Page 18 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“And for duels, surely. You have revealed yourself a hidden romantic.” Miss Bingley thrust her fork through the air, stabbing an unseen opponent.
There was general laughter. Mr. Darcy remained grave and still, so I only smiled.
“Of course, only men duel with swords,” Miss Bingley continued, and her eyes turned to me. “What was the inspiration for your hair, Miss Bennet?”
My sole surprise was that she had waited so long to attack. But as I opened my mouth to counter, I realized her scathing tone was missing. I changed direction mid-sentence but managed to say something about their young housemaid.
“She remembers from London, I suppose,” mused Miss Bingley. “It is mostau courant.”
“Really?” I leaned to see around Mr. Darcy. There was a large mirror on the wall behind him, and my expression was dubious as I looked back at myself. The curls the maid had left loose almost touched my shoulders. “I thought it unfinished.”
“No,” Mr. Darcy said. I looked at him, expecting more, but that was all.
“I have a lady’s maid, of course,” Miss Bingley said. “Perhaps I should encourage this girl, too.”
“She should learn to read,” I said. Even for a housemaid, this was preferred, and a lady’s maid must handle correspondence.
“She cannot read? Ah, well.” Miss Bingley tossed her hand as if discarding a worthless card.
“I am sure she could learn.” I thought of the maid’s poetic description of Jane.
“Whatever for?”
“To become a lady’s maid. Or to better her mind. Or for enjoyment. I often lend books to our housemaids.”
“Doyou?” Miss Bingley’s eyebrows hadsoared.
“It is unfair that she has no way to learn. She has no mother or father—she is an orphan, I mean. So there is no path for her, is there?”
I was receiving incredulous stares. I suppose Mary feels this way when she quotes a reformist at dinner, and we stare at her.
“There is the Society for Promoting the Lancasterian System,” Mr. Darcy said. “They are not active in Hertfordshire at this time. But they are sympathetic to education of the poor, and are establishing a program in the north.”
“I shall have to inquire about them,” I said. He nodded.
Mr. Darcy’s clothes were elegant and finely tailored. As were the sisters’ silk dresses. The large room around us shone with polished wood, damask-covered cushions, and gilded mirrors.
I was struck by a frustration I had never felt before. I was envious of wealth.
Not so I could lease an abandoned estate and fill it with expensive furniture. But imagine hearing someone’s bold plan to educate poor girls, and then telling them to proceed.
Mr. Hurst shifted ponderously in his chair. “Educating the poor would be a colossal waste of money. We are at war, you know. Wellesley does not need his men reading while they charge Napoleon’s guns.”
“I spoke of a young girl,” I said.
“She could sew uniforms,” Mr. Hurst said. “I don’t see why you are concerned. She has a roof over her head. Food every day. In London, there are hordes of girls worse off, filthy and swarming like rats for a crust of bread.”
He was not wrong. But I found myself rigid with anger. Furious.
In another moment, I would have said something extremely impolite, but the butler entered with a letter on a silver tray, addressed to me in my mother’s hand.
As I broke the Longbourn seal, I realized that, delivered at this hour, it might be grave news. My heart leaped to my father, and I wished I had left the room to open it. But when I unfolded it, I relaxed, then became mystified.
My mother wrote:
“Dear Lizzy,
I am sure this is no loss. Such a poor creature hardly merited the cost of upkeep. But Lady Lucas is violently distressed, and it has made my own nerves flare terribly.
