Chapter 13 #6
Elizabeth had not shown Darcy the letter but had summarised her mother’s position with telling consternation.
Jane had gone to London, allegedly fanning speculation that Bingley meant to auction her off to the highest bidder, Mr Bennet was imminently about to die of shame, thus the Collinses were banging down Longbourn’s door, and Mrs Bennet and her other three daughters were busy packing their worldly belongings in preparation for living out the remainder of their days at Pemberley.
“To paraphrase, she is eager to see you soon returned.”
“Then, I am afraid she will be disappointed.”
“You do not intend to return directly?”
“I do not intend to return at all.”
Darcy tensed with the endeavour not to sit forward in his seat. “Ever?”
“Do not judge me, Darcy. It is no longer any secret that I did not wish to marry her in the first place.”
Indeed. Darcy had been significantly less astonished by the revelation of Jane’s scheming than Elizabeth.
In his opinion, no despicable deed was beneath a woman content to strike her own sister, full in the knowledge she was with child.
He only pitied Elizabeth her disappointment and Bingley his unenviable predicament.
Never mind that it was before noon, it was most definitely the hour for brandy. “Why did you not cease visiting Longbourn, if you were decided against her?” he enquired as he poured them both a glass.
“Because of Lizzy.”
He turned around. “Elizabeth?”
Bingley looked up sharply then launched himself from his chair and stalked to the window before Darcy could make out his expression. “Yes, well…while you were off being a lovelorn arse-about-town, I was supporting her family in the wake of your friend Wickham’s attack, or had you forgotten?”
“I had not forgotten,” Darcy replied, chastened though no less perturbed.
“I could not conscionably have abandoned Jane a second time whilst her sister lay insensible abed.”
“Of course not.” It was a reasonable explanation. Darcy fought prodigiously hard to ignore the unjust flicker of wariness occasioned by the recollection of Bingley pulling Elizabeth into his arms in the churchyard.
“I see now that my lingering must have prolonged Jane’s anticipation,” Bingley mumbled. “I suppose it is what prompted her to act as she did.”
“Impatience is no excuse for duplicity. She was very wrong to deceive you.” Darcy handed him his drink and sat back at the card table. “But have you truly had no pleasure from the marriage? Is there no possibility that you might learn to esteem one another again? You did love her once, after all.”
“Aye, but she is not the same person she was then.”
“No, but there is every reason to hope she might improve. I did, once I was made aware of my faults.”
“You mistake me, Darcy. I have no wish to redeem the situation. Even were she to revert to the sweet girl you thought smiled too much, she would not be the woman I want.” He lifted his empty glass in query. “May I?”
Darcy acceded with a nod.
“Besides,” Bingley added whilst he poured himself another drink, “people do not alter as much as all that. You are no less proud than you were. Lizzy has merely learnt to tolerate it better.”
His conversational tone belied any hostility. Nevertheless, Darcy was wounded, appalled at the merest possibility of its being true. Such was his agitation that he missed what Bingley said next and was obliged to ask him to repeat himself.
“I said I plan to settle in Nova Scotia.”
Darcy stared at him, endeavouring to judge whether he was in earnest.
“You will advise against it, I know,” Bingley added, returning to the table. “But I have learnt the perils of yielding too easily to persuasion.”
“I am glad to hear it. It is a shame you have not yet learnt to yield to good sense.”
Bingley flinched. “You mean to lecture me on how the country is at war, I suppose?”
“No, I should think that far north you would be as far from their army as we are from Napoleon’s here.
I meant only to express my sincerest doubt that going so far and giving up so much would ever improve your situation.
It is a vast undertaking.” When Bingley did not respond, Darcy leant forwards with his elbows on his knees and fixed his friend with a serious look.
“The imprudence of my attempting to induce you one way or the other speaks for itself, but this is not the same as hopping in your carriage and racing off to London on a whim. I beg you would not act with your usual precipitance. Give the idea some more thought.”
Bingley slammed his glass down on the table. “I have given it thought! I have done nothing but think on it these past two weeks whilst I have sat here watching you have everything I want and knowing I shall never have it!”
Darcy sat back, startled by his vehemence and heartily sorry for it. He was well aware of his own extraordinary good fortune and pitied his friend’s plight, for it was probable Bingley would never know equal felicity with a woman such as Jane.
“I am sorry the succour you sought here has come at such a price. Yet, you must not permit my situation to influence yours. At the risk of sounding like persuasion, I will say this—you are a very good friend, and I should be excessively sorry to see you go.”
Bingley stammered his thanks and promptly excused himself to seek out some of the air he had earlier disdained.
Darcy rubbed a hand over his face and stood up, pondering where he might find Elizabeth, that he could relay the whole of it to her—and rather uncharitably attempting to guess how much it would cost him to purchase Netherfield in the event that Bingley did not, that Mrs Bennet’s threat of coming to live at Pemberley need never come to fruition.
Saturday 20 February 1813, Derbyshire
“You must go. I absolutely insist.”
“I should feel as though I were deserting you.” The look Elizabeth gave her made Georgiana feel silly. “That is, I know you do not need—”
“Dear Georgiana,” Elizabeth interrupted, reaching to squeeze her hand, “I did not mean to imply that I would not miss you, only that you must not feel guilty for wishing to go. Miss Castleton is your friend, and her invitation is an excessively generous one.”
“It is, is it not?” she replied, allowing herself to smile at the prospect of a week’s dancing instruction from Mr Thomas Wilson himself, alongside half a dozen of Henrietta’s school friends.
“Indeed it is! I am quite jealous, which is why you must go. Then, you may relay to me in detail all that you learn.” She fidgeted in her chair as she spoke, attempting to find a more comfortable attitude.
“Here, allow me,” Georgiana offered, leaving her own seat to help better arrange her sister’s cushions. “You poor thing! This is why I do not wish to leave you.”
“When I am grown so fat that I cannot even arrange my own cushions, I shall simply give up sitting in the orangery and take to my bed. It still would not be a reason for you not to go to Hornscroft.”
For a fleeting moment, Georgiana felt chastened—until she caught herself and laughed instead, feeling rather pleased to have grown better used to Elizabeth’s sportive manner.
“Besides,” Elizabeth continued, “I shall not be without female company. Tabitha is coming to Pemberley.”
A week at Hornscroft Hall abruptly quadrupled in appeal. “Mrs Sinclair?”
Her dismay must have been obvious, for Elizabeth laughed outright. “She is not so very objectionable, you know.”
“Mayhap not, but she is disposed to be quarrelsome. Ought you not to be avoiding such excitement?”
“On the contrary, I have great hopes the trouble she is bound to cause will provide a creditable distraction from any anxiety I might be feeling.”
The remark took Georgiana aback, having never before seen or heard of Elizabeth suffering any uneasiness. “Are you very anxious?” she enquired softly.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Daunted, certainly, but I think there are few who would not be. I am endeavouring not to think about it overmuch.”
“Will your mother come?”
“I am trying very hard to make sure she does not! I need my wits about me at the best of times when dealing with her, and I do not anticipate that being the case in the throes of my confinement. I shall not be alone, though, for my Aunt Gardiner has agreed to come at the end of March.” After a pause, she quietly added, “I always thought I would have Jane with me.”
Only since Mr Bingley arrived at Pemberley had Elizabeth divulged what transpired between Jane and her at Netherfield.
Georgiana could not have been more shocked or more indignant, though she had not expounded upon the latter sentiment to Elizabeth.
“I am sorry for you, Lizzy. I know not what to say to ease your mind.”
“It is the most painful thing in the world, but there is nothing to be said or done. But enough melancholy,” she said, drawing herself up and leaning to pour them both more tea. “Are we agreed that you will visit Miss Castleton in two weeks?”
Georgiana grinned. “Aye, very well. Would that you could accompany me. You dance so beautifully.”
“Not these days, I assure you. I am all clumsiness and inelegance.”
“You are too severe upon yourself. You are still remarkably graceful. If you will pardon my frankness, I have seen ladies far more unhappily altered by their increase than you. Your condition becomes you very well.”
“She speaks true, Lizzy. It most certainly does.”
Georgiana jumped. She had not heard Mr Bingley come in.
“Our sanctuary is compromised, Georgiana!” Elizabeth cried, one hand held to her breast in feigned dismay. “The men have discovered us!”
“I come alone,” Mr Bingley protested, holding his hands up in surrender. “And I swear Darcy will not learn of your hiding place from me.”
“My brother knows we are here. He had business in Kympton, or he would have joined us.”
“Kympton, this day, is it? I declare I have never known a man with more business than Darcy. He is scarcely ever at home.”