The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat,cake,and a variety of all the finest fruits in season;but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given,to remind her of her post.There was now employment for the whole party;for though they could not all talk,they could all eat;and the beautiful pyramids of grapes,nectarines,and peaches soon collected them round the table.
While thus engaged,Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr Darcy,by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room;and then,though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate,she began to regret that he came.
He had been some time with Mr Gardiner,who,with two or three other gentlemen from the house,was engaged by the river,and had left him only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to Georgiana that morning.No sooner did he appear,than Elizabeth wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed;-a resolution the more necessary to be made,but perhaps not the more easily kept,because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them,and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour when he first came into the room.In no countenance was attentive curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's,in spite of the smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its objects;for jealousy had not yet made her desperate,and her attentions to Mr Darcy were by no means over.Miss Darcy,on her brother's entrance,exerted herself much more to talk;and Elizabeth saw that he was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted,and forwarded,as much as possible,every attempt at conversation on either side.Miss Bingley saw all this likewise;and,in the imprudence of anger,took the first opportunity of saying,with sneering civility,
‘Pray,Miss Eliza,are not the-shire Militia removed from Meryton?They must be a great loss to your family.’
In Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name;but Elizabeth instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts;and the various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress;but,exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill natured attack,she presently answered the question in a tolerably disengaged tone.While she spoke,an involuntary glance shewed her Darcy with an heightened complexion,earnestly looking at her,and his sister overcome with confusion and unable to lift up her eyes.Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend,she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint;but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth,by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial,to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy's opinion,and perhaps to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps.Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement.To no creature had it been revealed,where secrecy was possible,except to Elizabeth;and from all Bingley's connexions her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it,from the very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him,of their becoming hereafter her own.He had certainly formed such a plan,and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet,it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend.
Elizabeth's collected behaviour,however,soon quieted his emotion;and as Miss Bingley,vexed and disappointed,dared not approach nearer to Wickham,Georgiana also recovered in time,though not enough to be able to speak any more.Her brother,whose eye she feared to meet,scarcely recollected her interest in the affair,and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth,seemed to have fixed them on her more,and more cheerfully.
Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above mentioned;and while Mr Darcy was attending them to their carriage,Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person,behaviour,and dress.But Georgiana would not join her.Her brother's recommendation was enough to ensure her favour:his judgment could not err,and he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable.When Darcy returned to the saloon,Miss Bingley could not help repeating to him some part of what she had been saying to his sister.
‘How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning,Mr Darcy,’she cried;‘I never in my life saw any one so much altered as she is since the winter.She is grown so brown and coarse!Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.’
However little Mr Darcy might have liked such an address,he contented himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer.
‘For my own part,’she rejoined,‘I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her.Her face is too thin;her complexion has no brilliancy;and her features are not at all handsome.Her nose wants character;there is nothing marked in its lines.Her teeth are tolerable,but not out of the common way;and as for her eyes,which have sometimes been called so fine,I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them.They have a sharp,shrewish look,which I do not like at all;and in her air altogether,there is a self sufficiency without fashion,which is intolerable.’
