Chapter Six The Importance of Being Earnest （and the Unimportance of Being Bingley）
White's Club on a Sunday evening was a sanctuary of masculine silence, smelling of beeswax, old leather, and the distinct aroma of fortunes being quietly wagered in the back rooms. It was a place where a man could brood in peace, provided he paid his subscription fees.
Fitzwilliam Darcy sat in a high-backed leather chair, nursing a glass of port and waiting for his friend.
He felt like a man walking to the gallows, or a man about to confess a murder.
He had spent the afternoon in a state of nervous agitation following the tea party, his mind replaying every interaction with Elizabeth—her coolness, her thawing, the way she had looked at him when he mentioned the lemon biscuits.
But now, he had a duty to perform. He had promised her he would meet Bingley. He had offered to convey her regards. It was a penance, a way to atone for the Great Interference of November.
"Darcy! There you are!"
Charles Bingley bounded into the room with the energy of a Newfoundland who had just been promised a walk. He looked healthy. He looked rested. He looked, to Darcy's immense confusion, entirely cheerful.
"Bingley," Darcy said, standing to shake his hand. He searched his friend's face for signs of the devastation he had assumed was there. Hollow cheeks? Dark circles? A tendency to sigh at the moon?
There were none. Bingley's cravat was tied with intricate perfection, his coat was new, and his eyes were bright.
"Good to see you, old chap!" Bingley beamed, signalling a waiter for his drink. "I feel like I haven't seen you in an age, though I suppose it has only been a few days. London is frantic this time of year, simply frantic."
"Indeed," Darcy said, resuming his seat. "I trust you have been well? Since we left Netherfield?"
Bingley's face fell for precisely three seconds. It was a practiced melancholy. "Oh, Darcy, it was dreadful at first. Truly dreadful. I was quite low. Caroline was worried about my constitution. I spent the first week doing nothing but staring out the window and thinking of Hertfordshire."
"I am sorry to hear that," Darcy said, guilt twisting in his gut.
"But then," Bingley brightened immediately, "Hurst insisted I join him at the theatre, and then Lady Jersey sent a card for her ball, and well... one cannot be rude to Lady Jersey. And the air in London is so bracing in December, don't you think?"
Darcy stared at him. "Bracing. Yes."
"And the company! I tell you, Darcy, I had forgotten how lively town can be. Why, just last Tuesday, at the impromptu dance at the Daventrys', I realized how much I had missed the sophistication of the capital."
Darcy took a slow sip of his port. This was not the conversation he had rehearsed. He had rehearsed comforting a broken man. He had rehearsed carefully navigating the subject of Jane Bennet to a friend who was pining for her.
He had not rehearsed listening to Charles Bingley discuss the merits of the Daventrys' punch.
"So," Darcy said carefully, "you are recovered? From your disappointment?"
"Recovered? Well, I suppose the heart is a resilient organ," Bingley said philosophically, swirling his wine.
"One must carry on. And really, it was for the best, was it not?
You said yourself she was indifferent. And Caroline agreed.
It would have been foolish to pursue a connection where the affection was one-sided. "
"Yes," Darcy murmured. "That is what I said."
"And you are always right, Darcy. That is the annoying thing about you." Bingley laughed. "Imagine if I had stayed! I might have made a fool of myself over a country girl who didn't care a fig for me, and missed out on..." He paused, a dreamy look entering his eyes. "Well, everything else."
Darcy felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow outside. "Everything else?"
"Oh, just life! Society! The season!" Bingley waved a hand. "I tell you, Darcy, I am ready for the new year. No more looking back. That is my resolution."
The conversation meandered for a while—politics, the price of horses, the scandal involving Lord Byron—before Bingley circled back to his social calendar.
"You really must come out more, Darcy," Bingley chided gently. "You are turning into a hermit. Why, at the masquerade last week, everyone was asking for you."
"I find masquerades tedious. It is a room full of people pretending to be someone else, usually badly."
"You are such a cynic. It was magnificent. The costumes! The music! And the ladies..." Bingley sighed, a sound of pure contentment. "I must tell you, Darcy, I saw the most beautiful creature I have ever beheld in my life."
Darcy froze. His glass hovered halfway to his mouth.
"The most beautiful creature?" Darcy repeated.
"An angel," Bingley confirmed, his eyes wide with sincerity. "Miss Ellington. She was dressed as a shepherdess. Or a Greek muse? I am not certain, there was a lot of chiffon. But she smiled at me, Darcy, and I swear, I forgot my own name."
Darcy set his glass down very carefully. The words echoed in his head, bouncing off the walls of memory.
She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld!
Bingley had said that about Jane Bennet. Standing in the Meryton assembly rooms, sweating in his evening clothes, he had pointed at Jane and declared her the apex of female perfection. He had been ready to lay his heart, his fortune, and his life at her feet.
And now Miss Ellington the Shepherdess was the new Angel.
"Miss Ellington," Darcy said, his voice flat. "What colour are her eyes?"
"Oh, she has magnificent eyes! Blue, I think. Or hazel? I was looking mostly at her smile. She laughed at all my jokes, Darcy. Every single one."
"That is a rare quality," Darcy noted dryly.
"I have danced with her twice now," Bingley continued, oblivious to the temperature drop across the table. "I am thinking of calling on her father. He is a Baronet, you know. Very respectable. Caroline approves. She says Miss Ellington has excellent taste in ribbons."
Darcy looked at his friend. He looked at the amiable, handsome, empty face of Charles Bingley. He felt a sudden, profound exhaustion.
He had spent weeks in self-recrimination. He had lain awake at night, consumed by guilt for separating two true lovers. He had endured Elizabeth's hatred, her scathing words, her righteous fury, all because he believed he had shattered a great romance.
But there was no great romance. There was only Charles Bingley, falling in and out of love with the regularity of the tides.
"You seem quite taken," Darcy observed.
"I am! I truly am. I think this might be it, Darcy. The real thing."
"Like the last time?"
Bingley blinked. "The last time?"
"Netherfield. Miss Bennet."
"Oh!" Bingley waved a hand dismissively. "That was a fancy. A country idyll. Very sweet, of course, but... well, you pointed out the impropriety. And the lack of affection on her part. It was a lucky escape, really. I see that now."
A lucky escape.
Darcy thought of Jane Bennet. He thought of her sitting in his drawing room that afternoon, pale but dignified, laughing softly at Robert's jokes but with a shadow in her eyes that spoke of deep, quiet hurt.
He thought of Elizabeth's fierce defence of her sister, her absolute conviction that Jane's heart was broken.
He had been right, he realized with a jolt of bitter irony. He had told Bingley that he had to leave on a matter of indifference. He had used it as his primary argument. But he had been wrong about the person. Bingley was the indifferent one. Jane was the one who felt deeply.
He had saved Jane Bennet, not Bingley, he realized. He hadn't ruined her happiness. He had saved her from a husband who would have replaced her with a Shepherdess the moment she had a headache or the season changed.
It was a victory. So why did it taste like ash?
He knew he should leave it. He should finish his port, wish Bingley luck with his Greek Muse, and go home.
But a demon of perversity—or the ghost of Elizabeth's accusing eyes—pushed him. He had to know. He had to be absolutely certain.
"Funny thing, now that I mentioned Miss Bennet," Darcy said, his voice deceptively casual. He picked up a walnut and cracked it with unnecessary violence.
"Oh?" Bingley looked up from his inspection of his cufflinks.
"Yes. I saw her."
Bingley froze. "You saw her? In Hertfordshire? I thought you were in London."
"I am in London. I saw her here. Today. In fact, she took tea at my house this afternoon."
For a moment, Bingley looked genuinely stunned. His mouth opened and closed. "Miss Bennet? Jane Bennet? In London? At your house?"
"Yes. Along with her sister and aunt."
"Good heavens." Bingley shifted in his chair. "I had no idea they were in town. Caroline did not mention... but then, she wouldn't know, would she?"
"She is staying in Cheapside," Darcy said, watching him closely. "With her uncle."
"Cheapside," Bingley repeated. The word hung in the air, heavy with class implication. "Ah. Yes. Of course."
"She is well," Darcy continued, twisting the knife he wasn't sure why he was holding. "Though she seemed quieter than usual."
Bingley looked uncomfortable. He adjusted his cravat. He took a sip of his drink. "Well. That is... that is good to hear. That she is well."
"I mentioned I was seeing you tonight," Darcy lied. "I asked if she wished to convey a message."
"And?" Bingley looked terrified.
"She said nothing. She merely wished you well."
Bingley exhaled a massive sigh of relief. "Oh, good. Good. That is very civil of her. She was always a civil girl."
Darcy waited. He waited for Bingley to ask where she was staying exactly. He waited for him to demand the address. He waited for him to jump up, declare his undying love, and rush out into the London night to throw pebbles at her window in Gracechurch Street.
Instead, Bingley smiled brightly.