Page 30 of Mr. Darcy's Christmas Letters
“Accident?” Miss Bingley asked slyly, as though she now had intelligence that might be of use to her. “You really must take care, Eliza. I had not thought you so clumsy, but I suppose traipsing through the woods as you do, a certain number of mishaps are inevitable.”
“This particular mishap was not my fault,” Elizabeth informed Miss Bingley pertly. It was the truth. She glanced at Mr. Darcy. It was also a tease.
Mr. Darcy said nothing, but he met Elizabeth’s eye, his gaze promising retribution. Elizabeth felt a little thrill in the pit of her stomach.
“They never are, are they, dear?” Miss Bingley asked, the sweetness of the words undercut with the rancour of the message.
Elizabeth did not reply, as Charles and Jane were arriving. Charles offered her his other arm and she took it without comment, though she would have rather Mr. Darcy offered his. Instead, Mr. Darcy was left to lead Miss Bingley into dinner. No doubt the deluded woman thought it a great honour to her.
She gathered her wits and determined not to be petty. It was beneath her.
Elizabeth was seated next to Charles and Mr. Darcy sat next to Jane, with Miss Bingley on Elizabeth’s other side. So close, yet too far away to speak to one another. It did not really matter, she consoled herself, dipping her spoon into her soup with rather more energy than required. It was not as though they could converse frankly in the presence of the other three people now seated at the dining table.
She placed her spoon down and waited for the footman to remove her bowl.
Charles leaned over just a bit. “Was there something wrong with your food?”
“Not at all,” she responded quietly. It was not the food, it was being so close to Mr. Darcy without being at liberty to speak with him. She was too anxious to eat.
He waited another moment, but when she did not elaborate, he gave her a sympathetic glance and resumed his meal.
Elizabeth’s eye wandered to the windows. It was dark, but there seemed to be something drifting in the wind. Was that . . .?
“It is snowing!” she exclaimed happily and stood to go look.
Miss Bingley huffed at the impropriety, lifting another spoonful of the soup to her lips.
“Oh,” Elizabeth said, half-turning to address the entire party. “I beg your pardon.”
“Not at all,” Charles said from just behind her. Elizabeth suspected that her new brother had stood and joined her to make her own breach of etiquette less noticeable, and she loved him for it.
“Does it not normally snow here?” he asked amiably.
“It varies,” Jane said from her seat at the table.
“There are many years where we have only rain and frost in December,” Elizabeth explained. “But last year was very cold, as you know, and the spring very wet.”
“It was the same in Derbyshire,” Mr. Darcy said. Elizabeth turned to face him, as he remained at the table. “Planting was delayed, and because there was so much rain in the summer, the harvest was smaller than normal.”
“But you have managed Pemberley so brilliantly that you will hardly see the difference.” Miss Bingley nearly purred her words.
Mr. Darcy’s incredulity was quickly masked, and Elizabeth turned back to the window to peer out into the dark. The flakes were coming thick and fast.
Miss Bingley must have been waiting all day to offer Mr. Darcy such praise. Elizabeth wondered, laughingly, whether she had been composing delicate little compliments to use should the opportunity present itself. But Miss Bingley could not have chosen worse, for a conscientious landowner such as Mr. Darcy, no matter how well he had planned for such a contingency, would be accepting lowered rents and anticipating greater expenditures during the winter so that his tenants neither froze nor starved. Even Papa had told Mamma they should have to economise this year—after Jane’s wedding, of course.
Mr. Darcy did not deign to reply, and Miss Bingley fell silent. No doubt the woman had returned to her soup, since no further discussion was to be had. But having committed to her breach in propriety, Elizabeth stood at the window for a few moments longer, watching the peaceful sweep of the snowflakes as they drifted to earth. She took a deep breath and released it slowly.
Charles was still beside her when she turned, and Elizabeth blushed to think that she had been keeping him from his meal. “Forgive me, Charles,” she told him quietly. “I still adore the first snowfall.”
“I, for one, detest the stuff,” Miss Bingley said. “It fouls the roads and makes visits difficult, if not impossible. And what if one requires deliveries of coal or food?”
“That is why landowners spend much of the autumn preparing for winter, Miss Bingley,” Mr. Darcy said pleasantly. “Pemberley itself is essentially cut off from both Lambton and Kympton after a heavy storm. We are required to care for ourselves.”
Elizabeth was impressed. That was a proper set-down without any sign of it being so. Charles held out her chair for her, and she slipped back into it with whispered thanks. Her new brother smiled at her and returned to his own seat.
“Although we do not often have storms that cut us off from town for more than a day or so,” Elizabeth said, “we also prepare as though it could. For if the shopkeepers cannot reach their shops to open them, or there is illness in the house and we cannot go out, we must be prepared.”
“And do you manage the larder, Miss Eliza?” Miss Bingley asked, her lips raised in a mocking smile.
