Chapter 5 A Prodigiously Ill Humour
A PRODIGIOUSLY ILL HUMOUR
“Mr Bingley, sir.” Hughes, Darcy’s butler, announced the arrival of his friend into his study three days after his return to town.
Sitting beside him—or rather lolling—his cousin Viscount Saye groaned. “The puppy is here to hump our legs.”
“Be nice,” Darcy admonished. “In any case, he might be more inclined to bite my leg once he hears what I have to tell him.”
“In truth?” Saye straightened himself, an expectant smile coming over his face. “An angry Bingley!—I might enjoy this.”
Darcy rolled his eyes. Unfortunately, Saye knew everything about his time in Kent, including the planned proposal.
Having had no doubt in his mind that he would return to London an engaged man, Darcy had written to his solicitor for an appointment to prepare the settlement articles.
It was not until the man presented himself at Darcy’s house that he remembered it, and at that time, he was too embarrassed to cancel it.
He therefore kept the appointment, telling the man that he had not yet proposed, but wished to be prepared for the lady’s father.
Saye, who had a remarkable talent for appearing disinterested while gleaning every morsel of information around him, had pounced upon the articles almost instantly and had not let up on his questions until Darcy disclosed every last bit of the story.
It could only be a sign of desperate times that Saye’s response to it was sympathetic; he had not scorned or teased his younger cousin about it once.
Bingley’s entrance was something of a shock. He had lost weight—a good amount of it—and he had nothing of his usual ebullient air. He gave Darcy and Saye a smile when he entered that could only be described as grim.
“Bingley!” Darcy exclaimed with his best approximation of cheer. “How good it is to see you!”
“You look,” said Saye, casting a gimlet eye over him, “as if you have been ridden hard and put away wet. Are you ill?”
“I suppose you could say that.” Bingley sank into the chair offered to him. “When did you return to London, Darcy?”
“Only a few days ago. I stayed in Kent a bit longer than I intended, and now am having a deuce of a time sorting through my affairs.” Darcy tried to sound cheerful, or at least as cheerful as he generally sounded.
“Pemberley does appear to keep you busy. I do not know if I will ever comprehend the full truth of it myself, but I am certainly aware enough of it through you.”
Saye was busy examining his own fingernails, but asked, “You intending to keep that place in Hertfordshire? Nether Regions, or something like that?”
Bingley barked a short, bitter laugh. “In retrospect, it begins to feel like the bowels of hell, but it is called Netherfield Park, and I have decided to give it up.”
“Give it up! But why?” Darcy exclaimed. “I am surprised. I thought you liked it very well there.”
“Mind if I help myself to your brandy?” Bingley gestured towards the sideboard.
“Now?” Darcy asked. “It is not even noon.”
“Well thank you, Father, but I am a grown lad and can have brandy for my breakfast if I would like,” Bingley shot back as he rose and made his way over to the drinks.
His general peevishness, so uncharacteristic of him, made Darcy fall silent.
Something told him this was not Bingley’s first drink of the day, nor would it be the last. There had never been, it seemed, a less opportune time to give a man bad news and yet, if he did not tell Bingley now, how could he justify it?
Saye was never fond of quiet in a room. “If you want to know, I have always thought nether regions a rather elegant turn of phrase, but it seems like it should have something to do with the genitals. You know, on the whole, male, female, all of it. The nether regions.”
Ignoring his cousin, Darcy returned to the subject of Netherfield. “Are you certain you wish to give it up? I think you would do well there.”
“I first thought of it when I read Dryden,” Saye continued his thoughts on nether regions, crossing his arms in the posture of one of the old Wits.
“The Hind and the Panther. ‘And as the Moon who first received the light, With which she makes these Nether Regions bright’—Come now! She? Makes the nether regions bright? I daresay we all know what that really means.”
Full glass in hand, Bingley returned to his chair, taking a large gulp of his drink before saying to Darcy, “I hope to never have to lay eyes on the place again.”
“I am sorry to hear that you feel that way, but maybe you will be of a different mind once I tell you what I learnt in Kent.”
“What is poetry, after all, but the learned man’s way to slip a few vulgarities into print? Dryden begins the whole thing by talking about the milk-white hind. Saucy old devil,” Saye concluded admiringly.
“What did you learn in Kent?” Bingley asked.
“Give me a poem, any poem,” Saye declared, “and I will show you why it is secretly a naughty joke.”
“Saye,” Darcy hissed under his breath, wishing to stop him rattling away in the midst of what promised to be a fraught discussion. Alas, Saye misinterpreted him entirely and understood that he should dive into the subject with all the finesse of the bulls at Pamplona.
“Darcy and my brother met with Elizabeth Bennet in Kent, Fitzwilliam let it slip that Darcy had interfered in one of your romances, and she deduced that it was you and her sister. Evidently her sister was quite in love with you after all.” With a broad smile, Saye leant over to give Bingley a jovial punch on the arm. “Go and get her, boy!”
Whether it was the brandy or the obvious lack of sleep that confounded him, Bingley was left looking bewildered by this news. “Saw Miss Elizabeth? In Kent?”
Darcy lowered his face to his hand for a moment, rubbing his forehead. “When Fitzwilliam and I arrived in Kent, we found Miss Elizabeth staying at my aunt’s parsonage house. Do you remember Sir William Lucas’s eldest daughter, Miss Charlotte Lucas?”
Bingley nodded.
“Miss Lucas married Mr Collins, and Miss Elizabeth was visiting them. Fitzwilliam and Miss Elizabeth became quite friendly during our stay, and he inadvertently revealed to her what…what I had done.”
“Persuaded you that Miss Bennet did not care for you,” Saye offered. “Wrongly.”
“Yes, thank you, Saye. In the course of that conversation, she told Fitzwilliam that Miss Bennet had fallen in love with you last autumn and has remained quite heartbroken since you left. In fact, she—” Darcy swallowed and then took a deep, fortifying breath before continuing.
“—she came to town, has been in town since just after Christmas, in fact. In January, she…she called on your sisters.”
Bingley’s mouth dropped open, and he made no effort to close it. At last, he echoed Darcy’s words, “January?”
Darcy nodded, his misery increasing by the moment. “Bingley, pray understand that we had only your best interests in mind when—”
“We?” Bingley interjected. “What do you mean, we? You and my sisters?”
“Well…yes. Miss Bingley and I particularly,” Darcy explained. “We—she and I—agreed that you had begun to recover your spirits, and we did not wish you to have to relive your pain. So we…we felt it best to conceal it from you.”
Bingley’s complexion, which had seemed pale when he entered, was reddening to an alarming hue, at an equally alarming rate. Nevertheless, he was deadly quiet as he set his glass on a nearby table and asked, “Did Caroline return the call?”
Darcy dropped his gaze to his own lap. “She did, but it was, um, some weeks later. Her purpose was to cut the acquaintance.”
Bingley leapt from the seat, his face now a dreadful puce colour and his fists clenched by his sides. He had been near enough while seated that rising allowed him to loom angrily over Darcy.
Darcy wondered absently if he meant to strike him.
Saye likely sensed it as well and rose. “Men, perhaps we ought to stand down here. Nothing is to be solved unless—”
“Bugger off,” said Bingley flatly, then incongruously added, “My lord.”
Looking like he was about to laugh, Saye quirked a brow at Darcy then did as bidden and went to pour himself a glass of brandy.
“So not only did you hurt me,” Bingley said, “you hurt her too. And she has suffered for these many months.”
“I cannot tell you how deeply I regret my error, and apologise profusely—”
“Oh, you apologise, do you?” Bingley laughed bitterly, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, what a comfort that is! I do hope you have written to Mr Bennet with the news? The Great Fitzwilliam Darcy apologises! Miss Bennet will surely be appeased accordingly.”
“I know you are upset with me, Bingley, but there is little else I can say.”
His friend ignored him and instead began to pace, the chaos of his hair bouncing with each angry step.
“I apologise,” he mimicked in a mincing, prim sort of way.
“Forgive me, Miss Bennet, for stomping on your feelings. Forgive me, Bingley, for ripping the still-beating heart from your chest and watching you bleed while I go about my merry way!”
“I did not go about my merry way,” Darcy protested. “My error has cost me dearly as well!”
Bingley came to a halt and turned a sharp eye on Darcy. “How so?”
The last thing Darcy wished was to tell yet another person of his almost-proposal, but there seemed to be nothing for it.
In tones far more sedate than what he felt, he said, “Miss Elizabeth Bennet despises me for this. Indeed, she said specifically that I was the last man in the world she would consider marrying—which is particularly unfortunate as I had just reconciled myself to the fact that she was the only lady in the world whom I wish to marry.”
Bingley scoffed. “Despite the many things I heard of fortune and uncles in trade and vulgar sisters? Rather ironic, is it not? The Bennet ladies were all perfectly dreadful until The Great Fitzwilliam Darcy decided they would do.”
“If you would, pray, stop referring to me as such,” Darcy muttered. “I do not think of myself as The Great Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Oh, no? Well, you certainly behave as if—”
“Bingley,” Saye interjected, “it seems Darcy had your best interests at heart.”
Bingley rounded on him. “My best interests? Is happiness not in my best interest?”
“I truly believed Jane Bennet did not love you and that you would at length become deeply unhappy,” Darcy explained.
Bingley crossed his arms over his chest and scowled fiercely. “Miss Elizabeth does not love you either and yet you nearly proposed to her.”
Darcy felt his face flame. “If I am being perfectly honest,” he said stiffly, “I did not think overmuch on what she thought of me. I took an acceptance for granted.”
“Of course you did. You know what your problem is?” Bingley pointed a finger at him, jabbing into the air between them. “All this stuff and nonsense about superior birth, all these ladies tossing themselves at you, has led you to believe you are better than the rest of us.”
“I do not—”
“You are grievously mistaken to think a woman like Miss Elizabeth Bennet would ever be impressed by you enough to marry you. You are arrogant and high-handed, thinking nothing of interfering in the pleasures of other people as it suits you!”
Darcy closed his eyes against this assault and ran his hand across his forehead. He had expected Bingley to be angry, but never could he have envisioned such outrage as this. Had it really come to this, that the man he regarded as his best friend thought so poorly of him?
“Again, I say how deeply I regret my actions. What I think you should do now—”
“What you think, Mr Darcy”—Bingley pronounced his formal name with a biting precision—“is what led me into this in the first place. I have only my own stupidity to thank for believing you the first time, but I should be damned if I will do it again. I beg you would excuse me. I have had enough of this for a day.” He bowed formally, and departed quickly, his boots beating an angry and rapid staccato down the hall.
Darcy blew out a long breath, feeling a wave of pain wash over him. Never could he have imagined such harsh words passing between him and Bingley.
“I think it might have been better if he had just humped our legs,” Saye observed drily.