3. 12 November 1811
DARCY
“Oh, ho, Darcy, there you are at last!” Bingley called out.
Darcy grinned at his friend but, as he climbed out of his carriage, he cocked his head quizzically. “I wrote that I would be here at around half past eleven, and here I am at half past eleven exactly,” he said.
Bingley reached him and clapped him on the back. “But you are almost a month later than planned! I have been champing at the bit, waiting for you to come. However, better late than never! Welcome to Netherfield Park!”
The two men walked up the front steps. Darcy said, “I am glad to be here, and I apologise again for the changes in our plans. My sister sends you her regards as well as her regrets.” He handed off his hat, gloves, and great coat to the servants and allowed Bingley to lead him to a drawing room.
Just as they entered the room, Bingley said, “You never did say what illness she had been fighting, Darce. I hope she is entirely recovered?”
“I thank you, yes, she is entirely well now. But it turns out that young ladies sometimes prefer to spend time with their aunt rather than their brother, and I could not refuse such a reasonable request.”
A strident cry made Darcy clench his teeth, but he exerted his usual self-control not to flinch at the sound of Miss Bingley’s voice. He turned to the doorway to greet her.
“Mr Darcy! You have finally graced us with your presence.” Miss Bingley had sailed through the doorway with a large smile that seemed to Darcy entirely insincere, but she soon changed her expression to show (insincerely, he was certain) grave concern.
“We have been longing to have you with us, and I have been so desperate for news about dear Georgiana. I hope she is recovering from her mysterious ailment?”
Darcy thought of the irony that he despised every word out of Miss Bingley’s mouth, despite the fact that what she said was almost identical to the words that his friend had just uttered—and which Darcy had gladly heard and responded to.
He hoped he took those sentiments from her so poorly not because her high-pitched voice grated on his nerves, but because he was not, in fact, a friend of hers, and he had always resented her presumption to a closeness he had never agreed to.
Georgiana felt the same way—she had never approved Miss Bingley’s use of her Christian name, and every time either of them heard her use it, their antipathy towards her grew just a little bit deeper.
“Good morning, Miss Bingley,” Darcy said in measured tones, allowing the coolness he felt towards her to be heard. “Yes, she is recovered. Thank you for asking.”
Miss Bingley clutched his arm despite his reserve. “Then we are entirely bereft that she did not see fit to come, as we had always planned. How I long to see her!”
Darcy attempted to extricate his arm from her hand in a discreet way, but as she spoke again—“And you need not tell me how you fare, Mr Darcy! You look very, very well indeed!”—he decided that courtesy with such a leech was not possible, and he firmly removed her hand and stepped quite far from her.
Bingley murmured into his sister’s ear, but she shrugged him away and tittered, attempting to follow Darcy in his retreat from her. Darcy felt quite relieved that his friend managed to grasp her arm and keep her at his own side.
“So, Darce, nuncheon will be served shortly, and after that I hope we can confer in privacy in my study, to talk about estate matters. What do you say?”
“I am at your disposal.”
“In that case, I shall have Mrs Nicholls show you to your room so you can refresh yourself for the repast. Merely come back to this room when you are ready, and we will go in together.”
Bingley had given the bell rope a pull during that speech, and Mrs Nicholls appeared so promptly, it was obvious she had foreseen the request. Darcy noted the prompt and courteous service Bingley’s household gave, and as he moved to and through his rooms, he noted that although some of the wallpaper and curtains were a bit out of date, everything in Netherfield was clean and well maintained.
Well done, Bingley. He felt a bit ashamed that he was surprised at his friend’s apparent success in choosing an estate to lease.
It was not long before Darcy made the reacquaintance of Mr and Mrs Hurst, Bingley’s elder sister and her husband.
Darcy dispatched several slices of cold meats and a portion of a delicious pigeon pie, along with other foods offered at a simple nuncheon, and then he found himself alone with his friend in the study, sipping from a glass of claret.
“You have estate matters you wished to discuss?” Darcy was surprised that Bingley had stayed silent for almost a minute.
He studied his friend’s face carefully, and although he appeared as openly happy and affable as ever, Darcy thought he detected a difference he could not define in Bingley’s expression.
Bingley’s smile widened, and he laughed. “Not so much, honestly, as I have family members I wish to avoid, and whom I am positive you wish to avoid even more.”
Darcy nodded.
“But I do have two non-estate things I wish to discuss. First, and easiest, I wish to explain that a week before you alerted me to your new arrival time and date, Hurst and I had accepted an invitation for tonight to dine with the officers of the militia regiment that recently took quarters in Meryton. After I knew of your arrival, I let the colonel know that there would be one more guest in our party. I know you little enjoy gatherings of strangers, but it will be quite a short outing, and with men only, so I feel that you will manage well enough. The alternative would be to leave you alone with my sisters. Did I guess your preference correctly?”
Feeling relaxed with only his good friend to see his response, Darcy allowed himself to grimace a bit. “Yes, I can manage a dinner with officers of the militia—largely because of the alternative to which you allude.”
Bingley chuckled.
“What time will we leave for this event?”
“At six.”
Darcy nodded. “I will be ready.”
“The second thing I wish to discuss will be more difficult, Darce. Please do not burst into lectures, as my sisters have—I warn you now that I have been scolded so severely, already, I will not be able to listen to yet another reproof.”
Straightening, Darcy studied his friend’s face.
Knowing Bingley as he did, he assumed it was something like a lovely lady with whom he was smitten—rather than something unsavoury such as gambling debts or an upcoming duel.
His younger friend had no ill habits other than regularly falling in love.
“Falling in love” were Bingley’s words, but every time so far, it was not long before the young man decided that it was not, in fact, true love after all.
If Darcy was correct that this would be the topic of the upcoming discussion, Bingley’s first words would allude to “an angel.”
Girding himself against responding too quickly or too negatively, Darcy said, “I will attempt to listen carefully to what you wish to say.”
“I have met an angel, Darcy.”
Darcy bit back a smile. It was good to know, after the unexpected and difficult summer Darcy had endured, that some people were so predictable.
“Tell me about her,” he requested.
The particulars that Bingley related about his latest angel, a lady named Miss Jane Bennet, were for the most part familiar from his former infatuations.
Miss Bennet was, according to his friend, the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, ethereal and golden-haired and ever so graceful.
Darcy realised once again that his friend had a particular type of woman he considered ideal.
Miss Bennet had, Bingley reported, the serenity and goodness that matched her angelic looks; Darcy hoped, rather than believed, that this was true.
“Best of all,” Bingley said, “she likes me for myself rather than for my fortune.”
Although Darcy might have wished he were not so cynical, he very much doubted that last claim.
He felt tempted to pretend an attraction to Bingley’s “angel” to convince his friend how mercenary ladies were brought up to be.
He was almost positive that she would switch her attentions to Darcy, since he was much wealthier than Bingley.
Darcy shifted in his seat, thoroughly uncomfortable with his ungentlemanly thoughts. Of course he would not pretend any such thing. It would be a terrible affront to his friend, for one thing, and also potentially harmful, possibly ruinous, to the lady’s reputation.
He felt strongly that his friend would only be truly happy in a union of equal affection—but seeing how very elated Bingley was now, and considering all the times he had seen his friend before, during, and after his former infatuations, Darcy had to admit that Bingley had a gift for being happy.
He vowed to himself that he would not interfere in any way with his romances.
When Bingley finally wound down in his paean to Miss Bennet, Darcy asked a carefully worded question: “What is Miss Bennet’s situation? Is she the daughter of a gentleman, or of a professional, or of a tradesman?”
“She is the daughter of a gentleman.”
Darcy felt relief, and somehow that loosened him up to ask far too many questions: “What is her place in her family, and what sort of dowry and inheritance will she have? What are her connexions?”
Bingley’s face fell. “And so the lecture commences,” he muttered.
Cringing, Darcy protested, “I am not lecturing you. I am merely asking you questions you should consider if you wish to court her with the intention of marriage.”
“Well, all of the answers to these questions are going to seem like negatives in your book, Darcy, and this is what I wished to discuss. Please attend to me carefully, and I will consider your words just as carefully.”