Pamela Aidan - An Assembly Such as This

The letter fell gently onto the table as Darcy’s tension evaporated with a sigh he could not repress. The remainder contained the usual reports of educational and musical progress, albeit with a more lively tone than he had received from Georgiana in some months. He closed his eyes briefly. She will be well, he silently assured himself.

Hearing footsteps, Darcy quickly folded the letter, slid it into his coat pocket, and rose from his chair. Miss Bingley swept into the breakfast room, checking only for a moment upon seeing that he was alone at the table. Motioning to a servant to abandon his post at the door to serve as waiter, she nodded in response to Darcy’s bow and allowed him to select a chair for her.

“Mr. Darcy, you are a model for us all.” Miss Bingley looked up at him as he assisted her in sitting down. “Up so early — before dawn, I daresay — after such a fatiguing evening in such fatiguing company. I wonder at your fortitude, sir!”

Darcy retrieved his coffee and resumed his seat at the far end of the table. “I cannot lay claim to such merit, Miss Bingley. Merely habit, I assure you.”

“A well-considered habit, Mr. Darcy, I am convinced. But your coffee must have gone cold! Let Stevenson pour you fresh. There can be little more disagreeable than cold coffee! I cannot abide it.” Miss Bingley shuddered prettily. Darcy hid the twitch of an incipient grimace behind his cup as he took another sip. It had gone tepid, but he would not give Caroline Bingley encouragement to play out the cozy domestic scene she was creating in yet another unwelcome bid for his personal interest. Snapping his cup down upon the saucer, he began to rise when she surprised him with a question about his letter.

“Pray, tell me what your dear sister writes. I long to know how she gets on with her new companion. Does she complain of her, or is it too soon for that? I do wish she could have come with us to Netherfield.” She sighed pettishly. “What a relief her company would be from the local country squires and their ‘worthy’ dames.” Miss Bingley rearranged the food on her plate as she contemplated her new neighbors. “Charles insists that we make calls. I am sure, Mr. Darcy, you will agree that it will hardly be a pleasure. No more so than last night’s assembly. I ask you, sir, was last night not trying to your sensibilities?”

Darcy cast about for remembrances of the previous evening. Trying to his sensibilities? An echo of the distaste he had felt reverberated through his body. Yes, most trying. Officious bores, simpering young women, and forward older ones. All of them measuring, weighing, their eyes following every move…Suddenly he remembered eyes with expressive brows arched in challenge at him, intriguing eyes alight with secrets and amusement. He must have dwelt on the memory for some little time, for the loud clink of a spoon vigorously stirred against the sides of a cup recalled him to the presence of his questioner. Miss Bingley’s smile barely covered the pique she was obviously feeling at his inattention, for her eyes were narrowed as she waited for him to answer her question.

“Trying, Miss Bingley? Perhaps to those gentlemen like myself who find no great pleasure in dancing. But surely you were the recipient of much kind attention and admiration?” Darcy’s smile was smug. She could not deny the obvious solicitude that had enveloped her at the assembly. Disdain of that solicitude would be unbecoming while acknowledgment of success in such restricted society was nothing with which to feather her cap, especially in his company.

“You will excuse me, Miss Bingley,” he continued, claiming rather than requesting his release. With an uncertain smile, she could do no more than nod as he rose to take his leave. As he strode toward the door and the stables beyond, the picture of a quite different young woman, her eyes lifted to the night sky, formed in his mind, catching him in midstride. Shaking his head, he resumed his way to the stables. To horse, sir! It is the fields and fences you’ve come to explore, not the local nurseries!

He entered the stable yard, gratified to see Nelson ready at the mounting block and eager for a good run. Swinging into the saddle, he brought his thoughts into line with the desires of his mount and made for a beckoning countryside awash in the rays of a glorious autumn morning.

Darcy returned to Netherfield from his morning ride with an increased admiration for the countryside in which it nestled. The farms were neat and, with the recent harvest, appeared prosperous. The fields were bordered by wall, fence, or wood in a manner pleasing both to the eye and to the palate of even an avid hunter or horseman. The lands attached to Netherfield itself were in need of attention, but Darcy had found nothing drastically wrong that careful management and an infusion of capital could not correct in due course. All in all, a tidy estate with a minimum of problems but those that would teach Bingley what it was to be a man of property. Dismounting, he gave Nelson a hearty, affectionate pat on his great neck, ending with a gentle pass down his broad forehead and a lump of sugar pressed against his soft muzzle. Neatly extracting the treat from Darcy’s hand, Nelson nickered back his esteem. With a laugh, Darcy handed him over to a lad emerging from the stables.

A man of property. A soft, barely perceptible smile flitted across Darcy’s face as he heard the words echo in his head, but in his father’s voice. Under the careful tutelage of his father, Darcy had begun at an early age to learn what those words meant. He swore that his earliest memory was sitting astride a saddle, securely anchored in his father’s lap, his fingers twisted in the horse’s mane as the elder Darcy rode spring inspection of the farms and holdings of Pemberley. He could have only just been out of leading strings, perhaps three years old, but the memory was vivid enough to convince even his parents that it was a true one. That ride had served as his introduction to his station in life and its attendant responsibilities, both of which he now shouldered alone and with a just satisfaction that acknowledged, without hesitation, the excellent preparation given him by his father. Often and often, Darcy had occasion to thank Heaven for his father’s daily example of attention to duty and the practical experience he had gained under his guidance. It had made Pemberley the jewel that it was. He hoped he could serve his friend Bingley as well.

“Aha, there you are!” Bingley’s voice boomed as Darcy entered Netherfield’s hall. “I suppose I dare not hope that you have waited to allow me the pleasure of taking you on a tour of Netherfield’s lands?” Bingley stood in mock sternness in the doorway of the morning room, his arms crossed and his brow lowered, glowering at his friend.

“No hope at all, Bingley,” he responded without contrition. “It’s this deuced autumn weather! It just pulls one out-of-doors.”

“Indeed?” queried Bingley imperiously, in obvious delight at the unusual experience of having the upper hand with his friend. “I rather thought it was the prospect of having to provide amusement for Caroline this morning that pushed you out! Lord knows, I would be off in a shot!” The hauteur Bingley had assumed was then replaced with a genuine frown as he continued. “But really, Darcy, I was very much looking forward to riding over the estate with you.”

“And you shall,” Darcy hastened to assure him. “I apologize for anticipating you, but I needed to encounter Netherfield for itself without seeing it through your eyes, as would happen on a joint tour. Well you know that you would be filling my ear with rhapsodies about this stream or that wood.” Darcy paused briefly at Bingley’s strangled objection to his scenario. “You know I am right! Such distractions would give me no opportunity truly to be of service to you.”

With a crooked smile, Bingley ruefully acknowledged the reasonableness of his friend’s excuse. “I know it is not, nor will it ever be, a Pemberley. But even I know it can be more than it is,” he responded. “The thing of it is, I have not the slightest idea where to begin.”

“You may begin with allowing me to change out of my riding clothes and joining me over some refreshment in the” — Darcy glanced about the hall for a room into which the ladies or Mr. Hurst were unlikely to wander — “library.” Seizing the opportunity, he added, “Would it be possible, Charles, to have some comfortable chairs moved there? It is really quite spartan.”

“Of course, Darcy, immediately. I can’t tell you —”

“Then don’t, old man. Hold your gratitude until after you’ve heard me out.” Darcy could not help but grin at the enthusiasm on Bingley’s face. “After you’ve found yourself up to your waistcoat buttons in paper, broken quills, agricultural reports, and bills, and feel that you still feel a compunction to thank me, I’ll be glad to entertain it.” He began moving toward the stairs, then checked and turned a serious countenance upon his friend. “I warn you, Bingley, earning a Cambridge fellowship is nothing to becoming a complete man of property. I have that on the greatest authority.”

“And who, pray, might that be, O my master,” quipped Bingley.

“My father,” replied Darcy quietly as he turned and started up the stairs. “He did both.”

Gaining his room, Darcy carefully removed his sister’s letter from his coat pocket and read again the first part, his eyes lingering on the first page’s last line, “I am mending under her care into a stronger vessel.” Tenderly, he refolded the letter and pressed it to his lips. “Please God, it is so,” he murmured, placing it in his secretary, then pulled the bell that would summon Fletcher, his valet, and what he required for a day spent at the country estate of his friend.