Page 21 of A Most Favourable Match
“Nothing untoward?” questioned Mrs Hurst with exaggerated astonishment. “Did you not see the mud? Her bonnet? Her hair? Oh, what a sight she was, Brother!”
“I noticed nothing,” Bingley insisted doggedly, instinctively digging in his heels.
“You never do, Charles,” Miss Bingley remarked with a patronising note in her voice. “I sometimes wonder that you can tell one lady from another.”
“That is unfair, Caroline,” her brother protested. “Although we have not been in Hertfordshire long, I know all our neighbours by name, including the ladies. From the Bennet family, there is Mrs Bennet, Miss Jane Bennet, Miss Elizabeth Bennet…”
“I dare say you noticed Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Mr Darcy,” Caroline Bingley broke in as her brother seemed to be getting away from the point which most concerned her and her sister. “Unlike my brother, you are always so very perspicacious.”
Miss Bingley’s voice was sly and silky, making Darcy wary of his answer. He had long disliked Caroline Bingley’s fawning interest in him, suspecting it largely a product of interest in Pemberley, his name, and his fortune. However, she could not politely be ignored while he stayed under her brother’s roof.
“Yes, I saw Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy said blandly, lowering his newspaper. “I saw the mud, the hanging bonnet, and her hair in the wind.”
“There, you see, Brother!” crowed Mrs Hurst. “Mr Darcy backs us up.”
“I saw Elizabeth Bennet exactly as she was,” Darcy corrected her swiftly. “I make no judgement on her appearance.”
As soon as he spoke, Darcy was ashamed to realise he had told an outright lie. He had not judged Elizabeth’s appearance harshly, but he had judged it nonetheless, just as he had judged her figure and gait. Darcy’s silent conclusion had been that such a state of disarray became her.
The two ladies looked at one another uncertainly, and Darcy raised his newspaper again, lest anyone in the room might guess the unspoken thoughts behind his eyes.
“What a large pile of books she was carrying back with her,” Miss Bingley added after a short pause. “I believe she must be some kind of bluestocking. Such ladies are always neglectful of their appearance.”
“No doubt,” her older sister agreed glibly. “A young woman can read too much, do not you think, Mr Darcy?”
“I have never encountered that myself,” Darcy responded flatly from behind his paper shield. “In our age, a greater problem appears to me that young women read far too little, especially of the books that might improve their minds.”
As Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst rapidly reversed their course and began to speak favourably of improving works, Darcy’s mind wandered away from the well-appointed Netherfield Park drawing room, and a small smile played at his lips. What was Elizabeth Bennet reading, he wondered? Poetry? Travel? Some sensational new novel? Perhaps all of them, if she had taken so many books from Meryton’s lending library.
Chapter 9
“Wickham is the handsomest officer in the regiment,” declared Lydia Bennet with a sigh of great admiration, propping her head on her elbows at the parlour table where she sat among a medley of bonnets and trimmings. “All the girls in Meryton are swooning over him.”
Together at the window seat, sharing the reading of a long letter from Mr and Mrs Gardiner in London, Elizabeth and Jane smiled at one another with the tolerant indulgence of elder sisters for younger.
“He is handsome, but I like Denny and Sanderson too,” Kitty agreed, sitting beside Lydia and snatching a snippet of blue silk from Lydia’s pile while her sister’s attention was distracted.
“Denny and Sanderson are both very amusing, as is Carter, but none are so handsome as Wickham. Don’t you think so, Mother?” Lydia enquired, looking across to Mrs Bennet on the sofa.
Her mother looked up from where she lounged in a ribboned cap and lacy shawl, reading a London fashion magazine sent by Mrs Gardiner. “Ah, they are all fineyoung men who look very well in their uniforms,” Mrs Bennet replied with a misty-eyed smile. “I loved a red coat when I was a girl, and they always turn my eye even still. How colourful the regiment makes the Meryton Assembly too! What a good thing for the district to have them here.”
“Denny dances almost as well as Lord Keeble,” Kitty spoke up.
“Yes, he does, although Wickham has more amusing conversation,” responded Lydia critically, as though it was a matter of great weight. “Wickham is taller too, by at least three inches.”
“Wickham is older, and Denny may still grow,” Kitty said defensively, but her sister only snorted in derision.
From the armchair by the fireplace, Mr Bennet gave a loud groan. “Can this family talk of nothing but officers and red coats?” he complained. “I feel I have heard nothing else for a fortnight. Wickham this, and Denny that, dancing at the Meryton Assembly and officers in the Longbourn drawing room every time I want a quiet teatime. Surely, you will eventually reach the end of all it is possible to say of the regiment.”
“I am not interested in the regiment, Father,” Mary assured him with great self-satisfaction. “I see nothing of virtue or value inherent in a red coat. These are but worldly signs of —”
“That is because you are so determined to be dull, Mary,” Lydia cut across her, drawing a nod of agreement from Mrs Bennet and disapproving looks fromher oldest two sisters. “You might bury yourself alive in Fordyce’s Sermons and like it, but I was dreadfully bored after Lord Keeble left. There were no decent dancing partners at the assembly again until the regiment came.”
“A whole fortnight without decent dancing partners,” said her father with mock sympathy. “I cannot think how you survived it, Lydia. It is not as though we have a district bursting with young male Lucases, Prenterfords and Moretons, never mind cheerful young Mr Bingley over at Netherfield Park and his admittedly gloomy but rich friend, Mr Darcy.”
“Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy?” exclaimed Kitty, pulling a face at the idea of dancing with these gentlemen.
“Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy are both old fuddy-duddies,” put in Lydia with her usual lack of self-restraint.
