Chapter 5
Five
Bingley approached his friend and said, “Darcy, I am certain, now, that I am in love with Miss Bennet. And you seem equally in love with Miss Elizabeth. Can we acknowledge our feelings and plan our next steps?”
Darcy grinned at his friend. “You have known Miss Bennet for two weeks now, and I have known Miss Elizabeth for about five years, two months, and two weeks. I know my long-standing regard; I know my feelings and their duration. I do not know if you can differentiate between love and infatuation, with so short a relationship.”
Bingley felt his eyes widen at his good friend’s comparison.
“You knowing Miss Elizabeth for all that time cannot completely compare to me knowing Miss Bennet this past fortnight.” He thought hard and said, “Miss Elizabeth must have been very young when you met her. And you were only together for a few hours each day, for a few days, back in Ramsgate, I imagine.”
He raised his eyebrows in question, and Darcy nodded, looking as if he was biting back a smile. Bingley tried to glare at him—even though glaring was not something he often attempted, and he was not positive how fierce he might look.
Apparently, not all that fierce. Darcy chuckled.
Still, Bingley argued on. “So then, the rest of your acquaintance has been through letters exchanged from the ladies to your own much-younger sister. I know that you might know some of the outlines of their lives, their experiences, perhaps even their education and knowledge. But can you really know of Miss Elizabeth’s character from her self-reporting through letters?
Can you know how well you would do together from so little time together? ”
“First, I have not declared my feelings for her, and I certainly have not made a verbal or behavioural commitment to Miss Elizabeth. Second, I have more than her own self-reports to go on, since I have also been privileged to read Miss Bennet’s letters, which are full of tales about Miss Elizabeth.
Also, being here for a fortnight, all that I had learnt before is now in context with how other people treat her, what her friends, family, and neighbours say about her, and how I see her treat others.
So, even if I had already proposed marriage to her—which I have not—I would clearly know more about her, for longer, than if I spent six months visiting her in her mother’s parlour. ”
Bingley’s shoulders sagged. “I suppose you are correct. But, blast it, Darce. I do not wish to wait five years! And Miss Bennet would certainly be snapped up if I attempted to wait!”
“I agree,” Darcy said. “However, you have never, so far as I know, had an infatuation that lasted beyond a month.
At least wait that long before you deepen your commitment.
You are already singling her out so often that I am worried that there are some expectations.
Just be certain that you can happily offer for her if it turns out that your frequent attentions give rise to so much expectation that you would ruin her if you were to break from Miss Bennet.
Bingley felt a thrill of alarm at the notion that he might already be in too deep, but he pushed aside the fear, telling himself that Jane was the one-and-only for him.
“Well, what are the next steps for you, Darcy?” Bingley asked.
He looked curiously as a frown and then a smile flitted across his friend’s face. He was so used to Darcy’s mask of reserve, he marvelled at the sight of his friend expressing emotions.
“I am now certain that Miss Elizabeth is attracted to me, but I imagine that she does not feel that she knows me well enough to say yes to a proposal. I will continue to call on her and will slowly show her how I feel, and when it seems the right time, I will tell her how I feel.”
“So you are going slowly…for her sake, I gather. You are already sure of her?”
Darcy nodded. He was generally quite economical with his words and gestures; it was Bingley who was naturally effusive. Bingley thought it was quite unfair that he must be extra careful not to act like himself, but Darcy got to do just as he pleased.
Well, that thought was hardly fair, Bingley admitted to himself. If his friend had been already waiting five years for Miss Elizabeth to grow up—it was quite patient for Darcy to continue to wait.
Elizabeth was delighted, the following morning, to receive two letters in the post. One was from Mrs Popkins, and the other was from her Aunt Maddie.
She opened Aunt Maddie’s letter first, eager to read her response to the news that she had met again with Mr Darcy.
Elizabeth was disappointed that her aunt did not seem even remotely amazed at the coincidence of Mr Darcy coming to, of all places, Meryton—so far from either Ramsgate or Pemberley.
Her aunt did not even seem surprised, let alone astounded.
But, despite being let down that her phlegmatic aunt found little cause to comment on Elizabeth and Jane meeting Mr Darcy again, Aunt Maddy did write something very that sparked some thought:
“I hope you are having a nice time getting to know Mr Darcy better. It is very interesting, in life, to experience people being so very much older than yourself, but years later, although the age gap is the same, the feeling of the gap is dramatically less.”
Elizabeth thought about that. How true that was!
When she first clapped eyes on Mr Darcy, he was not only of age, but he had already lost both parents and thus had inherited many responsibilities.
She knew from Georgiana’s letters that the family had at least Pemberley, a house in Town, and a cottage in Scotland; those properties, servants, and tenants were all his responsibility, along with the guardianship of Georgiana herself.
And who knew? There might be more properties and possibly investments as well.
In contrast, Elizabeth had been just fifteen years old, with both parents still alive. She had been in some ways a child.
Now, there was still an enormous gap between them.
The age gap had not widened, but Mr Darcy was still a guardian as well as a brother, and he was still master of an enormous estate and an even more immense fortune.
He was still responsible for hundreds and hundreds of people.
Elizabeth still had a complete set of parents and far fewer responsibilities.
However, at age twenty, she not only thought of herself as an adult, everyone in her life treated her as an adult, as well.
She now took on more responsibilities at Longbourn—including checking the steward’s figures in the books kept to show earnings and expenditures, visiting the tenants, and ordering repairs and medical visits on behalf of the tenants.
Also, she was now considered to be of marriageable age, and she had been for several years.
She knew of nobody who married at age fifteen or sixteen—although she assumed somebody, somewhere, married at that young age—but she knew one lady who married at seventeen, and several who married at each age after that.
Many people considered twenty to be the perfect age to marry, and most considered Jane, at age two and twenty, to be approaching the metaphorical “shelf.”
When they had met in Ramsgate, Elizabeth decided, the gap between Mr Darcy and herself had been first age, then responsibilities, and lastly social circle.
Now it was reversed: she considered that there was no possibility of a match between the two because of their difference in wealth and connexions—that is, the wide gulf between their standing in society—but the age difference was of no importance now.
However, she had to admit, Mr Darcy himself seemed to be a lot less concerned about that social-circle disparity. Would he look at her the way he did, speak to her the way he did, if he felt there was no possibility of deepening their relationship into courtship and marriage?
She reread the paragraphs of her aunt’s letter that dealt with Mr Darcy, and then she eagerly opened the next letter.
When she had written to Mrs Popkins, Elizabeth had relegated the news about meeting Mr Darcy to the end of the letter: “Netherfield Park has a new leaseholder, a gentleman named Mr Bingley. He has a guest named Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. Do you know either gentleman?” Then she had briefly mentioned her previous acquaintance with Mr Darcy.
Even though she had not written of surprising coincidences nor hinted at the strength of her feelings about the gentleman, Elizabeth knew that Mrs Popkins would write something about her re-acquaintance with Mr Darcy, because that lady was deeply interested in the mention of any gentleman in Elizabeth’s letters.
However, she was shocked that Mrs Popkins wrote several pages in response to Elizabeth’s single paragraph.
“I was fascinated to read that Mr Darcy was in Meryton, of all places. You probably already realise that this particular gentleman is of the first circles, and therefore, unfortunately, out of your reach, but I have never told you of my acquaintance with him, so let me explain it to you now.”
Mrs Popkins’s story was long and dramatic.
Mr Darcy had been one of her late husband’s friends from Cambridge, and she had seen him several times a year, during her short marriage, at balls or concerts or other events in London.
She wrote of how much everyone in her circle admired Mr Darcy’s intellect and character, and then she briefly wrote, “…also, as I am certain you can imagine, every lady I know found him very handsome, although we all knew he was far above us in wealth.” But the shocking part of the letter was that Mr Darcy was involved with the tragedy that had struck Mrs Popkins’s life—the death of her husband.