Chapter 4
Darcy
The next morning, Darcy was feeling a bit down because he only had a short time for his usual morning walk with Elizabeth before he had to return for the shooting party.
But when he arrived at their meeting spot and tied Gulltoppr to a bush, Elizabeth approached him with her own regretful news: she had an appointment with the Meryton dressmaker, who was ensuring a perfect fit of the gowns created by Madame Lanchester, and therefore she would not have much time with him.
Chuckling ruefully, he admitted that he had been about to give her similar news.
He challenged her to a sort of race to the top of the hill, and when they reached the top, they did not bother to eat or drink at all; instead, they spent all of their short time together more agreeably engaged.
When Darcy returned to Netherfield, he discovered Bingley already awake and dressed—a definite first for the younger man. “I hope you slept well, Darce,” he said. “Today we open the shooting season at Netherfield! I am delighted to be hosting my first such event.”
Darcy ate two boiled eggs and some toast while Bingley ate a veritable mountain of food. They were almost done emptying their plates when Hurst entered the room with affable greetings.
Hurst, like Bingley, enjoyed eating a large quantity of a variety of foods, but seeing his new brother piling a plate with food inspired Bingley to go back for another helping of everything.
Darcy decided that he had time to add some fruit to his meal and helped himself to a Beacon pear and a few figs.
Bingley’s butler came in to announce the first guests of the shooting party. “Oh! The Gouldings are very early!” Bingley exclaimed. “I just took seconds.”
He looked so mournfully at his plate of food, Darcy offered to go greet the newcomers. He had, after all, finished the truly wonderful fruits.
Bingley thanked him heartily, and Darcy bowed to them both as he left the breakfast room for the gun hall.
There the gamekeeper was tending to the last few details, laying out the powder flasks, shot bags, and shotguns.
Darcy exchanged his morning coat for his shooting jacket and then walked towards the guests, shaking their hands and saying a few words of greeting.
He was shocked to see his friend Francis Johnson. “Johnson! What on earth are you doing here in Hertfordshire?”
Johnson grinned. “I love a surprise. I am not merely in Hertfordshire; I am here at Netherfield Park! I arrived at almost midnight last night.”
“You stayed here?”
“I did. I was planning on travelling from London to Peterborough, following my cousin’s engagement dinner, and my study of a map showed that this area would be a convenient stop.
A friend told me that Bingley had leased an estate in Hertfordshire.
So I wrote to him, reminded him that you had introduced us in March and then we renewed our acquaintance at the Stoddards’ ball, and I asked for a night’s stay.
He wrote back immediately, and once I made sense of his reply—with the help of several experts in breaking ciphers—my goodness, friend, where did Bingley learn—or fail to learn—penmanship?
—at any rate, once I figured out what he was attempting to write, and I discovered that you were here, I was excited to commit to two nights here! ”
“Wonderful!” Darcy’s outlook on the shooting party rose, and he and Johnson picked up their gear.
Bingley and Hurst arrived as the last few guests trickled in, and Darcy introduced his friend all around.
It was quite a merry group that set off for the pond that lay between Lucas Lodge and Netherfield Park, hoping to see—and shoot—common snipe.
“I say, Darcy, you are surely overdressed for a marsh!” Johnson teased as they gingerly walked the marshy ground surrounding the pond.
“Not everyone can pull off spatterdashes as well as you, Johnson.”
Hurst laughed and joined in, saying, “From what I have seen, Darcy is overdressed at all times. I have never seen a more fashionable array of black, ebony, charcoal, and slate clothing.”
“Again,” Darcy returned with a grin, “I must defend myself by saying that not everyone can pull off canary and red stripes as well as you, Hurst.”
Hurst’s bright waistcoat had already garnered a few stares, and surprised laughter broke out among the nearest men. Hurst laughed harder as he replied, “I am merely being sporting to the poor snipe. We must give the birds a fighting chance to spot us and flee, must we not?”
After having moderate success at the pond, the gamekeeper led the group to a series of drainage ditches. That rather inglorious spot turned out to be best for the day’s sport, and the men walked home with more than three brace each.
“How goes your courtship of Miss Bennet, Darcy?” Johnson asked as they walked back to the Netherfield manor.
“Well, Miss Elizabeth and I are engaged to be married, so I would say that it goes very well, thank you.”
“Congratulations! I envy you, you know. A lovely woman like your Miss Bennet would never look twice at me, and if she did, her father would not be eager to embrace a second son struggling to find a position higher than that of curate. You could not know such hardships.”
Darcy nodded in acknowledgement, saying, “That is all too true, generally speaking. Still, in some ways it is not as true in this situation as you have imagined. Miss Bennet did not know my circumstances when she gave me her heart, but her father did—and yet he was very reluctant to give us permission to marry. I had to woo him more vigorously than my bride!”
Johnson stopped walking and studied Darcy’s face to see if he was serious. Darcy stopped as well, and turned towards him.
Bingley charged up from behind, slapping Darcy on the back and addressing Johnson with his happiest smile.
“Let it never be said that Darce here dissembles. He is telling you the truth, sir! Why, Darcy here had to beat Mr Bennet in chess in order to earn the smallest smidgen of respect, and then to gain his favour, Darcy had to do something so dreadful, so terrible, you will not believe your ears.”
Johnson was chuckling rather than staring, now, and he entered into Bingley’s raillery. “What did Darcy have to do?”
“He had to lose a game of chess!”
Johnson lifted his eyebrows. “Darcy, lose? In chess? I have never heard the like.”
Darcy drew himself up with feigned hauteur, belied by the twinkle in his eye. “I have lost a few times, believe me. Last I heard, I still hold the distinction for the most wins at Cambridge, but that does not mean that I have never lost a single game.”
Bingley asked, “Are you saying you did not throw the game, Darce? To soften up the old codger?”
“I did not throw the game.” Darcy was being truthful, and he said this with his usual serious and intent expression.
But then he smiled at his friends and said, “However, I have to admit that there was an enormously distracting element in the room at the time that I lost, located not two feet away.”
The men both laughed, surprised at the rakish slant of Darcy’s grin.
“I see!” Johnson said. “Well, again, I can only envy you. You are marrying a beauty.”
“I envy you as well,” Bingley said. Darcy sent a startled glance towards his friend, but Bingley grinned widely, raised his hand in a sort of salute, and rushed off to speak with some of the men from the neighbourhood.
Darcy shrugged. He imagined that Bingley was wishing he had an obvious way to court Mr Bennet’s favour, since the man had apparently taken a disliking to him.
Before long the shooting party fell upon the luncheon Miss Bingley took credit for—but had likely been arranged several days before she arrived—and innumerable pots of ale were consumed alongside the food.
“What demands upon your time have you for the rest of the day, Johnson?” Darcy asked.
As he had expected, his friend had no fixed plans, so Darcy invited him to visit Longbourn at his side, and Johnson eagerly agreed. The two separated to clean up and change.
“Sir,” Hopkins said the moment Darcy unlocked his door and entered, “the door to your sitting room had been opened this morning, according to the fallen paper wedge.”
Darcy sighed and shook his head. “The bed chamber doors?”
“Both doors still had the paper wedges securely held near the hinges. The only door that had been opened was the door from the corridor to the sitting room. I asked Mrs Nicholls to check, but she neither loaned her key nor opened the door for anyone, and there was no legitimate servant action on that entire floor from the time I left until the time I returned.”
“Thank you, Hopkins.” Darcy had to assume that Miss Bingley—or possibly another—had managed to pick the lock or use a skeleton key. “You searched the sitting room?”
“Everything was exactly as it ought to be. None of the threads in the cupboards and drawers had been disturbed, and the contents of your locked case are not only still in place, but they seem completely untouched.”
Hopkins shifted his feet, and Darcy became alert. “Is there more?”
“Mrs Nicholls seemed upset. When I reminded her that you had warned her that there might be strange behaviour by one or both of Mr Bingley’s sisters, she said that she felt glad that she had been warned but…
well, she said that there being an actual incursion rather than merely hypothetical ones, she worries that the situation is more serious than she had assumed. ”
Darcy looked at the clock and, deciding to postpone dealing with the matter, he asked his valet to continue on with all safeguards. Then he hurried to get ready for the call on Longbourn. Soon he was sitting with Johnson, Bingley, and Georgiana in the carriage.