After the Storm #4
“You think, then, I ought not to have left?”
“I think I should not have advised you to leave, which is a very different matter.”
“Then you still think I was right to leave?”
Darcy looked as though he would speak but then, very unhelpfully, did not.
Bingley huffed his frustration. “You think I ought to have stayed?”
“It matters not what I think! Make whatever decisions you will, but pray, do not ask that I advise you.”
“That will not do at all! Where would I be without you to tell me what to do?” Bingley replied, only partially in jest.
Darcy’s voice took on an edge. “You ought to have more courage in your convictions.”
“Perhaps, but it is much easier to have courage in yours. You are an excellent friend, master of your own estate, you have lived in the world. It is surely to my advantage that you offer advice so freely and so often.”
Having thought it a handsome compliment, Bingley could not comprehend why it should make his friend scowl so. Not knowing what else to do, he stood and rang the bell for tea. It was while his back was turned that he could have sworn Darcy murmured, “I am Lady Catherine.”
By the time he returned to his seat, silence had taken command of the room.
Silences made Bingley excessively conscious, yet Darcy’s sullen glare was not conducive to intrusion.
Resigned to waiting for him to cease brooding, he slumped into the corner of the sofa and did what people were supposed to do in moments of quietude: he reflected.
The more he thought about Miss Bennet, however, the more confounding the situation seemed, and he was grateful when Darcy eventually roused himself to speak.
“It seems I have mistaken friendship for patronage. I had not considered my advice officious, but I see now that it was.”
“Indeed, it was not. Your observations of Miss Bennet’s reserve were perfectly reasonable.
Despite her sister’s claims, one wonders what strength of feeling existed beneath so composed an exterior.
” Bingley could not but smile at the irony of having such a conversation with Darcy, of all men.
“Though I must be allowed some reassurance from your example.”
“Meaning?”
“If we are to dub inscrutability the harbinger of indifference, you could be labelled the most unfeeling of all men. My knowledge to the contrary ought to give me hope that Miss Bennet’s affections were merely under similar regulation.”
Bingley was vastly pleased with this bit of logic; Darcy seemed less impressed. He took so long to answer that a footman arrived, received Bingley’s request for refreshments and went away again before he responded—and then his answer made no sense.
“She never knew.”
“Never knew what?”
He gave no answer at all this time and, as though to disprove Bingley’s reasoning, now looked profoundly troubled.
“Come, Darcy, you cannot have the blame for all the wrong in the world, you know. You were not the only person who suspected her of indifference. Besides, was it not you who accused me of yielding too easily to persuasion? It seems I have succeeded in proving your argument admirably, despite Miss Elizabeth’s best endeavours to defend my character. ”
Darcy gave a tired smile. “Miss Elizabeth would argue the sky is red in defence of a friend.”
“I see how it is! The sky is really blue, and she believed me guilty of caprice all along, eh? I suppose I must be grateful she defended me so loyally, regardless of my defect.”
“I should say you were served as well by her obstinacy as her loyalty.”
“Mayhap, but I prefer to think the loyalty was all for me and the obstinacy all for you.”
Darcy’s smile vanished. “What makes you think so?”
“What would make me think otherwise? I got on famously with Miss Elizabeth. The pair of you quarrelled incessantly.” If only her sister had been half as animated, Bingley would not be in his present fix.
The thought drove off his smile as well and not even the inclusion of sweetmeats on the tray sent up from the kitchen could restore it.
Darcy did not want tea. He had come to redress the injury to his friend, only to be accused of a host of far worse offences, and he was in no humour for social niceties.
He left it on the table and continued to watch his friend rake both hands through his hair, dismayed to be the cause of his evident distraction.
“It has been many months,” Bingley said glumly. “Think you Miss Bennet’s regard has endured?”
“If I could not tell that when in her company, you can hardly expect me to know it in her absence, but her sister certainly believes it has.”
“I should dearly like to see her.”
“Then perhaps you ought to return.”
Bingley looked up. “You think so?”
Darcy wished his friend looked less like he was asking permission.
“She might not welcome your renewed attentions,” he said with a shrug, “but in that case, you would be at no greater disadvantage than you are now. And as long as you are at Netherfield, you will at least have the pleasant company of your neighbours.”
“Pleasant company?” Bingley scoffed. “You dismissed my neighbours as having little beauty and no fashion. How have they become pleasant to your mind?”
Darcy started. True, apart from Elizabeth, he had not found the company in Hertfordshire particularly inspiring. Indeed, he would admit to taking pains to avoid some of Bingley’s more tiresome neighbours, and there had been precious few he had not considered tiresome…
He clenched the arms of his chair. Never, ’til that moment, had he given the slightest credence to Elizabeth’s charge of conceited manners. “Was I uncivil to any of them?”
“Lord, no! A little aloof, perhaps. And, of course, incorrigibly argumentative with Miss Elizabeth.”
Darcy’s jaw began to ache from being clenched. “That is the second time you have alluded to antagonism between Miss Elizabeth and me. Actually, I found her company very pleasant indeed.”
“You did? Well, good! I am not surprised. She is a lovely girl, almost as pretty as her sister. Though she did not impress you at all, did she? What was it you said? Something along the lines of her being tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt you.”
“I said no such thing,” he replied, with the abysmal feeling of being wrong.
“Yes, you did—at that first assembly. I attempted an introduction, but you refused and made some remark about her being slighted by other men and it being a punishment to stand up with her or some such nonsense.”
Blood rushed in Darcy’s ears. “Pray, tell me nobody heard.”
“None but the lady herself!” Bingley said, chuckling as though this were not the most ruinous piece of news Darcy had received all year. “I hardly think she could have missed it. We stood not two yards away.”
Darcy surged to his feet. “I am taking Georgiana to Covent Garden in less than one hour. You will forgive me, but I must leave.”
He is here!
Elizabeth stared in alarm at the familiar silhouette.
She had never thought to encounter him again.
Certainly, naught could come of it but mortification on both sides.
She turned to leave—too late, for he also turned, and their eyes met.
She exhaled forcefully and stepped backwards, swaying slightly. It was not Mr Darcy after all.
The gentleman’s gaze brushed past hers to an older woman on his other side who could be heard berating him for being uncivil.
Elizabeth smirked. Though the man’s features did not have the same definition as Mr Darcy’s, nor his expression any of the same intelligence, he exhibited all the same hauteur of rank, and she took a good deal of satisfaction in his set down.
She strained to hear what excuse he gave in reply.
“Cara is barely a twelvemonth in her grave, and you would have me flirt with these women? I miss my wife, madam.”
She gasped and turned away.
“Lizzy?” her uncle enquired. “Are you well?”
She assured him she was and accepted his proffered arm, following his lead to their seats. He and Mrs Gardiner chattered merrily ’til the curtain was raised, for which Elizabeth was vastly grateful, for she was too overcome with shame to speak.
Had she learnt nothing that she would wilfully misjudge one man simply to vindicate her opinion of another?
Had she not yet learnt her opinion of the other was mistaken?
Oh, Mr Darcy was still the proudest, most disagreeable man she had ever met, but he had not mistreated Mr Wickham.
His efforts to separate Mr Bingley from Jane, however objectionable to her, had not been malicious.
For how long could she continue to think ill of him without herself becoming guilty of conceit?
I am once again indisposed and cannot accompany you to the theatre this evening. Please accept my apologies for your disappointment.
Georgiana read the note aloud and looked up to gauge her companion’s response.
“It seems perfectly reasonable,” Mrs Annesley said. “A little terse perhaps, but if he is unwell, that is not to be wondered at.”
“He did not look particularly unwell this morning. Only distracted, as he usually is nowadays. I think he must still be angry with me.”
Mrs Annesley clicked her tongue. “Let us not begin that again. Your brother has told you the matter is closed.”
Georgiana knew better than to argue. The subject of her misadventure with George Wickham had been well and truly exhausted. “But if I have not upset him, what has? He has been ill-tempered since we returned from Ramsgate and he visited Netherfield.”
“It is not your place to question your brother’s conduct, Miss Darcy.”
Georgiana acceded with a nod, though she had already determined to question Miss Bingley about events in Hertfordshire when next they met.
The intermission came, and Mr Gardiner was sent for refreshments. The ladies had not long been alone when an altercation erupted between two men a short way off.
“Let us move away,” Mrs Gardiner whispered.