The next day, Mr. Bingley and his sisters paid us a visit, the purpose of which was to invite our whole family to a ball at Netherfield Park. Having heard a great deal already about our distinguished neighbors (and all to their credit), Mr. Collins did not disappoint in his effusion. To Mr. Bingley, he performed an exceptionally handsome bow, which took even that amiable gentleman by surprise, and poured so many compliments on the heads of Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Louisa Hurst that their initial twitters of pleasure eventually gave way to an uncomfortable silence. Even my affections could not spare me from the embarrassment I felt at witnessing the toadying behavior he so naturally adopted before his social superiors, and I might have visibly cringed when he likened Mrs. Hurst, who was ten years Bingley’s senior, to Egypt’s legendary ruler by reciting those immortal lines, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.”

But my sympathy was once again roused when I spotted Lydia and Kitty pulling mocking faces behind Mr. Collins’s back, and this, in turn, reminded me of the men who had taunted him and how he had risen, in those critical years at university, above his numerous and powerful adversaries to receive the good fortune of Lady Catherine’s patronage. The recollection of his long-suffering heroism, which I considered our intimate secret, instantly restored my finer emotions, and for the remainder of Mr. Bingley’s visit, I envisioned all the stories we would share of our respective upbringings once we were married.

Notwithstanding my dislike of balls, I could not help feeling excited at the prospect of another chance to sing and play for Mr. Collins, and the rest of my family seemed to share my enthusiasm—all except for Lizzy. Complaining of a headache, she excused herself and went upstairs, perhaps hoping that one or two of her family would trail after her. But none did, not even Jane, who had still to digest the personal honor of Mr. Bingley’s calling on her, and it was only in passing Lizzy’s room later and finding the door open that I discovered her splayed across the bed with her head rooted facedown in a pillow.

“Lizzy,” I said. “Are you ill?”

In hearing her name, the corpse raised a limp arm, which hovered a few moments in the air before collapsing with a dull thump across the mattress and becoming motionless again.

“Have it your way then,” I said, “but I’ll close the door for you.”

“No, Mary,” the body replied, rolling slowly onto its back. “Yes, close the door, but don’t leave. Stay awhile, won’t you?”

Shutting the door, I proceeded to navigate the cluttered floor of my sister’s room, which, excepting a narrow trail she had cleared from the entrance to the foot of the bed, was covered entirely with coils of stray ribbon, dirty slippers, the odd button, and several books I’d given up for lost from Papa’s library downstairs. Skipping over the final hurdle of a mud-soaked petticoat that smelled oddly of horse manure, I gratefully accepted the drooping hand extended to me. She asked me to sit down, though in looking about the room, I perceived that the only chair was swathed in many layers of stockings and shawls, with a few tattered-looking bonnets flung carelessly across its arms and back.

“You really should let Sarah or Mrs. Hill clean your room, Lizzy,” I said, and with my right foot I slid out what appeared to be a single grass-stained glove from underneath her nightstand before sitting down on the bed.

“I know, I know, but I can never find anything afterwards,” Lizzy groaned. She released my hand and, draping her wrist dramatically across her forehead, wearily exhaled. “Mr. Collins has asked me to dance the first two dances with him,” she blurted out.

“That’s just politeness,” I replied, as much to console my sister as myself. “He has to ask you because you are second oldest, and it would be rude for him not to. He has an exceptionally strong sense of decorum.”

“I can’t think of anything, at the moment, more horrifying or unpleasant that any innocent female should be forced to undergo than to have to dance with a man who shames her by association alone,” Lizzy continued. “Just think—I must stand up not once but twice with Mr. Collins and in front of all those people, too—people like Mr. Wickham, Mr. Bingley, his two awful sisters, and probably Mr. Darcy as well! It is more than anyone should reasonably have to suffer.”

“But why should standing up with Mr. Collins be shameful?” I asked. “He is just as respectable as any other gentleman, if not more so, for having made his own fortune in life instead of simply inheriting it.”

“What fortune?” Lizzy sneered, and I felt the injury of her words. “What do you think the living at Hunsford is worth?”

“More than sufficient to live on.”

“Well, I will not be married off for that!” my sister cried, sitting up. “And to the most ridiculous man in England besides! No, I refuse to accept such a fate. Do you really think that my vanity would be satisfied by receiving a profession of love, much less a proposal of marriage, from the likes of Mr. Collins? This isn’t to say that my vanity doesn’t exist—of course it does—or that it wouldn’t receive a very great boon to its self-importance, should a man possessing even half Mr. Bingley’s wealth and a fraction of Mr. Wickham’s good looks dedicate bad poetry in my name. I can assure you, Mary, that when that should happen, you’ll find me as silly and conceited as any other woman who is loved by a man she has no intention of accepting.”

“But Mr. Collins has no intention of marrying you,” I said bluntly.

“Then you have not noticed the signs?” Lizzy asked, crooking an eyebrow. “Why else should a man compliment the way a woman chews her food every time she sits down to a meal? Or worship the shape of her fingers when she works on netting a reticule? Or ask her what she is reading when she has just turned the first page of a book?”

“Mr. Collins does that with everyone, Lizzy. Don’t you remember how he complimented Jane on the admirable smallness of her feet the other day? And even Kitty for her cleverness with cutting paper flowers? No, personally, I’m convinced our cousin’s affections lie elsewhere,” I added, hoping Lizzy would take my hint.

But it had no discernible effect on my sister, absorbed as she was by matters concerning herself. “Well, I would never settle for a man like him,” Lizzy pronounced. Then her expression grew thoughtful. “No, I shall find myself a husband worth at least a thousand times our blockhead cousin, for if a man is nothing else, he can at least be rich. And though Jane is the most beautiful of us all, I daresay it would still be a pity for me to rise to no greater station in life than a clergyman’s wife.”

I found I couldn’t laugh at my sister’s vanity, but making as if to tease her, I said, “Well, I can think of only one man in our neighborhood, aside from Mr. Bingley, who is worth as much as that. And I’m afraid you despise him as much as he dislikes you.”

“Mr. Darcy?” Lizzy said, and her eyes glittered much as they had all those years ago when she had caught me in the forest. “Perhaps not, Mary. Perhaps not.”