Chapter Twelve

Darcy was disappointed that the deserters had also proven not to be the culprits for whom they were searching. Instead, they were a ragtag band of desperate men holed up in a dilapidated inn well off the beaten path. They had put up little resistance when offered a forceful demonstration of Darcy and Miss Elizabeth’s gifts. She had lifted a beer wagon over her head and he had hovered in the air with his weapons hovering beside him in battery. Again, it seemed they had flushed the wrong quarry. There were no gifts to be found among them, so they could not be responsible for the attacks in question. Nonetheless, it was still worthwhile to remove them as a danger to the free flow of trade.

Bingley and his sisters had greeted Miss Elizabeth and him upon their return to Netherfield. Their host had been effusive in his solicitation of Miss Elizabeth’s wellbeing, as the evidence of their adventures was plain to see in her dishabille. Her sturdy dress and spencer were bespattered and stained, though not torn, after her adventures. Miss Elizabeth had immediately excused herself to attend to her sister. Darcy assumed she would also refresh herself and dress for dinner.

At five o'clock Darcy also retired to dress, a slight smile creased his visage while his valet dressed him. He recalled Miss Elizabeth’s behavior during the day. She was stalwart, clever, and dutiful. Her beauty and vitality were all the more in evidence during their adventures, though he admitted that her more animalistic traits could be somewhat disconcerting. He found that entering combat with her at his side and the fact that she had saved him from possible injury, if not death, made the difference in their consequence seem somehow less significant. She was extraordinarily gifted, which could make up for a great many social shortcomings. He spent much of the afternoon, after his and Miss Elizabeth’s return to Netherfield, dwelling not on his duties, but on thoughts of a fascinating lady.

At half past six the guests were summoned to dinner. Darcy was happy to see that Miss Elizabeth was appropriately, if somewhat unfashionably, attired. While he was always punctilious in his own adornment, he thought her dress more suited to a country house dinner than the London styles of Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst.

Bingley started the conversation once they were all seated. “Miss Elizabeth, how does your sister do? Is she any better?”

“I thank you,” Miss Elizabeth replied. “I believe she is a little better. But I am afraid we must trespass a bit longer on your hospitality. It will be some days yet before she is well enough to move.”

“Please think nothing of it.” Bingley’s smile gave Darcy cause for some concern. He knew his young friend was a romantic fellow, prone to forming quick attachments. Darcy pondered the necessity of having a quiet word to remind him not to allow exceptions to develop.

“Pray tell us how your investigations progress, Mr. Darcy,” inquired Miss Bingley.

“Looked like you found something amiss,” Mr. Hurst jested.

“Miss Elizabeth was able to procure two possibilities,” Darcy said, “Unfortunately, while both led to the apprehension of several criminals, none proved to be the perpetrators of the crimes that we were investigating.”

“Perhaps you should take a more active role in tracking these villains down, Mr. Darcy,” Miss Bingley suggested. “While I am certain that Miss Eliza is familiar with the neighborhood, she lacks your magisterial experience and expertise.”

“I think you would be surprised at Miss Elizabeth’s capabilities.” Darcy replied.

“Sir William and Colonel Forster have called a meeting of the local landowners for tomorrow at the Red Lion. Will you accompany me, Darcy?” Bingley asked.

“I think I should continue with the investigation. I will keep you informed of any developments before the meeting, so you may inform the others of our progress.”

“What are your next steps?” their host queried.

“I believe we must go back to our source and see if we might pry anymore information out of them.” Darcy answered.

“I was thinking that we might have another avenue of investigation open to us,” the guest from Longbourn interjected. “You collected various items from the attack sites, did you not?”

Darcy silently assented.

“You may not be aware, but my father is a historian.” The others looked nonplussed. “He fell into this avocation due, in part, to his unusual gift. He is a psychometrician. That is, he can gain insights into the history of items merely by touching them. I suggest we take the items we recovered and let him see if he can pry any useful information from them.”

“That sounds farfetched,” Miss Bingley complained.

“And yet he is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London based largely on the histories he has recorded from his psychometric visions. I truly believe he may be able to help us.”

“Very well. We will try that first.” Darcy allowed.

When dinner was over, Miss Elizabeth returned directly to her sister, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence. “

She has no conversation, no style, no taste, and no beauty.” Miss Bingley concluded.

“She has nothing, in short, to recommend her,” Mrs. Hurst complained. “I shall never forget her appearance this afternoon. She really looked almost wild.”

“She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance,” exclaimed Miss Bingley. “Very nonsensical for her to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her father cannot be bothered to police his own lands? Her hair so untidy, so blowsy!”

“Yes, and her petticoat! I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain.”

“Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,” said Bingley. “But this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth looked remarkably well, when she returned this afternoon. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.”

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“You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley, “and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.”

“Certainly not.” Darcy replied. “But my sister is in a very different situation than Miss Elizabeth.”

“To pretend that she has any place acting as a sheriff and battling highwaymen! What could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.”

“It shows an attention to duty that is very pleasing,” said Bingley.

“I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”

“Not at all,” he replied. “They were brightened by the exercise.”

A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again. “I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet. She is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it.”

“I think I have heard you say, that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton.”

“Yes. And they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside.”

“And no one in her mother’s family with a hint of a gift,” added Miss Bingley. “I have even heard that her bluestocking sister is actually … a hollow. Not even a wilder, like that former shopkeeper Sir William, but completely ungifted.”

Darcy thought Miss Bingley’s deriding a wilder was highly hypocritical, given that her father was one, thus granting her family ascension into the gentry.

“If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable to me. And their sister’s gift, or lack thereof, means nothing to me either.”

“But these facts must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,” replied Darcy, trying to help his friend regain his perspective. As loathe as he was to admit it, as the elder Bennet sisters were each remarkable in their own ways, their family and connections were simply insupportable.

To this speech Bingley made no answer.

After some time spent at the expense of their wounded guest, Bingleys sisters seemed to undergo a renewal of tenderness. They repaired to Miss Bennet’s room and sat with her until summoned to coffee. Miss Bennet was still very poorly, and Miss Elizabeth would not quit her at all until late in the evening.

On entering the drawing-room Miss Elizabeth found the whole party playing loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but declined, saying she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.

“Do you prefer reading to cards?” said he. “That is rather singular.”

“Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “despises cards. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else.”

“I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Miss Elizabeth. “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

“In nursing your sister, I am sure you have pleasure,” said Bingley. “And I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well.”

Miss Elizabeth thanked him, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others; all that his library afforded.

“And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more than I ever look into.”

Miss Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room.

“I am astonished,” said Miss Bingley, “that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!”

“It ought to be good,” he replied, “It has been the work of many generations.”

“And then you have added so much to it yourself. You are always buying books.”

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.” Darcy chided.

“Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley.”

“I wish it may,” He agreed.

“But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighborhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire.”

“With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it.”

“I am talking of possibilities, Charles,” Miss Bingley scolded.

“Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation.”

Miss Elizabeth seemed much caught by what passed, and soon laying her book aside, she drew near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his sister to observe the game.

“Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?” ask Miss Bingley to Darcy who had quit the card game to write a letter to his sister. “Will she be as tall as I am?”

“I think she will,” Darcy agreed. “She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or rather taller.”

“How I long to see her again!” Miss Bingley said. “I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the piano-forte is exquisite.”

“It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”

“All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?” exclaimed Mrs. Hurst.

“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”

“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it for nothing other than netting a purse, or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”

“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.

“Then,” observed Miss Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished women.”

“Yes. I do comprehend a great deal in it,” agreed Darcy. He though her bravery and consideration might be added to the list.

“Oh! Certainly,” cried Miss Bingley, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually found. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word. And besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.”

“All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”

“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.” Miss Elizabeth said archly.

“Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?” Miss Bingley protested.

“I never saw such a woman, I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united.”

Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of Miss Elizabeth’s implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Miss Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room.

“Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, “there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”

Miss Bingley was not so satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject.