The next morning Elizabeth found Bingley to be much as he always was: Cheerful, jocular, and with a smile for her when he and Darcy arrived at Longbourn shortly after the start of reasonable calling hours.
She had no particular astonishment in seeing them, even though they had all danced together only the night before at the ball held by the officers.
Elizabeth's feet were determined to be sore this morning, as she had not had a chance to sit down once the entire night, as the officers were quite insistent on keeping her dancing with one or another of their number when a member of the neighborhood, or Bingley or Darcy did not keep her busy.
She was used to dancing more than most girls, but with so many young gentlemen away, either in the navy, or in the army, and many of those who did not serve their country against the French in London seeking their fortunes through the law and studies, the general fact of the matter was that there was usually a deficiency of gentlemen at any larger open ball.
Private balls in general were evenly matched, with the difference being that many girls who were less prominent or less liked were never invited to them.
The female half of the neighborhood was delighted with the current situation in which there was for once a surplus of young gentlemen, who must compete for the lady's attention, rather than the effort going in the opposite direction.
Elizabeth rose smilingly to greet Darcy and Bingley when they came to the study where they had pushed the books off her desk, and she and Papa had almost finished their second a game of chess this morning. "Fine day. Fine day. Not too tired of my company after two dances a piece last night?"
"Never!" Bingley exclaimed. "You are the finest rose flowering in these arctic wastes —" He kissed her hand, and then shivered theatrically. "I cannot stand the coming of the cold — though it is nothing here to what it is like in the north of England."
"I would imagine," Elizabeth said with a smile, "That by this time of year you have already all been turned into icicles which shall only be thawed out by either true loves' kiss, or the coming of spring."
"I know by which of those two paths you have set out I hope to be rescued."
"Yes, but we are not in the Yorkshire wastes at present, so you shall not freeze so cold."
"No," Bingley replied looking meaningfully at her, in a way which made Elizabeth quite anxious for reasons she could not describe to herself. "I shall never freeze when I am in the same neighborhood as you. For you bloom all the year round."
"And Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth said in a resonant voice in which none of her sudden strange sense that something was off sounded. "How do you do today?"
He looked tired and slightly haggard. With slight tints of red in his eyes, and bags under them.
She added with a little worry, "I do hope you slept well last night."
"Well enough."
Goodness. The poor man's voice even sounded cracked and tired.
"You must take care of yourself. Don't let Bingley drag you into much dissipation."
"Hey!" The aforementioned dissipator of his taller elders exclaimed, scandalized. "Darcy does as he pleases."
Darcy replied, without meeting her eyes, "I do care… for myself."
Elizabeth shook her head.
She could hardly make heads or tails of the man. It had been much this way for the past week or two. One day he was looking at her with some sort of meaning in his eyes that thrilled her, and the next he was like this, refusing to look at her.
Perhaps he was ashamed by what he had told her of his mother and sister, in the deepest confidence. Or perhaps he disapproved of what she had told him about hating her mother without knowing her.
But then he'd asked her to dance, twice the previous night, and while they had spoken nothing but the empty sort of conversation that was entirely proper for a dance floor when one might be overheard by every person amongst your neighbors, he had shown none of this disinclination to look at her then.
BIngley now engaged Elizabeth in conversation, and she mechanically responded nonsense to everything he said — it was easy to talk to Bingley, and it was easy to understand Bingley. One merely need to say the first thing that came to mind, without any concern for coherence, and he'd laugh and be pleased by it.
Mr. Darcy engaged Mr. Bennet in an interesting discussion about whether England at present had what Plato had described as an oligarchic government or a timarchic one, where those ruled who were most worthy to rule. They both agreed that England was at present an oligarchy, but disagreed about the causes of this.
They also both agreed that Napoleon's seizure of power in France and declaration of himself as emperor was a fine modern proof of Plato's view that a democracy inevitably would be seized quickly by a tyrant.
Elizabeth continued to talk to Mr. Bingley as she kept half an eye on Darcy, but slowly she began to realize something had changed in Bingley's manner. His looks at her were more pointed, his smiles warmer, and there was something proprietary in the way he spoke of her now.
Good God. He could not actually be falling in love with her.
Elizabeth would feel deeply ashamed if he did, because she knew that she did not love him, and would need to refuse him if he asked her.
After a while the small bronze windup clock on Papa's desk rang, and he stood from the chair where he'd had his legs crossed as he talked to Darcy and stretched. "The call for my next walk. Decidedly pleasant weather for it too. Coming?"
By now both Bingley and Mr. Darcy were quite used to Papa's habit of taking a walk after every three and a half hours that he had been at his desk, a habit he never varied from, except when it was raining and he was particularly engrossed in the book.
Both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley assented to join Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth in their stroll around the shrubs and bushes around Longbourn. Bingley officiously helped Elizabeth to don her coat, necessary even on a not particularly cold mid-November day.
With Papa and Darcy walking together with their longer and more manly strides the two of them soon outpaced Elizabeth and Bingley, leaving them nearly in privacy under the woods of Longbourn that were mostly denuded of leaves. There were still thick brown and yellow piles of leaves, but they were mouldering away into rich black soil.
She looked back at Longbourn, and saw several piles that had been raked up near against the walls of the house. They were hard to see against the bricks that had in Elizabeth's eyes nearly the same shade as the leaves.
Soon there would be the occasional snows and that beauty of a white covered landscape.
She wondered what face winter presented in Derbyshire, at Mr. Darcy's estate. Darcy lived at a higher elevation and further to the north. So his estate should be colder and snowier. She rather liked the idea of seeing the snow through the windows of his library someday.
"Well, what do you say?"
Elizabeth shook her head, "Mr. Bingley, I fear as a rose, I become absorbed in looking at nature too easily. I confess I do not recall a word you've said for the past three minutes."
He laughed good naturedly. "I think your father and Darcy have shaken us, what say you, that we take this path?"
"Certainly."
There was some nervousness in Bingley, as though he wanted to say something but had difficulty bringing it to his lips.
That anxiety of earlier returned to Elizabeth.
They were in private. What if he took now as a chance to ask her to marry him?
"Oh, look, that bird's nest up there!" Elizabeth pointed, "I love how they stand there waiting after the birds fly south."
"A fine bird's nest."
Elizabeth laughed and skipped forward along the road staying a bit distant from Bingley.
After a minute she slowed and Bingley caught up to her.
"Yes, Elizabeth… Miss Bennet? What would you say if…"
They were finishing their big circle through the woods and had gone all around Longbourn, and were returning towards the front door of the house. Elizabeth could see the driveway of her house. There was the carriage of some caller parked to the side of the door.
"I had… something I was thinking about saying to you… A question."
"Wait!" Elizabeth exclaimed delighted at another interruption. "A strange carriage is parked to the front. How odd. It is not a post carriage, and belongs to no one in the town. I would have heard, I think, if one of our close friends had purchased a new carriage."
"Elizabeth!" Bingley's voice was frustrated.
"Who could it possibly be," Elizabeth spoke with a high rushing lilt. "I wonder who?" She rushed forward towards the doorway to Longbourn. "Come on, do come," she called back to Bingley, "let's discover who Papa's visitor is."