A Very Meryton Christmas Read online

  The genuineness of their hospitality and the absence of Darcy created a more relaxed atmosphere than Elizabeth anticipated.

  Perhaps I was mistaken in my attempt to avoid socializing at Netherfield, Elizabeth thought as they all stood around the tea table chatting amiably. For without Mr. Darcy’s brooding presence this is a very pleasant winter morning, with amiable company, in a warm, sunlit room with the snowflakes falling right outside the window. She was able to observe Bingley independently and, as she suspected, he was all kindness.

  Just like my Jane, she thought. She was struck by the goodness of the match between her sister and Mr. Bingley, notwithstanding his wealth.

  Although who could withstand his wealth?

  For Jane’s sake, Elizabeth decided to make an effort to be more cordial with Bingley’s sisters and for the next ten minutes inquired selflessly about the interests of Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who were more than happy to complain about a wide variety of issues.

  All that was required of Elizabeth was that she smile and nod in-between sips of tea and bites of the fruitcake, which all acknowledged to be terribly good. From the corner of her eye, she was able to observe Jane and Mr. Bingley deeply engaged in their own conversation. The sight of that brought true satisfaction to Elizabeth. She would give her sister a few more moments with Bingley before suggesting that it was time they be saying their goodbyes.

  Despite the multiple conversations going on in the Netherfield drawing room, Elizabeth clearly heard the squeak of the door hinge as it opened. She glanced toward the door exactly at the same moment that Mr. Darcy appeared in it and their eyes met.

  He held her gaze in the commanding way that he had while registering no emotion on his aloof, expressionless face. Elizabeth’s heart sank at the sight of him, and she was the first to break their eye contact and look away.

  His entrance caught the attention of the rest of the party.

  “Mr. Darcy! What a surprise!” Caroline exclaimed. “I thought you would be writing letters all morning and thus miss our little unexpected gathering here, but you are just in time.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Darcy muttered, standing stiffly at the doorway and surveying the room. Bingley motioned him in, stepping aside to make room for him around the table.

  “What a surprise it was for us to see the Bennets enter the room here with Mr. Bingley,” Mrs. Hurst laughed. “They magically appeared out of nowhere, as we were sitting here this morning all the while believing we had no callers as we saw no carriage arrive.”

  “It was not out of nowhere but out of the servants’ door that they appeared, am I not right?” Mr. Darcy said.

  “Yes, we walked over from Longbourn to deliver the cake with my parents’ best wishes. We had no desire to disturb your morning,” Elizabeth replied.

  Mr. Bingley enthusiastically cut a slice of fruitcake, plated it, and handed it to Mr. Darcy.

  “Darcy, you must try this. It’s simply spectacular,” Bingley gushed.

  But Mr. Darcy put his hand up and refused the plate.

  “No, thank you.”

  Bingley persisted.

  “But it’s one of the best fruitcakes I’ve ever tasted. From Longbourn.”

  “I’m sure it is, good friend. None for me, however, but thank you,” Darcy repeated.

  An awkward silence settled onto the party. Elizabeth fumed inside at his refusal.

  Not even civil enough to make a pretense of accepting our little gift, she thought, quite peeved. She could feel a pert retort rising up in her and struggled to suppress it. Yet despite Mr. Darcy’s rudeness, she would not use his bad manners as an excuse to act poorly herself. She held her tongue and let the moment pass.

  “But Darcy, you love fruitcake. How strange that today, for some reason, you have no appetite for it?” Caroline Bingley persisted.

  “Correct,” he said.

  “But this is no ordinary fruitcake! It’s one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting,” Bingley pressed.

  “No, thank you,” Mr. Darcy insisted.

  After another short silence ensued, Mrs. Hurst cleared her throat.

  “Perhaps Mr. Darcy does not care for sweets in the morning,” she wondered aloud. “Or perhaps it was the late hours we all kept last night listening to Miss Warwick sing in that beautiful voice she has that has affected his appetite?”

  Mr. Darcy had no response, merely turned his head and looked beyond everyone to stare out the window. Elizabeth could no longer find pleasure in the party with him present, no matter how much she desired to give Jane and Bingley time together.

  She addressed Caroline Bingley with only a pretense of regret. “Please excuse us, we are wanted back home. Thank you, again, for your hospitality,” she said, smiling warmly at Caroline and Mrs. Hurst and Bingley and refusing to meet the eyes of Mr. Darcy.

  Ever the faithful sister, Jane announced, “My apologies. I have an appointment this afternoon and Elizabeth is right; we must not delay. Thank you, again. It was a wonderful morning.”

  Mr. Darcy bowed and stepped away from the table to allow Jane to pass. Elizabeth put her head down and passed by Mr. Darcy without a nod, but just as she did so Mr. Darcy said, “It was a pleasure, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

  She looked up in surprise at his pointedly personal goodbye.

  Taken aback, she mumbled a quick goodbye under her breath and with steam starting to rise within her, followed Jane and Bingley quickly over the threshold and into the hallway, her hand grasping the doorknob and closing it firmly behind her with a click, putting a much desired physical barrier between her and Mr. Darcy. Bingley accompanied them to the front door and, thankfully, Mr. Darcy stayed put.

  The butler met them in the entry with their cloaks and soon they were wrapped up against the cold and exchanging genuine, heartfelt goodbyes with Mr. Bingley. Halfway down the drive, they were suddenly forced to jump out of the way for an oncoming carriage.

  As it rumbled past they were able to catch a glimpse of the regal profile of a young woman with ebony hair and a foreboding Grecian nose who stared imperiously at them for a split second.

  Although their paths crossed only momentarily, Elizabeth was certain she had just missed encountering Miss Agnes Warwick, the lucky lady who was the love of Mr. Darcy’s life.

  “We are off just in time,” Elizabeth whispered to Jane, stealing a look over her shoulder at the carriage, now stopped in front of Netherfield. “A few more moments and we might have been forced to make an acquaintance with the future Mrs. Darcy,” Elizabeth laughed.

  “Poor woman,” Jane joined in.

  “From the looks of her, they deserve each other,” Elizabeth said.

  The two sisters laughed, linked arms, and plowed happily ahead, kicking up the pure winter snow with their feet; Jane content with her morning, Elizabeth annoyed at her failure to dodge the proud and moody man who in a few short days had quickly become her nemesis. She wished desperately to avoid him, however, Meryton was at its most social during the Christmas season and with a sinking feeling in her heart, she suspected that now that he was in the neighborhood, Mr. Darcy was intent on spoiling her holiday.

  Chapter Three

  “Lydia, do hurry! Kitty, you must loan Lydia your lace or we will be the last carriage in the queue! You know how I detest fighting the crowds,” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, unable to hide the impatience in her tone.

  “But Lydia has my hair comb and won’t give it back. She is not getting my lace too,” Kitty complained loudly.

  Elizabeth sighed as she tugged at her gloves. “Hurry, Lydia or the regiment will be off to the Meryton Arms, thinking you are not coming after all,” she called up the stairs. There was a brief silence from above, and then the thud of their footsteps could be heard as the two sisters quickly descended, all disagreements suddenly settled.

  “This is the first time the Meryton Christmas assembly has happened when officers are present,” Lydia gushed. “I do hope the officers will be there and are fond
of dancing.”

  “Yes, yes, the officers will be there. Where else would they go in Meryton? It is a small village after all,” noted Mrs. Bennet. “Now Mr. Bennet, are you absolutely positive that Mr. Bingley is to be there?”

  “Good woman, unless the man is a bold-faced liar we must take him at his word. Remember, he was the one who inquired of me whether or not the Bennet family would be in attendance when we met on the street today. The whole Bennet family, he made sure to ask, and I assured him we would all be there, decked out in all the finery my purse could afford,” Mr. Bennet said, looking directly at Jane and winking.

  Jane blushed, but Mrs. Bennet would not be consoled. “My nerves will not rest until I see him in the flesh, so what are we waiting for?”

  With a great amount of chatter, the Bennets loaded into the carriage and their good moods and happy conversation were maintained for the entire drive. Upon arriving at the assembly hall, their energy was then diverted toward safely alighting from the carriage. As Mrs. Bennet predicted, they arrived late to a very crowded hall.

  Upon working her way through the crush, Elizabeth was distressed to see Mr. Darcy present, hovering over the merry scene like a ghost. Her high spirits sank as if weighed down by a rock. No smile managed to crack its way through the dour façade Darcy presented, and Elizabeth wondered why he had bothered to expose himself to the company of a society he viewed beneath him.

  However, the crowded Christmas assembly made it easy to avoid him, and as soon as the first dance was called Officer Wickham appeared at Elizabeth’s side.

  “May I have the pleasure?” he inquired, holding out his arm.

  Elizabeth was glad to see Wickham, whose friendly and unreserved nature made for easy companionship. He was dressed in his regimental reds, his golden hair reflecting the candlelight, and his seeking her out immediately upon her arrival pleased her very much.

  As she and Wickham danced up and down the assembly room, she found it was impossible not to notice Mr. Darcy in the crowd. It appeared that, once again, Darcy did not intend to dance despite their being an ample number of available partners. He stood still in the corner as if he were a Doric column charged with keeping the ceiling in place.

  “Tell me, Mr. Wickham. You’ve known Mr. Darcy for a long time. Does he always present such a surly figure or is it only Meryton that has this effect on him?

  “It is not Meryton or its company that is responsible for his sour countenance but a demanding, prideful and disagreeable nature that is quick to find fault in others,” Wickham assured Elizabeth.

  “Why doesn’t he just stay at Netherfield and stare gloomily out of its windows instead of taking the trouble to come out and spoil our evening?” Elizabeth wondered.

  “He enjoys putting a damper on all that is light and fun,” Wickham said.

  “He seems to be watching us,” Elizabeth suggested. It did seem as if every time she twirled in his direction their eyes would meet. Despite the many distractions of the ball, his gaze seemed to be fixed on no one else.

  I am forced to close my eyes if I want to avoid him, she thought, and she proceeded to do so.

  “Perhaps he wishes to dance with you?” Wickham teased, once she opened her eyes again.

  “I think not, as he already proclaimed me not handsome enough to tempt him into a dance at the last assembly.” Elizabeth retold his insult with glee. She enjoyed exposing Mr. Darcy’s rudeness. “And as I have made no measurable change to my appearance since then, I can only imagine that the very look of me continues to offend him.”

  “I have found that a person’s looks can grow on one,” Wickham observed. “Perhaps his opinion of you is changing by the minute?”

  “I shall never dance with the man, ever, even if he stood on the table and declared me the loveliest woman in Hertfordshire,” she proclaimed.

  Mr. Wickham clearly admired Elizabeth’s lively spirit, and this was not lost on Miss Warwick, who eyed Elizabeth from across the room.

  That is the woman who could barely be bothered to get out of the way of my carriage yesterday, Miss Warwick thought.

  She was also one of the two women that Mr. Bingley spoke of incessantly for the remainder of that day. At first, she tolerated his enthusiasm for his guests but then slowly grew annoyed. As a guest at Netherfield, she was accustomed to being the center of attention. It did not go beyond her notice that yesterday the atmosphere suddenly changed. Bingley seemed preoccupied and prone to staring off happily into space, while Mr. Darcy was positively sullen and withdrawn. Using her powers of deduction, she decided that the Bennet sisters were the cause of these shifts in mood.

  Miss Warwick fixed her gaze upon Miss Elizabeth Bennet as she danced with one of the officers. Mr. Darcy, whom she could see from the corner of her eye, seemed to be watching the Bennet woman intently as well. Miss Warwick had recently allowed herself to fall in love with Mr. Darcy, and she had the reasonable expectation that those feelings might eventually be returned—if not at that precise moment in time then at a moment in time that was soon approaching.

  Her whole purpose of being at Netherfield and subjecting herself to the remoteness of Hertfordshire was to forge a more permanent, dare she say lasting, relationship with Mr. Darcy. She had been making slow but steadfast progress with him. He already considered her a friend; that she knew.

  But she wanted more.

  Agnes Warwick was used to getting her way and men who didn’t know what they wanted were prime targets. The daughter of Sir Oswald Warwick—a member of Parliament and the owner of both Ditchfield Manor and a corner townhouse currently under construction in Mayfair—Miss Warwick was intelligent but spoiled, willful, and conniving.

  To her, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire had all the earmarks of a man whom she believed she could win over if she appeared in his vicinity often enough. He was said to have an income of ten thousand a year, a prominent estate in Derbyshire and a London home. Added to that was a good reputation, not to mention height and a manner that did not suffer fools. Having recently been thrown over in a very public way by a man whom she thought might make an offer, she was eager to appear to have landed on her feet by snaring Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Unfortunately, Darcy didn’t have a title, and she preferred a man who did.

  However, her father approved of the match and because her pride was at stake, she convinced herself a title was not necessary. She had wormed her way into an invitation to join the party at Netherfield. Darcy, word had it, had approved her presence there.

  But that evening, much to her chagrin, his attention was markedly on that Bennett girl; a specimen of little beauty, shabby fashion, and relatives in trade, so Mrs. Hurst had described her.

  “A snappy little thing who believes herself to be a wit,” Caroline Bingley added.

  That would not do, Miss Warwick thought.

  When the dance ended, she said, “My, Darcy is entertained by the dancers. For a man who does not care to dance he cannot take his eyes off the floor. What is the name of that young man that your friend Miss Elizabeth Bennet is dancing with?”

  “That is George Wickham,” Caroline said.

  “And so they are engaged?” Miss Warwick suggested.

  “Hardly! Unless we have missed the happy news?” exclaimed Mrs. Hurst.

  “But did you not see the way they danced with each other?”

  Bewildered by her comments, both Bingley sisters shook their heads no.

  Seizing her chance, Miss Warwick lied, “Why then the news must be coming soon. For I am sure no lady would allow a gentleman to whom she is not engaged to put his hands where his were.”

  Caroline’s and Mrs. Hurst’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  “How did I miss that?” Caroline whispered, obviously flustered. She prided herself for having eagle eyes and for being well aware of local gossip. She looked desperately about the hall to collect her own evidence of Wickham’s misbehavior, but the couple had disappeared from sight.

  “I do not care for that Miss
Elizabeth Bennet,” Mrs. Hurst declared.

  “Mr. Darcy thinks very little of Wickham as well,” Caroline Bingley added. “He can barely stand to be in the same room with him.”

  The women exchanged knowing glances. “We must be sure to inform Mr. Darcy of the match. I predict he will find it quite amusing,” Miss Warwick suggested.

  “Oh, but he does not approve of Miss Bennet, either. Although, by the way he stares at her as if she were a puzzle piece that does not fit anywhere, I wonder if he feels more for her than even he realizes,” Mrs. Hurst said, staring across the room at Darcy, who had not moved.

  “I wonder at your brother’s enthusiasm for her sister, Miss Jane Bennet,” Miss Warwick said. “Surely, her manners cannot be much above those of her sister? Are you not concerned that she may be planning to trap your brother in some way? Your brother may not be as immune to her flattery as one would hope.”

  “That is a situation that will be dealt with,” Caroline assured the two. “He is too good-natured, to the point of being made a fool by cunning mothers with too many daughters on their hands.”

  “Pray how will you deal with it?” Miss Warwick inquired. “And may I be of help?” she chortled.

  Chapter Four

  To Elizabeth’s great relief, Mr. Darcy did not approach her for a dance, although his gaze continued to threaten. His mood was markedly morose and in the festive crowd, he remained the lone partygoer who appeared immune to the season.

  After three consecutive dances, Elizabeth was parched. The last bars of the music died out, and Elizabeth thanked her partner sweetly and hurried away. She made her way over to where Jane stood in the corner, chatting with Lady Lucas and Charlotte.

  “Shall we move to the refreshments? I am too warm to dance another,” Elizabeth asked.

  Her suggestion was met with enthusiasm, and in a single file line they threaded the side of the dance floor and made their way out. Upon entering the refreshments room, the spicy fragrance of wassail was inescapable. A bountiful dessert table stood against the wall, overflowing with sweets of every kind—apple dumplings, plum pudding, fruitcakes, cheese, and nuts.