Chapter 8
Bingley
What a wonderful day it had been! Bingley marvelled at the luck he had, being an object of desire for two such beautiful ladies!
When he had handed the Bennet sisters out of the carriage that morning, Jane had given him a wider smile than usual.
She had held his eyes for several crucial moments, and Bingley knew, looking into her eyes, that she really liked him.
He supposed that he should feel discomfited about that since he had started having improper dreams about Jane’s sister…
. However…It is always pleasant when a beautiful lady likes me.
He had to admit that her obvious admiration stirred his interest in Jane once more.
Then, he had turned to hand out Elizabeth, and her smile stunned him.
Elizabeth’s lips were always quirked up in some manner, but this smile was beaming and brilliant and rather like the sun coming out for the first time in months.
He stared into her eyes, and they were sparkling, and he felt as if he was lost in them—as if Jane ceased to exist.
Of course, he somehow did remember that Jane existed, and he did the polite thing, escorting both ladies inside.
Once under the watch of the Hursts, Bingley knew he had to be solicitous of Jane, not Darcy’s intended, and he played his role well, keeping his glances at Elizabeth quite fleeting and discreet.
Then, on the walk, Jane had been as graceful and lovely as ever, and her voice had been as sweet, but she kept a little closer to him.
He realised that the others were no longer visible, and he turned to Jane and said, “Miss Bennet, I am so happy that you and your sister have been able to come here so regularly, despite the busyness of the wedding preparations. Thank you so much for finding the time.”
While he spoke, he tried something he had tried so many times before: removing one of her gloves, one finger at a time.
For the first time, Jane had smiled and allowed him to remove the glove; in the past, she had always pulled her hand away.
When he raised her bare hand to his lips and kissed it, she allowed that, too, and may even have enjoyed it, although it was difficult to tell.
Then she said, “Lizzy has been telling me all that Mr Darcy has related to her about Derbyshire and its beauty. I certainly hope to visit Pemberley and see for myself. I hope, even, to live near there, perhaps at a nearby estate. Lizzy said it is her dearest wish, too.”
Bingley thought swiftly. After the way Elizabeth had greeted him that afternoon, Bingley now felt certain of her regard.
If Elizabeth was suddenly chatting to Jane about visits to Pemberley and the possibility of living near one another—Jane living at a nearby estate—did that mean that Elizabeth hoped that Bingley would marry Jane and move to a convenient neighbouring estate, so that the two of them—Elizabeth and Bingley—could… ?
He responded to Jane quite sincerely: “I would dearly love to purchase a modest estate near Pemberley, and to live close to the Darcys. As a matter of fact, the idea pleases me so much, I believe it is my new goal.”
Jane’s face brightened, and he truly loved that face…almost as much as he loved the luscious curves of Elizabeth’s body. For the first time, he considered whether it was a possibility to enjoy both, and possibly for the rest of his life.
Bingley’s aunts and uncles were staunchly middle class and constantly spoke of God’s will and God’s laws, but his father had made a fortune and, somewhere along the way, had adopted the morality common among rich men.
He took a mistress, and five or six years later, when her body had grown thicker and her skin coarser, he had made an arrangement for her to live in a little house in Scarborough, and he had taken a new, younger mistress.
His father had not been discreet about his mistresses because there was no need to be. It was what rich men did; it was expected, accepted.
It took a long time for Bingley to realise that his mother had had at least one discreet liaison as well.
He found out almost a year before she died.
At the time, Louisa, Caroline, and Charles Bingley had not yet been sent to school and were being raised by servants of various sorts.
They rarely saw their parents, and so it was a shock when, one day, eleven-year-old Charles careened into a little-used parlour and saw his mother kissing another man.
He was hurried away by his tutor and scolded by the nursery governess responsible for teaching him to be a gentleman, and nobody wished to talk about, let alone explain, what he had seen.
Young Charles had realised that, just as fathers took mistresses, mothers kissed random men.
That was just the way things were. If Elizabeth—no, Lizzy, he should likely begin getting comfortable with the nickname—was starting to angle for him and Jane to move so close to the Darcys… yes, that must be her eventual goal.
Actually, it truly surprised him. He had always thought that Darcy was more straight-laced and unwilling to accept typical extra-marital behaviour.
He had even heard—from Darcy himself—that his parents were true-blue in their marital vows; he said they were unshakable in their loyalty to one another.
But Bingley laughed when he realised the truth.
Darcy was priggish in what he said, but not necessarily in what he believed or did.
The same must have been true of his father, too, because George Darcy had lived an entire decade after his wife had died, and Darcy had claimed that his father had never enjoyed the favours of another woman, remaining true to the memory of his wife—and that was clearly impossible!
This recognition of the difference between what someone said and what someone did —it explained so much.
The exceedingly proper Darcy had surprised him by getting in trouble with Mr Bennet for taking liberties with his Bennet lady—but Bingley had had to piece together that fact, because Darcy was so moralistic with what he said, he could not admit even a syllable of what he had done.
Bingley was quite entertained as he thought about all that he now knew of Darcy with his more mature, less hero-worshipful eyes.