Page 71 of A November to Remember

“Poultry?” Mr Collins brightened, declining the pastry. “Miss Lucas, you possess a mind of rare elevation! My patroness, Lady Catherine, is a renowned expert on the keeping of fowls. She has instructed me that a hen must never be allowed to look on a goat, lest the milk sour the eggs. A most serious business, the keeping of hens. They are delicate creatures, you see. Sensitive. Prone to emotions.”

“I should be captivated, Mr Collins,” Charlotte managed, her voice steady and calm, being a woman who had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of the polite lie. “Please. Start from the beginning. Do not omit a single goat.”

“Well!” Mr Collins leaned in, having just found his true calling, born to discuss the emotions of Kentish animals. “It began one day, as I was walking through the gardens of Rosings Park—her ladyship had sent me to inspect the roses for aphids, you understand—when I chanced on a most distressing sight...”

Mrs Bennet moved away from the sofa, rubbing her hands together with supreme satisfaction. She caught Viscount Keathley’s eye, full of triumph and quiet glee.

The viscount raised his teacup to her in an impressed tribute. “Mrs Bennet, you are a woman of rare cunning. I do believe you have just outwitted the entire Parliament.”

Mrs Bennet preened and blushed. “I have my moments, my lord. Though I do wish he would stop talking about the goats.”

Mr Bennet watched Elizabeth being caught between amusement and horror at her mother’s machinations. She turned her head, and her gaze landed on Mr Darcy.

He was still gripping the back of his armchair in stunned disbelief. His eyes were locked on Mr Collins, who was now gesticulating wildly about a brooding hen named Clara, who had developed a feud with the cockerel that had lasted the better part of the year.

Mr Darcy met Elizabeth’s gaze, and she offered him a tiny shrug, her eyes saying this is not my fault. Blame my mother. Everyone does.

The man inhaled deeply through his nose. He glanced at his cousin, who was laughing into his newly acquired lace handkerchief, sat down, and picked up the Morning Chronicle.

Mr Bennet watched the scene with detached amusement, cementing his earlier conclusion that his life was indeed a farce. He returned to his chair and settled back, his eyes twinkling with pleasure.

“Well,” he said to no one in particular. “This is either the best or the worst afternoon of my life. I have yet to decide which.”

And as Mr Collins launched into a detailed monologue about the tragic case of another hen named Bertha, who had once glanced at a passing sheep and subsequently laid a square egg, Mr Bennet allowed himself a satisfied smile.

At least it was not dull.

Chapter Seventeen: Fields Have Eyes and Woods Have Ears

November 23rd, 1811

Fitzwilliam Darcy was a man of wealth, stature, and intellect, and he prided himself, above all else, on his discernment. It had been five days since the afternoon Mr Collins arrived at Longbourn, and Darcy had spent them in a state of carefully cultivated absence. He had avoided the daily calls to the Bennet household, finding Mr Collins’s constant droning and ostentatious bowing to be an affront to his sanity. He had told himself he was merely saving the rector from a spinal injury, but in truth, Longbourn felt less like a country estate and more like a stage for a comedy he was not yet prepared to join.

The disadvantage of retaining his sanity was that he had not seen Miss Elizabeth’s fine eyes for five consecutive days, and the sanity he was trying to preserve was in grave peril. Why can I not stop thinking about her?

Darcy was in his Netherfield bedchamber, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. His cousins and Bingley, by contrast, had not stopped visiting the Bennets; on the contrary, they seemed to be taking their dinners at Longbourn. The advancement of Bingley’s attentions to Miss Bennet had become Robert’s chief ambition for some inexplicable reason. That left Darcy behind to endure the company of Miss Bingley and the Hursts. Miss Bingley was in raptures. She had played the pianoforte for so many hours that he was certain she would soon need to employ a maid specifically to rub the exhaustion from her fingers. This, however, was usual and expected in this household; Miss Bingley was a creature of calculated performance.

What was not expected, what set the fine hairs on the back of Darcy’s neck tingling, was Dawson’s silence.

Dawson had a natural inclination towards commentary. He never brushed fine wool without delivering a dry, unsolicited treatise on the tragic inadequacy of the provincial water for laundering his master’s garments, or a pointed observation regarding the general state of the Netherfield staff. Yet, for the past quarter of an hour, the man had been as silent as a tombstone.

Darcy observed the valet. Dawson was wielding a clothes brush over a coat, his face a mask of professional apathy. The strokes, however, were quick, agitated, and devoid of their usual methodical rhythm.

Darcy crossed his arms over his chest. “Dawson. What is the matter?”

The valet paused his brushing, delicately picked an invisible speck of lint from the sleeve, and flicked it into the fireplace. “I am conserving my breath, sir. The Hertfordshire atmosphere is heavily saturated with plotting. One must guard one’s intake lest one choke on it.”

Darcy narrowed his eyes. “Deflection is Robert’s tactic, Dawson. I expect facts from you.”

Dawson lowered his chin and dropped his volume to a murmur. “I observed an irregular gathering not twenty minutes ago, sir. Colonel Fitzwilliam, Dickinson, Mr Boodles, and Mr Bingley had all gathered in Viscount Keathley’s bedchamber.”

Darcy frowned, considering the list of names. “Did they request my presence?”

Dawson’s left eyebrow crept upward a fraction of an inch. “They did not. I waylaid Mr Boodles to ask. He avoided my eye, sir. He muttered a blatant lie regarding a new shipment of Macassar oil and slipped inside the room. It baffles me. Mr Boodles does not avoid my eye unless there is a severe crisis involving cravat knots, or a conspiracy.”

“You are right to be baffled. They are not to be trusted left to their own devices. None of them.”

Dawson placed the brush on the table, his posture straightening. “Shall we burst in, sir? I can tear the door off its hinges. I feel quite robust today.”