An Assembly Such as This

observation or the suspicion of his valet’s connivance, he was not sure.

“An interesting coincidence merely, Charles.” Miss Bingley’s voice came bitingly to life. “But not so great as to cause further remark.”

“Coincidence!” Bingley hooted as he escorted Miss Jane Bennet to the door. “I’d lay good odds that —” The thunderous frown Darcy turned on him almost caused him to swallow his tongue. “Lay good odds that it is, as you say, all the merest chance. Is everyone here? Right! We must not be late for church,” he finished hurriedly, and, putting on his hat, ushered the ladies out the door.

Darcy chose to ride with the Hursts and leave the entertaining of the unattached ladies in Bingley’s capable hands. He was certainly in too great an ill humor to receive Miss Bingley’s speculations or countenance her incivility to Elizabeth. The somnolent atmosphere Hurts so ably projected was just what he needed to gather his wits and emotions together under tight rein. To further discourage his traveling companions from entering into pointless chatter, Darcy opened his prayer book at random and bent his mind to preparing for the morning.

O, God, who by Thy Spirit dost lead men to desire
Thy perfection, to seek for truth and to rejoice in beauty:
Illuminate and inspire us, we beseech Thee…

Rejoice in beauty. Darcy looked unseeing out the carriage window, the countryside obscured by a pair of fine eyes and a beguiling smile that warmed him considerably in the silent and chill autumn morning. To rejoice in her beauty…Would I wish that intimate right? He sighed to himself and addressed the text again. Inspire us…He sank back then into the cushions under the troubling conviction that he was suffering from a surfeit of inspiration rather than its lack. How strange that, after having spent the last two years reacquainting himself with the pleasures of London Society and surrounded by the most handsome, refined, and eligible young women in England, he should find the beauty and inspiration that set his pulse racing and disordered his composure in an obscure corner of Hertfordshire.

…that in whatsoever is true and pure and lovely,
Thy name may be hallowed and Thy kingdom come on earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Darcy gently closed the book. True…pure…lovely. In all honesty, what better prerequisites were there for the woman one spent one’s life with? His memory harkened back to Miss Bingley’s long list of talents for the truly accomplished woman and his added requirement that she be well read. Would the embodiment of that list offer a better surety of his future happiness than a woman who was true, pure, and lovely?

The carriage slowed as the driver turned the team in to the churchyard and then brought them to a stop at the walk to the main door. Darcy waited for Hurst to descend and hand down his wife before he moved to the door himself. He grimly noted that Miss Bingley lingered behind the others in hopes, no doubt, of sitting by him in the pew. Duty bound, he offered her his arm, which she accepted with a proprietary air that was directed at Elizabeth primarily but included all of Meryton in general. As Darcy escorted her to the church door, he discovered a theretofore unrealized artistic sensibility that was quite pained by the clash of Miss Bingley’s purple with his own green, and the question flashed through his mind whether Fletcher had had, in some devious way, a hand in this as well.

About to follow Miss Bingley through the door, Darcy stopped short as Elizabeth met him going out, a wry smile of apology on her lips. As he sat down on the end of the pew, he leaned forward and turned a questioning brow down the line at Bingley, who mouthed back “shawl” and shrugged his shoulders. The choirmaster then rose and signaled his boys to begin the processional. The dozen-member choir began their solemn pace up the aisle, followed by the vicar and his young assistant. A few heartbeats after they passed him, Darcy felt a swoosh of warm air and looked down to find Elizabeth standing beside him, a heavy woolen shawl in her arms.

“Please, sir, if you would be so kind? Pass this to Jane,” she whispered breathlessly. Darcy took the shawl and passed it on to Miss Bingley, discreetly observing Elizabeth out of the corner of his eye as she watched it make its way down the pew. He knew the exact moment Miss Bennet received her shawl by the tender smile that illuminated her sister’s face and felt his own begin to answer it when the choir ended its hymn and the vicar called them to prayer.

The familiar words of the invocation flowed over Darcy, their currents witnessing to him of a higher order of majesty that rarely failed to compel his attention, although Miss Bingley’s whispered complaints of the cold and the length of the prayer were formidable obstacles. The “Amen” was sounded, echoed thankfully by several in their party, and the first hymn announced. It was one not known to Darcy, so he elected to listen rather than pick his way through it. That his tutor would be the lady whose song had so enchanted him the week previous was further inducement to hold his peace. He was not disappointed; Elizabeth’s voice swelled in sure tones, with feeling and a grace that moved him deeply. At the last verse he joined his baritone to her soprano much to the giggling delight of a pair of very young ladies in front of them. As they resumed their seats, Darcy suffered their backward glances only once before treating them to a brow lifted in freezing censure, which served only to send them again into paroxysms of silliness. To his further indignation, Elizabeth seemed unable to resist joining, quickly clasping a gloved hand over her mouth and peeping up mischievously at him. Darcy petulantly ignored her and sternly directed his attention to the vicar.

Sunday’s confession was assigned. Darcy murmured the lines from memory without undue contemplation, the phrases concerning disobedience and ingratitude being, he believed, of little application. When the sin of pride was added to the catalog, Elizabeth stirred beside him and delicately but distinctly cleared her throat, giving him, he was persuaded, perfect justification for laying emphasis on the following transgression, of willfulness, in a manner she could not mistake.

When the second hymn was announced, they were at point non-plus, and Darcy steeled himself against the effects of her voice on his clearly traitorous senses. This one he knew quite well. Turning slightly in Miss Bingley’s direction, he succeeded in avoiding Elizabeth’s amused eyes, but with the unfortunate effect of giving the other lady renewed claim on his attention. It was a poor scheme withal. As Elizabeth’s voice still filled up his senses, he now had Miss Bingley’s comments and compliments to deal with as well.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” the Reverend Mr. Stanley grandly intoned the Scripture. “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Darcy drew out his prayer book and swiftly turned the pages to those passages.

“Tch!” Darcy looked down at the sound into Elizabeth’s rueful countenance as she bit her lower lip in consternation at her empty hands. Hesitating only a moment, he gallantly nudged the left side of his prayer book into her hand and bent his head to accommodate her view of it.

“Almighty God, give us grace…,” they read together. Bent as he was over the passage, Darcy’s every breath set the curls at Elizabeth’s ears and temple to dancing, distracting him mightily from the page they shared. “…that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light…” With great effort of will, he set himself to concentrate on the text and was able to finish without his mind wandering into perilous byways. Beside him, Elizabeth settled back into the hard pew, unconsciously searching for a comfortable position from which to apprehend the Reverend Mr. Stanley’s sermon. Darcy’s attempt to do likewise was a dismal failure. Neatly sandwiched as he was between two ladies, he dared not let any part of his person rest too near theirs, so he was reduced to sitting absolutely erect in a manner horribly reminiscent of the schoolroom. There was nothing for it, so