Chapter 6
“No! I shall not have such calumny under my roof, Caroline! How dare you even say the words aloud to me?”
Walking down the passageway towards the drawing room of Netherfield, Darcy stopped abruptly. Charles Bingley was normally the most mild-mannered of men. Never before had he heard his friend sound so thunderous.
But then, whatever was happening within must be a family dispute. It was not intended for his ears, and he would do best to act as though he had heard nothing. Darcy walked by the door, intending to continue on to the boot room to establish whether his riding boots had yet been cleaned.
“Be reasonable, Brother,” put in Louisa Hurst. “We only wish you to ask Mr Darcy a simple question, in confidence.”
On hearing his name, Darcy stopped and retraced his steps.
“Do not think of repeating what Caroline just said to me, Louisa,” Bingley warned his other sister. “I had hoped that you would have more sense of propriety and hospitality than to suggest I throw vague and spurious accusations at a friend who is also my guest.”
“Vague and spurious? Look, here, you can see exactly what is being said in London with your own eyes,” Mrs Hurst insisted. “We can have no idea how well-founded this rumour is until you put it to Mr Darcy.”
Now feeling more than justified in making his entrance, Darcy swung open the door without warning or hesitation, finding Louisa Hurst frozen in the act of trying to foist a letter onto her angry and unwilling brother while Caroline Bingley stood by with folded arms and a sulky expression on her face.
“What is to do?” Darcy demanded, not minded to prevaricate or disguise his concern. “I heard my name.”
Charles Bingley took advantage of Mrs Hurst’s paralysis to seize the letter from her hand and toss it straight into the fireplace, then using a poker to thrust it into the fiercest of the flames.
“Charles!” she protested too late. “My letter!”
“There is no damned letter,” Bingley muttered in response, still poking at the fire, without turning to face Darcy.
“Will someone do me the courtesy of telling me what is going on?” Darcy said with still greater frustration.
Though he suspected he already knew in broader terms.
“Caroline and I will leave you gentlemen to talk,” said Louisa Hurst, taking her sister’s arm. “Come, Caroline.”
As the door clicked closed behind them, Bingley gave a long sigh and then straightened up.
“Well, Bingley?”
At last, his friend turned and met Darcy’s eyes. Darcy had never heard him so angry before, and likely Bingley had surprised himself as much as Darcy or his sisters. Bingley now looked equally shocked and confused by whatever had just occurred.
“Those ugly rumours about your birth have spread across London and are now out across the rest of the country. Louisa received the most vile letter this morning. I cannot bring myself to repeat exactly what Caroline related of its contents. As you saw, I burned the infernal thing, but there will be others circulating around the ton, and we cannot burn them all, more’s the pity. ”
“There is no way to stop such talk, is there?” Darcy said heavily, joining Bingley at the fireplace and looking into the flames where the offending correspondence was now only ashes among the burning logs.
Bingley shook his head.
“I wish there were, Darcy. If there were anything I could do, you know I would do it. I am sorry.”
“There is nothing you can do,” Darcy confirmed, and briefly laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Your standing by me is proof enough of friendship, however. Do not think that I could blame you for any indiscretions of your sisters or their correspondents.”
Unwilling to give up easily, Darcy’s mind began to work, and he paced before the hearth under Bingley’s troubled blue gaze.
“Simple gossip itself cannot be stopped,” Darcy considered, “but such a strange and fast-spreading rumour did not start by itself, did it? It seems to me that someone must have created this nefarious story and then actively spread it about. If I knew who was behind it, I might halt their efforts and publicly expose them as a liar.”
“I am no lawyer, but wouldn’t public action, or even taking someone to court, only spread the rumours further?
” Bingley pointed out in an uncertain voice.
“If your concern is for your reputation, I do not see what could be done other than to horsewhip the scoundrel, even if you were to track him down.”
“You assume the culprit is a man,” Darcy noted coolly, and Bingley started.
“Don’t you?” he said, rather shocked. “Surely, no lady would…”
“I assume nothing,” answered Darcy. “As to preserving my reputation, given the damage already done, as evidenced by your sister’s letter today, it is likely already too late to entirely avoid publicity.”
“I am so sorry, Darcy,” Bingley said again, looking crestfallen.
“So am I,” Darcy replied.
∞∞∞
“I will be ready for our ride in five minutes,” Darcy called to Bingley from a seat in the hallway, where he had just taken receipt of a letter in his sister’s handwriting. “Georgiana has written back to me.”
“Take as long as you need,” his friend replied with his normal good humour. “I shall be in the library.”
Fearing what wild rumours might reach Georgiana’s ears, Darcy had already written to warn his sister that she was not to believe anything she heard of him that had not come from his own lips.
Only sixteen and of a shy disposition, he had been reluctant to tell her anything that might make her anxious, but judged that it would be worse to leave her unprepared.
Now, Darcy unfolded her latest letter with some trepidation. Some of his own concern melted away in the very first paragraph after the usual formalities and well wishes.
You need not fear that I have been caught up in any unpleasant gossip, Brother. Mrs Annesley and I go out very little in London except to concerts, music lessons or the park, and no one we meet talks to us of anything but Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
I cannot think what evil anyone could say of you, whom I know to be the best of men as well as the best of brothers, but I doubt that they would choose to say it to me, the fondest and most dutiful of sisters.
In any case, I have been equally forewarned by Cousin Ludlow, who was even more mysterious about it all than you. Ludlow came to call on us in London only this week and told me I was not to listen to any stories about you, although he would not say what or why.
I do miss Colonel Fitzwilliam, Brother, and hope he will soon be safely back from the wars and my guardian again.
Ludlow has such a serious expression when he looks at me, and is not half so jolly as his brother.
He writes twice as often as Cousin Richard too, and seems to expect replies to every letter, although I cannot think what to say.
Mrs Annesley says that, as my guardian, he will most want to know about my progress in music and Italian, so I usually write about that, and then the weather. I hope this is right and that you and Cousin Ludlow are satisfied with me…
Darcy smiled and skimmed quickly through the rest of the letter, which was largely family news he had already heard from his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
So, Ludlow was proving more of a burden than jolly Richard, was he?
Well, Georgiana must learn not to shirk the responsibilities of correspondence, especially with her elders.
It was well that Ludlow was taking his role of guardianship seriously.
As he folded the letter into his pocket and prepared to join Bingley, Darcy frowned slightly.
Belatedly, it occurred to him to wonder exactly what Ludlow had heard and judged unfit for Georgiana’s ears.
If the rumours had already reached his relatives in Derbyshire, then they were presumably everywhere now.
What would the formidable Lady Catherine have to say in her next letter?
∞∞∞
“Do you know, I can quite imagine myself settling here in Hertfordshire,” Bingley said cheerfully as they trotted together across the fields, on the home stretch of a long canter through the woodland. “It suits me here. The landscape, the house, the society…”
“Is there really much society here?” Darcy asked doubtfully, his only experiences having been the assembly rooms and other less than enjoyable outings in Meryton, along with slightly awkward formal calls on local grandees such as Sir William Lucas, Lord Moreton and a very elderly academic who had once taught Darcy’s father at Oxford.
“Why, yes, certainly,” Bingley answered stoutly.
“If you had danced and made yourself agreeable at the assembly rooms when we arrived, your acquaintance would now be wider. As it is, I have already received four invitations to dine, with dates to be settled, and I cannot walk down Meryton high street without meeting several friendly faces. I believe I shall hold a ball of my own before long.”
While sceptical about almost every word Bingley had said, Darcy largely kept his thoughts to himself.
He suspected his friend was heavily influenced in favour of Hertfordshire by a single member of its society, that person having long blonde hair, blue eyes and an undeniable sweetness of temperament.
Miss Jane Bennet was not the match that Darcy might have chosen for his friend, he reflected, thinking of the slightly vulgar Mrs Bennet and the two screeching younger daughters who had behaved with so little decorum at the assembly rooms. Still, Bingley’s fancy might pass, as others had done before.
Meanwhile, Darcy had his own present problems and was disinclined to interfere in the lives of others.
“Are your sisters in favour of a ball at Netherfield?” Darcy asked. “I had the impression that they were not so well settled here as you, Bingley. As a single man, you can hardly host a ball without their support.”
“My sisters both love to dress up in their finery,” replied Bingley confidently.
“Caroline especially. You are right that they have less enthusiasm for this neighbourhood than I do, but I am sure it will grow on them in time. They are both very fond of Jane Bennet, and naturally the Bennet family would be invited.”
“Naturally,” Darcy agreed, knowing that Bingley was impatient for his sisters to invite Miss Bennet back to Netherfield Park for tea now that her illness was entirely past. “It is a shame that Miss Bennet should have such a family, though, and such low connections.”
“You cannot side with my sisters on this subject,” Bingley protested.
“The Bennets seem like a good sort of family to me, even if Mrs Bennet is a little garrulous and her younger daughters rather wild. I do not care what their connections are. Anyway, you cannot possibly claim that Miss Elizabeth Bennet is anything less than well-mannered and sensible.”
“I don’t believe I have claimed any such thing,” Darcy objected mildly.
“You implied it in your statement about Miss Bennet’s whole family. Yet when Miss Elizabeth was with us at Netherfield, it seemed to me that you even sought out her company and preferred her to the rest of us.”
Darcy looked at his friend in consternation, not liking the direction of this conversation, nor the meaning that might be implied by the word “preferred”.
But he could not deny that Bingley was correct.
Darcy had repeated chosen to talk with Elizabeth Bennet rather than with Miss Bingley or the Hursts.
At times, he even preferred her conversation to that of Charles, who had read less widely and thought with slower wit.
Still, this did not imply any deeper personal partiality for the young lady, and Darcy was loath to leave his friend with any such impression.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet is indeed well-mannered and sensible,” Darcy agreed with his friend, “but please do not mistake my civility for anything more than an acknowledgement of these virtues. Such as they are, they could never compensate for the defects in the Bennets’ wider family circle.”
From the expression on Charles Bingley’s face, Darcy expected to hear himself called a “pompous ass” or similar, but then suddenly a smile bloomed across Bingley’s features like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.
“Look ahead, Darcy,” he urged, gesturing to a small group gathered near some trees by the path along the river. “It is Miss Bennet and her sisters, with some officers of the militia. Come, we shall go down and meet them!”
Before Darcy could advise him to caution, Bingley had turned his horse towards the group and was cantering across to them, raising his hat as he went.
With a groan, Darcy followed, unenthusiastic at the prospect of dismounting and joining Bingley in making conversation.
His mind was too full and too heavy for idle chatter.
“Mr Darcy is with me too,” he heard Bingley saying to the group, causing them all to turn in his direction.
Then, one of the laughing red-coated officers looked up at Darcy’s face and froze, at the very moment that Darcy too pulled in his horse’s reins and halted his approach.
The man had brown hair, regular features, and an easy smile.
The last time Darcy had seen this too-charming face, he had been castigating its owner and severing his family’s connection with him forever.
Unable to summon a smile, much less speak the man’s name, Darcy looked to the ladies and nodded in their direction.
“Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he acknowledged briefly and then turned his horse to canter away again, back towards Netherfield Park.
Charles Bingley could stay and enjoy the soft smiles of Jane Bennet as long as he wished, and Darcy would explain his own departure later. He could not have endured even the sight of the dastardly George Wickham any longer. The idea of making polite conversation with the man was unthinkable.
What was Wickham doing here? On one level, the answer to the question was obvious. He had somehow inveigled himself into the militia and would be enjoying all that life as a young officer could offer in terms of his favoured wastrel pastimes: drinking, gambling and dallying with women.
But why this regiment, and why now? Why should George Wickham be in Hertfordshire at the same time as Darcy?
Whatever the answer, no good could come of Wickham’s presence. It never did.