Chapter 15 #5
“Careful, Mr Peabody,” she said, eyeing him slyly. “You’re in danger o’ makin’ me think you care for me, after all.”
“Heaven forefend, Miss Greening. I do, however, care for my position, and the master was most particular that nothing should prevent you from boarding that boat.”
This ought to have been ample warning, yet she still seemed surprised when he took her by the elbow and directed her firmly towards the coach, propelled her up the steps and shut the door after her. “Do have a pleasant trip, madam.”
Sunday 14 March 1813, Lancashire
Darkness descended over the city in the hours Bingley sat waiting.
His view of the street was gradually usurped by the candle-lit reflection of the inn’s parlour.
What had been an empty room when he came down from his rented rooms above stairs was now teeming with the worldly mix of people common only to port towns.
The door opened, and his stomach dropped when a man and a woman walked in, but he was not Banbury, and she was not Amelia. He slumped back into his seat, wondering what the deuce was taking them so long.
Somebody put a tankard of ale down in front of him. “On the house, sir. You look as though you need it.”
He looked up into the now-familiar countenance of the innkeeper whose establishment had been his home since he left Pemberley and whose ale had nursed him through some excessively painful meditations over those ten days. “Much obliged,” he said, raising the drink in salute.
For a good many of those days, self-pity had consumed him, his heart heavy with the knowledge that Elizabeth did not love him. It had taken him longer than it ought to fathom why that hurt less than he thought it should. It was because he had never once considered whether or not she might.
He was sure he could not be wrong about Darcy.
The Titan’s cold, unabashed disdain towards his wife could not be otherwise explained or excused, but if Elizabeth did not object, who was he to assume she might love him any better?
Having accused Darcy of undervaluing her, he was ashamed to acknowledge that he was equally guilty of wilfully misunderstanding Elizabeth’s feelings.
Yet, if he had misunderstood Elizabeth’s, he had completely disregarded Jane’s.
Quite when it had happened, he knew not, but he seemed to have detached himself completely from her as though she were somebody else’s wife and her happiness were not his to ensure, her pain were not his to soothe, and her heart were not his to protect.
Lord knew how prodigiously he had attempted to lay the blame at her door—it had not been his fault, after all, that she had condemned them both to such a miserable union—but reason simply would not allow it.
Over and again, she had insisted it had not been her design to entrap him, only to convince him of her regard.
And wherefore had it been necessary for her to do that?
Because consciously or otherwise he had transferred his attentions to Elizabeth.
Not content with abandoning Jane once, he had come back, raised her hopes a second time, and then flagrantly mooned after her sister in full view of all her neighbours.
She would have been exposed to their utter derision had he succeeded in winning Elizabeth’s hand.
And yet, it appeared that was not why she acted as she had.
If Elizabeth were to be believed, it was not the world’s disdain Jane feared, but his.
She had wanted nothing more than for him to love her.
Instead, he had married her without the proper affection and, within hours, violated his wedding vows.
All endeavours to convince himself that his fleeting infidelity was of no significance were come to naught.
He could no longer hide from the egregiousness of his transgression.
Amelia had come to his study, fluttering Elizabeth’s eyelashes at him and all but begging to compensate for Jane’s indisposition.
In succumbing, he had condemned himself to a union of dissatisfaction and misery.
His shame could only have been greater if Jane were actually to discover his indiscretion.
This woman—who, when he first met her, had been the epitome of gentle goodness—had lived for a year suspecting she was neither loved nor respected by her husband.
She had become an embittered shadow of her former self, and it was all his doing.
She and Elizabeth had become estranged by jealousy and mistrust, and it was all his doing.
Elizabeth despised him, and it was all his doing.
Now Darcy was going to kill him, and if he did not, Caroline would. There was no denying he would be safer in Nova Scotia. He lifted his tankard to sup his ale, and when he put it back down again, Banbury was there, wittering something about the mail coach being delayed.
“Mr Bingley, if you ain’t goin’ to stand for me, you’ll ’ave to pardon my sittin’ down,” a woman behind Banbury said. She sidled awkwardly onto the opposite bench, untied her bonnet and slung it on the table.
“Lord, I beg your pardon, I did not recognise you!” Bingley exclaimed, and truly, he had not, for Amelia was not carrying off her increase nearly as well as Elizabeth.
A hot meal and cup of mead seemed to assuage her affront. Once she was suitably revived and Banbury dismissed, their more serious business could no longer be delayed.
“I am pleased you have accepted my offer,” he began. “It is a vast undertaking, but I believe it will be for the best.”
“It were a fine offer, sir.”
Bingley removed from his pocket the papers he had had drawn up and spread them on the table.
“Your ticket is paid for, and I have hired you a companion and a man to chaperone you on the voyage. My cousin will meet you there. You are to give him this letter. It asks him to arrange your money and see to your housing. He will also—”
“I don’t understand. Ain’t you comin’ with me?”
He looked up. Amelia had gone very red. “Well, er, no. You must see that would be impossible.”
“I don’t see nothin’ o’ the sort. You said you wanted me to start a new life with you in Nova Scotia!”
“I am afraid you are mistaken, madam.”
“I ain’t mistaken! Mrs Pence read it for me, and she said that’s what you wrote! Look ’ere!” She scrabbled in her reticule and withdrew his letter, which she unfolded onto the table and repeatedly jabbed with her finger.
Bingley duly read what he had written, and indeed it said—
I have booked passage for later this month and dearly hope you will agree to go with me to Nova Scotia, board the boat, and allow me to provide you a new life.
“Oh. Right. Ah, well this is dashed awkward. Forgive me, Miss Greening. That was meant to say Liverpool.”
“But it says Nova Scotia!”
“Yes, I can see that. What can I say? I write in the most careless way imaginable. I am awfully sorry.”
She looked awfully angry.
“But consider all I am offering you—the promise of a better life, an income, a home of your own, schooling for your child. And your reputation! Here, you will never be more than a fallen housemaid. There, you could begin again and be a respectable woman with whatever history you chose.”
She stared at him sullenly. “You’re quite one for forsakin’ people, ain’t you.”
“With all due respect, madam, you cannot claim any peculiar attachment to me. We are hardly good friends.”
Without dropping his gaze, she parted her travelling cloak, revealing far more clearly her distended stomach, over which she rubbed a hand. “I weren’t talkin’ about me.”
He looked back at her, wondering what more she wanted from him. “Have I not said I shall fully support the child?”
Her mouth set in a hard line, and she wrapped her cloak back around herself, crossing her arms over the join. When she had remained silent for above two minutes, he enquired whether she would still agree to go, not quite managing to keep the impatience from his voice.
“Will you still pay me?” she shot back.
“Of course. All the arrangements still stand, only I shall not be part of them.”
She turned aside and shrugged, which with her arms crossed over her stomach as they were, made her shoulders almost touch her ears. “S’pose so.”
“Thank you.”
“What will you do?” she enquired sullenly.
“Go home to my wife.”
Though he could not imagine, after all the ways in which he had abused her, that Jane could possibly still love him, it was, as Elizabeth had said, time for him to be a proper husband.
What Darcy had said at Pemberley was true also.
He had loved Jane once. Perhaps, in time, he might earn back her esteem.
He meant to try for her sake and Elizabeth’s.
“Shame she won’t be there,” Amelia scoffed, ruining all his gallant schemes in one breath. “She’s on ’er way to Pemberley.”
“Good God, why?”
She shrugged again. “To stop you going to Nova Scotia, probably.”
“What the deuce made her think I am going to Nova Scotia?”
“That letter,” she replied, nodding at the offending article.
Bingley did his utmost to speak calmly, though he felt anything but calm. “How did she come to see that letter?”
“I showed it to ’er when she called on me. Came to see I was being provided for. Least that’s what she said.”
He pressed a fist to his mouth and swore against it.
Jane knew! His shame was now complete. All this time he had justified his behaviour towards Jane by telling himself she had grown into a woman he could not love, but she was not changed at all!
What other person alive would discover her husband’s infidelity and think only to the wellbeing of those involved?
She remained just as good-hearted as she had ever been!
The remainder of his discussions with Amelia were conducted with no less awkwardness than was to be expected in the circumstances, yet all in all, matters were concluded with infelicitous haste.
In less time than they had taken embroiling themselves in the situation to begin with, they agreed to terms and parted ways.