Chapter 11
ELEVEN
THE DEMANDS OF GENTLEMANLY HONOUR
Fitzwilliam returned to town, elated with the acquisition of Lady Catherine’s decrepit barouche and his own plans to restore it.
“Can you not simply purchase a carriage?” His elder brother, Viscount Saye, stood in the stable with his lip curled with disgust. “Rather unseemly to be knocking about doing whatever it is that one does to make a carriage.”
“Yes, I could purchase a carriage,” Fitzwilliam said, running one hand over the side of the conveyance. “But that would not be nearly as much fun.”
Darcy leant against the wall nearby, watching the brothers bicker. He might not understand why it was that his cousin wished to fix old carriages, but Fitzwilliam said it brought him peace, so why argue about it?
“Shall you breed the horses for it too?” Saye asked.
“I just might,” Fitzwilliam replied blithely.
Saye rolled his eyes. “I still think it unseemly. And low. And not at all noble.”
“Ah, who cares, really?” Darcy said suddenly. “Fitzwilliam is a good and decent man, and if this is how he chooses to spend his time, so be it. Why plague him?”
Both brothers stopped and stared at him. “Thank you, Darcy,” said Fitzwilliam finally. “I think you are good and decent too.”
Darcy nodded and then, while their attention was fixed, said, “Have either of you ever heard that to bed a virgin meant it was impossible to get her with child?”
Fitzwilliam snickered and turned back to his carriage, finding something that needed inspecting in the wheel. “Are you looking for virgins? In this town, that might be difficult to find.”
“You may be thinking of syphilis,” Saye offered with a smirk. “They say to bed a virgin cures syphilis.”
“Would that it was syphilis, the solution would be far easier,” Darcy muttered to himself.
“Would it?” Saye peered at him closely. “What have you done?”
“Me?” Darcy frowned at him. “Nothing at all.”
“Good, because a Darcy with a by-blow—”
“Or with syphilis,” Fitzwilliam added.
“—would be scandalous. My father would have your head,” Saye added.
“Do not worry, it is nothing to do with me. A…friend, I suppose you would say, although these days, I feel I hardly know him.”
“Must be Bingley,” Saye concluded, looking disinterested.
“I did not say that.”
“You do not need to,” Fitzwilliam said. “He is the only person among your friends who would think something so stupid.”
Darcy was silent, wondering if he had just opened Pandora’s box. Having the story get out in society was to be avoided at all cost and yet he did require help if he was to do as he thought he must.
“What I am about to say cannot be spoken of, teased about, or hinted at in any manner. None. Do you hear me, Saye? I need the word of you both. You must take this secret to your graves.”
Both brothers looked at him interestedly.
“In fact it is Bingley. He has dallied with a gentleman’s daughter who understood his words and deeds to mean there was understanding between them. At present, she is…she has had the natural consequence of that dalliance.”
To Saye’s credit, he said, simply, “Well, there is nothing for it, then. A gentleman’s daughter? He must marry her else be discredited in society.”
“That is true,” said Fitzwilliam. “He would not be recognised.”
“Alas, to discredit Bingley would bring ruination to her entire family as well,” Darcy said.
“Not necessarily,” said Fitzwilliam. “One need not give names.”
“It is considerably less believable,” Saye replied. “No two ways for it. He must marry her.”
“He does not see it so,” Darcy replied. “He thinks she might have had other men, or that she might be mistaken in the whole business.”
“Is he correct in that?” Fitzwilliam enquired.
“He is not,” said Darcy sharply. “The young lady is of unimpeachable character. As for a mistake? I do not doubt she would wish it so. She would never have made her situation known were she anything less than absolutely certain.”
“What is all of this to you?” Saye asked. “Seems like you ought to just let the lady’s family manage it all.”
“As it happens,” said Darcy reluctantly, “I learnt of the matter when I called upon the lady’s sister. In Hunsford.”
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” Fitzwilliam, who had moved a loving eye back to his carriage, was immediately back to Darcy. “Oh.”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘oh’?”
“Only that I saw her, that last day before you left, walking in the park. She did seem to be in some distress… I thought she had said her sister was ill and did not pay her much mind. But is that not the sister…” Fitzwilliam allowed the sentence to trail off.
“Is what not what sister?” Darcy asked.
Fitzwilliam suddenly found something of great interest on the side of the carriage. “Only you had mentioned separating a friend from a woman…I presumed the friend to be Bingley. Dare I imagine the woman was—”
“Miss Jane Bennet, yes, the elder sister of Elizabeth,” Darcy replied. “And yes, I separated them. At the time I believed I understood the situation, but in retrospect, I had not the faintest notion. Had I any idea of the words spoken between them—”
“I do not think it was what was spoken that truly caused the problem,” said Saye with a chuckle. “And Bingley got her with child?”
Darcy nodded. “He never dropped a word of it all, the promises made, the actions taken, never even hinted that things had gone further than a dance. But never mind that now. Now I must persuade him to do as he ought to and live up to his responsibilities. Alas, he is patently against doing what is right by her, even though it is honourable to do it.”
“If a man’s honour is not sufficient to induce him,” Saye replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “then you must resort either to threats or bribery. Have you called him out?”
“He never even called Wickham out,” Fitzwilliam inserted.
“Wickham is not a gentleman, and duels are for gentlemen,” Darcy said. “And no, I would not wish to call Bingley out. He must live and go on to become a husband and father.”
“Then you must bribe him,” Saye concluded. “What would do it?”
Darcy shook his head. “I really cannot say. He wants for nothing.”
“Come now! Everyone wants something!”
“You could offer to marry Miss Bingley,” Fitzwilliam said with a laugh. “That would make him do anything.”
Darcy rolled his eyes, but the mention of Miss Bingley did raise one thought. “I could withdraw my friendship,” he mused. “Without me—”
“Bingley is just another tradesman’s son trying to play the aristocrat. Without your support, no one would invite him anywhere,” Saye concluded. “Yes, it might do, but I still think a good duel would be diverting.”
“Bingley would never actually face you,” Fitzwilliam said with great certainty. “He would make a pudding in his pantaloons before he did that.”
“Do you think so? I am not of a mind to shoot him.”
“Threaten ruination first, if you will,” said Fitzwilliam, “but should you decide to fight him, you may depend upon me as your second.”
Some hours later, the prospect of a duel was not so incredible.
Darcy, along with Saye, had gone to their club, finding Bingley entering at the very same time. He greeted them genially but warily; Darcy hoped, rather than believed, it was due to a belated twinge of his guilty conscience.
“Join us,” said Darcy, hoping Bingley would understand that it was a summons, not a suggestion.
Bingley glanced about as if hoping for someone, anyone, to rescue him. “I should be glad to,” he said reluctantly.
“Yes, you should,” Saye replied airily. “It is a fortunate man invited to dine at my table, and you would do best to remember it.”
Bingley looked appropriately chastened by that and followed the two men to a table towards the back of the room, where they might speak privately. When all were sat and drinks had been brought to them, Darcy levelled a serious gaze upon the younger man. “I daresay you know what I want to say.”
“I do,” said Bingley. “And let me say that—”
“Bingley, you tire me,” Saye interrupted with a loud slurp of his drink. “Hear your betters speak and heed them.”
“Very well.” Bingley sat back with the air of a child taken to the headmaster. “Speak, then.”
“You and I have been friends for some years now. Six or perhaps even seven.”
Bingley shrugged one shoulder.
“I forwarded your interest in this very club, did I not? And introduced you in circles you would not have gained on your own.”
“You did. And I do not think I have ever been ungrateful to you for any of it, but to say I must do as you say because of it is preposterous. After all, had I not heeded your counsel last December, I would be married to Jane Bennet even now.”
Darcy ignored that attempt at a barb. “You do not owe me anything and may accept my counsel or not as you wish, as it was last December. But neither do I owe you anything, including my friendship. And I do not keep company with known rakes, or their families.”
“What are you saying? You would no longer be my friend?” Bingley uttered an incredulous laugh. “If your idea of friendship is so thin—”
“Not only would I no longer call you a friend,” said Darcy steadily, “but I would make it known that I refused to accept you into my society. Let the ton draw what conclusions from that as they would.”
“Same,” Saye replied with another slurp. “The Fitzwilliams stand behind Darcy and by extension Miss Bennet.”
Bingley grabbed at his tankard and took a long draught. He set it down too hard, the liquid inside splashing up to spray the table. “Darcy, permit me to provide you with a different view of things. When first we went into Hertfordshire, last October, we attended an assembly. You must remember it?”
Darcy nodded and acknowledged that yes, he did remember it.
“I thought you ought to dance with Miss Elizabeth at that assembly. In fact, I urged you to. No one likes a bachelor who refuses to dance, particularly when partners are scarce, and ladies are obliged to sit out.”
Darcy sighed. “Yes, Bingley, I remember that Miss Elizabeth was sitting out one of the dances.”
“And do you remember what you said when I urged you to dance with her?”
In fact, Darcy did know, courtesy of his prior conversation with Elizabeth, but he said nothing, only waited for Bingley to come to the point.
“You insulted her. Made a rude remark about how she was not handsome enough to tempt you and that you did not wish to dance with a woman whom other men had clearly found lacking. This, of course, after having refused an introduction to her family, right amid all their friends and relations.”
“It was certainly ill-judged of me to allow my black humour to accompany me to the assembly that evening.”
“It was indeed! And did I threaten to cast you out? Did I suggest I would like to ruin you socially? Nay—I did not even ask you to apologise!” Bingley took a sip of his drink, and Darcy noted that his hand shook. Anger? Possibly.
He continued, “I trusted you to know your own mind and to behave as you saw fit.”
“Making a remark about a woman’s beauty, however ill-advised, is hardly equal to what you have done,” Darcy retorted.
“That is your opinion,” Bingley replied. “You have always been full of dire warnings about what a woman will do to entrap a wealthy man.”
“And you did not heed those warnings and now you are trapped,” Darcy said.
“So say you.” Bingley tossed back the rest of his drink. “I do not agree with you. It is not my child, Darcy. I am as certain of that as the fact that I sit here.”
“Your recalcitrance is forcing me into action I would much rather avoid,” Darcy warned.
“And your persistence is making me recalcitrant,” Bingley shot back. “What is all of this anyhow? Are you in love with Miss Elizabeth or something?”
“What makes you think so?”
“You two were like…like those people in the book. Beatrice and Benjamin.”
“Benedict,” Saye inserted scornfully. “And the book is Shakespeare.”
“So it is. But I thought you rather interested in her then, and when you said you had seen her in Kent and now take such an avid interest in the Bennets? You would never do any such thing were your own wishes and hopes not entangled in among it.”
“Call me selfish if you wish to, but it does not exonerate you.” Darcy resisted the urge to speak harshly, forcing himself to sound calm.
“I am not calling you selfish. I only mean to say that whatever hold Miss Elizabeth exerts on you has rendered you confused about a man protecting his own interests.”
“And a child of your own blood—that is not in your interests?”
“I know it angers you when I observe the truths of the matter to you, but again I shall say this: woman who has surrendered herself once will certainly do it again. And again. As will a man! It is…nature, Darcy, that is all. I have not seen Jane Bennet since last November. Any number of things might have happened since then to get her with child, and I do not feel I ought to be left to pay the piper simply because I was the first one to dance.”
Bingley gave a brief jerk of a nod. “I must bid you good afternoon, sir, and pray, if you have nothing to say to me but more about this subject, then say nothing. My mind is made up.”
Darcy watched him leave, feeling as if he had never known him at all.
“Good lord, if I was not loath to get his blood on my coat, I should run him through myself,” Saye remarked.