Chapter Nineteen #2
“…and Lady Westmorland quite insisted that the supper be taken in the smaller dining room,” she was saying, arranging her napkin with delicate precision.
“She claims intimacy improves conversation, though I cannot imagine anything improving Sir James’s opinions.
One hears the same sentiments repeated wherever one goes. ”
Darcy inclined his head politely, offering neither encouragement nor discouragement. He had long learned that Miss Bingley mistook silence for admiration.
“And then, of course, there was Mrs. Ainsley,” she continued, casting a quick glance in his direction. “You remember her, Mr. Darcy—so devoted to propriety that she once declined an invitation because the hostess’s cousin had eloped some twenty years earlier.”
I remember avoiding her for precisely that reason, Darcy thought.
Bingley smiled faintly, though his attention seemed elsewhere. His gaze drifted repeatedly toward the empty chair across from him, the one Jane Bennet had occupied during her last visit.
Miss Bingley noticed. She always did. “How fortunate we are,” she said sweetly, “to have such quiet evenings now. One does tire of constant visiting. Do you not agree, Charles?”
Bingley blinked. “I—well, I enjoy company. Particularly agreeable company.”
“Ah, yes.” Miss Bingley’s smile sharpened. “Miss Bennet is certainly agreeable. Sweet-tempered, gentle. No one could deny her beauty.”
Darcy’s fork paused midair.
“But,” Miss Bingley continued smoothly, “one must consider more than prettiness when speaking of lasting attachments.”
Bingley frowned. “Caroline—”
“She is a dear girl,” Miss Bingley pressed on, undeterred. “Truly. Yet even the most exquisite appearance cannot compensate for deficiencies elsewhere. Low connections, for example. Or a disposition that is pleasant, but…indifferent.”
“Indifferent?” Bingley echoed.
“Yes.” Miss Bingley dabbed her lips. “She is always polite, always composed. She never seeks you out. Never betrays preference. I would think a gentleman as attentive as yourself might expect some encouragement.”
Darcy felt a tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with the wine. Hearing his own words repeated by Miss Bingley soured his stomach.
I overstepped when I spoke to Bingley, he thought. And he knew it.
Bingley straightened. “Jane is reserved. That is not indifference.”
“Is it not?” Miss Bingley tilted her head. “Who better to know a lady’s mind than another lady, Charles? We are trained to observe such things.”
Trained to manipulate them, Darcy corrected inwardly.
Mrs. Hurst murmured her agreement, her tone lazy but supportive. “I have noticed the same. Miss Bennet is pleasant, but she gives no indication of feeling one way or another.”
Bingley’s color rose. “She enjoys my company. We speak at length.”
“And she speaks at length with everyone,” Miss Bingley replied gently. “That is my point.”
Darcy set down his cutlery with more force than intended. The table fell momentarily silent.
Miss Bingley turned to him at last, her eyes bright. “Do you not agree, Mr. Darcy? You are so very observant.”
I am tired, he thought. Tired of this petty war waged beneath a veneer of civility.
“I think,” Darcy said, “that Miss Bennet’s manners are consistent with good breeding. Reserve is not a fault.” He spoke without thinking, unsure if he actually agreed or just wished to contradict Miss Bingley.
Miss Bingley laughed lightly. “Spoken like a gentleman unused to subtlety.”
His jaw tightened.
Bingley seized upon Darcy’s support with visible relief. “Exactly! Jane is modest. She would never push herself forward.”
“Modesty is admirable,” Miss Bingley allowed. “But affection must be evident if it is to be trusted.”
Darcy glanced at his friend. Bingley looked torn—hope warring with doubt, confidence undermined by persistent insinuation.
She means to wound him, Darcy realized. Not for his own good—but for her purposes. That knowledge stirred something sharp and unpleasant within him.
He pushed back his chair slightly, seeking distance from the conversation, if not the table itself.
“I believe,” Darcy said coolly, “that a lady’s worth cannot be fully measured by how visibly she advertises her feelings.”
Miss Bingley smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “You are very gallant.”
No, he thought. I am weary.
The rest of the meal passed under a strained politeness, conversation drifting to safer subjects—music, the weather, the prospects of the militia’s arrival.
Yet Darcy found little relief. His thoughts returned again and again to the Bennet family—Miss Bennet’s quiet dignity, Miss Elizabeth’s intelligence and fire—and to the unfairness with which they were discussed in his presence.
I disapprove of this, he admitted silently. But I allow it. He allowed it because it reminded him of his own purposes—and that he ought not to be attracted to the impertinent miss from the neighboring estate.
That, perhaps, troubled him most. For beneath his irritation lay conflict: loyalty to his friend, disdain for Miss Bingley’s tactics, and an unwelcome, persistent awareness that the family he had dismissed so readily now occupied his thoughts far more than was prudent.
And Elizabeth—
No. Do not think of her.
He took a measured sip of wine, schooling his expression into calm. But fascination, once awakened, was not so easily commanded to rest.
Darcy remained in the drawing room some time after the others had risen, the decanters half-emptied, the candles guttering low. Miss Bingley’s voice lingered in his ears—sharp, insinuating—but it was not her barbs that troubled him most. It was the clarity that followed them.
This is the danger, he admitted at last. Not to Charles alone—but to me.
He had told himself, repeatedly and with conviction, that Bingley’s possible attachment to Miss Bennet was ill-advised: the disparity of their social positions—Bingley moved in higher circles, the uncertainty of affection, the likelihood of disappointment.
Those objections remained intact. And yet, beneath them lay a more disquieting truth—one he had avoided naming.
If Charles married Jane Bennet, then the Bennets would become constant.
Visits would multiply; intimacy would be unavoidable.
And Elizabeth—quick-witted, composed, irreverently intelligent Elizabeth—would be present as a matter of course.
Not as a novelty encountered occasionally in company, but as a fixture. A relation. A familiarity.
I should see her often, he thought, the realization striking with unwelcome force. Too often.
He imagined it with alarming ease: shared dinners, walks, conversations that sharpened rather than soothed his mind. The small sparks he had tried to dismiss would be given air, given time. He would be expected—by affection, by courtesy, by friendship—to remain. To attend. To endure.
And endure he would not.
For already he found his composure tested, his judgments unsettled.
This is precisely how one loses command of oneself, he told himself grimly.
Darcy had always prided himself on restraint. On mastery. He did not indulge impulses; he governed them. Yet the very effort of governance now revealed how near the edge he stood.
I cannot allow myself to be compromised, he resolved. Not by inclination. Not by proximity.
The solution, then, was plain—if not easy.
If Bingley persisted, Darcy must remove himself.
Distance would be necessary. Visits shortened.
Time divided. Perhaps even a temporary return to Derbyshire under the guise of estate business.
He would counsel Bingley where he could, but he would not remain in Hertfordshire long enough to test his own resolve.
Better to lose time than to lose control.
I must make plans, he concluded. Firm ones.
For while Charles’s happiness mattered greatly to him, Darcy knew—knew with chilling certainty—that the greater risk lay not in his friend’s heart, but in his own.