Page 73 of When Elizabeth's Cat Chose Darcy
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE FIRST FRAY
Darcy
I daresaywe survived the Longbourn dinner, Georgiana and I, despite Caroline’s sneezing fits and Bingley’s clumsy page turning. Elizabeth ended the evening in high spirits, and it did me good to see her family embrace Bingley and his conversations with Miss Jane Bennet.
The morning after, however, brought little to celebrate. Elizabeth had not returned to Netherfield, and the breakfast room would be the quieter for it. I noted her empty chair with a pang—for Georgiana’s sake, of course.
Caroline, as always, was up early and already presiding without the need for a footstool. Mr. Jones had examined her ankle and declared it a modern miracle—no swelling or bruising—according to Mrs. Hurst, who had witnessed the examination, with the full confidence that Miss Bingley would be fit to dance at the assembly—not that she would deign to dance with anyone other than me.
As it was, Elizabeth had promised me the first set, and it was a secret Iintended to keep.
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy.” Caroline looked up from her teacup with the appraising gaze of a woman who inventoried the mood of every man who entered her orbit. “You are in uncommonly good spirits. One might almost think the Longbourn dinner agreed with you, though the syllabub was a touch heavy and the company rather more animated than one expects at a formal table.”
“The syllabub was excellent.”
“I did not say it was not excellent. I said it was heavy. There is a distinction, though not one the Bennets would recognize.” She sipped her tea. “I notice Miss Eliza has not yet appeared. I do hope she has not forgotten that her duties extend beyond her family’s table, though I suppose when one is accustomed to country hours, the Netherfield breakfast room must seem rather secondary.”
I did not dignify this with a response. I took my seat, poured coffee, and examined the sideboard, where Mr. Hurst was already stationed with the immovable dedication of a man whose breakfast was the organizing principle of his day. He had secured eggs, sausages, a considerable supply of toast, and what appeared to be the entirety of the remaining cold ham.
“Mr. Hurst,” I said, “good morning.”
He grunted acknowledgment without lifting his fork.
Mrs. Hurst’s gaze flickered from the empty chair by the window to me. “It’s quiet without Miss Bennet’s cat, isn’t it? I had nearly gotten used to the sneezing.”
“Well, I haven’t,” Caroline stated pointedly.
A fleeting, ungentlemanly wish crossed my mind as I sipped my coffee: how I’d like that ginger cat to be here, just to make Caroline sneeze. I dismissed the unworthy thought, though I didn’t regret it.
The morning was fine with clear skies. Last evening’s dinner was still turning in my thoughts with the pleasant weight of a meal one has not quite finished digesting, not because the food sat heavily but because the conversation did.The things most worth cherishing are generally the ones I have been wise enough not to attempt to manage.I had said that to Mr. Bennet, and Mr. Bennet had raised hisglass in a gesture of approval that still astonished me that I had earned it.
The door burst open, and Bingley entered at a pace suggesting that his valet had either abandoned him mid-dressing or had given up. His cravat was half-knotted, his hair still damp at the temples, and he carried one glove in his hand and wore its partner on the wrong hand.
“Morning! Morning, everyone. Forgive me. I overslept—the most extraordinary dream about a pianoforte that wouldn’t stop playing and pages flying everywhere, cannot imagine what prompted it—” He stopped at the sideboard and surveyed Mr. Hurst’s food fortifications. “I say, Hurst, have you left any ham at all?”
“Early bird,” Mr. Hurst said, without remorse.
“There is toast,” Caroline said. “And do something about your cravat, Charles. You look as though you dressed during a tempest.”
Bingley tugged at the offending article, made it worse, and loaded his plate with what remained on the sideboard. He took the chair beside me, still radiating the faintly dazed energy of a man who had been vertical for less than twenty minutes.
“Darcy, old fellow. Splendid dinner last night, was it not? Mrs. Bennet is a remarkable woman. That pie, the mutton, and the biscuits, and Miss Bennet, Jane, she was well, she was?—”
“Present,” I supplied.
“Yes, exactly! She was present, and the presence was—” He ran out of words, which happened to Bingley when his feelings outpaced his vocabulary, and where my response to that difficulty was silence.
I thought of Elizabeth at Longbourn wearing the old apron, likely immersed in a task her hands knew without conscious thought. I recalled the Commerce game, the small space between our chairs, and that moment when she played her hand without glancing at me, and I played mine without glancing at her, and that avoidance with awareness was the most intense focus I’d ever known.
The door opened again, and Georgiana entered. Not with the tentative, sidelong approach she had used in the earlyweeks at Netherfield, where every room was surveyed for threats before she committed to entering it, but with a directness that reminded me of someone whose influence I was tracking in the straightness of my sister’s spine.
Bingley, who was nearest the sideboard, leaped up before she was halfway across the room.
“Miss Darcy! Tea? Scone? Both? There’s honey somewhere. Hurst, have you commandeered the honey as well?”
“Tea, please, Mr. Bingley, with a drop of honey.” Georgiana sat, accepted the cup Bingley poured with his characteristic generosity—filled to the brim so that it sloshed as she lifted it—and took a scone from the basket he extended with the solicitous attention of a man who could not help feeding people.
