Page 6 of The Cheapside Runners
Darcy understood he had been personally responsible for Georgiana’s education, companion, itinerary, and every other aspect of her life for more than five years, and yet she required rescue from an unknown. To add insult to injury, he had been responsible forhis ownbehaviour since he came off leading strings, and his evening in Cheapside showed he was as deficientas his sister. It was galling, but he at last decided he needed to become a better man himself. Railing at Mr Gardiner for his own failings was unjust and counterproductive.
A week after the dinner engagement debacle, he had returned hat in hand to Gracechurch Street to apologise to the nieces, only to be told his niece returned to their father’s estate, somewhere north of London.
The knowledge that he had insulted daughters of a gentleman did not make his words any more or less abhorrent, and it should not have given him any more guilt, but old habits die hard, and it did. Though the reproofs were delivered with the gentlest touch, they were gradually having an effect. He had conversed for most of an hour with Mr Gardiner, and the man’s advice seemed entirely sound.
His self-appointed tasks for his visit to Hertfordshire were to make himself practise being more sociable, and to work out a better way of dealing with Miss Caroline Bingley. She had entertained the idea that she could attract an offer from him and gone after it with all the subtlety of a badger. Darcy had ignored her for years, but he thought it might be time to disabuse her once and for all. He had no idea (and no particular desire to know) if she had avoided proposals from other men, but she was not getting any younger and her ambitions in his directions would obviously never bear fruit.
“Miss Bingley, forgive my presumption, but may I ask a somewhat forward question? Feel free to decline if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“You can ask any question you like, Mr Darcy,” she replied in a blatantly flirty manner which doubly annoyed him.
“I have no idea of your matrimonial ambitions,” he began, feeling the sting of the white lie but believing the subterfuge necessary if he wanted to keep some vague semblance of propriety. “Is it your intention to marry a landed gentleman?”
The way her face pinched, as if she just sucked a lemon, before smoothing her countenance would have been comical if he were in an insulting mood, but it just made him feel sad.
“Of course I intend to marry a gentleman. That was my father’s life’s goal.”
Not wanting to dig too far in, Darcy spoke emphatically, “THISis how gentlemen live. If you marry an estate owner, you will spend far more than half of your life in a town just like this one. There are, of course,gentlemenin the law, clergy, or army who live in town—but estate owners invariably need to see to their estates, or at least the good ones do. This is probably the best chance you will ever have to learn if that life is for you. I suggest you take advantage of it. You might be far happier with a gentleman who resides in town. He would likely be a second or third son, but entirely suitable for your father’s ambitions.”
They had been speaking softly while walking, which was hardly fair, but it at least let him say his piece without allowing her to say things she could not retract.
He leaned forward and whispered to Bingley that he should escort his sister into the hall, then followed behind.
Despite his advice to Miss Bingley, and his self-appointed desire to improve his manner, he expected the evening to be trying. His dress, income, marital status, lack of potential in-laws, relative handsomeness, and every other superficial aspect of his life would be picked over like a dog with a bone.
He hated it all, but that was the price of consequence, and he resolved to perform up to Mr Gardiner’s standards, if at all possible.
~~~~~
Darcy generally hated assemblies and balls and ordinarily would have simply tried his best to hide out until the miserable chore was over. That said, his performance in Cheapside left him thinking he needed to work out a way to dobetter. He couldnot happily dance with half the women in the room like Bingley, nor make a dive for the refreshments table and card room like Hurst—but he could do something better than his usual stalking around the hall with a frown on his face. To be honest, he could at the very least offer up better manners than Bingley’s sisters. He was slightly uneasy about his abrupt lecture to Miss Bingley and had no idea if what he said was too much or too little.
As a means to get started, he went along with Bingley to be introduced to the principal families, while his sisters scurried off into a corner like he might have done before Cheapside.
In this fashion he was properly introduced to the Lucases, Gouldings, Longs, Harringtons, and four of the five Bennet sisters. The matron seemed like a reincarnation of his aunt, Lady Catherine, while the eldest Miss Bennet immediately caught Bingley’s attention, as expected.
Mrs Bennet seemed vexed by one daughter who had apparently made herself scarce, though after enduring the introduction, Darcy thought that with a mother like that he could not blame her. With five daughters out at once, she was hardly deficient in potential dance partners, and complaining about having one missing was hardly the best way to recommend herself to a stranger.
Bingley, naturally engaged the eldest Miss Bennet for the second set, having engaged Miss Lucas for the first
“I love a country dance, and if Miss Bennet is not engaged for the next set, might I request it.”
“I am not engaged, sir,” the young lady replied with a demure smile.
Darcy thought her answer slightly ambiguous, but Bingley was happy, Mrs Bennet was ecstatic, and Darcy was resigned that Bingley would act as he always did.
“And you, Mr Darcy, do you like to dance as well?” she asked with what he considered excessive enthusiasm—though thenephew of Lady Catherine had little right to be too fastidious.
Darcy suspected he saw avarice in her eyes, the same as any other ambitious mother. Like his friend who gravitated to the prettiest woman in the room like a bee to the brightest flower, Darcy was also a creature of habit who usually ran for cover when matchmakers sharpened their knives. He was tempted to give a curt answer and run for the walls, as was his usual habit, but the spectre of Gardiner intruded to moderate his response.
“I beg your pardon madam, but I do not dance as much as my friend,” then he even softened it a bit by added, “…nobody does,” and even tried to follow that up with something better than a frown but not quite a grin, let alone the chuckle that might be called for. “I must dance with the ladies of my own party, of course, and then I like to become acquainted with the room before I consider others, but I shall oblige in time, once introductions are complete.”
The lady seemed like the sort who might well have been affronted by his standard response of mumbling and walking away (not that he would have cared), but this answer seemed to leave her at least mollified.
He bowed and continued following Sir William around the room until he had become acquainted with most of the principal families (still without any dances secured), and he ran out of excuses.
Since he missed the first and second sets, he solicited Mrs Hurst for the next, and finally Miss Bingley. Her reactions to the assembly were as predictable as her brother’s, and not that much different than his would have been a month earlier. Darcy somewhat despaired that his little lecture upon entering the hall had not the slightest impact on her. Worse yet, it may have cemented in her mind thatmostgentlemen spent their time at their estates, but Darcy was different.
He had a couple interesting discussions with a few of the menbut had not worked his way up to an actual unknown female, though his conscience was telling him to get on with it.
