminded me of the way she had assessed the weathered rails before climbing the stile. “Though only with my governess, and she was not very good.”
Mrs. Hurst accepted our partnership with the air of a woman who had been assigned a duty she had not requested and intended to perform with the minimum effort consistent with not being criticized afterward. She examined her battledore as though it might have opinions, took her position beside me, and announced: “I shall endeavour not to perspire.”
“A noble ambition, Mrs. Hurst. I shall endeavor to hit the shuttlecock.”
“Then between us, we may achieve one complete sportswoman.”
Caroline, who had been adjusting her grip on her battledore with the concentration of a woman handling a foreign object, turned to Jane with a smile that could have frosted a window in July.
“Miss Bennet, are you familiar with the competitive form? I ask only because country families sometimes play the cooperative version, which is charming but rather less stimulating.” She spoke with the instructive patience of a woman explaining table manners to a vicar’s daughter. “In the competitive form, each pair faces the other across the boundary line. The shuttlecock is served diagonally and must be returned before it strikes the ground. If it lands within bounds on your side, the serving pair scores the point. If it lands outside, the point goes to the receiving pair. We play to eleven. The shuttlecock must clear the line,” she gestured at the rope the footmen, Tom and Jerry, had strung between two posts at waist height, ”and may not be struck twice by the same side.”
Jane, who had been playing competitive battledore since she was nine and had once beaten Papa in straight sets on the Longbourn lawn, smiled with the serene forbearance she reserved for people who underestimated her.
“Thank you, Miss Bingley. That is most helpful. I confess I had been striking the shuttlecock at random and hoping for the best.”
Mary, who did not possess Jane’s gift for diplomatic irony, opened her mouth. I caught her eye and shook my head, and Mary closed her mouth, which was a small victory for sisterly communication.
“Shall we take the near court?” Darcy asked Caroline, already moving to the position with the efficiency of a man who had played this game at school and did not intend to lose in Hertfordshire.
Mrs. Hurst beckoned me to the opposing side, and thus Bingley and Georgiana were left to square off against Jane and Mary in the far court.
This was, I told myself, a practical decision made by a man who intended to play competitively and did not wish to restrict his movement. It had no bearing on the width of his shoulders, which I had observed before and which required no further investigation.
“Ladies first,” Darcy said, tossing the shuttlecock to me across the cord.
I served. The shuttlecock sailed high and clean, and Caroline, who was positioned at the front—an arrangement Darcy had clearly engineered to minimize the distance she would need to move—swung her battledore with the languid grace of a woman who believed the point of the game was to look elegant.
She missed.
“The wind,” Caroline said.
