"A ball?"
Darcy groaned, but he was apparently alone in deploring the plan, for every other person at the table remarked upon the fine plan Mr Bingley had suggested.
"It was not entirely my suggestion that I might take credit for it," he said, good-naturedly. "The youngest Bennet girl…what was her name…Lydia! She implored us to host some sort of get-together, and it seemed churlish to refuse." He beamed across the table at Richard. "Now, with your arrival, Colonel Fitzwilliam, it seems like the perfect excuse to host a small soiree." His glance reached Darcy's and fell a little. "It need not be a very large affair…"
"I do not imagine it will be!" Caroline Bingley asserted, with haughty indignance. "For who on earth shall we find to invite?"
"Come, Miss Bingley, surely there are at least half a dozen people in all of Hertfordshire who might meet your admirable standards and be found worthy of an invitation to a quiet evening among friends, here at Netherfield Park." Richard's tone was gently mocking, and Darcy lifted his eyes warningly to his cousin. He and Charles might be able to tolerate his cousin's good humour well enough, but Caroline Bingley was not renowned for her sense of humour, particularly when she was the cause of amusement. Her eyes flashed angrily and Richard, realising his danger, undid the comment with a deferential smile. "Of course, I know little of what I speak, for I have been so busy with the regiment I can scarily recall the last time I attend any such gathering, let alone considered the strain of hosting one. But it need not be an extravagant affair, surely? Perhaps just a meal, with a few close neighbours or friends for company."
This invited Bingley himself to weight in, and utter the words that Darcy imagined his sister had most been dreading.
"We must have the Bennets, at the very least!"
Caroline sighed, but said nothing.
"The Bennets?" Mrs Hurst asked, from her corner of the table. She blinked, irritably, from her insistence on never wearing eyeglasses. "All of them?"
"Yes, all of them! We can hardly invite two sisters and not the other three, or exclude their parents."
"They will surely come, and fill half our table in doing so," Caroline observed. "And I must find another family with gentlemen to invite, or we shall be dreadfully ill-matched for dancing…"
Darcy groaned again. Why must "just a meal, with a few close neighbours" necessitate dancing?
"The middle Bennet daughter is very musical," Richard remarked, apropos of nothing. "So in inviting her, you might easily facilitate your entertainments as well."
Caroline pursed her lips, and glanced first at her brother and then him. Darcy felt certain she was waiting for either gentlemen, or, preferably, both, to rally to her defence at this perceived slight from his cousin, and suggest that her own talents far exceeded those of Mary Bennet. Darcy was fond of music, and he missed hearing his sister Georgiana's skilful practice almost as much as he missed Georgiana herself. He had to admit, on the rare occasion he had had to hear Mary Bennet, that she certainly seemed fond of the piano, and played it with a spirit and feeling lacking in Caroline's perfunctory playing.
"You shall not wish to play all evening, Caroline," Bingley said, at last, skilfully managing his sister's threatened mood. "For then you would not be able to dance. Young Miss Mary is not fond of dancing, so why not let her play, and the rest of us dance, and then that will be a happy solution for all concerned.
"She does not dance?" Richard asked. When Darcy looked up at him surprised at this sudden and inexplicable interest in the, so far as he could tell, unremarkable Mary Bennet, his cousin's face was unreadable. "I felt sure all young ladies loved to dance," he remarked, with an easy shrug. "But then what knowledge have I of young ladies?" His eyes twinkled with amusement, but Darcy continued to stare at him for some moments, sure there was more to his cousin's comments than he could discern at present.
"Well it will not be much of a party if it is merely us six and a gaggle of Bennets," Caroline said, putting a sly emphasis on the word "gaggle" which provoked a snicker of laughter from Mrs Hurst. "Perhaps I will invite Mr Wainwright." Caroline pursed her lapis. "He is only a curate, but he will perhaps be a steadying influence on the more excitable Bennets."
"If you are inviting curates, Caroline, you had better extend an invitation to Mr Collins as well," Mr Bingley said, with a generous smile.
Darcy felt another groan rise up in the back of his throat but checked it. There would be no escaping Mr Collins, for they could not very well exclude the man from an invitation extended to the rest of his family. At least this time Darcy would not face him alone: Colonel Fitzwilliam, as another nephew of his patroness Lady Catherine would draw at least equal attention.
"Yes, Mr Collins," Caroline turned a syrupy smile towards his cousin, and Darcy thought that she had not been so quick to forgive Colonel Fitzwilliam's perceived slight as she had appeared. "You have not met him properly yet, have you, Colonel?"
"I have not yet had the pleasure. Darcy quite spirited me away upon my arrival, although I did spy him standing next to Charles."
"I am sure he will be most eager to make your acquaintance, as he has been of Mr Darcy."
Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled back, oblivious to Caroline's implication, which was only too clear to the rest of the table.
"Well, Caroline," Bingley said, hurrying to change the subject and prevent his sister from being openly unkind about one of their guests. "When do you intend on hosting this small soiree? We ought to give more than a day's notice, I do not doubt…"