After dinner, the ladies withdrew to continue the torment.
'I suppose it would be improper for me to remain here with the gentlemen?' Elizabeth whispered to Darcy on her way out.
'You wish to smoke and drink port?'
'I wish to engage in conversation more stimulating than what Lucy and Regina Ferrars are likely to provide.'
A flash of something metallic catching the candlelight drew their attention. Robert Ferrars was gazing at himself in the lid of his toothpick case.
'I do not think you will find it here,' Darcy told her.
The women settled into the drawing room. Elinor, suffering from a lingering chill following her damp ride, sat down near the fire. Lucy took the seat opposite and immediately commenced an ode to the perfection of the fire screen. It was exquisite. Had Fanny embroidered it? She had such talent. Had she embroidered the one in Lucy’s room, as well? How could one possibly choose which to admire more?
Lucy’s attentions to her other sister-in-law were less inspired and even more transparent. 'Elinor, I understand your sister Margaret was safely delivered of a boy this month,' she said.
'A girl,' Elinor corrected.
'Her first, yes?'
'Her third.'
'How redundant,' Fanny declared. 'One daughter is a gift to her mother.' She cast her gaze toward Regina, who, now that the meal was ended, appeared to be chewing her cud. 'A second is a comfort — she might care for her mother in old age. But more than that merely taxes a family’s ability to provide for them all, especially if they become spinsters.'
'It is fortunate, then, that you weren’t so burdened,' said Elinor.
'No, but I also was not blessed,' said Fanny. 'I look forward, therefore, to gaining a daughter when Harry weds. A genteel, accomplished young lady will make a wonderful addition to our family. Perhaps someone like Miss Everett. Do you know of her, Elinor? She and her brother are among the guests arriving tomorrow.'
Elinor confessed a lack of familiarity with either Miss Everett or her superior accomplishments.
Lucy, however, trumpeted her knowledge. 'Miss Everett? Surely you don’t mean Miss Maria Everett?'
'Why, yes.' Fanny said.
'Gracious, Fanny! Have you not heard? But no — you mustn’t have. I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I believe she is engaged to Mr. Montrose. Or nearly so. Almost officially. Anyway, she could not possibly accept Harry’s addresses.'
Or his mother’s.
'Well!' Fanny’s disappointment was evident, but fleeting. 'That is no matter. I invited several other accomplished young ladies. Lady Harriet Stenbridge, for instance.'
Lucy shook her head sadly.
'What?' asked Fanny. 'What do you know of her?'
Lucy leaned forward. 'It’s only a rumor, mind you — ' She spoke in a conspiratorial tone. 'So I oughtn’t repeat it at all. But I understand she was found in a compromising situation with a certain heir to a dukedom who’s managed to hush it up.'
'If he hushed it up,' Elizabeth said, 'how do you know of it?'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'People just tell me things, I suppose.'
Elizabeth resolved not to be among them.
Kitty attempted to initiate a discussion with Regina about favorite shops in London. They discovered a common partiality for Layton and Shears before Regina became nearly paralyzed with indecision over whether she preferred the ices or cakes at Gunter’s. She ended the crisis by resolving to visit Number 7 Berkeley Square directly she returned to London so as to test each again. She did not invite Kitty to join her in this excursion, nor, Elizabeth mused, could the shop likely produce enough sweets to serve another customer in addition to Regina.
Tea arrived, and soon after it, the gentlemen. Harry headed toward Kitty but was ambushed by Fanny and Lucy en route, and so wound up sitting beside Regina instead. Or rather, he perched on the small bit of sofa that remained beside Regina. Edward Ferrars seemed to be trying to continue a discussion with his brother as they entered, but Robert was examining the room through his quizzing glass as if he had not just been in it a couple of hours ago.
Darcy trailed in last. His gaze immediately sought out Elizabeth and warmed at the sight of her.
'I missed you,' he said softly.
She handed him a cup of tea. 'Was your gentlemen’s time as bad as all that?'
'Actually, no. Robert Ferrars so occupied himself with the mechanics of opening his new snuffbox one-handed that the rest of us were able to talk intelligently.'
'I envy you. Our discourse in here was not intelligent, merely educational.'
She sipped tea from her own cup and surveyed the room. Harry had risen from the sofa and was subtly backing toward Kitty under the assault of Lucy’s chatter. Fanny had commandeered Edward’s and Elinor’s attention and presently expressed outrage on some matter. Robert now used his quizzing glass to study the tea service pattern, an inspection Regina aided by clearing a plate of tea cakes three at a time.
'How long will it be,' Elizabeth asked, 'before everybody decides that we have endured enough of one another’s society for the evening?'
'I suspect that once one person makes good his escape, the rest will soon scatter.'
'We all spent a good part of the day traveling. Do you suppose you and I could leave now with propriety?'
He consulted his watch. 'Unfortunately, it is early yet.'
'But I am ready to retire.'
He regarded her with concern. 'Are you fatigued from the journey?'
'I believe I am.' She coyly broke their gaze and scanned the room once more. 'At least… hypothetically.'
'Nothing should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would stand to it, cost him what it might.'
By the night of Harry’s grand birthday fete, the rain had cleared, and Norland reverberated with the sounds of youthful merriment. Harry, it seemed, had left no acquaintance uninvited, and as the house and grounds filled with school chums and club friends, frivolity ruled. The billiards room never emptied, the air echoed with shots at game birds, and the hunt was pursued with a wildness and intensity that rivaled any fey legend.
Fanny accepted the invasion with surprising graciousness. Though by law the house officially belonged to Harry since his father’s death, it remained very much hers in essence. Elizabeth suspected Fanny’s indulgence of Harry’s rambunctious friends stemmed from a hope that their antics would distract him from Kitty.
If that were indeed her design, however, Harry himself thwarted it. When a young man’s vision is filled by only one lady, all the entertainment in the world cannot divert his attention from her. Though he played the generous host and partook of the fun, he distanced himself from its more frenetic activities. Despite his mother’s none-too-subtle encouragement to spend as much time as possible with his gentlemen friends — in lieu of the young ladies of fortune who one by one had been discounted by Lucy Ferrars — Harry eschewed their companionship for that of Miss Bennet. Not that the besotted Kitty was herself anything approaching staid, but Elizabeth observed in them a growing seriousness that met her approbation.
Darcy noted it, too. 'I think Mr. Dash wood is even more of a changed man since our arrival at Norland,' he said as they watched Harry lead Kitty to the center of the ballroom for the first dance. Elizabeth stole a glance at
