Page 7 of Such Low Connections

“Can you believe the arrogance of that man?” Elizabeth gasped. “He really does consider the whole of Hertfordshire beneath him, doesn’t he?”

“With £10,000 a year, half of Derbyshire and the Darcy name, I dare say that many would agree,” Charlotte replied with a sigh. “However, I cannot so easily excuse his personal insults to you, Lizzy. That was most ungentlemanly of him.”

“I do not care if Mr Darcy declines to dance with me, whatever his grounds,” Elizabeth reassured her. “Even if he had not insulted me, I should not have cared to dance with a man who seems to have a much greater sense of pride than sense of fun, and more consciousness of rank than manners.”

“Mr Darcy? It is no great thing to be dismissed by Mr Darcy,” Lydia abruptly cut in, as unthinking and unmodulated as ever, and as regardless of company or propriety of conversation. “I heard earlier this evening that he may not even have been his father’s natural son!”

“Lydia!” Elizabeth rebuked her, while Charlotte looked away with an embarrassed expression on behalf of her friend. “You ought not to be repeating such appalling and unseemly gossip. It reflects more badly on you than anyone it is supposed to concern.”

“I was only trying to make you feel better when I heard you say he wouldn’t dance with you,” her youngest sister justified herself sulkily, sipping from a large cup of punch. “It is not my fault that what Mary King told me she heard in London is unseemly.”

Pouting, Lydia turned from Elizabeth with her nose in the air and walked back towards the refreshment tables to refresh her punch.

“You are lucky in the character of Maria,” Elizabeth told Charlotte when Lydia was gone. “Lydia has no sense of propriety and ought not to be let out in public by my parents without their fullest supervision.”

“You have Jane,” her friend comforted her. “The others may grow wiser in time. But what a thing for Lydia to say, and without any care for all the ears around us! She was correct in one thing, though. The original fault stems from Mary King for bringing that tale of Mr Darcy from London to Meryton, although that does not exonerate anyone who passes it on.”

Elizabeth nodded her agreement. Yet the question could not be so easily dismissed. She weighed whether to say anything more, before at last deciding for candour. “Do you think it could be true?” Elizabeth asked at last, her voice carefully too low to be overheard.

Charlotte’s plain but pleasant features grew philosophical once more.

“I think it does not matter. If Mr Darcy was born in wedlock and acknowledged as his father’s son, people might say what they want of him. He would still be master of Pemberley under English law. Likely, many great men have not had the father they supposed. Mr Darcy would not be the first. In any case, it is no business of ours.”

“No, you are quite right,” Elizabeth said, her brow smoothing again as she thought over these sensible words. “It is no business of ours at all.”

“Listen, there is going to be a hornpipe! Let’s dance again and forget all this tiresome nonsense over Mr Darcy.”

“Your brothers are already engaged, Charlotte. We will have to partner each other.”

“That is no great hardship.”

The two friends spoke with laughter rather than any real sorrow over the scarcity of dance partners. Linking arms, they turned towards the music and were soon in the thick of the jigging couples already on the dance floor.

“Wouldn’t life be simpler if we always danced with one another and our sisters and did not waste so much time waiting for men at these events?” suggested Charlotte with great good humour as they danced.

“Yes. Nor is it entirely bad that men are so thin on the ground here tonight,” Elizabeth answered her in kind. “At least it means that my mother’s matchmaking can only be limited to Jane tonight, and I doubt she objects when my mother’s target is so personable and agreeable to her.”

“You should not like to dance a hornpipe with Mr Darcy, then?” suggested Charlotte, and both women fell about in laughter at the very thought of that tall, proud form engaging in anything so undignified as a hornpipe.

“I should be grateful that Mr Darcy will never ask me to dance,” Elizabeth answered. “Nor any lady of insufficient title and fortune. Now, let us not spoil our fun with any further talk of unsatisfactory men!”

Chapter 2

“How awful it was last night,” said Caroline Bingley, turning to her sister at the breakfast table with a small shudder and an expression of distaste. “How utterly crude and uncivilised an assembly!”

Mrs Hurst nodded, her hair tucked this morning under a jewelled cap.

“You are so right, Caroline. There was none of the taste and refinement we are accustomed to. Mr Hurst could scarcely be induced to dance in that company, and we sat out half of the evening in the supper room. You would not believe the conversation there. So much about pigs and maidservants and the best cheeses!”

Having lowered his newspaper to greet each of the ladies when they arrived for breakfast, Darcy took it up again, hiding his face behind the printed sheets. While he could not have claimed any greater enjoyment in the Meryton assembly rooms than Bingley’s sisters, he also took no pleasure in dissecting the evening, preferring to forget unpleasantness and discomfort rather than dwell on them.

“They have some very fine cheeses in Hertfordshire,” Charles Bingley declared, attempting to steer the conversation into happier waters. “I very much enjoy their cheeses, and the ham.”

He was the only person in the party who appeared both well and happy at the breakfast table. Miss Bingley looked pained and Mrs Hurst looked drained after their experiences in Meryton, while Mr Hurst had not surfaced from his room at all. Darcy wished only to eat in silence.

“We are not really talking of cheeses, Charles,” Caroline said with forced patience. “We are talking of local society.”

“Well, I liked that too,” her brother insisted, not to be jolted from his good mood. “I had a capital time last night and enjoyed the dancing thoroughly. I will hope to repeat it many times.”