Page 9 of The Cheapside Runners
“Hardly! At any rate, the next time I noticed her was at Lucas Lodge. I spent some time hanging about the edge of her conversations, trying to not be too obnoxious about it. I found her discussions interesting and intelligent, but I felt awkward about asking for an introduction or just joining in, if you can believe that.”
“I can well believe it. You rarely have to put yourself out.”
“I got more and more curious,” Darcy admitted sheepishly. “I was beginning to get the idea that she was avoidingme, though as you suggested in your interrogation, she was quite subtle about it. She had a knack for disappearing right when I was working up my nerve to speak to her.”
“Sounds frustrating.”
“It was. After she played, which I enjoyed very much, Sir William ambushed her and presented her hand to me as a dance partner. You can just imagine the man.” He deepened his voice until it boomed.“My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing?Mr Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure when so much beauty is before you.” ‘
He sighed. “He took her hand and presented it towards me. I was still a bit shocked, so it took me a moment to get my wits about me. Before I could echo the request, she turned to Sir William and answeredhim!I appreciate your efforts Sir William, but I am not dancing tonight.”
Bingley stared in consternation for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“She curtseyed and walked away without another word. I spent the next five minutes trying to decide if she was being shy, generous, or rude.”
“It is certainly peculiar.”
“And now she is here, in this house, andstillhas not said a word to me. I am beginning to be apprehensive. Mayhap she has some prior acquaintance, though I cannot imagine what it is.”
“If she had, there would be little she could do save avoid you, presuming she only knows you by reputation.”
The men thought about it a bit, and finally Bingley offered, “Well, she cannot avoid you forever. She will not stay in her sister’s room the whole time. Basic politeness demands she spend at least a few minutes in the drawing room. I suppose we shall see what we shall see.”
“That we will, Bingley… that we will.”
~~~~~
The question was answered at half past six when Miss Elizabeth appeared for dinner. Darcy took that to mean Miss Bennet was nowhere near death’s door, but then had to wonder what Mr Gardiner would think of such an uncharitable thought. He resolved to be distantly polite and see what the lady did for the moment.
Bingley was all concern for Miss Bennet’s health, as anybody would expect. To his civil inquiries, Miss Elizabeth simply related that her sister was by no means better.
The Bingley sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their indifference towards Jane when not immediately before themwas about as expected.
Darcy had no idea what Miss Elizabeth thought of the sisters, but if she had more sense than a donkey, she ought to dislike them on principle.
The dinner did not advance his chances to speak to her in the slightest. She arrived in the drawing room at the last possible moment, though whether that was by happenstance or design was impossible to determine. She had not specifically avoided him, but they were only in the room a minute or two before Bingley led her to the dining room, where Miss Bingley had placed her as far from Darcy as possible. There, she seemed to endure Hurst after making a few attempts to speak to him.
Darcy could not pay any real attention to the lady of his fascination, because the bane of his existence still had not absorbed the obvious fact that she was of no interest to him. He spent the long and tedious meal hearingon ditsof people in town about whom he did not care in the least.
After dinner, Miss Elizabeth returned to her sister, and that was the end of it for a time.
The Bingley sisters carried on for quite some time about the Bennet sisters’ dowries… and their manners… and Miss Elizabeth’s shocking three-mile walk… and the mud on her petticoats… and her blowsy hair… and herconceited independence…and the obvious problem that they had an uncle who was an attorney and another who was a tradesman inCheapside, apparently in the mistaken belief that an uncle in trade was somehow worse than afatherin trade.
“If they had uncles enough to fillallCheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.”
“But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,”replied Darcy, mainly because he wanted to end the discussion with the less said about Cheapside the better.
As far as Bingley’s sisters were concerned, Darcy wanted them unaware that he even knew where Cheapside was, let alone had recently engaged with a man whose business should never even be mentioned in polite company (not that politeness was the order of the day in the Bingley parlour). His sister’s reputation required a certain amount of discretion, so any discussion of that part of town was best avoided entirely or shut down as quickly as possible.
5.The Card Despiser
Later in the evening, they were playing at loo when Miss Elizabeth appeared. Once again, she entered the room and paid him not the slightest attention. She glanced at the table, then picked up a book to pass her time in the parlour.
Bingley and Hurst begged her to join them, but she politely declined.
Miss Bingley tried her best to be snide, implying that either Miss Elizabeth was a bluestocking who read constantly and had no pleasure in anything else, or that she was too poor to afford the table stakes. Miss Elizabeth just batted her comments away like an annoying fly, but Miss Bingley had the bit in her teeth and turned a general comment about reading versus other pursuits into a long paean to Darcy’s library in Pemberley.
Darcy paid strict attention to Miss Elizabeth with that discussion, but she gave no more reaction to that than to anything else. All he knew for certain was that she must not have found the company all that congenial, since she had not laughed or smiled for a much longer time than when he observed her in her natural element.
