Chapter 11
On their return to London, Miss Bingley demanded that her brother call on Mr Darcy to announce their arrival. She, of course, was with him as she told her brother that Mr Darcy needed to see his special friends to cheer him after their absence.
Caroline Bingley was convinced that Miss Darcy appreciated her company and guidance in all things fashionable.
After all, the mousy girl’s face showed admiration when Caroline regaled her with the latest on-dit.
It was, she was sure, vastly impressive to the young girl who she needed to convince of her friendship until she married Mr Darcy.
Of course, then they would send her away to a boarding school until she was old enough to marry Charles.
Miss Bingley was dressed in one of her garish burnt orange ensembles with four tall ostrich feathers dyed to match her gown. Mr Bingley had never been able to tell Caroline that what she considered fashionable caused many to laugh at her behind their fans.
As was his wont, rather than fight with his sister and have her unleash a tantrum, Bingley took Caroline with him.
Darcy did not like him arriving at any of his homes with Caroline without issuing a specific invitation to her.
Charles would rather suffer Darcy’s disapproving looks than Caroline’s vociferous vitriol if he did not do what she desired.
Bingley had been reluctant to leave Scarborough and his latest angel, but in this too he was not willing to put up with Caroline’s behaviour if she did not get her way.
He supposed it was not so very bad because although Miss Cartwright was pretty, she was not close to Miss Bennet in looks.
It was a pity Miss Bennet had had no tender feelings for him; if she had loved him, she could have been the one for him.
Bingley was pulled out of the thoughts of his various angels when his coach slowed and then stopped.
He looked out of the window and saw they were before Darcy House.
It was strange that no Darcy footman was on duty to attend to them.
His own footman placed the step and opened the door.
Bingley alighted and then handed out his sister.
Miss Bingley stood admiring the mansion, already imagining all the changes she would make to it as soon as she married Mr Darcy. His décor was far too simple for her tastes.
There was no missing the possessive look in his sister’s eye.
Although he had never told her so, Bingley was well aware that Darcy would never offer for Caroline, even if she attempted a compromise.
Again, his not relaying what Darcy said was to avoid exciting a tantrum by his sister.
He hoped she would not resort to that because even if he wanted to demand that Darcy do the right thing by his sister, he was cognisant of the fact that Darcy had all the power in society and the Bingleys had none.
Just then he noticed that the knocker was not on the door.
“Come, Caroline, we should leave. The knocker is down,” Bingley suggested.
“That does not apply to me…us,” Miss Bingley insisted.
She proceeded to flounce up the stairs and used the handle of her parasol to knock on the thick oak door.
There were no sounds from within, so Miss Bingley knocked again, this time with more force, which resulted in the handle of her parasol breaking.
There was movement to Bingley’s side. One of the Darcy footmen must have exited the house using the servants’ door.
“You there, boy. Have this door opened immediately,” Miss Bingley commanded when she saw the footman. “Well, do not stand there like a lump of coal. Mr Darcy will not be well pleased when he hears how his friends have been treated.”
“The master and Miss Darcy are not in residence,” the man related. With that, he turned and was gone.
“Well I never!” Miss Bingley exclaimed, her feathers waving in the breeze as she shook her head. “To leave us on the doorstep is unacceptable. As soon as I am the mistress here, I will sack that man with no character.”
“Caroline, be reasonable. What would you have him do? If the Darcys are not here, he has no authority to let us in,” Bingley said to placate his sister.
“I suppose that is true,” Miss Bingley owned as she walked down the stairs back to the Bingley coach.
She threw her broken parasol at the footman holding the door.
His reflexes were sufficient that he caught the damaged item.
As she had when she alighted, she had to manoeuvre her head so her feathers did not break on the doorframe of the conveyance.
“That is very high-handed of Mr Darcy to leave London and not inform me…us.” She claimed once they were under way.
“In that case, do you want to tell him that?” Bingley challenged.
As she only wanted Mr Darcy to think she always agreed with him, Miss Bingley snapped her mouth shut, sniffed loudly, and she pretended as if she was very interested in the passing scenery until they arrived at Hurst House.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
From the time the guests departed his home, William Collins had been in a bad mood.
He was annoyed that Cousin Elizabeth had never even once acknowledged the error of her refusal of his generous offer of marriage.
No matter how many times, subtly and not so subtly, he had enumerated all the advantages her stubborn refusal had cost her, she had not been moved. If anything, she had seemed amused.
Now he was stuck with a plain wife, and his plan to make his cousin jealous by offering for her best friend had come to nought.
The only reason he had agreed to allow his wife to extend the invitation to his cousin was so he could lord over her everything that could have been hers had she only accepted his hand.
Not the least of those benefits had been his close connection to the house of de Bourgh.
His cousin had not been deferential in the proper way to his patroness like he was.
In fact, at times she had been impertinent.
He had been sure that Lady Catherine would put Cousin Elizabeth in her place, but for some unknown reason, the great lady seemed to tolerate his cousin’s impertinence.
One thing was certain. The day her father passed from this world into the next, sooner rather than later, he prayed, he would have the pleasure of throwing her from his house.
To show her how foolish her refusal of him had been, he would make his point by evicting anyone named Bennet still living at his estate.
Being sure that no one would ever offer for Cousin Elizabeth, the thoughts of taking his revenge on her and her family made him feel warm all over.
She would pay for forcing him to offer for a plain woman.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The morning after he had told his family the truth of the entail, Bennet arrived at his brother-in-law Phillips’s office just as the latter began work for the day.
“Bennet?” Phillips’s eyebrows shot up to see his brother-in-law out and about when he would normally be in his study with coffee and a book. “Is everything well at Longbourn?”
“Yes and no,” Bennet replied cryptically.
Seeing Phillips’s questioning look, Bennet first showed Phillips the clause regarding clergymen in the entail document and then revealed why he had waited to act for six months.
“I am not at all proud of my actions, and worse, I was shamed into action by Jane and Lizzy.”
“There must be a story there,” Phillips prompted. He read the clause to which Bennet had indicated. “Yes, you should have come to me as soon as that buffoon wrote to you.”
After owning the truth of Phillips’s statement, Bennet continued, “After we met as a family yester-afternoon, I sat with Jane and Lizzy…” Bennet related the gist of the conversation and the way Jane had been forced to reevaluate her personal philosophy.
He told of what Lizzy had learnt about the truth of Mr Wickham and the fact that Mr Darcy was a very good man.
As he had not been told about the letter from Mr Darcy to Lizzy, obviously, Bennet could not mention it.
Then, as hard as it was, Bennet revealed what had occurred with Lydia and what they planned to do with her.
“Even without this additional information, we all know that the late Mr Wickham was the worst kind of man. If he was not already dead, I would have wanted to end him for meddling with my niece.” Phillips paused as he allowed some of the anger to drain out of him.
“It is just as well that Mr Darcy is escorting the remains north. No one would have agreed to have him laid to rest in the Meryton cemetery,” Phillips revealed.
“Back to the matter at hand. How do we proceed?” Bennet enquired.
“Under the terms of the entail, it is an indisputable fact that Mr Collins and any of his descendants are disqualified from the line of succession,” Phillips explained.
“According to this, I must show the Court of Chancery that there are no other possible heirs. Once the court is satisfied that I have done my due diligence, and that other than your and Collins’s line, there are no other male-initiated lines, the court will name you the owner of Longbourn and issue a new deed to that effect. ”
“When that occurs, am I right that I will be allowed to name my heir, male or female, and the estate will not have to be split among my daughters?” Bennet verified.
Phillips read the pertinent section of the executed entail documents.
“Yes, you may leave it to whomever you choose. There is nothing here to force the estate to be divided into pieces,” He confirmed.
“Do you know who you will name as your heir? Is Lizzy not the one you trained to manage the estate in your place?”