CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Bingley spent the rest of the week largely in Darcy’s company, aside from his friend’s time spent making final business preparations before his departure for Kent. Though there was much that he had learned from Darcy, the most tangible lessons had been in regard to financial affairs. Having inherited his fortune from the man who directly created it, Bingley depended greatly on the advice and example of his friend who had learned the more refined methods of wealth management from countless proceeding generations of men who had inherited, increased, and passed on their prodigious capital. For his part, Mr. Darcy had always been forthright and willing to support his friend by any means possible.
Their meetings that week, however, were marred by what Bingley perceived as an increasing imbalance on the part of Darcy—in one moment he might be dolorous and lost in rumination, the next he was uncommonly exultant and much more talkative than was his usual manner. When further pressed in private about his curious behaviour, Darcy referred Bingley back to what he continually referred to as, “a concern of the heart, which would be soon settled, for better or for worse.” Despite his denials to the contrary, Bingley could not help but think his friend was feeling the pressure of visiting his aunt whose singular desire with regard to her nephew was seeing him wed to her infirm daughter. Presumably, he intended to use the occasion of this visit to Rosings Park to settle that score once and for all.
When Darcy and his cousin Fitzwilliam departed London for Kent, his sister Georgiana stayed behind with her recently procured governess for another fortnight and accompanied Bingley and Caroline to dinner and the theatre on multiple occasions. He got the feeling that Georgiana enjoyed their personal company much more than the crowds of admirers and sycophants which made up the preponderance of the populace in larger social settings. Georgiana was amiable, talented, and undoubtedly handsome, but she was hardly noticed for such qualities in the blinding light of her substantial fortune. Though her conversation was erudite beyond her years and her disposition gracious and pleasant, it pained Bingley that these were not qualities appreciated by the young men who courted her, nor by the young ladies who displayed the bare minimum of civility in rather puerile efforts to conceal their envy. These same young ladies were often dealt perceived slights by suitors who paid them attentions only after failing to secure the continued regard of Miss Darcy. Bingley could not help, but in this circumstance, to feel solidarity with her—affluence could be as much a curse as a blessing. It was over the course of those weeks, then, that the two resisted Caroline’s best efforts to accept every single desirable invitation they received—and there was no shortage of desirable invitations. He did acquiesce to some of her requests—more than he might have otherwise endured—bearing in mind that having been out of the country for so long, it was prudent for the viability of continued secrecy surrounding his surreptitious ventures, to appear to be the same affable and untroubled young man he had once sincerely been. His time, then, was spent in the delicate balance of appeasing his sister and preserving his own sanity. Additionally precarious was the act of feigning interest in the many eligible ladies to whom he was continually introduced—none of whom in his mind could hold a flame to Jane Bennet. Unfortunately, his tacit indifference to all the most recent young ladies to have been presented at court convinced his sister all the more that his attachment to Georgiana Darcy increased with each passing day. Their attachment, however, consisted still merely in a sense of friendship, born of similar circumstances in upbringing and position.
During this period of counterfeit diversion, Maitland was dispatched to the village of Grantley to accumulate information about the state of the cobbler-constable’s ongoing investigation into the murder of Sir Andrew Fraser. Wilshere sent other trusted servants in the directions of Brighton, Kent, and Canterbury, all with the aim of unearthing the identity of the newly appointed military arm of the late Lord St. John’s evil plot. The latter assignments were, indeed, two-fold: the second task being to establish whether the nasty business of abducting young maidens for the gratification of wealthy fiends was ongoing in the absence of the Earl of Canterbury. The master and his man had furthermore considered dispatching a man to shadow Mr. Hurst, as he and Louisa had been called to the north to attend to a property they owned near Harrogate, but it was decided that he was harmless enough and was unlikely to be enmeshed in Fraser’s repulsive game. For Bingley then, all that was left to do was bide his time and imagine a scenario in which he could return to Netherfield and be at once in Jane’s presence without Caroline’s endless harassment which would no doubt ensue. All his thoughts and prayers were consumed in wishing that winter, in its frigid indifference to the plight of his heart, would soon give way to the sunny rays of spring.