Chapter 14 #3
It was only the expectation of finding news awaiting him here that had allayed his alarm in Kent, but there was nothing from Pemberley. He rubbed a hand over his face and attempted to reason away his disquiet.
“There you are then, you see? I was right.”
“How so? I have no letter from Elizabeth.”
“And neither do you have a letter from my grandmother or Bingley telling you some harm has befallen her. Cheer up, old boy,” he added, proffering a drink. “There is nothing more troubling afoot than the discovery that your wife is a dreadful correspondent.”
Though he disliked it intensely, Darcy would rather that explanation than have his misgivings substantiated.
That she would have written was in no doubt, yet he supposed she might not have written often.
Indeed, she could not have much news except in an emergency, and then she or someone else would have sent an express.
And as Fitzwilliam had said, it was possible, even likely, that a letter had gone astray.
Yet, one solitary note of commiseration seemed scant comfort from a woman more commonly overflowing with compassion.
And two or more letters were unlikely to have been lost.
Comprehending that reason might not prove sturdy enough armour against his encroaching sense of foreboding, he reached for the drink his cousin held out and took a sizeable swig. “Come,” he announced. “Let us eat.”
“Give them a fair chance to get it on the platters, Darcy. We have only been here five minutes.”
“Let us do something else then. I have no wish to sit about brooding.”
Fitzwilliam grinned roguishly and pointed to Darcy’s scar. “How about I give you a matching gash on the other cheek? That one gives you a shocking failure of perfect symmetry.”
Darcy gave him an answering smile. “My imperfections have a new advocate, but by all means let us see if your countenance can be evened up a little.”
A little under two hours saw both men back in Darcy’s study, exercised, fed and sufficiently distracted from their troubles to enjoy a last quiet drink together before the colonel returned to his barracks.
“I may have had one too many glasses of wine with dinner,” the latter said, “but I do believe I shall miss the old bat.”
Darcy looked up from the letters he had retrieved from his desk and smiled ruefully. “She was too imposing a character not to leave a noticeable void in her absence.”
“True, true. Visiting Rosings will not be half so much fun without having to run the gauntlet of her disapprobation.”
Darcy did not reply for, he had come across a letter from an unexpected quarter.
“Bad news?” Fitzwilliam enquired.
“I cannot decide. It is from Colonel Forster. Wickham is being tried for attempted murder.”
“Surely not! His punishment was meted out months ago, the matter was done and—”
“This has nothing to do with his attack on Elizabeth,” Darcy interrupted. Holding up a hand to stay his cousin’s questions, he read to the end before summarising. “He has seduced another young girl and been caught up in some violence with her brother.”
“I see.” Fitzwilliam sucked in his breath. “I hate to say it, Darcy, but he ever had a whiff of inevitability about him.”
Darcy folded the letter closed. “He has asked that I meet his bail.”
“He what? He ought to hang for insolence alone!”
Darcy crossed to one of the bookcases flanking the chimney to retrieve the stack of other correspondence from Forster that was filed there. He set the letters down on his desk and pulled at the ribbon tied about them. “I shall not be paying his bail. The girl has died after a miscarriage.”
“Good God!”
There was nothing more Darcy could add to that sentiment. He was done with Wickham and could only be thankful that his father was not alive to see him sunk so low.
The pile of Forster’s letters collapsed as the ribbon untied completely, spilling in all directions over his desk.
His eye went immediately to one that was too crumpled to be folded neatly, knowing exactly which it was but not recalling how it had come to be filed with the others, for his recollections of the day he read it were hazy at best. He picked it up, unable to resist reading it.
Even now, its contents left him cold. She never awoke.
He shook his head and refolded it, chastising himself for even looking.
As he restacked the pile and added Forster’s latest to it, another letter with an unbroken seal drew his notice.
He turned it over and was perplexed to discover it addressed in Bingley’s distinctive hand, though even more untidily than usual.
With the strongest curiosity, he opened the letter, smiling at first glance, for the spatters of ink, diligently noted time of writing and general effusiveness of the first few lines told him Bingley was far into his cups when he wrote it.
By the start of the second paragraph, his amusement had well and truly died.
Netherfield
5th June 6th June, 3am
Darcy,
You must congratulate me, for I am engaged!
Or at least I shall be tomorrow, once I ask her, which I mean to do, for my mind is made up at last. Indeed, I cannot recall, as I write this, why it was not made up before.
She is everything a woman ought to be—handsome, witty, comely, clever, handsome—and so wonderfully affectionate!
I never see her that she is not pleased to see me also.
I never knew a woman who enjoyed my company so well or made me feel so welcome.
It is unpardonable how long it has taken me to comprehend my feelings.
I suppose my wish not to disappoint her sister a second time made me reluctant.
Can you guess what has made me acknowledge them at last?
A song! One I heard sung in the tavern this very evening.
A coarse, bawdy song of which I ought not to approve, yet I cannot condemn it, for it has taught me my heart at last.
Henry Lucas calls it ‘The Bennet Ballad.’ It has a verse for each of her sisters. Miss Lydia is said to—I shall write it out as best as I can recall it.
Marry the fifth Take the fifth for a wife only if you dare, For a man bound to her will needs must share, Wed the fourth if you value not common sense, For silliness (there is something about folly here), Take the third for a wife to atone for your sins, She’ll preach you to death but yield not her quim (ha!), Marry the first and be every man’s envy, ’Til ennui strikes and witless rends ye (this has been my struggle!), Hail the man that marries the second, She is the jewel, alluring and feck fecund, She’ll fill your days with laughter and wit, And by night, beguile ye with that arse and those tits!
Is that not a fine verse? You will object to it, I know, but then you are not as drunk as I. And even you cannot deny it is witty. Inaccurate though, for it is not only at night that I am beguiled. She is an angel, and I shall marry her and make her mine!
The next time I write, it will be with the news that I am engaged to Miss Elizabeth Bennet!
Bingley
It was necessary to read it twice before he was able to grasp the full magnitude of the revelation.
A thousand remembrances of past conversations, insinuations and looks swirled in his mind’s eye, demanding that he reassess their import, but there were too many to make sense.
Arrant fury overwhelmed him as every thought in his head coalesced into one, abhorrent memory: Elizabeth in Bingley’s arms.
“Hell’s bells, Darcy, what in blazes does it say in that letter?”
He looked up to meet Fitzwilliam’s troubled gaze. “I will kill him.”
He thrust the letter at his cousin and turned in mute rage to slam both hands down on his desk.
The nearest candlestick skittered sideways, its flame guttering.
There he stayed, forcing air in and out of his nose.
He could not speak. There were no words to express what he felt and no way of unpicking the knot of deception such a letter presented.
The bastard was there now with Elizabeth!
He shoved himself away from the desk and stalked across the room.
There was not enough space to contain his savage indignation.
The sheer audacity of Bingley taking up in his house, dining at his table, conversing, joking, playing cards, dancing with Elizabeth—all the while wishing she were his!
It was a worse betrayal than Wickham’s, who at least had done him the courtesy of being furtive.
Behind him, Fitzwilliam let out a long, low whistle.
Darcy whirled about, having almost forgotten he was there.
“A whistle?” he challenged, barely able to contain his fury.
“The discovery that my brother by law, who has been one of my closest friends for above ten years and who is presently at my house under orders to safeguard my wife from harm, has in truth coveted her since before we wed draws naught more from you than a puerile whistle?”
“Untwist your ballocks, Darcy. I do not make light of it. It is objectionable in every way. Yet, it is evidently drunken prattle written, if I am not mistaken, before he knew of your attachment to her.”
“I care not when he wrote the damned thing. He is in love with my wife!”
Fitzwilliam flicked the letter straight and ran his eyes over it again, shaking his head.
“Nay, it says nothing of love in here. ’Tis naught but sot’s ardour.
I daresay Bingley has lusted after ’most every woman of his acquaintance at some point or another in his cups.
He no doubt forgot the sentiment as soon as his head cleared. ”
Darcy wished with all his being that were true, yet foreboding had pursued him all the way from Kent, and it would not be so easily satisfied.
“Indeed, he must have,” Fitzwilliam insisted, “for it was her sister he married.”
“He did not intend to.” Icy tendrils of alarm knifed through Darcy’s gut. “Jane threw herself at him and contrived to be discovered. He had no choice.”