Chapter Eight #4
“Miss Bingley wishes to marry you,” Georgiana repeated, colouring, but going on.
“Everyone knows it. She cultivates my friendship because I am your sister. She brings me small gifts, invites me to walk and to shop with her, calls me her dearest friend. I do not believe she cares for me in the least. She cares only for securing your regard.”
“Miss Bingley is Bingley’s sister. She has been of our acquaintance for years. I have never given her the slightest reason to suppose—”
“You need not give her reason,” Georgiana interrupted quietly. “She has resolved upon it herself. She is always contriving to be wherever you are, always speaking of Pemberley, always declaring how much she admires it. She makes it entirely plain that she intends to be its mistress.”
Miss Elizabeth remained silent at the window, her work in her lap, but Darcy was acutely conscious of her presence. She was a witness to his blindness.
“She has never spoken of such expectations,” he protested.
Georgiana regarded him with something like pity. “Even Miss Bingley is too much of a lady to speak of such things outright. But she makes her intentions abundantly clear in every other way.”
Darcy was silent. Miss Bingley had always been Bingley’s sister—ready to host his parties, quick to praise Pemberley whilst criticising every thing she considered inferior. Marriage? He had never once thought of her in that connexion.
“You believe her attentions to you are designed only to secure my interest?”
“I know they are,” Georgiana said. “She has told me as much, though not in so many words. She speaks constantly of how charming it would be if we were sisters in truth, how she longs to be of our family, how she admires you above all men.” Her voice dropped.
“I have tried to be civil to her, Fitzwilliam. I know you esteem her brother. I did not wish to appear ungrateful. But I find her company fatiguing. She is always observing me, always striving to discover what I like so that she may profess herself of the same opinion. She presses for my confidence when I have no desire to give it.”
“Why did you not tell me this sooner?”
“Because I believed you wished me to like her,” Georgiana answered simply. “You never asked whether I did. You supposed I must. I was afraid that if I said otherwise, you would think me ungrateful or difficult.”
The words struck him with force. Was this indeed how his sister thought of him?
“If you do mean to marry Miss Bingley,” Georgiana went on, her tone steadier, “you should say so. I shall prepare myself. I shall endeavour to endure her company as my sister. But if you have no such intention, I would be thankful if you would spare me the pretence of a friendship I do not feel.”
Silence fell in the room.
He had no intention of marrying Caroline Bingley. The idea had never presented itself. That she entertained hopes of the sort—that she had for years been working upon Georgiana as a means to his hand—was mortifying enough.
Worse was the realisation that he had imposed her company upon Georgiana without ever considering whether Georgiana desired it. He had assumed. He had arranged. He had decided for her, as he had done in the choice of Mrs. Younge.
How had his shy, diffident sister found courage to speak so plainly—to assert her wishes, to question his?
His gaze shifted to Miss Elizabeth. She had taken up her work again, but he knew this new frankness in Georgiana did not arise by chance.
It ought to have angered him. Instead, he was reluctantly grateful.
“You are perfectly right,” he said at last, turning back to Georgiana. “I ought to have asked whether Miss Bingley’s company was agreeable to you, rather than assuming it must be so. I beg your pardon for that neglect.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. “You are not angry with me?”
“Angry? No.” Darcy took her hand. “I am thankful you are able to speak openly. You must never think yourself obliged to seek intimacy with any person merely because you imagine I desire it. Your comfort is of more consequence than any such notion.”
Some of the tension left her features, though her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
“I shall write to Bingley,” Darcy continued. “I will reiterate that I invite him to Netherfield for a gentlemen’s party. No hostess. Neither of his sisters. Bingley only, and perhaps one or two other friends, for sport and cards. Will that do?”
“Yes,” Georgiana said, the relief in her voice unmistakable. “Thank you, Fitzwilliam.”
He pressed her hand, then released it. “I must take my leave. There are letters to be written.”
He rose and bowed to Miss Bennet, who had stood quietly by the mantel throughout. Then, with considerably more hesitation, he turned to Miss Elizabeth.
“Miss Elizabeth.”
She set down her work and met his eye. “Mr. Darcy.”
He wished to own what she had done for his sister, to acknowledge that she had been right to encourage Georgiana to speak, even to offer some expression of thanks for helping Georgiana find her voice.
The words would not form—not after the scene in the garden, not whilst the memory of her deception still rankled.
He only inclined his head and withdrew.
As he descended the stairs, the irony of his situation came upon him with unpleasant clarity. He had been enraged with Miss Elizabeth for keeping things from him—for presuming to decide, without his knowledge, what would be best for Georgiana.
Yet he had done it again. He had assumed he knew best whom Georgiana ought to see, what company she ought to keep, what life would suit her, without ever asking what she herself desired.
On Masculine Blindness
“Well,” Elizabeth said as soon as the door closed behind Mr. Darcy. “That was illuminating.”
Jane looked up from the flowers she was arranging. “Lizzy.”
“I am merely observing that Mr. Darcy, who can detect the slightest impropriety in the behaviour of others, appears utterly blind to a lady who has been pursuing him with all the subtlety of a foxhound on the scent.”
Georgiana, who had been slumped against her pillows, let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob.
“He truly did not know,” Georgiana said wonderingly. “All these years, and he had no notion.”
“Gentlemen rarely do,” Elizabeth said. “They seem to believe that unless a lady directly proposes marriage to them in the middle of Bond Street, she harbours no matrimonial intentions whatsoever.”
“Elizabeth,” Jane chided gently, though her lips quirked.
“I speak only truth. Consider: Miss Bingley has likely embroidered 'Mrs. Darcy' on half her handkerchiefs by now, and your brother has but this day discovered that her interest exists.” Elizabeth shook her head in mock despair.
“It is a wonder the species contrives to continue, given how obtuse half of it is.”
Georgiana laughed outright at that, startling herself.
“There,” Elizabeth said, satisfied. “That is better. You spoke your mind to your brother, he did not condemn you, and Miss Bingley will be spared the opportunity to practise her future signature in your presence. A successful afternoon, I should think.”
“He was not angry with me,” Georgiana said, wonder still in her voice.
“Why should he be? You spoke honestly about a matter that concerned your own comfort. That is not rebellion, Georgiana. That is reasonable.”
Jane came to sit on the edge of the bed. “I confess I am curious how Miss Bingley has managed to be so obvious to everyone except the gentleman in question.”
“Oh, Jane,” Elizabeth said. “You have too much faith in masculine perception. I suspect Mr. Darcy could recite the lineage of every horse in his stable back six generations, yet ask him to observe that a lady has seen to it that she sat beside him at every dinner for the past three years, and he would look at you as though you had suggested the moon were made of cheese.”
“Lizzy, you are being unkind.”
“I am being accurate.” Elizabeth picked up her needlework again.
“Though I will allow that Mr. Darcy's blindness in this instance has worked to Georgiana's benefit.
If he had been aware of Miss Bingley's intentions, he might have thought himself obliged to consider them seriously, from some misplaced sense of honour. Now he may dismiss them without a second thought.”
“Do you think he will?” Georgiana asked anxiously.
“Dismiss them? Most assuredly. Your brother did not strike me as a man uncertain of his own mind once it is made up. If he had any intention of marrying Miss Bingley, he would have done so by now. The fact that the notion surprised him suggests it has never seriously occurred to him.” Elizabeth paused.
“Which must be tremendously vexing for Miss Bingley, now that I think on it. Years of effort, and the gentleman never even perceived that she was making any.”
“I almost feel sorry for her,” Jane said.
“You would not if you knew her,” Georgiana said firmly. “She has been perfectly horrid to me whilst pretending friendship.”
“Then you are well rid of her,” Elizabeth said. “And your brother may enjoy his gentleman's party at Netherfield without the complication of a hostess who rearranges the furniture whenever he enters a room, in order to ensure that she occupies the most advantageous seat.”
Georgiana stared at her. “She does that. How did you know?”
“I did not know. I guessed. It is, I suppose, the sort of thing a determined lady does when she has fixed her aim upon a gentleman.” Elizabeth threaded her needle.
“I imagine she also requires his assistance with her gloves, expresses admiration for every thing he admires, and develops a sudden interest in whatever book he happens to be reading?”
“All of those things,” Georgiana said, shaking her head. “All of them.”