Page 74 of The Briar Bargain
"What did you do?" Mrs. Hurst asked curiously.
"Dressed him up in a child’s gown that had once belonged to my sister Lydia," Miss Elizabeth admitted. "We tucked a little cap behind his ears and paraded him through Meryton as our visiting cousin."
The image this conjured was so delightfully preposterous that Darcy had to exert considerable effort to maintain his composure. He could envision it all too clearly, Miss Elizabeth and her sisters orchestrating such an elaborate ruse with the sort of creative mischief that would never occur to the ladies of his usual acquaintance.
Bingley laughed outright. "Did anyone believe you?"
"Only Mrs. Long," Jane said. "And only for a moment. But the wager only required us to fool one person."
“Mrs. Long would never admit it,” Elizabeth added, “but she is rather short-sighted.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "It was the way Lydia curtsied to Gadabout that truly sold the performance."
Laughter erupted again, warm and unrestrained. Even Mrs. Hurst pressed a hand to her mouth, and Hurst wheezed into his napkin. Darcy found himself drawn into the warmth of it all, marvelling at how Miss Elizabeth could so easily restore the company’s good humour.
“Lydia still has the ribbon.” Miss Elizabeth lifted her wineglass and sat back to take a sip. Darcy could see she was pleased with the company’s response to her tale.
Miss Bingley did not laugh, evidently unable to appreciate the guileless charm of such a tale. The evening's other tales, which she had missed, had each possessed the redeeming quality of gentle self-mockery, their tellers displaying that most agreeable willingness to invite laughter at theirown expense. Miss Bingley, however, possessed neither the grace to find amusement in her own follies nor the fortitude to endure becoming the object of others' mirth, a deficiency that rendered her incapable of both giving and receiving the innocent pleasure such stories afforded.
“How charming a childhood you must have had,” she said.
“Oh, that is the best part,” Miss Bennet said. “Tell them how old you were, Elizabeth.”
“Eight?” Bingley guessed. “Nine? I know Miss Lydia is several years younger, so you could not have been tooyoung yourself.”
Miss Elizabeth pretended to glare at her elder sister. “I was thirteen.” She laughed gaily, and then added, “I will say, in my own defence, that Lydia was not yet eight and required an activity, preferably away from the house. My poor parents and her nurse were nearing distraction, for Lydia was a very busy child.”
“Not unlike someone else I know,” Miss Bennet said with a fond sort of affection.
In Darcy’s world, such spontaneous creativity was often viewed with suspicion, as though genuine feeling was somehow unseemly. Yet here sat Miss Elizabeth, completely unashamed of her capacity for joy, and somehow managing to make everyone around her feel unashamed too.
The realisation troubled him almost as much as it pleased him. When had he become so starved of authentic feeling that a simple anecdote about a dog in a child’s dress and cap could affect him so profoundly?
As the evening drew to its natural close, Darcy found himself reluctant to see it end. He watched Miss Elizabeth answer something Mrs. Hurst said and acknowledged again with a mixture of resignation and wonder that his carefully ordered world had shifted so completely on its axis. Whatever defences he had once thought to erect against Miss Elizabeth had proven woefully inadequate against this woman, who could find equal delight inCicero's syntax and a dog dressed in a gown, who possessed the rare gift of making others feel that such delight was not merely permissible, but essential.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was just after breakfast the next morning when the news arrived, though Elizabeth would later reflect that "arrived" was far too sedate a word for the commotion that erupted in the courtyard below.
A burst of uncharacteristic energy from the drive sent everyone in the morning room to the windows in a flutter of curiosity. A familiar rider, his trousers splashed with drying mud from boot to thigh, galloped to the front of the house and dismounted. The butler emerged onto the gravel drive before the man had even secured his reins, a testament to how eagerly the household had awaited word from the outside world.
Elizabeth pressed closer to the glass. Her heart lifted with a peculiar mixture of relief and anticipation. "It is John, from Longbourn," she announced to the room at large.
"John Davis?" Jane asked. "Oh, indeed it is! How good of Papa to send him."
Mr. Bingley left to greet the rider, his footsteps echoing through the corridor with uncommon haste. Elizabeth found herself holding her breath, though she could not have said precisely why. Perhaps it was merely the prospect of news from home after so many days of isolation, or perhaps itwas the sense that this moment might mark the beginning of the end of their peculiar interlude at Netherfield.
Through the window, she could see Mr. Bingley clap John on the shoulder by way of greeting, and the two men engaged in an animated conversation. John turned to point behind him as he no doubt described the state of the roads and how he had arrived here. Even from her vantage point, Elizabeth could see the relief in Mr. Bingley's posture.
"He looks well," Jane whispered. "And not overly concerned, which must be a good sign."
Miss Bingley set down her teacup with a delicate clink. "I do hope the news is not too encouraging," she said with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. "We have grown so accustomed to your delightful company."
Elizabeth felt rather than saw Mr. Darcy's sharp glance in Miss Bingley's direction, though when she looked at him, his expression revealed nothing of his thoughts.
A few minutes later, a footman appeared in the doorway bearing a travel-worn bundle wrapped in canvas and tied with string, as well as two sealed letters. One was addressed to Elizabeth in her father's familiar sprawling hand, the other was from Mamma to Jane.
"Letters from home," Elizabeth said unnecessarily, her voice brightening with anticipation. The sight of her father's handwriting sent a wave of homesickness through her that was both unexpected and intense. “At last.”
She glanced at Jane, who had already broken the seal on her letter and was reading with the serene expression that suggested good news. A gentle smile played about her sister's lips as her eyes moved across the page.
