Chapter Sixteen
I emerged from my wife’s bedroom the following morning, feeling rather chagrined at the looks of the servants who watched me go through the hallways to my own bedchamber. Luckily, Lady Susannah had not positioned us very far apart.
I ducked into my room and my valet dressed me, and I went down for breakfast.
It became clear that whatever had passed between us the night before, things between my wife and I were still in need of some repair, mostly because Mrs. Darcy did not speak to me. She spoke only to Lady Susannah and ignored me entirely.
Lady Susannah noticed, and she seemed rather embarrassed by it, unsure of what to do.
I did not know what to do about it either, so I cornered Mrs. Darcy after breakfast to ask her what the meaning of all of that was.
“It is only that the more that I think about some of the things you said to me last night, the more angry I become,” she said.
“How dare you cast the blame on what happened with Mr. Wickham on me? Before, you said it was his fault. But now I see that you think that I brought all that down on myself.”
I sputtered. “That is not exactly what I said.”
“And furthermore, the fact that you do not approve of my brother, that you think he is a sinner—”
“We are all sinners, Mrs. Darcy,” I cut in.
“Well, I am only saying,” she said. “I do not wish to speak to you, I do not think.”
It made things awkward.
We were invited to luncheon at Netherfield, and her brother was there, and so was Miss Caroline Bingley, who I had not seen in some time.
She did not seem the least bit put out over the fact that my wife wasn’t speaking to me, or perhaps she did not notice, for she chattered away the entire luncheon talking entirely to Mr. Bennet, commenting on everything that he did or said as if it were positively amazing.
She dominated the conversation, and Mr. Bennet turned red on numerous occasions, and Mr. Bingley seemed to find the entire thing amusing.
I, however, found it horrifying, for I knew what their scheme was.
I resolved that I should find an occasion to speak privately to Bingley about it whenever I got the chance, but for the rest of the afternoon, I had to soldier on with a wife who was not speaking to me, her brother who kept glaring at me at every chance he could get, and Miss Bingley, who would not stop commenting on how smart it was of Mr. Bennet to have put on his cuff links as he had.
“Miss Bingley,” said Mr. Bennet, still glaring at me, “truly, it is not me who does that, but the manservant at Longbourn.”
“Yes, but he must do so at your instruction, does he not?” said Miss Bingley.
“I suppose,” said Mr. Bennet.
“Well, there we are,” said Miss Bingley. “I think that we must all take credit for the things that we instruct servants to do, for where else would they get such ideas, after all?”
“I do not think I got the idea of cuff links,” said Mr. Bennet.
“For heaven’s sake, James, take the compliment,” said Mr. Bingley, chuckling.
“Thank you, Miss Bingley,” said Mr. Bennet woodenly.
“Just think,” said Mr. Bingley, “how much fun it would be if it were the three of us and all of our sisters, hmm? You’d bring Miss Darcy, I suppose.”
“Oh, what if we were all married?” said Miss Bingley. “How would that work, let’s see. I obviously can’t marry Charles, though Miss Darcy could marry Mr. Bennet, but I think it would be best if—”
“Absolutely not,” I said tersely.
Mrs. Darcy caught my gaze and she lifted her chin. She surveyed me with what I can only term confusion.
Mr. Bennet cleared his throat, sticking a finger into his cravat. “We have talked of traveling together, I suppose, but I daresay Mr. Darcy might not find such things to his taste. I suppose he doesn’t approve of anyone having any fun.”
Mrs. Darcy turned to look at her brother, giving her head the barest of shakes.
Miss Bingley looked about the table and seemed to just then realize there was some sort of conflict going on. Her eyes widened. “Well, perhaps we should have a game of cards,” she said brightly. “Cards are really just the thing, do you not agree?”
I had a bad hand, and Bingley did, too, and I took the opportunity to take him aside in the sitting room at Netherfield. “You cannot do that to your sister,” I said to him in a very low voice.
“Do what?” he said, and he was not speaking in a low voice.
“Marry her off to some man who can never have any sort of feelings for her in that way,” I said. “I will not say that your sister cannot be a bit insipid at times, but I do not feel she means it, and it is not fair to her. She deserves the chance to find someone who will adore her.”
Bingley turned on me. “Do you know what I think it is, Darcy? I think you simply don’t approve of the behavior.”
“Well, of course I don’t,” I said. “Of course I find it all troubling and disturbing and I should rather not think of it, but that is besides the point.”
“It is rather the entire point,” he said. “You are prejudiced against James and me, and you will not allow us to be happy.”
“I don’t see why either of you have to get married at all,” I said.
“Should we not have heirs, then?”
“Well, no, perhaps you should not,” I said. I sighed. “Look, at the very least, the woman in question should know what she is getting into. Watching her fawn over your lover like that? Your own sister? What sort of blackguard are you?”
“So, I’m a blackguard now?”
“You’ve always been… careless,” I said. “Even before I knew anything about your preferences between the sheets, I have seen that. Everything is done in a hurry and you change your mind on a whim and you do not seem to give any thought to the lingering consequences.”
“And you, apparently, are so very, very priggish that you don’t want the servants knowing you’re tupping your own wife, from what I hear. Not wishing to be seen coming out of her bedchamber? Is that it?”
I felt my face heat up. Curse my wife for telling her brother everything. Curse her brother for sharing everything with Bingley. “That is none of your affair.”
“Well, you are commenting on things that are none of your affair. If my sister wishes to marry James, then she shall.”
“It is not that I do not think the servants—” I sighed.
Maybe it was. Maybe it was embarrassing to have to keep in my mind that I was their master and that I had to give them their orders and that they must respect me and then for them to have to know what activities I was engaging in with my wife.
I did not like to think about that in the presence of the servants and I assumed they did not wish to think of my doing that either.
It only seemed proper to minimize advertising the fact to everyone.
Especially now, here, at Lady Susannah’s, it was all the worse.
“Oh, I am sorry,” he said. “You have always been this way, and I suppose I have often found it funny, the way you are so fastidious, so particular, so insistent on things being done a certain way—”
“Look, it’s about doing the right thing,” I said.
“It is not the right thing to deceive your sister. If she chooses to marry a man who will never desire her, that’s her own affair.
But it should not be some horrible surprise.
What are you going to do, anyway? Are you going to surrender Mr. Bennet to your sister for her wedding night? ”
He turned red. “You go too far,” he said.
It was an odd thing that I could go too far and yet be considered so very buttoned-up and repressed by this man, was it not?
That night, there was a knock at my bedchamber door as I was drifting off. I got up, throwing a banyan on over my nightclothes and found my wife waiting for me at the door.
“You didn’t come to me,” she said, and she sounded devastated.
I let her in. “You’re not speaking to me.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean I don’t wish you to come to me,” she protested.
I was not sure if I wanted more of whatever had passed between us the night before.
There had been a passion to it that I had found pleasing, but there was something about it that also made me feel uneasy.
If she was angry with me, and that anger was fueling our coupling, it was not the best way to couple or to argue.
It made us feel close, because we were physically close, our bodies joined, but nothing between us was resolved.
She launched herself at me, her lips on mine.
I tried to protest, but I did not do very well at it, I suppose. She was all softness in my grasp, her mouth a wet and sweet revelation against my own, and she unmade me, this woman. I did not know how to resist her.
So I did not.
We panted against each other, and I said, “You are angry with me,” and she groaned, “So angry, so very, very angry.” And the anger—was it anger?—made it all seem sort of heightened and forceful and there was an edge to it and we both seemed to explode like lit fuses and I…
Eventually, we lay all tangled and sweaty on my bed, and I panted at the ceiling and wondered if I would survive being married to her, and thought that if I did not, it might be a quite wondrous way to die, so perhaps I did not mind.
“Answer me something,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“I know you would not think that Mr. Bingley is a worthy husband for your sister in any case. She has a fortune, and she could aim much higher, and she should, I am sure,” she said.
“Well, I do not know about any of that,” I said. “That is not the primary reason I would object, I must say.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding dejected. “It is about that, then. It is entirely as James says, you are quite prejudiced against the both of them because of something they can’t help.”
“Can’t help?” I said. “They most certainly can.”
“Well, can you help it?” she said. “Can you help who you are attracted to?”
“Mrs. Darcy, men are always using this as an excuse, that they are so very drawn to someone or other that they cannot hold themselves back and must go at them as if we were all animals, but we are not animals and society would not function if men could not, in fact, stop themselves from ravaging everything in sight. So, I may not be able to stop myself from finding you utterly enchanting, but I certainly did not touch you until we were wed.”
She was very quiet.
I was still sweaty. I was worked up, now, and I did not think our strenuous lovemaking had done much to calm me. I wanted to sink into the bed and cease to exist, to simply become part of the mattress. “Apologies,” I muttered. “I should not have been so forceful.”
“You are correct, of course,” she said. “They do not have to act upon it. And I suppose it might make sense. This is the way of things, the way God works, after all. He tormented Job. He left the Israelites to wander in the wilderness for a generation. He withheld his son’s salvation until only eighteen hundred years ago, and he turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for looking over her shoulder.
God places temptation in people’s path and punishes them when they cannot resist it. ”
“That is not God’s character,” I muttered.
“Is it not?”
I sighed. “No, God is forgiving and loving, and he—”
“You do not live as if you think so. You live as if you must make certain never to do anything wrong at all.”
I sighed again.
She sighed, too. She burrowed into my chest, her hand against my flesh.
“Perhaps you should kiss me again. I wonder if we should simply cease to speak to each other, Mr. Darcy. You are ever so very swoonworthy, and to be wanted by you, to be the one thing that has ever made Mr. Darcy give in to temptation, and the way you give in to me, husband, I…”
I turned us over, pressed myself into her and kissed her, and she tangled her hands in my hair, and we did not speak again for some time.