Chapter 2

J ane and Elizabeth were grateful their mother had shifted her attention to Lydia—who they both agreed should still be in the school room—so they were free of her conflicting orders regarding their gowns for the assembly.

"I wish Mama would not go on about my looks the way she does," Jane lamented, "I know she loves us and wants what is best for us, but she does not go about it very well."

"Do you refer to Mr Farrington who wrote you the verses when you were seventeen?" Elizabeth smiled.

"Him, Mr Wilson, and Mr Joden. Mama thinks she helps, but she frightened all three of them away. I know how much she will be hurt if I tell her why they all left," Jane averred. "I had hopes I could fall in love with Mr Farrington, the poetry he wrote impressed me, especially after you did not recognise them as having been copied from any book of poetry which has been published."

"If Mr Bingley has an inclination towards you, and more importantly, you for him, I will do what I am able to in order to keep the worst of Mama's excesses from his view." Elizabeth arched an eyebrow as Jane gave a dainty cough. "Jane Lydia Bennet, do you have another of your colds?" Elizabeth demanded, her arms akimbo.

The previous winter Jane had, as she was prone to do, come down with a cold in December. All would have been well had it not turned into influenza. Elizabeth had been greatly worried for her sister, but thankfully, with much care from Mr Jones—the apothecary and doctor in one person in the area—Jane had begun to get well, and eventually, she had made a full recovery. On the day Mr Jones had announced Jane out of danger, Elizabeth had noted he was holding something back from her parents.

She had followed the man out into the drive where his gig was waiting for him. At first he had claimed he had told her parents all, but Elizabeth had pressed him. Mr Jones admitted he suspected the infection had damaged Jane's lungs, but as he could not be sure, he had not said anything to Mr and Mrs Bennet. It was the reason she was extremely vigilant any time Jane had a cold.

"I am well Lizzy, my throat is dry, that is all." To emphasise her point, Jane drank some water from the glass next to her side of the bed. "All better now."

"Janey, you know how I worry about you, you will not hide anything regarding your health from me, will you?" Elizabeth queried worriedly. "Ever since Mr Jones told me..."

"I love you too, Lizzy," Jane hugged her younger sister. "Do not forget, he said possible damage, not a certainty."

"Speaking of love, does Mama understand that we will only accept the proposal from one we respect, and love deeply? I know she worries for our futures, and Papa does nothing to relieve her concerns, but with all due respect to our parents, we do not want an unequal union like theirs."

"We made that vow before I came out, when you were but thirteen, and I have no intention of reneging on it. I agree unless there is mutual respect, what is seen as love is only infatuation, and it does not last very long. As mismatched as our parents are, if they had not married, we would not be in the world."

"There is that," Elizabeth agreed. She looked at herself in the mirror. Everything looked as it should. "If you are ready, let us go downstairs and wait for Mama and our sisters. "

"Has Papa told you why he is joining us at the assembly?" Jane asked. "It is very seldom that he is part of the family party for a ball."

"No, Janey. I am sorry, and am no more enlightened as to why Papa is joining us than you are," Elizabeth asserted. She could guess he saw an opportunity for amusement, but she did not articulate that. Papa enjoyed laughing, but he was never malicious. The only thing Elizabeth faulted him for with regards to amusing himself, was his propensity to provoke Mama.

She loved her father, but she saw him for who he was. A man who took the path of least resistance, indolent in the extreme, and spent too much time in his study with his books when he should have been directing his family. At least, in his own way, Papa loved all of his daughters, even if he called Kitty and Lydia two of the silliest girls in the realm. If only he would stand up to Mama, especially on spending, then there may have been some money for their dowries.

"Come, Lizzy, we should join the family downstairs; we do not want to be late do we?"

"No, Janey we do not. After all, according to Mama, you are to meet your future husband at the assembly."

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Darcy's mood was already bad due to his worry about Giana and being forced to attend the assembly thanks to Miss Bingley's desire to remain behind with him if he was to do so. Even though he would not give in to a claim of compromise, it was preferable to avoid the situation.

It was getting on being a half hour after the time Bingley had stated they were to depart, and still no Miss Bingley. Just because he did not want to attend did not mean he countenanced the rudeness of purposefully arriving late. Yes, some members of the upper ten thousand thought it was acceptable to be fashionably late, but that was something Darcy and his family considered unfashionably rude. No matter how many airs and graces she put on, Miss Bingley was not a member of the Ton , and never had been.

Since his arrival, she had continually grabbed at his arm with her overly sharp talons, and the times she managed to capture it, her hold had been akin to a death grip. No matter how many times he separated his arm from Miss Bingley's clutches, regardless of the disdainful looks he shot her, she continued on as if nothing untoward had occurred.

Bingley had tried to warn his sister off, more times than his friend cared to remember, but his younger sister ignored his words. Even though the rules of polite society forbade Darcy from speaking plainly to the cloying woman, he was very close to damning the rules and telling her what he thought of her. Once they returned home from the assembly, he would speak to Bingley about his thoughts on the matter. Darcy was certain Bingley would not object, but as Bingley was Miss Bingley's guardian, he felt it was incumbent on himself to speak to his friend about his intentions first, rather than making an assumption.

He had already told Bingley he would not dance with Miss Bingley no matter her position as the mistress of the leased estate. Bingley had understood and had not attempted to gainsay Darcy.

The four waiting for Miss Bingley were standing in the hall at the base of the grand staircase when they heard someone clear their throat. Bingley and the Hursts looked up to see their younger sister waiting. Darcy pointedly refused to gratify the virago by doing what she desired.

Caroline Bingley was incensed. The man she intended would be her husband, had not looked up at her to see how fashionable she looked in her burnt orange gown, matching turban, and four long ostrich feathers, dyed to match. She told herself it must be he had not heard her, so she repeated the guttural sound from her throat twice more. Rather than look up at her, Mr Darcy walked away towards the entrance hall. She stamped a slippered foot and stomped down the stairs.

While he was being assisted into his coat, Darcy saw the other four as they approached. He had to school his features not to react to the garish outfit Miss Bingley was wearing. It clashed with her flaming red hair in the worst way. How she was to sit in the coach without removing her feathers was a mystery to Darcy. Before they all went out into the cold to the waiting conveyance, Darcy needed to say something. He was tired of his income, which was far off the mark, being discussed by a certain lady .

"It is my hope that no members of our party mention my purported income to impress those at the ball," Darcy stated as he looked directly at the shrew. Miss Bingley looked away and Mrs Hurst looked decidedly uncomfortable. "It is rather vulgar to discuss such things in a public setting."

"Caro, I did try and tell you…" Mrs Hurst said so only her sister would hear.

"Hold your peace!" Miss Bingley snapped, "No one asked you."

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

"Well I never!" Fanny Bennet exclaimed on the return journey to Longbourn from the assembly hall in Meryton. "What a rude, proud, arrogant, and insulting man." She looked to her husband who was grinning at her outburst. "Why did you not take the man to task for his rudeness to me and Lydia? If that was not enough, that hateful Mr Darcy slighted Lizzy, your favourite. And what did you do? What you always do, nothing! Nothing!"

"Mama, did I not tell you that I am well?" Elizabeth interjected. "Janey pointed out Mr Darcy was trying to cause his friend to cease importuning him to dance. He never really looked at me before he issued his slight. Even though he and Mr Bingley did not lower their voices, I do not think I was meant to overhear his words. That being said, he does seem to have improper pride and is very arrogant, so I will not repine if I never dance with him."

Bennet wiped the grin from his face. "His refusing to dance with Lydia when you promoted her as a partner, or telling you he does not enjoy dancing, or even his stalking off before being introduced to all of us, are not things for which I could set him down. However, as Lizzy will tell you, I was willing to demand he apologise as soon as I had been informed of his slight of her. It was, in fact, our second daughter who asked me to leave things as they were." Bennet looked from Lizzy back to his wife. "So you see my dear, I was willing to mount my white steed and tilt at the windmills to defend Lizzy, as I would for any of my daughters."

"Miss Bingley was so fashionably dressed," Fanny stated as she jumped to a new subject.

Elizabeth and her father had to fight to not laugh out loud at Fanny's calling the woman's outfit anything but objectionable. Even Jane had to turn away and hide her smile in her hand. Of course, Lydia, which meant Kitty did too, agreed with their mother.

"Her ensemble was interesting ," Mary stated drolly. This led to some poorly disguised spluttering from her father and two older sisters.

"How is it Mr Bingley danced first with that plain Charlotte Lucas?" Fanny whinged. "Those grasping Lucases tried to redirect him from our Jane."

"Mama, do not forget that he danced a second set with none other than Janey," Elizabeth reminded her mother in order to stop the stream of insults aimed at Charlotte and the rest of her family. As far as she was concerned, Jane's and her good friend was not plain, she was simply not classically pretty as Jane was. The fact that at five and twenty she was single was not due to a deficiency in her looks, but rather the paucity of her dowry—only half of what the Bennet sisters would have one day—and thanks to the war with the Corsican Tyrant, the scarcity of men with good sense. If the local men could not see Charlotte's worth, then they did not deserve her.

"What an honour," Fanny gushed. "To be singled out in that way by Mr Bingley when none other was. Did I not say he would marry our Jane? She cannot be so beautiful for no reason."

"Mama, there is a long way from dancing two sets to the making and accepting of an offer of marriage," Jane pointed out.

"It will be as I said." Fanny waved her eldest daughter's words away.

Thankfully for Bennet, soon enough, the carriage came to a halt at Longbourn. Their night had not been as amusing as he had expected, so he had spent much of his time in the card room. He had been thankful Lizzy had not wanted him to give the tall man from Derbyshire the dressing down he deserved. He would have done so, but he preferred peace to confrontation.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

The ride back to Netherfield Park was filled with the complaints of one Caroline Bingley who decried everything and everyone she had seen at the countryfied assembly.

It was not a great mystery as to what had caused the release of her vitriol in the coach. Darcy had stuck to his determination not to dance with her. The only set he had danced was with Mrs Hurst. That made him think of the words he had flung at Bingley to cause him to leave him alone when his friend attempted to convince him to dance. He hoped the young lady had not heard him.

Once he had truly looked at the woman, something he had not done when Bingley harangued him, he had seen she was more than handsome enough to tempt him. Then to his chagrin, he had overheard talk of how the young ladies voluntarily sit out two sets each, thanks to the lack of partners because of the war on the continent. He had realised then that not only had he been wrong in everything he said, but regardless of his discomfort in dancing with one not well acquainted with him, the gentlemanly thing would have been to ask some of the local ladies to stand up with him.

As much as Darcy had been attempting to ignore the vitriol spewing forth from the harridan's mouth, his attention was captured.

"Such country mushrooms are not close to our level of society," Miss Bingley continued her list of complaints.

"Excuse me, Miss Bingley, what level of society would that be?" Darcy asked innocently, almost sure she would take his bait. "As far as I could tell, the vast majority of those present were landed gentry."

"That they may be, but they are not close to the circles we inhabit," she averred. "Did you not see the lack of sophistication and fashion? Most of the gowns I saw were two and more years out of date."

"That is neither here nor there," Darcy responded dismissively. "Who are the we in the upper circles?"

"Why you and us, of course," Miss Bingley said as if to a child who lacked understanding.

"As much as I would prefer not to, I am afraid I must disabuse you of your notions that we are at the same societal levels," Darcy replied. "The Darcys are members of the Ton , the upper echelon of the first circle. The gentry who attend this assembly are, like Hurst here, members of the third level. You, Miss Bingley are a tradesman's daughter, so you are below the gentry in attendance. You can see how I am confused by your statement, can you not?"

If it had not been dark in the cabin of the coach, the others within would have seen Miss Bingley's countenance take on a purple hue as the fury took hold at her roots being pointed out to her. That it was Mr Darcy who had done so was far more mortifying.

There were no objections to the fact the youngest Bingley was silent for the rest of the ride to Netherfield Park, save for some incoherent muttering.