Chapter 14 #4
Fitzwilliam squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you certain? I cannot imagine why a woman such as Jane Bingley should need to entrap a husband.”
Jane’s pitiful objection last Wednesday rang in Darcy’s mind: He does not esteem me! “She must have known he meant to offer for Elizabeth.”
“There is no evidence of that beyond these few impolitic ramblings,” Fitzwilliam said, gesturing at him with Bingley’s letter, but Darcy’s mind was already far beyond that point.
“He all but admitted it the night before the wedding,” he muttered incredulously. “How could I have forgotten? He drank himself into oblivion and came to me complaining that he doubted his affection for Jane.”
“Perhaps he was merely nervous of marriage.”
“That is as I assumed at the time.” He sneered bitterly. “No wonder he claimed he could not speak of it with me.”
His cousin made a dismissive noise and stalked to the sideboard, slapping the letter into his chest as he passed him.
“This is all too tenuous for my liking, Darcy. You are too apt to see the worst in every situation. Besides,” he said as he refilled his glass, “Bingley is hardly the most discreet of men. Were he enamoured of Elizabeth, more people than Jane would have seen it.”
Such a comment was guaranteed to send Darcy’s mind whirling off into the annals of his memory, searching for evidence of just that. Regrettably, he found it.
“Mr Bingley is at Longbourn, sir, mourning the loss of Miss Eliza.”
Even the damned butler had known it!
“True to form, gentlemen! One has his bird in the bag afore the other has decided which to aim for.”
Facetiousness had masked that speaker’s better knowledge admirably, but retrospection stripped all such allusions bare. “Bennet knew,” he said with utter, sickening conviction.
“And pray, what sudden penetration that was not previously in your power has led you to this unhappy conclusion?”
“Retrospect is a pitiless exponent, Fitzwilliam,” he retorted, in no humour to be persistently gainsaid. “When I sought his permission for Elizabeth’s hand, Bennet remarked that had I offered sooner, I might have saved Bingley weeks of indecision.”
“So Bingley dithered about a bit? It is not unreasonable to think he was uncertain of his reception, having abandoned the lady once already.”
Darcy clenched his teeth. Each of Fitzwilliam’s objections was sound, yet he could not share his sanguinity.
Too many unexplained anomalies were piecing together, though God knew he wished they would contrive to make a different picture.
“I asked him recently why he continued visiting Longbourn after he had decided against Jane.”
“And? What reason did he give?”
“Elizabeth.”
“What, just that?”
Darcy nodded. He would much rather his cousin had continued adamant in the belief there was naught troubling afoot. As it was, the doubt flickering over his countenance tied his stomach in knots. “I must get to Pemberley,” he announced, reaching for the bell pull.
“You cannot mean this instant?”
“I can, and I do.”
Fitzwilliam stepped in front of him, preventing him from summoning anybody.
“Darcy, be reasonable. I grant you, this does not look good, but all of it could be perceived in a different light. There is no need to do something as foolhardy as rushing off to Pemberley in the dark on the basis of one addled letter and a few spurious suspicions.”
“Only they are not few, and they seem ever less spurious. I cannot think of one good reason for half the occasions Bingley has shown up at my door in the last year. He has followed Elizabeth halfway around the country and back, invariably appearing in places we have told him we will be, always contrary to the plans he has previously claimed and never with any real purpose.”
“He could as easily have been following you about as Elizabeth. You have ever spent a good deal of time together.”
“If that were the case, he would be here and not at Pemberley with her.”
“No, I cannot believe it,” Fitzwilliam said, shaking his head. “Not of Bingley. He would not be so devious as to impose upon your hospitality if it were the case. If, indeed, he was attracted to her at one time, we must assume he has overcome it.”
A dreadful feeling of nausea accompanied Darcy’s next remembrance.
“Even were she to revert to the sweet girl you thought smiled too much, she would not be the woman I want.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“You are inclined to think otherwise?” his cousin enquired.
He took a deep breath, for it was strangely difficult to speak.
“When I urged him to give the idea of going to Nova Scotia more thought, he replied—and I quote: ‘I have done nothing but think on it whilst I have sat here watching you have everything I want, knowing I shall never have it.’ I assumed he referred to my general contentment.”
Fitzwilliam’s eyebrows rose. “I should like to say he might have been, but there is only so long I can continue to defend him without looking a churl. I suppose we might credit him with some morals for attempting to extricate himself from the wreckage and take himself off to another country.”
Darcy gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, yes, he was all benevolence in that regard—until Elizabeth suggested he stay, and he abandoned all his plans in an instant. At another word from her, he would probably stay forever.”
“Yes, well, she would never ask it, and you would never allow it, so pray waste no time brooding on it. Besides, did not Ashby say something this morning about him being gone by the time you got back?”
“What does Ashby know?” Darcy turned and snatched up the poker to unleash some of his anger upon the fire.
“That is precisely what he said of you.”
When Fitzwilliam said nothing more, Darcy looked over his shoulder, and upon seeing his cousin’s brow contracted into his deepest frown yet, turned fully to face him. “What is it?”
“Nothing dire—only, now that I recall what Ashby said, I think you have less reason to be concerned.”
“And what did he say?”
“That Jane wrote to Philippa last week to inform her Bingley was taking her to—hold fire, is Jane with child?”
Every sinew in Darcy’s body went taut. “Not to my knowledge. Why?”
Fitzwilliam said nothing, only paled and stared at him in alarm.
“What did Ashby say, Fitzwilliam?”
“As best I recall he said, ‘He is taking the Hertfordshire chit and buggering off to Nova Scotia.’” He swallowed. “Then he said something along the lines of it making more sense to find a different girl who was not already with child when he got there.”
All the air left Darcy’s lungs in one violent exhalation.
Fitzwilliam looked at him with an expression of horror that presumably matched his own. “Bloody hell, Darcy, I thought he was talking about Jane. He might have been. Are you absolutely certain she is not with child?”
It was possible, Darcy supposed. Yet, it was many weeks since she and Bingley were last in company, and he had not received the impression from him that they were often in the same room before that.
Was it possible that since reading Elizabeth’s letter they had reconciled and agreed to go away together?
The alternative did not bear thinking about.
He tossed the poker aside, sending plumes of ash into the air from where it landed in the grate.
“I am for Farley House. I would speak with Jane. Will you accompany me?”
“Try and stop me.”
This time Fitzwilliam rang the bell for Godfrey.
While they waited, Darcy, as if to exasperate himself as much as possible against his erstwhile friend, chose for his employment the examination of all the letters Bingley had written to him since his return to Hertfordshire.
It was fortunate their horses were saddled as expeditiously as they were, for the endeavour achieved naught but the unchecked escalation of his dread.
“But you would have heard, Darcy. I say again, no news is good news.”
Much though Fitzwilliam comprehended Darcy’s concern, he remained unconvinced there was sufficient foundation for any of his worse suspicions and was reasonably confident that, if Jane were unable to allay their fears, Ashby’s reply to the express he had sent before they set out would clarify matters for them.
“Still you maintain that?” his cousin said darkly. “After all this, you are content to believe that a complete want of communication is not even a trifle concerning?”
“What do you propose? That Bingley has stolen every sheet of paper and pot of ink in the house that nobody could send for you? Has he also hobbled all the horses and bribed all the staff to prevent their going for help?”
“Bingley has the trust of my entire household. He could take Elizabeth away from Pemberley and tell everybody I had authorised it, and nobody would blink an eye.”
“I think Elizabeth might have something to say about it.”
He thought he saw Darcy flinch.
“She trusts him just as much. They have found an affinity in both being betrayed by Jane.”
“That does not mean she would agree to his bundling her onto a boat! And he does not have my grandmother’s trust. I assure you she would not sit by quietly and allow him to sail off into the sunset with your wife.”
“I do not know what has happened, Fitzwilliam! I do not know what he plans or what lies he has spun to achieve it. What I know is that I have received no letters from Elizabeth in two weeks, and that means something is wrong.”
They lapsed into a grim silence that lasted until Darcy directed them into a row of mews where they were divested of their mounts and escorted through a small passageway beneath the line of houses opposite and up the steps at the front to Hurst’s door.
“She will not be pleased to see you,” Fitzwilliam muttered as they were ushered towards the drawing room. “Not if your account of your last meeting was accurate.”
“That is not my concern,” Darcy replied.