Chapter 9
The Influence of Friendship
“It really is a good thing that Miss Bingley cannot see you at present. Though I am sure she would forgive you a great deal, I wonder if even she could overlook the unevenness of those lines.”
Darcy attempted to glare at Elizabeth but could not long suppress a smile.
It was true; dashing off a few lines of conversation had been relatively easy even in his recumbent position, but composing a legible letter was proving impossible.
The pain in his neck prevented him holding his head forward to see the page properly and squinting at it aslant meant his letters sloped pitifully across the page.
“Should you like me to write it for you?” Elizabeth asked more sympathetically, to which Darcy acceded by handing her the pen and paper. She declared what he had written to be illegible and began afresh, transcribing the salutation from the original. “Does this say Fitzwilliam?”
Darcy absentmindedly touched the back of one hand with the finger of another, distracted by how Elizabeth’s lips formed around the word.
She wrote it down. “I cannot read the rest so I shall improvise.” The glint in her eye and slight curl of her lip gave Darcy to hope some manner of devilry was imminent. His stomach turned over in anticipation.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” she began. “Pray, send help—no, help will never do. Reinforcements is better. Send reinforcements. I have been hurt—no, incapacitated. I am stuck—I am imprisoned at an inn near Spencer’s Cross.
The road is blocked—” She tapped the end of the pen against her front teeth while she thought.
“The road has been barricaded by snow. I require…evacuation.”
“What are you about?” Darcy mouthed when she glanced at him slyly.
She fixed him with a look of such impishness as made his heart thump. “Studying for words of four syllables.” He narrowed his eyes at her, and she let slip a small laugh. “I am merely attempting to make it sound authentic. You would not like your cousin to dismiss the letter as a hoax.”
He held out his hand to take the pen and stack of paper from her and wrote, albeit messily, on a different page,
Bingley was wrong to imply that my use of long words is affected. It scarcely ought to reflect poorly on me that my vocabulary is more comprehensive than his.
Elizabeth’s smile faded. “Forgive me, Mr Darcy. I was only teasing, but I forget that you do not care for being laughed at.”
Yet more rattled than before, he handed back the writing apparatus, keeping his eyes downcast. “It was Bingley’s teasing I disliked,” he mouthed sullenly. “I enjoyed yours.”
It seemed a long while before he heard the scratch of the pen resume.
“It was most uncivil of Mr Bingley to tease you at Netherfield when he must have known you would not like it,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps he is not quite as deferential towards you as he claimed to be.”
Unable to guess whether she meant to defend him against Bingley’s teasing or defend Bingley against his supposed tyranny, Darcy made no reply.
“There,” Elizabeth declared. “I am finished. Will that do, do you think?”
He read what she showed him and assured her it would do very well.
“Here then,” she said, holding the pen out to him. “You had better sign it.”
He did, and she blew on it to dry the ink. “F. Darcy,” she read with interest. “Would it be terribly impertinent to enquire what the F stands for?”
“Fitzwilliam,” he mouthed.
“Fitzwilliam?” she repeated with a frown, as though she had misread his lips. “The same as your cousin’s surname?”
“In honour of my mother,” he replied with a small shrug that nonetheless sent pain lancing down his neck.
Elizabeth pulled a face that he hoped was approval, though he had given up attempting to know her thoughts and resolved not to count on it.
Instead, he determined to settle another matter that troubled him still and indicated that he wished her to hand back the stack of paper.
In a mortifyingly childish scrawl, he wrote,
What was your meaning when you said that you were not as complying as my other friends?
She smiled ruefully upon reading it. “I ought not to have said that, sir. It was uncivil, and I apologise.”
Nevertheless, I would know your meaning.
“Very well,” she said, tilting her chin defiantly. “I meant that you appear to like having your own way very well, but that I am not as willing as some of your friends to be at your disposal.”
He refrained from gaping at her and mouthed, “Which friends?”
“Since we have only one mutual acquaintance, you must know I mean Mr Bingley.”
“In what way is he at my disposal?”
“Can you deny you had a part in his leaving Hertfordshire after his ball and not returning?”
Darcy tensed, and it hurt his throat. He ought to have stuck with his first instinct and not enquired. “Bingley had business in—” He gave in and took up the pen instead.
Bingley had business in London. Why do you suppose I had anything to do with his decision to leave?
“It is speculation, I confess,” Elizabeth answered. “Based on the opinion you once expressed to me that, where there exists a satisfactory degree of intimacy between friends, and where the matter is of enough importance, one party might justly argue the other into complying with their wishes.”
And what makes you believe—
The pen ran dry. He dipped it in the ink Elizabeth held out and finished.
—it was my wish that Bingley not return to Hertfordshire?
“A few things,” she replied with a display of equanimity incongruous to the turn of the conversation.
“But mostly the letter Miss Bingley sent to Jane shortly afterwards with the information that her brother was in town courting your sister. Indeed, she dwelt with some warmth on how much the relations of both parties wished the connexion.”
Darcy froze, dismayed to feel himself redden.
“I knew you were aware of Mr Bingley’s partiality towards Jane, for I was there when Sir William mentioned it to you.
And when my mother so”—she rolled her eyes—“discreetly boasted of their attachment within your hearing. Given all of that, perhaps you can forgive me for concluding that you would prefer your friend to stay away from my sister and increase his intimacy with yours instead. But if I have misread the situation, then I apologise.”
She was too clever for her own good. Nay, he corrected himself, too clever for his good. There was no evading the matter now; he would not lie to her.
You have not entirely misread it.
He paused to sip some water and collect his thoughts. Doing his utmost not to be perturbed by the manner in which she watched him, he adjusted himself slightly on the bed and resumed writing as well as he could, which was not very.
I advised him to avoid raising your sister's (and the neighbourhood's) hopes any further, but my object was not to secure his affections for my sister.
His unwieldy scribblings meant he ran out of ink rapidly. He dipped the pen again.
I shall not deny such a match would be desirable, should it come to pass, but Georgiana is too young at present to entertain any suitor.
“What then was your object in separating him from Jane?”
“Not a good match,” he mouthed, too tired to lift his arm to dip the pen in the ink again. “Would have made him unhappy.”
He could tell it vexed her. Indeed, he had not for a moment thought it would not, but the intensity of her displeasure startled him. Surely, with her good sense, she could comprehend the imprudence of the union.
“Why was it for you to decide what would make Mr Bingley happy?” she demanded.
“Or my sister? Or yours, for that matter, for Miss Darcy might very well prefer not to marry a man who loves somebody else now—but I suppose that consideration was of no consequence to you when you were arranging it all to your liking.” She banged the inkwell down on the nightstand, evidently too cross to oblige him by holding it any more.
“Do you see no injustice in the fact that you are marrying where you like, yet you refuse to allow anybody else in your sphere of influence the same privilege?”
She gave no indication of having heard his heart’s thundering misstep, though it did so loudly enough that Darcy would not have been surprised if she had. He had been so careful to give her no indication of his regard! How had she come to think they could ever marry?
“What?” he mouthed feebly, unable to express aught more eloquent.
“Do not pretend ignorance, sir. You do not play the part well. I know you are marrying your cousin.”
He did gape at her then, and though he would never have thought incredulity could actually hurt, fire coursed down his neck. “I am not marrying my cousin,” he mouthed, unsure whether he was more relieved or disappointed that she had not mistaken his intentions after all.
She slumped a little in her chair with a chagrined expression, though it soon transformed into churlishness. “Why not? What is wrong with her?”
“Nothing! I simply do not wish to marry her.”
Elizabeth shook her head disbelievingly. “You have done a much better job of showing your hypocrisy with this than I could ever hope to. You will not marry your cousin because you do not wish to, yet you perceive no value in the wishes of the people whose lives you arrange so high-handedly?”
Darcy had not the fortitude for this! He was not used to accounting for himself and certainly not whilst unable to speak.
“I have forced nobody to do anything against—” He ceased his silent defence, for Elizabeth was squinting at his mouth and shaking her head in exasperation.
He indicated that if she wished him to respond, he would require more ink, and she very reluctantly placed the well back within his reach.
It was running dry, and it was necessary for him to dip the pen thrice more before his reply was done, by which point his arm shook with fatigue.