"What's wrong with poetry?," Darcy thought to himself, remembering the rather thorough takedown by Miss Elizabeth of its efficacy for expressing love. She had a rather peculiar manner of viewing its use. It, like everything related to her, intrigued and discomfited him. He was left to contemplate her words in silence as her mother and sisters swished from the room and Miss Elizabeth made a rather hasty retreat to the quarters of the invalid. The Bingley-Hurst harpies were doing their level best to denigrate every single moment of the interaction with the vulgar mother and her shockingly self-important (Miss Lydia), undoubtedly empty-headed (Miss Kitty) daughters. Caroline Bingley's wit, once turned to the Bennets, lasted some time indeed. Darcy spent his time barely attending to their conversation but instead thinking of the most appropriate pieces of poetry with which he might use in a verbal duel with Miss Elizabeth. He resolved to do better.
Ugh, what a terrible day that was. It was most definitely one that Darcy did not care to repeat. After that morning with Mrs. Bennet, Darcy believed it could only get better. It did not. The evening brought newer, fresher hells for him to endure. Between the simpering Bingley harpy, fawning over his every action, his irascible responses to her pursuit, her daftness to his own incivility, and the infernal, eternal, smirk of amusement on the lips of Elizabeth. (There I go again, thinking of her wit and her lips), the relaxing evening was unbearable. Add to it, Bingley's ill-advised enthusiasm for EVERYTHING. Lud! Deliver me! The archness of Elizabeth's dispute with him over Bingley's rapidity of action and lack of conviction was already too much. He thought he had parried a number of her verbal lunges, but with the elocution of each phrase, they would end in a series of verbal beats. While she disengaged, he beat a hasty retreat until the next time he decided to open his mouth and insert his foot firmly into it. Bedlam, I am not coming for you, you will come to me!
Worse still, she once again was able to resist his charms and dance with him. What is she about? No one, absolutely no one resists me. Darcy thought on this a minute and came to the conclusion that he rarely, if ever, engaged a dance partner without copious amounts of coaxing from others or without obligations of politeness. His attempt to engage Elizabeth in reel was his first attempt since he became master of Pemberley. How odd that this country slip of a girl batted back his attempt with archness and perspicacity, turning his attempt at gallantry into purposeful and provocative affront to her very own sensibilities. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? Bingley harpy's astute surmise of his feelings was all the more vexing, as she spent more and more of her time teasing him about his fascination. Her suggestions for his domestic felicity with such a lowly bred termagant, from the mention of Mrs. Bennet's ill-advised, well, everything, to the distasteful manners of the lawyer's wife, to the hedonistic hoydens that were the two youngest Bennets, were well-placed enough to check his regard.
He owned that the danger of her presence at Netherfield would be lessened should she leave, mercifully. Then, the incidents occurred and he was left again, tumbling down into a pit of inappropriate desire, self pitying lack of sleep, and increasing resentment. The irony was not lost on him that two of the three were fully due to the hand of the Bingley harpy. He chuckled to himself as remembered the first. His pleasure at the sight of the shape of Elizabeth's form, gleaned from the sun shining through her dress, made itself known in the most upright and painful way. It was a close thing that just as he thought he might need to break away to make an adjustment, the Bingley-Hurst harpies made their presence more difficult to ignore and he was soon deflated. A close thing, that. For how could he have explained that inconveniently popping up while having a married woman one arm and a single, tirelessly-working-to-become-Mrs. Darcy-and-thankfully-not succeeding-spinster on the other arm.
The second was more dangerous, more disquieting. Not only had his pleasure popped up when he admired her form as she walked with the Bingley harpy around the room. The lighting, the laughter in her eyes, all bringing her presence into painful relief. Hah! Painful relief indeed; luckily he had remained seated. The argument that ensued between them was as exhilarating as it was disheartening. She seemed determined to provoke him, making words spill forth from his mouth that he would never dream of saying, in in… well never! How did she manage that bit of bewitchment? Clearly she had learned at the feet of her sorcery neighbors.
The third was torture, pure and simple. He would have rather a drawing and quartering that the half hour spent alone, in her presence in the library. Immediately recognizing her smell as she glided into the room, chose a book, and set to read it, every nerve, and apparently, a fair amount of blood, was painfully aware of her presence near her. She studiously avoided his gaze, not looking up from her book once. The battle between libido and reason played out during that half hour.
While he said nothing, he felt he had lost his battle within himself to avoid looking in her direction. His imprinting of the shape of her mouth, the pout of her lips as she found amusement in her book, the slope of her shoulders, the unruly riotous curls that escaped their pins as she immersed herself more deeply in the text, all exhausted him. Combined with his inability to move due to yet another inconvenient protrusion, he miserably stayed put, trying to adjust himself, subtly by crossing and uncrossing his legs. God must have had mercy on him, to deliver her exit to him. But it was upon her imminent departure that she appeared most tempting. Lud! Am I now a blaspheme? Comparing the three incidents in his mind to the temptation of Christ. His thoughts were distinctly ungodly. His sleep that night was tortured, but it came easier than the others during her stay.
Upon reflection, Darcy was better able to assess Elizabeth's actions. The physical removal of her presence had calmed his spirit and quieted his body. The incidents over the course of days spent in Elizabeth's presence at Netherfield brought to mind A Midsummer Night's Dream: "Though she be but little, she is fierce." The Bard had the right of it.