Mr. Hurst, Bingley's brother in law, loved his drink. He had not always been so enamored of spirits. However, a year of marriage to a Bingley sister could, and did, have disastrous effects on his constitution. No, Mr. Hurst had once been a very astute man, sharp in all his senses, witty when he deigned to talk.
Despite the respite he took in alcohol and food, he had been surprised to find comfort in the company and conversation of his always cheerful brother in law. Mr. Darcy, also, had added much amusement to his life. The usually somber man's life was constantly being turned upside down by various fortune hunting brides and mothers. He had very viable reasons to wish to avoid marriage.
A week had passed since the ball at the assembly halls, and Mr. Hurst, Mr. Bingley, and Mr. Darcy lounged in the study at Netherfield Park. They were all dressed quite strangely and had locked the door firmly with hopes that Mrs. Bingley would no longer seek them out to perform menial duties to ready the house for the mask ball.
It is not quite clear who it was precisely that suggested Bingley's ball be a mask, but the idea had so enchanted the man, that he had insisted on it. Mr. Bingley himself was dressed quite ostentatiously, claiming himself King Henry V. Mr. Hurst had declined to dress for the evening, his only acknowledgment to that night's event being the full-faced mask of a baby. He had found the mask rather amusing; his wife had not. Mr. Darcy was dressed all in black. His mask, the black face of a leopard, lay forgotten for the moment on the couch cushion beside him. He joined Mr. Hurst in sipping an amicable wine. Bingley, it seemed, needed nothing to whet his thirst, for he was quite drunk already. Miss. Jane Bennet's beauty was the only thing Bingley wished to drink in. Mr. Darcy also drank because of a Bennet woman, though he kept his intake to a minimum, knowing he might very well have to deal later with a drunken Hurst and a love besieged Bingley.
"I'm going to marry her Hurst," sighed Bingley. Darcy scowled and Hurst rolled his head groggily towards his brother in law.
"Who," he asked.
"Why, the beauteous Jane Bennet of course!" exclaimed Darcy.
"I see you do not approve of the match," answered Hurst.
"Hmph," was Darcy's reply. "I do not understand how he can love her so completely when he has truly only just laid eyes on her."
"But I feel I do love her!" said Bingley emphatically.
"She is worthy of it!" said Hurst rousingly, remembering the blonde woman with nice figure from the ball a week ago. Nice figures were always worthy.
"And I can neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she is worthy. Look at her mother, her sisters!" Darcy, feeling that his presence was no longer needed in this room, that the two men would agree with each other, with or without his presence, stood to make his departure. The sounds of the first guests were becoming apparent even in their little hiding spot. He wondered if the Bennets had arrived yet… shaking such thoughts from his mind, he turned one last time to the other two men in the room. "I humbly recognize and acknowledge the role of women in the world, however, that it should induce me to leave behind the enviably independent station of singleness is absurd. I shall die a bachelor!" He swept from the room, black cloaks billowing.
As the door slammed shut behind him, Hurst broke into unrestrained peals of laughter. "He is an obstinate one isn't he?"
"He always has been soin the face of love. But Hurst, I have more pressing matters than Darcy's non existence marriage impulse."
"Ah, yes, Jane Bennet," said Hurst. Bingley sighed at the sound of her name.
"I wish to marry her, Hurst. But… but I do not know if she will accept my advances," the hesitancy in Bingley's voice was unusual for him. He abounded with cheerful enthusiasm and self-confidence.
"You have just only met. She might not know her true feelings as quickly as you do. Let me suggest this, Bingley my boy; I will discover her true feelings for you." Hurst sat back in his leather chair, smug satisfaction writ all over his red-cheeked countenance.
Bingley looked thoughtful, reluctant, hesitant once more. "How could you do this?"
"Easily, quite easily! Polite society, in my experience, is always a bit less polite when hidden behind the confines of masks. I assure you, very inappropriate and even scandalous activity will be happening tonight!" Hurst looked gleeful, Bingley looked quite sick. "Do not worry, Bingley, it will allow me to question the young lady of your heart quite profusely, revealing her true heart to your true mind." At this, Hurst rose. "It is time we joined the crowd Bingley. Your sister has got excellent wine for tonight, excellent indeed."
"Mr. Darcy is too gloomy, Charlotte," answered Elizabeth in reply to the question: How can you not find Mr. Darcy handsome?
"Then you much prefer a man with Mr. Bingley's disposition," countered Charlotte, casting a playful glance in Jane's blushing direction.
"No, I think not. He is an excellent man that is made exactly midway between he and Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley is too the boy, Darcy too much the brooding man." Elizabeth paused a moment, considering her own words. "Yes, such a man would be nice indeed."
"Then you wish for perfection, Elizabeth? You will never get a husband with such expectations."
"And that is fine with me," exclaimed Elizabeth.
"Surely you have more sense, Jane," queried Miss. Lucas.
"Oh," interrupted Elizabeth for her sister, "Yes, she has much more sense than I. Jane truly understands and appreciates the Bennet girls' dire circumstances. She will fall in love to please our father and secure a steady and worthy happiness for herself. But a bit of advice sister, let him be Mr. Bingley who you trust your heart too, or else give father your grave condolences."
Jane blushed prettily once more and Elizabeth wondered how her sister managed to pull off charming and flustered at once. "I will Lizzy," was all she could say before a masked figure tapped her on the shoulder.
"May I have a dance, my lady?" he asked.
Jane laughed. "And who may you be sir?"
"Sire," he corrected gravely. "King Henry V."
"Ah, then I do not know if I wish to dance with such a man. You might cast me aside midway for a more suitable partner."
"But you cannot refuse a king, lady."
No, Jane supposed one could not refuse a king, and so she followed him onto the floor with the other couples.
Mr. Darcy had seen the Bennet girls come in, but had not dwelled long on the various guises of the younger sisters. He vaguely realized that Jane's white dress and white feathery mask with a rim of pearls, most likely meant she had come as an angel. His eyes naturally followed the Bennet girl in black. Black… he thought, disregarding his own shadowy clothing, was a strange color for a young woman to wear to a ball. The half mask she wore was also black. It was simple, gracefully cut, and accentuated the glossy blackness of her hair. Her curls were particularly wild tonight, the smile on her face practically brimming with mirth.
He found himself pulled to her through the small crowd of newly arrived guests. She was, he realized, with her sister and her friend, the eldest Lucas girl. They were laughing as Elizabeth talked animatedly. Circling closer, as a bird to prey, he checked to make sure his mask hid the whole of his face tightly. He found himself hoping that if she did not realize who he was, she might talk to him with more enjoyment than she had previously.
Her rich deep voice, finally made available to his straining ears, quickly changed such thoughts.
"No, Charlotte, you cannot convince me to think well of Mr. Darcy. But you need not do so. For he is as much of an obstinate bachelor as I am," she paused, thinking. "As I am obstinate," she finished, laughing at her own inadequacy at vocalizing her thoughts.
Darcy snorted as Charlotte patted her friend on the arm and left her to stand alone in the growing throngs of masked people.
"Hello, lady," he said to her from behind, adopting a thick accent so as not to reveal his identity to her.
She spun around, gasping in shocked surprise, her black skirts swirling about her legs. "My!" She looked the masked man in black up and down and let out a mirthful laugh. "A black leopard, I see. What is your devious intent in lurking in the shadows behind young ladies?"
Darcy wondered momentarily if she did recognize him, then decided she did not. She would not be smiling so brilliantly and mischievously if she had. No, she was more likely to affect a glare when talking to him.
"I have but two attempts. I must know. Why does such a lovely young lady don the color of death and mourning?"
"Death and mourning? Is that why you yourself chose to garb yourself all in black? What about mystery, Mr. Leopard? Shakespeare's dark lady is a mystery to us all."
"Ah, is that who I speak to then? The object of a Shakespearean sonnet?"
"Indeed," she laughed.
Then with my curiosity satisfied, I fear I must tell you of a grievous wrong I heard bespoken of your person," he said gravely, accent and mask firmly in place.
"Oh? And what would these remarks be?"
Darcy leaned close to her, inhaling her scent. He almost shuddered at the delight and contentment it sent through his body. He pushed his body's traitorous shudderings aside, and focusing instead on her earlier words about him, he whispered deep and low into her ear. He hovered momentarily, his lips close to the nape of her neck, a dark silky curl tickling his nose, before he drug himself from their intimate pose. He smiled under his mask as her fine eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly.
"Tell me who told you this!" she demanded.
He liked the angry fire that made her eyes come alive. "No, I am sorry lady," he answered; glad she could not see his ever broadening smile.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes from behind her black mask. "Will you then tell me who you are?"
"No again Lady."
Elizabeth pouted, her eyebrows drawing together over her mask and her lips pursing in frustration. "That I was disdainful? That I had my good humor from a child's joke book? Well, it is obvious. It was Mr. Darcy who told you thus." She crossed her arms resolutely over her chest.
"Who is he?" asked Darcy. He was surprised in the joy he felt that she would recognize that is was he who was teasing her, and that she was very willing to play along.
"Surely you know Mr. Darcy," she asserted. "He is constantly harping on the evils of women, the joys of bachelorhood, and has a constant look of pained gloominess about his face. He is," she said sharply, "Mr. Bingley's fool of a friend, kept around, I am quite sure, for amusement purposes only. Though it grows clear that all who know him grow quickly weary of his antics and ravings."
Darcy's smile evaporate as his own brow pulled low, undetected beneath the leopard mask. "I shall tell him you said so, if I see him," he said, attempting to keep his anger and disappointment from his voice, to keep his tone light and playful.
"Do, do," she said, smiling lightly at him, more with her eyes than with her mouth, though the corners of her lips tilted slightly upward bewitchingly. "But come, they are beginning the dance. Shall we follow the leaders?"
"In every good thing," he answered after a heavy pause, taking her hand in his.
"No, I shall turn away if they try to lead me ill."
"I will not do so lady. Dance with me."
And she did.
Darcy left the crowded ballroom after his dance with Elizabeth, his mind a storm of thoughts and contradictions. "How could my Elizabeth know me but not know me?" he asked angrily out loud to no one in particular, completely unaware he had come to think of her in the possessive. "Bingley's fool of a friend? I am not perceived as thus! Gloomy perhaps, brooding most likely," he added thoughtfully. "But a fool? No! It is only her view that casts me such a light. Surely society does not perceive me as such."
"What are you raving about Darcy, old boy?" Mr. Hurst strolled lazily into the abandoned hallway Darcy had appropriated as his own. He smiled wryly. "Another spat with the lovely dark lady? I have just talked with her sister. It seems the gentleman who just danced with her told her you have wronged her severely."
Darcy, who had ripped his mask off after exiting the ballroom, scowled viciously at Mr. Hurst. "Not as much as she has wronged me! Or been wrong about me. She told me, thinking I was not myself, that I was a fool! That I was gloomy and brooding!"
Hurst laughed. "You are Darce! You've been brooding since I first laid eyes on you; obstinately casting off a gloomy air even in the presence of the most amusing and charming people.
"But I am no fool!"
Hurst did not get a chance to answer Darcy's exclamation for the ballroom door once again swung open, admitting Mr. Bennet, his two eldest daughters, and Mr. Bingley. The once deserted hallway was fast becoming more popular than Mr. Darcy preferred.
"Surely you are in need of another Drink, Hurst! You look parched.
Mr. Hurst, in fact, was not in need of another drink. He was quite certainly foxed already, and only the dire duty he still had yet to complete kept him from falling asleep peacefully in the hard tile hallway. "Ah, here comes your lady now," smiled the elder man.
"Send me on some purposeful errand, Hurst. By the grace of God, give me some task to occupy my thoughts and to take me as far from her as you can get me. I would rather roam across the darkest regions at the world's in search of a wine made by man cannibalistic pygmys than hold three words conference with that harpy!" Darcy's visage raged as he whispered vehemently to his older friend; his arms flailed about in the air as if he were being attacked by a flock of angry birds.
Mr. Hurst smothered a giggle and smiled commonly at Mr. Darcy. "I find I do not desire drink at the moment. All I wish for, Darce old boy, is your company."
Darcy watched as Elizabeth and the others approached and glowered back at Hurst. "I think not Hurst. I cannot endure my lady's tongue!"
Hurst did giggle as the encroaching group looked to him stupefied as Darcy stormed off and out another door at the end of the hallway. "Come Miss. Bennet, you have lost the heart of Mr. Darcy," he said, realizing that perhaps he had had too much to drink. He did not seem to have control of what thoughts popped from his head and out his mouth. He decided that he had not erred too much when the rest of the group, including Elizabeth's father smiled in amusement at his comment.
"Indeed, Mr. Hurst," was her only amiable reply.
"You have hurt him, Miss. Bennet; you have put him down."
"Only so that he should not do the same to me. I would rather make him a fool than be one myself."
Hurst knitted his brows together as he tried to figure her out her thoughts. And while he might have done this in a trice in his quick minded days before marriage, the alcohol that so clouded his senses convinced him quite quickly to give up the effort.
"I have brought Mr. Bingley to you," she told him. "As you asked me to, though why you have asked me to, I'm afraid I have no clue.
"Ah, but you soon will. Mr. Bennet," Mr. Hurst said, turning his attention to head of the Bennet clan, "what are you doing here?" He realized as soon as he said it, that it was a very blunt thing to say.
"Why should I not follow when I see my daughters come into a deserted hallway with a single young man?"
"Brilliant point!" exclaimed Hurst. "And a brilliant stroke of luck as well! Things can progress so much quicker this way."
Everyone exchanged confused looks at Mr. Hurst's smug countenance.
"Bingley, my boy," he said jovially, "I have ascertained your lady's true affections. The lovely Miss. Jane Bennet is quickly on her way to being quite as in love with you are you are with her!"
Jane, looking quite embarrassed as she stared mortified at her father before dropping her gaze to the floor, blushed redder than Elizabeth had ever seen her blush.
"What say you ask her father now, and have this settled?" declared Mr. Hurst, quite confidently.
Silence enveloped the room. Though Bingley was rather overjoyed at Hurst's revelations, he did not know at all what to say. Neither it seemed, did anyone else in the room.
It was finally Mr. Bennet who broke the silence. "I believe, that if this is truly the way of things, then that is a capitol idea Mr. Hurst." Both older men looked toward Mr. Bingley and Jane, who were both now staring at their shoes.
"Well?" they said simultaneously.
Jane and Bingley looked up at each other, their constantly cheerful smiles now radiating, brightening the room. "Will you, Jane? Will you marry me?"
Her answer, had they been alone, might have been to throw her arms around his neck, however, due to the presence of both Mr. Hurst, and her father, she sweetly answered, "Yes."
Elizabeth beamed and flung her own arms around her sister's neck. "Oh Jane! How wonderful! I wish you all the happiness God can give a woman!" The sister's held each other's hands and smiled warmly. "Good Lord for alliance," said Elizabeth. "Thus goes everyone to the world but I!" The last was an exclamation, a challenge, and as she turned her back and traipsed back into the ballroom, Mr. Hurst could not help but think that it would be quite amusing to accept such a challenge.
"She cannot endure to talk of a husband!" exclaimed Hurst.
"No," laughed Jane, "She is rather obstinate in that regard."
"She is the perfect wife for Mr. Darcy," stated Hurst plainly.
Bingley gasped. "They would slay each other with their words in a week, Hurst!"
Hurst looked thoughtful, and then shared a conspiratorial glance with Mr. Bennet.
"Do you dare play matchmaker with my daughter, Hurst?"
"I do indeed. Bingley, when will you travel to London to secure the marriage license?"
"Tomorrow!" he exclaimed.
"No, Bingley, wait but a week. No," said Hurst seeing a protest on Bingley's lips, "Do not protest. The week will not pass dully. For we will play cupid, and bring these two spouting mules to a common understanding, shall we not?"
The group thought it over. Mr. Bennet was the first to pass judgment on Mr. Hurst's plan. "Though I do not wish to play with my daughter's affections, I have a feeling about this Darcy fellow. He amuses me. Is he a good man? Truly?"
"The best!" assured Bingley.
"A capitol fellow," agreed Hurst.
"He's quite a respectable and responsible gentleman, papa," spoke Jane softly.
"Then I will play your game Hurst, as long as my Lizzy does not suffer."
"I am in," said Bingley. "I have the feeling he is already half in love with her, and simply refuses to acknowledge his feelings."
"And you Miss. Bennet?" asked Mr. Hurst. "Are you in?"
Jane thought momentarily, and then did something she never did, listened to her impulsive instinct. "Yes," she said with a sly smile.
