Chapter 21 The Life Buoy #2
“Oh, there is no one like my Jane with a needle!” Mrs Bennet interjected. “I declare she could take any gown at all and make it over like new. She did one lately, and when it was finished, it looked as if it had come straight from the modiste!”
Miss Bennet’s composure failed slightly, and she said, “That was this gown, Mama.”
“I have always encouraged my girls to be able to do what they can. Natural beauty can only take a lady so far; it is up to her to use her talents to extend her opportunities.”
Miss Bingley, who had likely never made a gown over in her life, looked appalled. Darcy felt a stab of embarrassment for Miss Bennet who had gone scarlet and was now staring down at her untouched cake.
“The ability to be sparing is admirable indeed,” said Darcy. “Frivolous spending is decriable, no matter how large the income.”
“We see it just the same, Mr Darcy,” said Mrs Bennet with a pat on his leg that was shocking, to say the least. “I have taught all of my girls to be clever with the household monies, and Jane is the most clever among them. She will manage the grandest estate with ease.”
“Excellent,” said Bingley.
And then, because evidently the matron felt her meaning had been too much hidden, she added, “She shall make some fortunate gentleman an excellent wife.”
The silence that followed was profound. Surprisingly, it was Miss Bingley who said, almost kindly, “I am sure she shall. Will you have more tea, Mrs Bennet?”
“I will,” said Miss Lydia Bennet. “And another slice of that cake!”
Miss Bennet quietly handed her the piece which had been untouched on her lap. Miss Lydia said something that sounded like a complaint against the size of the piece but was quieted by Miss Bennet’s look in her direction.
“When do you mean to be at Netherfield again, Mr Bingley?” Mrs Bennet asked. “I have always thought it a very lovely estate. Do you mean to purchase it?”
Bingley opened his mouth and then closed it again.
“The Season has us fixed in town just now,” said Miss Bingley. “We have no immediate plan to return to Hertfordshire.”
“A man could not do better than to purchase such a lovely place as Netherfield,” said Mrs Bennet warmly. “I am sure there is not a better arrangement any place in England! And you know the neighbourhood now—I am sure you would not find pleasanter people anywhere.”
“I cannot disagree with you,” said Bingley. “Darcy, I believe you thought it a fine situation, did you not?”
Startled, Darcy said, “I did?”
“Yes, you did,” said Bingley.
“Of course he did,” said Mrs Bennet. “It is a fine situation, but you would not wish to live there alone by any means. It is a family sort of place, do you not think so?”
Miss Bingley sent her sister another incredulous look. With a little smirk on her lips, Mrs Hurst said, “Fortunately, my brother has a family who is always able to join him there.”
Miss Catherine had begun swinging her foot, a small motion that caused her skirts to sway rhythmically. Miss Bennet noticed and placed a hand on her sister’s arm—gently, but firmly enough to still the movement.
“Oh, I do miss my old neighbourhood exceedingly,” Mrs Bennet said with a sigh. “Had I the opportunity, I assure you I would snatch it right up.”
At once, the scheme became clear to Darcy. See her daughter married to a wealthy man, go back among her old friends, and laud her new position over them. He closed his eyes a moment.
The conversation limped along from there for an hour complete.
Darcy found his attention drawn again and again to Miss Bennet.
She sat with remarkable stillness throughout, her posture impeccable, her expression carefully neutral.
When her mother or sisters said something particularly unfortunate, there was sometimes the slightest stiffening of her back, but otherwise she was sedate.
Several times, she murmured to her mother something that was ignored—pleas to depart, perhaps?
The time of a polite call had long since elapsed, but Mrs Bennet showed no sign of leaving.
Bingley’s sisters grew increasingly pointed in their disdain, but Bingley’s courtesy to the Bennet ladies was unfailing, his affection for Miss Bennet evident in the way his gaze kept returning to her.
Miss Bennet, he noticed, gave no indication of preference to him over her sisters; if anything, her sisters were more effusive. He wondered if it was embarrassment that made her seem disinterested, or if she had no true inclination for his friend.
Finally—mercifully—Mrs Bennet began to exclaim about the time. “We have taken too much of your time. You have been all graciousness, Mr and Mrs Hurst.”
Hurst did not wake to take his share of the compliment, but Mrs Hurst murmured the appropriate thanks.
Miss Bingley rose with evident relief. “Charles, I am sure you will wish to see our guests out.”
“Yes, of course I shall.” With a smile, Bingley excused himself and quit the drawing room.
As the door closed behind him and the Bennets, Miss Bingley gave Darcy a look that indicated she should have a great deal to say as soon as it was safe to say it, but Darcy pretended not to notice and stood and walked to the window.
A carriage, quite fine, and not Bingley’s, had drawn up, and the Bennet ladies were entering it.
He wondered, idly, to whom it might belong.
Surely hired coaches were not so elegant?
As soon as Bingley returned to the room, Darcy turned back. “Bingley, I must take my leave as well.” He thanked Bingley’s sisters, who urged him to stay and protested his hasty departure, but he was firm in his plan.
When they reached the stair that would take Darcy to the front entry hall, he turned to his friend. “Bingley.”
His tone must have warned Bingley what he was going to say. “Do not say it, Darcy. I know what you are thinking.”
“Your happiness is my only concern,” he said gently.
“She is everything I might have wished for in a wife,” Bingley said insistently.
“She is a beauty, to be sure.”
“And gentle, and sweet, and kind—”
“And you would have not only her but her mother, and perhaps her sisters, to contend with, for some time.” Darcy paused and then enquired, delicately, “Have you considered that they might wish to be returned to their neighbourhood?”
“Well, of course they do. Who would not?”
“Marriage to you would be the only feasible means for that to happen,” Darcy observed, still speaking gently. “Longbourn is lost to them, but Netherfield is not.”
Bingley lowered his head and scuffed at the rug with his boot.
“Only be very certain,” Darcy counselled. “The ladies are in desperate circumstances. I would not have you be little more than a life buoy for them. You are worth more than that.”
Bingley raised his eyes, his expression showing his consternation. “A life buoy!”
“Do you feel she is attached to you? She has discouraged you to call on her and nowise seemed happy to be here in the Hursts’ home today.”
Bingley opened his mouth and then closed it again. A dull red flush had crept up onto his cheeks, and his countenance appeared somewhat ashamed.
“I fear that I do not. If there was love there, I would say do as you like; but it would pain me considerably to see you attached to such a family to absolutely no advantage to yourself. I am sorry, very sorry, that Mr Bennet failed in his obligation to his family. I simply do not see that it is to you to suffer the consequences of it.”
Bingley looked at the rug again and swallowed hard enough to be noticeable through his cravat. “Is it wrong that a part of me…does not wholly care?”
“You do not care if—”
“I want her,” said Bingley very frankly, almost defiantly. “And if in so doing I must be a life buoy then…then so it is.”
“You may think so now, but later, when the delight of having her is gone…will you still feel thus? I could not, myself, abide feeling so used. If she grew resentful of you, if her gratitude wore thin… Marriage is no easy business, and I cannot imagine it would be easier if there was not love there.”
Bingley glanced over his shoulder at the drawing room, and Darcy understood immediately that he thought of his sister.
His sister’s fortune had saved Hurst who had been drowning in debt.
The house was his, but the means of living in it was from her.
Hurst had subsequently become an unhappy, mean drunk; Mrs Hurst quietly endured him and spent her days gossiping with her sister.
Their most amicable moments came when Hurst was passed out.
“I comprehend your meaning,” said Bingley finally.
Darcy gave him a reassuring pat on the back and then departed.
At least, he thought, he would have the comfort of knowing that if Miss L was Miss Elizabeth Bennet, their attachment would have been formed in the absence of knowledge of his income and estate.
Her admiration of him was pure and unsullied by those considerations.
Of course, I would still have such relations, he thought. But it seemed Miss Elizabeth disliked being among them as much as he did. He had never seen her with them, not even back in Hertfordshire that night. Prevailing upon her to disassociate from them would surely not be difficult.