The crush at the Meryton assembly loudly chatted and pointed, in a rough beat with the sawing violin and the cacophonous old piano. The rooms had been thoroughly washed down before this event, and they did not look to be more than twenty or thirty years old. But the ceilings were low compared to those of Almack's, and the decor showed triteness and a rural-countryside aping of the fashions of their betters. There was an unfortunate overuse of cheap and gaudy masses of second-rate statues, paintings, and wallpapers — all likely bought on consignment from some depressed London warehouse in Cheapside.
Irritation slowly filled Fitzwilliam Darcy's chest and snaked down the sinews of his arms towards his fingertips. He felt that helpless and despairing anger which had become familiar to Darcy in the months since his sister's elopement.
I failed.
How he wished that he could help Georgiana! But she was now a Wickham. That change was sanctified by God and Georgiana's own choice and Georgiana's own oath in front of a blacksmith in Gretna Green.
Of course, it was impossible. The family name whose importance his father had beaten into him had already been stained and dirtied upon. Further connection with his sister would smear more of the stench upon the Darcy legacy.
Georgiana's face flickered in his memory again. The way she had looked the last time he saw her. She'd been playing at the piano in the drawing room when he returned to the manor house, and as he'd come in, he'd paused to listen to the play of her concerto. Fine resonant notes dripped like honey from the excellent Broadwood pianoforte.
When she realized he was watching her, Georgiana leaped up, still looking half like a child even though she was fifteen, and she embraced him eagerly.
What was more important? The family name or his family?
Darcy knew that if he had a chance to still help Georgiana, he would take it, no matter what it cost his family dignity. But he wondered if this determination proved a too compassionate weakness in his character that made him once more unworthy to be the Darcy of Pemberley.
His father had taught him to be made of sterner stuff than he was.
Mediocre wine on everyone's breath. Many sweaty bodies, too much happy cheer. Darcy felt stifled. He could barely breathe in these overstuffed, low ceilinged assembly rooms. Hot. Too hot. Sweat soaked the thick dark hair on the back of his neck, even though he'd only danced twice the whole night.
Darcy found another corner of the room; this one was more tolerable as it was near a window that someone had propped open with an empty wine bottle to permit fresh air in.
The chill night air brought the grunting sound of more cheer and music. The domestics who'd come with their master's carriages danced arm in arm and chattered as they passed dark heavy bottles of spirits around in the flickering torchlight.
Darcy nearly hated those happy servants. But he knew that he had no right. He had utterly no right to resent those who were beneath him in rank, consequence, and natural abilities for their superior happiness.
Darcy saw the ghost of his father again. His unyielding gaze as he drove lessons about duty and honor into the soul of his son.
Everything. Everything in his life had been focused until Georgiana eloped on one goal: Be the Darcy heir that his father had trained him to be.
Who was he now?
"Come now, Darcy, I'll have you dance! I cannot stand to see you standing about in such a stupid manner."
Darcy flinched at Bingley's loud words. "I've no mood to dance. In an assembly such as this, it would be insupportable."
"You'd much better dance. I've never met a friendlier crowd. And some of the girls here are uncommonly pretty."
"A friendly crowd?" Darcy looked around at the grotesque cheeriness of hundreds of dancing squires and their beastly broods.
They oppressed him. The weight of their stares. Their gossip. Their thoughts.
His sister. An heiress who ran away with the steward's son. The scandalous Mr. Darcy. Whispers about his wealth. Sneers about his failure.
He'd somehow thought… this was not London. Of a certainty it would be better to be in society here than in London.
Society.
Society always and everywhere was the same. He despised it. He despised the need to spend time in it. He despised the need to pretend evenness of temper, and a calm and contented mood, when inside everything roiled and raged.
And the entire time his father's ghost shrieked at Darcy with unearthly cries from within Darcy's own soul and judged him.
Darcy fought to stand straight in the face of that disappointed gaze.
"Jove!" Bingley exclaimed. "You are doing it again! My friend, I've a ballast load of concern for you. I'd not take matters half so seriously as you do, not for a kingdom."
"Too seriously? My sister, my only sibling, has been destroyed and ruined forever. If only I had searched out Mrs. Younge's references sufficiently! If only I had never allowed her out of my eyesight for a week's time. If only I — but it is worthless to say, 'if only.' There is a scandal, and she has been lost to me forever. I promised my father on his deathbed that—"
"Darcy, I know." Bingley's face had an unusual seriousness. As though the joy and lightness of the dance had been forced out of him by Darcy's rant. Bingley understood and knew his feelings. Years before, even before his father died, Darcy had told Bingley how desperately he always struggled, more than anything, to be a son his father would be proud of.
Darcy let out a long gust of air, like the hiss of gas escaping from a punctured barrel of ale. The irritation and anger drained out of him.
At seeing his mood improve, Bingley's face burst into that bright smile that had always drawn Darcy to Bingley. "Still too serious. Much better for you to dance than maudlin."
It was impossible for Darcy to not smile back a little. "I'd prefer to stand about in this stupid manner."
"No, no — look there. That is the sister of my current partner. There, sitting behind us — I dare say you'd find her very pretty. Let me beg an introduction for you."
Darcy looked at the girl sitting against the wall almost close enough to hear them. The woman wore a white muslin gown with a pink sash and dark curls that fell pleasingly around her face and over her ears. She had a half frown, as though she had been listening to him, and judged him like the rest of the crowd, and like everyone here except for Bingley, but including Bingley's sisters and servants.
Her eyes were pitying.
Darcy sharply looked away from her. That afterimage of a particularly fine and intense pair of dark eyes. "No. She is handsome enough, but nothing will tempt to dance further tonight. I am in no proper mood to dance — go enjoy the smiles of your partner, I shall not dance."
"Darcy, it is a ball. One must dance at a ball."
Darcy glared at his friend.
Bingley sighed, shrugged, and threw up his hands. "You always do as you determine best."
He returned to his smiling partner and the smoothly waxed dance floor. Darcy looked again at the girl. She watched him with that same interested and pitying smile.
Suddenly it was impossible for him to stay here in the crowded air, being watched. Darcy almost ran off, till he found a balcony which had no one lounging about, leaning against the cheap cast iron railings.
Darcy laid his hands on the iron bar of the railing. The cold was pleasant on his face and sweaty neck. He felt sick in his gut. The band played an Irish reel that had been popular in London three years before.
The frowning eyes of that pretty girl stuck with him.
He pressed his fist against his mouth, trying to force the sudden intense, almost lyrical sadness away from him.
An irrational and brute stupid reason made her judgement mean more to him than that of the rest of the crowd. Maybe it was just that she was particularly pretty. But there was more to it. It was something intelligent in her eyes.
He did not want that particular girl to pity him.
Darcy could not presently adopt that patina of sophistication that ordinarily let him dismiss the pretty gentlewomen at assemblages such as this as rural, country town creatures who lacked in accomplishment and who could not be worthy his interest.
He was a man with the high standing of Fitzwilliam Darcy.
That was what his father would have told him to think.
Darcy still did not want her to pity him.
A cold gust of wind cut through his waistcoat. It helped Darcy recover himself and calm his roiling stomach. But for the fifth time this night, he cursed the foolish notion that had made him determine that dancing and society would be a salutary balm to his melancholy.
As Darcy turned around to reenter the cacophonous ballroom, a conversation carried out through the balcony door and to his ears.
"We have no standing to judge him." A female voice that Darcy knew, half from memory and half from instinct, was that of the beautiful woman with the pitying eyes.
"If he'd wished to not be a matter of general conversation, he would not have been so rich. Mr. Darcy has no cause for complaint." And this was from a male voice which Darcy did not recognize at all.
"No cause for complaint? Be reasonable! Lucas, I beg you to be reasonable! He is devastated that his sister eloped with a fortune hunter. And I cannot say that I would stand up so well if the world gabbled about my suffering."
"Scandalous sister. And such a joke — you heard, his father's godson? The steward's son." A scathing laugh. "Any case, I do not believe he suffers at all. The very rich expect their family members to do such things. And they particularly wish to be spoken of."
"Wish to be spoken of? What if your sister Maria, or mine Lydia, had behaved in such a manner? Would you enjoy how you'd become the endless source of conversation for your neighbors?"
"This is quite the opposite of your usual notions, Miss Lizzy."
"While I delight to laugh at the inconsistencies and oddities of my neighbors, I dearly hope I am never cruel."
"It is not cruel to smile to see a very rich man humbled."
There was no reply from the woman.
"I'd expected your sharp tongue to skewer this fellow—" The gentleman continued, "He cuts a ridiculous figure. Tall, an expression like his favorite hunting bitch had relieved herself in his boots, and above speaking to anyone."
"You misjudge him! I insist that you do." There was a sparkle of bright laughter. "Perhaps I would find him an object of fun… except there is something in his eyes. He feels deeply. I insist upon it."
Full of discomfort at what was said combined with a sense that he would act dishonorably if he continued to listen to this conversation without revealing his presence, Darcy threw his shoulders back and held his head high. He pushed aside the curtain separating the balcony from the rooms.
He would still act in a manner worthy of his family name.
The conversing pair directly faced the door, and they watched him step through. The gentleman and the pretty girl. She was tapping her fan rhythmically against her forearm, but she stopped when she saw him. He recalled her name during the moment of awkwardness as they both realized that Mr. Darcy had heard some portion of their conversation. She was a Miss Elizabeth. The last name started with a B.
Darcy inclined his head to them. They inclined their heads back to him.
And then his eyes met hers.
It was like he'd been thrown from his horse. And he didn't think it was pity in her eyes anymore.
He made himself to walk away, his fine dancing slippers making barely a sound.
However, he had noticed, perhaps against his own will, that the flush in the girl's face made her even prettier than before.
For the rest of the night, no matter which corner of the ballroom Darcy chose to stand about in his stupid manner, he always was aware of exactly where that girl was, and what she was doing.