Chapter 15
Fifteen
Morning
Jane says the most absurd things sometimes.
Like just a moment ago when He Who Must Not Be Named entered the room and ever-so-casually took a muffin from the sideboard and then ever-so-slowly buttered it even though I know he had already taken breakfast because I had my maid go speak to his valet and make sure he had eaten so I would not have to break my fast with him because the very sight of him makes me want to scream, but of course—oh, of course—he had to come strolling in as if he owned the room (which of course he does, but no matter) and start lavishly buttering things with indecent slowness as if everything were perfectly normal and he had not a care in the world and did not notice at all that I was silently seething, which of course he did notice because he looked right at me all impassively as though I am the unreasonable one—me!
Anyway . . . what was I saying? Oh, yes, Jane—
Jane said, "Good morning, Mr. Darcy."
Patently absurd.
That person—whose name I had specifically asked her not to speak in my presence because the very mention of it causes me homicidal rage—is incapable of having a good morning even if anyone should sincerely wish him one (and why Jane who has the most to accuse him of should do so I do not know) and though she certainly sounded sincere she could not possibly have been because I had just finished sharing with her the extent of his perfidy and even she—all goodness and sweetness that she is—could not be anything but incensed by it.
Yet she did say it. And he replied, "Good morning, Miss Bennet . . . Elizabeth."
Outrageous.
And then he said, "I am going to be in the library this morning if you need me."
As if I would possibly need him. Fortunately after making this declaration he quit the room, taking his overly buttered muffin with him.
"You spoke to him!" I said accusingly to Jane.
"Of course I spoke to him. As should you."
I scoffed.
"At some point you are going to have to talk to him."
As I mentioned earlier, sometimes my dear older sister really does say the most absurd things.
"I have not spoken to him for three days and our marriage has never been better."
Jane shook her head. "I cannot believe you are shunning him over such minor injuries."
"Minor injuries! He implied our family is inferior—"
"Lizzy, our family is socially inferior to—" she began, but I could not let her continue.
"He did not mean social standing, not only social standing at least."
"Can you know what he meant? Did you ask him?"
"I did not need to ask him, the implications were there in his scornful tone."
"I will agree it would have been better—kinder of him not to have said it, but you cannot deny the truth Lizzy."
It as if she has not known me all my life.
"I can deny whatever I like."
"You should allow him the chance to apologize."
"There can be no apology. If it was a matter of mere insults perhaps—perhaps—I might be persuaded to hear his apologies, but it is what he did that makes it all unforgivable and I cannot believe you could greet him so serenely given his offenses against you."
"It was easy because I do not see that he has committed any offenses against me."
I sighed internally. That was such an absurdly Jane thing to say.
"How can you say that? Do you not understand what I just told you?" I asked perhaps more condescendingly than I meant to.
"You might be the clever one, Lizzy, but I am capable of comprehending most things," she said with surprising severity, then with more composure, "Yes, I understood perfectly what you said.
I had been behaving indifferently toward Mr. Bingley with intention so you cannot fault Mr. Darcy for thinking me indifferent. "
"Why were you behaving indifferently to Mr. Bingley?" I asked keenly. This question had been the entire purpose of this conversation, the deal we had struck. I would tell her about why I had been avoiding my husband, if she would explain the secret reason she was being strange around Mr. Bingley.
"As I have told you before, I did not wish to press and unwanted acquaintance upon him."
"And as I have told you before, that is complete nonsense," I replied. She was not going to evade the question this time, I would have the truth. "Why would Mr. Bingley ask Dar—that person—if he thought you cared for him if he did not care for you?"
"Perhaps he was worried my affection was greater than his and was trying to spare my feelings."
I rolled my eyes. In just a few weeks I had acquired several bad habits from He Who Shall Not Be Named. But some statements just begged for an eye roll in reply.
"Jane, that is ridiculous and you know it. Now tell me what has caused you to believe such silly notions?"
"I do not think I should tell you. It does not matter now anyway."
"We had an agreement," I pressed. She had wheedled her way out of telling me the truth for the last time.
"I do not wish to place you in an awkward position."
I laughed hollowly. "I am an unwanted wife whose faults and mishaps are aired weekly in the scandal sheets, I do not think my position can get any more awkward."
When she did not immediately speak I asked, "It was not my husband who put these misconceptions into your head, was it?"
He told me he had not. If he lied to me it would completely shatter everything. This thought gave me great pain. I was surprised to feel thusly. I had not known there was anything left to shatter.
"No, it was not Mr. Darcy."
"Who then?"
Jane shook her head.
"I explained my predicament now you must reciprocate. You promised."
Again she shook her head.
"Jane," I urged, "If I am to believe D—You Know Who—is not the primary villain in this tale you must tell me who is."
"There is no villain, Lizzy. It is all just a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding on my part. I wanted to believe Mr. Bingley cared for me, but I was wrong."
I sighed again very audibly this time. "You were not wrong. Now tell me who."
"Miss Bingley sent me a letter after they left Netherfield."
Miss Bingley, of course. I stared at Jane expectantly, silently urging her to continue.
"She told me—well, she just implied really—that Mr. Bingley would soon be engaged to Miss Georgiana Darcy."
I gasped. It was such an outrageous falsehood. "And you believed her?"
"I did not, that is to say I did not disbelieve her, but I thought perhaps, in her enthusiasm to have a closer connection to a friend she so greatly admired, she had imagined a deeper friendship between her brother and Miss Darcy than was truly present.
I felt she must be mistaken because it had seemed as though Mr. Bingley had singled me out—"
"He had."
"—and he would not have done so if his affections were already engaged."
"Exactly."
"But her words put me on my guard. I was determined to observe objectively Mr. Bingley's behavior to myself as well as to Miss Darcy.
And what I found was . . . what I found—oh, Lizzy I am so embarrassed, I must have seemed so ridiculous, so conceited to everyone in Meryton.
But I had thought—I had so believed he cared for me. "
Unable to stop myself I exploded,"He does care for you!" It was with great self-control I kept from adding, "you ridiculous goose."
"I know that is what you want to believe because you want me to be happy."
I can now concur with what Belinda told me just yesterday; elder sisters are exhausting.
"It is not a matter of what I want to believe, it is what is actually the truth.
Bingley cares for you. From what I can see he has the exact amount of affection for Georgiana that any gentleman would have for the much younger sister of a friend—a detached, cautious regard.
His manner toward her conveys the utmost respect, but nothing more. "
Jane was already shaking her head before I had finished. "What about last Tuesday?" she asked.
My social calendar was so full I could barely remember what I did yesterday much less last Tuesday.
"I recall nothing significant about Tuesday and if Mr. Bingley had declared his undying love for Georgiana you would think I would remember."
"We went to the museum," Jane said, ignoring my sarcasm.
"Yes, we went to the museum." I wanted to add, "Where Bingley attentively guided you around, for the most part ignoring the rest of us," but I am certain she would have found some way to dismiss this fact in her determination to ruin her own happiness.
"Mr. Bingley was very insistent that Miss Darcy come with us, if you will remember."
If this was her evidence of Bingley's secret tendre I really was going to have to throw something at her.
"Yes, he was," I agreed, casually reaching for my now empty breakfast plate. The plate was light enough not to cause any permanent injury, but significant enough to jolt her out of this idiocy. Who am I kidding? It would probably bounce right off her head, everything else seemed to.
I waited for her to elaborate. People must be given every chance to come to their senses before one starts chucking plates at them. A precipitously tossed plate is the portent of the end of a civilized society.
Jane nodded emphatically as if her point had been made.
"Did he pass her a love letter? Steal a kiss? You better have something more than his insistence that she visit the museum with us."
With a defiant gleam in her eye she said, "He was very insistent."
What did I do to deserve so many impossible people in my life?
Do not answer that.
"He gave her all the encouragement one would give a shy child. He has known Dar—that man I happen to be married to—for a few years now. When he met Georgiana she was just a girl, I do not think he has ever stopped thinking of her as such.