Page 3 of A Mismatched Compromise

Unfortunately, Elizabeth thought, she had spent enough time in Mr Darcy’s company to know that he was more than aware of social responsibilities; hence she could only infer that the insect option was the reasoning behind his gaze. He had made it clear that he disapproved of her on more than one occasion, and his “tolerable” as a description of her looks was even less effusive than Mr Collins’ backhanded compliment. Right now, he was looking at her as though she were a column of figures that refused to add up correctly — out of line, frustrating, and with no place in his orderly world.

Elizabeth turned casually away, as though she didn’t even notice him watching her, and looked for Jane.

Jane was dancing with Mr Bingley. That in itself was not surprising. Jane had spent a good deal of every party since the assembly at Meryton several weeks ago with Mr Bingley. So, the fact that they were dancing was not remarkable, but that they were dancing this particular dance was, as their mother would say, significant. This was the last set before supper, and by claiming Jane for this dance, Mr Bingley was also claiming the right to escort her to the meal, and sit beside her for it. That was the sort of distinction that did not go unnoticed in a room full of people for whom dance cards and dinner partners were as much a battle plan as any that the officers housed in Meryton would follow into war.

As Elizabeth watched her sister and Mr Bingley from the side of the floor, she felt a warmth suffuse through her that had nothing to do with the rising temperature in the room. There was an ease between the two that most people didn’t find together in years, much less in the first few weeks of their acquaintance. They moved well together, he said things that made her smile, and when she spoke, he lit up from within, his smile not only less shy than hers but also more obviously infatuated.

Elizabeth was fond of Jane above anyone else in the world, but she was rarely envious of her. Tonight, watching the delight on Mr Bingley’s face as he looked at Jane, and the answering warmth in Jane’s smile as she regarded him, she was perhaps a very small bit envious. Not of Mr Bingley himself; she had grown fond of him over the last few weeks, but it was in the way that one grew fond of a cheerful and enthusiastic family dog. No, she was envious, the slightest touch only, of the simplicity of the rapport between them. The ease with which they just liked each other, without the need to inform each other of their various inadequacies, was rare, and worthy, Elizabeth thought, of a smidgeon of envy.

However, mooning about being envious of her sister’s happiness, when Jane’s happiness was the thing Elizabeth most wanted in the world, was a silly way to spend her time, and so Elizabeth got herself firmly in hand. She was looking around the room, having decided that a dose of Charlotte Lucas’s calm good sense was what she needed to cleanse her palate of both Mr Darcy’s scorn and Mr Collins’s bitter praises, when a servant appeared beside her.

He was an older man, moving with a slight but noticeable limp, and he held a folded note before him with the air of one who had been entrusted with something and who intended to see his charge through until the end, however silly it might be. “Miss Bennet?” he said. “I was told to deliver this to the Miss Bennet in the library, wearing a blue gown. But there was no Miss Bennet in the library, in a blue gown or nowt,” he said, his voice somewhat accusatory.

Elizabeth, being indeed a Miss Bennet wearing a blue gown, took the note with a murmured apology for not being in the library as expected. It was not worth confusing the man by telling him that the title most properly belonged to Jane, and that otherwise, she was one of five Miss Bennets in blue gowns at the ball. Mrs Bennet thought it was “charming” when her daughters wore themed gowns to fancy dress parties. Gowns in different shades of a single colour were relatively harmless and not worth fighting over, especially when one considered some of the other themes that Mrs Bennet had suggested, such as shepherdesses and Greek goddesses. Similar colours were nothing in comparison, though Lydia had been all in a pout when Mrs Bennet had issued her decree several days ago. In the end, they arrived at Netherfield in shades of blue ranging from Jane’s pale cornflower to Lydia’s deep navy, all of them, to some degree, irritated that they were dressed in coordinating clothing, like toddlers or a matched set of dishes.

None of this was anything the servant needed to worry about, though, and he seemed mollified by her apology for being so selfish as to not be in the library, so Elizabeth just thanked him and took the note. It was folded, not sealed, addressed simply to “Miss Bennet” in a neat but slightly laboured hand, as though the writer were not used to taking great care in correspondence.

Elizabeth opened it.

My dearest Lydia —

Elizabeth went quite still.

All around her, the ball continued: musicians playing, dancers turning, her mother’s voice carrying from somewhere across the room with its usual disregard for such niceties as indoor volume. Elizabeth, however, heard none of it. She read through the note quickly, then read it again, more slowly. By the time she’d read the few brief lines for a third time, she understood exactly what she was holding.

Regrettably, I cannot keep our appointment in the library this evening due to an unfortunate change in circumstances that I have no power to influence. I trust you will understand. Believe me when I say that any disappointment you may feel at this disarrangement in our plan is as nothing compared to the desolation it causes me. I look forward with the greatest anticipation to the next occasion on which you might oblige me with the opportunity to steal you away for a moment. Until then, I am ever yours, X

Elizabeth folded the note once, then folded it over again, and placed it carefully inside her reticule, the slow deliberateness of her movements belying her racing thoughts.

She thought about Lydia’s restless energy over the last several days, which she had attributed to boredom at being trapped by the rain and excitement over the ball, but which she now suspected had rather more to do with this mysterious “appointment” than either the weather or a ball. She thought about this appointment in the library. Over the course of her stay during Jane’s illness, she had become rather well-acquainted with the library. It was quiet and isolated, and entirely unsuitable as the place for an unchaperoned meeting between a young girl and an unknown man at eleven o’clock at night.

Then she thought about the fact that this appointment had been cancelled, and that Lydia did not know it.

Lydia would still go to the library and would find it empty. She would be expecting this mysterious stranger, and he would not be there, which was perhaps the best possible outcome — except that Lydia roaming unchaperoned about Netherfield Hall in the middle of a ball was not an “outcome” so much as it was a disaster in the making. It also did not change the fact that this man, whoever he was, had been writing to her sister, and planning on meeting her, and that though it had been cancelled, this “Mr X” had hinted that this would not be the last such arrangement he would try to make with Lydia.

Elizabeth looked about the room for Lydia, and didn’t see her. Looking for her mother, she found her deep in conversation with Mrs Long, wearing an expression of blissful victory as she gestured toward Jane and Mr Bingley on the dance floor. She looked for her father; Mr Bennet was also nowhere to be found, which annoyed her more than it perhaps should have.

She sighed, then squared her shoulders and headed to the edge of the floor where she had seen Charlotte.

“I must step out for a moment,” Elizabeth said quietly when she reached her friend’s side. “I need… Lydia is not here, and she…has my handkerchief, so I am going to find her.”

Charlotte’s blue eyes met hers, and Elizabeth saw both the concern and understanding in them as Charlotte nodded, perfectly understanding what she wasn’t saying, as usual. “Go,” she told Elizabeth. “I shall make your excuses if you are missed.”

Elizabeth gave her a look of deep gratitude and turned toward the door that led out of the ballroom to the family wing of the house. She stepped through the doorway as though she were a perfectly unremarkable woman on a perfectly unremarkable errand, not one about to give her errant youngest sister the scare and then the lecture of her lifetime. The door closed quietly behind her, and no one noticed.

∞∞∞

Darcy was looking for Elizabeth Bennet.

He was not going to examine why he was doing so, mere minutes after declaring to himself that he was done thinking about her. Nor would he acknowledge that he hadn’t really stopped at all, regardless of vow or intent. He had looked away for about three minutes when Mary Bennet’s run-in with her mother at the pianoforte had looked as though it had the potential to escalate from just a girl being embarrassed by an overly strident mama to a full-blown Scene, the kind that involved raised voices and tears public mortification of the sort that would be discussed for the next fortnight.

Mary Bennet, who had spent much of the night pretending that she had not been dancing because she didn’t want to dance, not because no one had asked her to dance. The only one who believed her was her mother, who had begun insisting that if she didn’t go out for a few sets, she would not be allowed to play the pianoforte later. Miss Mary had burst into tears, and rather than the disgust Darcy would normally feel at such a display, he had involuntarily thought of his sister, who would have been equally miserable under such pressure. He had looked about helplessly, hoping for something, anything to fend off the inevitable explosion, when the needed miracle arrived in the form of Jane Bennet, who had slid her arm through her sister’s and led her out the side door with quiet efficiency, forestalling any further fuss.

Deeply relieved, Darcy turned back to where Elizabeth had been, only to find that she was not there.

He scanned the room as though he wasn’t looking for anything in particular. It was a large room, and she might have moved to another part of it. She might be speaking to someone he couldn’t see from where he was standing, or perhaps she was dancing, or standing by the window for a breath of fresh air.

Two minutes later, he was quite certain that she was not in the room, and was uncomfortably aware that this conclusion produced a feeling rather closer to concern than he would like to admit.