Chapter 3
THREE
Darcy
The ladies had scarcely turned the corner when Bingley seized Darcy's arm.
"Did you know?" he demanded, his voice urgent. "Did you know they were here?"
Darcy gave him a look of profound exasperation. "How was I supposed to know, Bingley? You saw how surprised I was—as surprised as you were."
"Yes, yes, of course." Bingley ran a hand through his hair, leaving it thoroughly disheveled. "It's only—good God, Darcy, Miss Bennet is here. In Bath. Here."
"So it seems."
Bingley began to pace, heedless of the curious looks from passersby. "What am I to do? I cannot simply—that is, I have not called on her in months. How can I possibly—"
"You could begin," Darcy said dryly, "by attending the dinner to which we have just been invited."
Bingley stopped mid-stride. "Tomorrow evening. Yes. Tomorrow." He turned to Darcy with sudden intensity. "You will come with me, will you not? You must come. I cannot face this alone."
“I was invited too, Bingley,” Darcy returned, with a look that suggested the fact ought not to have been forgotten. “I have already accepted.”
"Right. Good." Bingley resumed pacing. "What will I say to her? How do I explain—"
"The truth would be a novel approach."
Bingley shot him a sharp look. "You know perfectly well why I have not called on her."
"I know what you have told me," Darcy said quietly. "That you feared her regard for you may have weaned. That after so long, you could not bear to discover that she may have formed an attachment to another gentleman."
"Exactly!" Bingley gestured emphatically.
"And what of London? When I discovered she had been in town—that she had been there for weeks and I knew nothing of it—" He broke off, his distress evident.
"My sisters never told me, Darcy. They kept it from me deliberately.
And when I finally learned of it, when you told me the truth, I wanted to go to her immediately.
But by then she had already returned to Hertfordshire. "
"You could have followed her there," Darcy said quietly.
"Could I?" Bingley turned to him, anguished.
"After months of silence? After she had been in London and I had not called—how could I simply appear at Longbourn and expect her to receive me?
I mean, she thought I had known she was in town and had chosen not to see her.
What if she believed I did not care?" He ran his hand through his hair again.
"My heart could not have borne it, Darcy.
To see indifference in her eyes, or worse—to find her engaged to another gentleman entirely. "
Darcy regarded his friend with a mixture of sympathy and frustration. "And yet I told you myself, after Miss Elizabeth opened my eyes, that Miss Bennet's affections were engaged. I was wrong to suggest otherwise in Hertfordshire. She does care for you, Bingley."
"You said that, yes," Bingley said miserably. "And I believe it—I do. But believing it and having the courage to act upon it are entirely different matters."
“Indeed they are,” Darcy said quietly, recalling the letter he had reclaimed from the bench at Hunsford — an explanation Elizabeth had declined to accept, much less peruse.
Bingley turned to him abruptly. "When you told me to come to Bath with you—when you suggested we leave London for a time—did you think we might run into them?"
Darcy turned toward his friend with sudden severity, a flash of feeling breaking through his usual composure.
“No,” he said, the word delivered with quiet firmness. “I came to Bath to seek escape, Bingley— not to pursue.”
"Escape what?"
"Memories. Regrets." Darcy's jaw tightened. "The knowledge that I had made a grievous error in judgment and could not undo it."
Bingley's expression softened with understanding. "Miss Elizabeth."
Darcy did not answer, but his silence was confirmation enough.
"Well. You brought us both here, and here we are.” Bingley broke the awkwardness. “Seems providence is giving me another chance."
"Good." Darcy's tone was firm. "Then prove it by being yourself tomorrow evening. The man Miss Bennet knew in Hertfordshire. Not the anxious fool you have been in London."
Bingley managed a shaky laugh. "I shall endeavour to comply. Though I make no promises."
They turned and began walking back toward their house, the smoke from the fire drifting away on the summer breeze.
***
Elizabeth
Though there was initial panic when Mr. Gardiner and Jane saw the two ladies who had gone out earlier return so soon with the younger covered in dirt and smoke, it quickly dissipated when Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner explained what they had just been through.
They had scarcely finished recounting the rescue when Mr. Gardiner declared it providence that the gentlemen had been there at all, and Jane had gone pale at the thought of Elizabeth standing beneath falling timber.
"You might have been killed," Jane said, her voice trembling as she gripped Elizabeth's hands.
"But I was not," Elizabeth assured her, though her own hands were still unsteady. "Mr. Darcy pushed me clear in time."
Jane's eyes widened. "Mr. Darcy."
"Yes." Elizabeth felt heat rise to her cheeks. "He and Mr. Bingley were the ones who rescued the child and maid from the upper floor. They were very brave."
At the mention of Mr. Bingley's name, Jane's calm countenance altered in an instant, colour rising and receding without warning. She sat very quietly, as though any movement might betray too much.
Mrs. Gardiner glanced at her husband and then at Jane with careful attention. "I hope you do not object, but I invited both gentlemen to dinner tomorrow evening. Mr. Darcy saved Lizzy's life. The debt of gratitude could not be dismissed with a mere thank you in the street."
Jane said nothing. She sat very still, her hands folded in her lap, her face carefully composed.
"Jane?" Elizabeth ventured softly.
"Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley," Jane said quietly. "Both of them?"
"Yes, dear," Mrs. Gardiner confirmed. "I could not ask Mr. Darcy alone when Mr. Bingley was standing right beside him."
Jane's composure wavered. "I see."
Mr. Gardiner, who had been listening with his usual quiet attentiveness, spoke up. "Well, I shall be glad to meet these gentlemen properly. Any man brave enough to run into a burning building deserves a good dinner and civil conversation, at the very least."
Mrs. Gardiner nodded her agreement, then added more gently, "Jane, I know this is unexpected. If you would prefer not to attend—"
"No." Jane lifted her chin with a determination that surprised Elizabeth. "No, I will attend. It would be churlish to do otherwise when they performed such a service for our family."
Elizabeth studied her sister's face and saw the effort it cost her to maintain that calm facade.
"If you are certain—" Elizabeth began.
"I am certain," Jane said, though her voice was not quite steady. "It has been months, Lizzy. I cannot hide from Mr. Bingley forever. And if his attentions are over, as I must assume they are, then it is better to know it and be done with wondering."
The resignation in her sister's tone cut Elizabeth deeply. She reached for Jane's hand and squeezed it.
Mrs. Gardiner looked between them with evident concern. "Well. That is settled, then. Six o'clock tomorrow evening. I shall speak with Cook about the menu." She paused at the door. "You should both rest. It has been a trying morning."
When their aunt had left, and their uncle too, as if to give them some privacy, Elizabeth turned to Jane. "You do not have to do this, you know. I could plead a headache. We could both excuse ourselves—"
"And prove ourselves cowards?" Jane managed a faint smile. "No, Lizzy. We will face this with dignity. Both of us."
Elizabeth frowned. "What do you mean, both of us?"
Jane looked at her with those too-perceptive eyes. "I do not know what happened in Kent between you and Mr. Darcy—"
Elizabeth's breath caught. "How did you—I never said—"
"You did not need to say anything, and I am not asking you to tell me." She paused to draw breath. "I know you, Lizzy. You came back from Hunsford changed. Troubled. And you have not been yourself since, though you pretend otherwise. With my own troubles, I chose not to ask."
Elizabeth suddenly grew interested in her shoes.
Jane continued, her voice gentle. "I was not entirely certain until today, when Aunt mentioned Mr. Darcy's name, and you looked as though you had been struck, even though you had already seen him this morning and spoken to him."
Elizabeth found she could not meet her sister's eyes. "It is—"
Jane raised a hand. "You do not have to tell me, Lizzy. Let it be your secret. The important thing is that he saved your life today without hesitation."
Elizabeth had no answer to that.
"What will you do?" Jane asked softly after a while.
"I do not know." Elizabeth pressed her hands to her face. "I thought I would never see him again. I was content with that. And now he is here, and we are to dine with him tomorrow, and I do not know what I feel or what I should feel."
"Perhaps," Jane suggested, "you need not know yet. Perhaps it is enough simply to endure tomorrow evening with civility and see what comes after."
Elizabeth lowered her hands and looked at her sister. "When did you become so wise?"
"When I had my own heart broken and survived it." Jane's smile was sad but genuine. "We are both survivors, Lizzy. We shall survive this as well."
They sat together in silence, two sisters bound by disappointment and uncertainty, neither knowing what the next evening would bring but determined to face it together.
After some minutes, Jane begged leave to retire, pleading the need for rest. Elizabeth remained alone in the parlour. She stared out the window at the Bath streets below, watching carriages pass and strangers hurry about their business.
Her mind wandered to Mr. Darcy's face when he had pushed her aside without hesitation, risking his own safety for hers.
Why? If he thought so little of her connections, if she was so beneath him, why would he do such a thing? Why would he risk his life to save hers? And more troubling still—why had her heart leapt when she recognised him? Why had relief flooded through her when she saw he was unharmed?
She had told herself she despised him. She had convinced herself that his proposal was an insult she could never forgive. But standing there in the street, covered in dust and ash, looking up into his soot-streaked face, she had felt something she could not name.
She did not like him still; she assured herself of that. However, she appreciated what he had done for the little child and the maid. If he had not rushed through that window, Bath would be a town in mourning that evening.
Yet there were still things about Mr. Darcy that she could not reconcile—his treatment of Mr. Wickham, and most importantly, his interference in preventing the courtship between Mr. Bingley and Jane.
Her mind drifted to the letter she had refused.
She had checked the stone bench later that same evening and found it gone.
Perhaps taken by a maid, or retrieved by Mr. Darcy himself.
She could not tell which. Whatever the content of the letter, she now wished she had read it.
But her better judgment at the time had compelled her to refuse it.
Propriety had compelled her. Or perhaps it was simply her prejudice.
Elizabeth pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window.
Tomorrow evening would come whether she was ready for it or not.
She would sit across the table from Mr. Darcy.
She would make polite conversation. She would behave with perfect civility.
With luck, the evening might pass in tolerable composure.
Yet it was equally possible she would leave it disliking him more than before.
Either way, there was no escaping it now.