Chapter 1 #2
Again, he nodded, tension threading through every muscle as he could now see where she was headed.
“You accuse my family of abhorrent behaviour, but what of the behaviour of your sister who was taught better, lessons that my sisters are only now starting to receive. My father just retained a governess and will consider sending my two younger sisters to school. How can you excuse in your sister, who received a better education, what you find disgusting in others?”
Elizabeth saw how uncomfortable Mr Darcy was, and how the colours kept changing on his face as her words hit him with the same force as a fist, but she had started and was determined to have her say.
Having to consider culpability on his sister’s behalf was very hard for Darcy, but as much as he wanted to, he could not ignore the rectitude of what Miss Bennet had said.
“You highlight the bad behaviour you see in my family, but what of your own? Here at Rosings Park we have the prime example of your Aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whose behaviour and pronouncements are beyond the pale. She thinks that she knows all when her advice proves that she knows little. She claims she and her daughter would have been proficient in many things if they had learnt. As ridiculous a pronouncement as I have ever heard! Is her routine Interference in the lives of her tenants and the parishioners of Hunsford acceptable? Writing Mr Collins’s sermons to deliver the opposite message of that in the Holy Bible is acceptable?
She has less accomplishment that any one of my sisters, yet you accept her behaviour.
Why is that, sir? Because a title and wealth excuse all? How hypocritical of you yet again.”
Darcy was set back on his heels; this little slip of a woman was making him look at things that he had long ignored. As much as he dreaded what she would say next, he listened almost against his own will.
“On the one hand you talk about the behaviour of Miss Bingley. Did you ever say anything to refute her mean, petty, shrewish, and spiteful attacks on me, my family and the whole neighbourhood while I was a guest in a home leased from my family by hers?
“You needed to separate Bingley from my sister due to our family’s behaviour, but you accepted much worse from the sisters of your friend.
From what they said, and you did nothing to refute, they are friends with your sister.
Women like that you allow around your dear sister, but my sister, who is the sweetest and gentlest of souls, needed to be separated from your friend.
You never once contradicted the ladies who thought themselves superior as they stated over and over that we are below them and not worth their notice, all the while knowing that daughters of tradesmen are far below us, regardless of their wrong perception of our wealth. Hypocrisy!” She glared at him.
Darcy felt as though he were back in the square ring at the Cambridge Pugilist Club, being pummelled without the ability to defend himself.
He was reeling just waiting for the knockout blow, so much so that in his confusion and distress, he missed entirely Elizabeth’s mention of Netherfield Park and the property’s ownership.
Darcy once again struggled to pull himself from his own thoughts as Elizabeth continued.
He very much regretted his promise to her that he would remain silent until she was finished.
She had not varnished the truth, what she was saying pained him much more than he was willing to admit to himself. Miss Bennet resumed her litany.
“Your apology for your insult to me is accepted. I now understand the cause for your mood, however your training as a gentleman should have enabled you to behave as one in a civil way that was neither haughty, disdainful nor arrogant. Miss Bingley, I am sure, might drive you to distraction, but that is no excuse to take your discomfort and annoyance out on everyone but her.”
Elizabeth Bennet, who under normal circumstances, would not dare to take anyone to task as she was doing to Mr Darcy was incensed and that drove her to continue.
“That brings me to your presumption that you could divine my sister’s feelings.
You claim to love me, yet you hid your feelings so well that I, the object of your affection, could not discern any tender regard.
In fact, I saw just the opposite. What I believed was that you only looked upon me to find fault.
If I could not see your regard, then how are you able to discern the same in others?
You hide your true feelings behind a mask!
Do you think that you are the only one who does that?
Perchance do you think as your aunt does, that your position and wealth make you all knowing, that somehow you have the ability to see into my sister’s mind and read her thoughts?
My sister Jane, is very reticent, acts within propriety, and hardly shows her true feelings to me.
But you thought nothing of breaking her heart by talking nonsense to Mr Bingley. Again, a bevy of hypocritical actions!
“Are you aware of Caroline Bingley’s assertions that your dear sister is to marry her brother?”
Darcy looked shocked and angered, but kept to his promise to be quiet.
“Yes, she sent a letter to Jane intimating as much. It is evident from your letter that your sister is still of a tender age, far too young to be considering matrimony. I must believe that you are not so uncaring as to countenance Miss Bingley to use your sister’s name so ill.”
The look of extreme fury that Lizzy saw on Mr Darcy’s face answered that question for her.
“If she were a man, I would call the harridan out!” Darcy spat, and then remembered himself and took a breath.
Even Elizabeth could not fault his break of his word; and it was actually welcome to see he loved his sister so.
He took a breath and indicated that Miss Bennet should continue, if she had more to say. Though he was afraid of what she might say now that he had seen things so differently from her perspective.
Elizabeth took a steadying breath before she continued.
“I must thank you, however,” She almost smiled at the look of confusion on Mr Darcy’s countenance, “for revealing the lack of constancy and weakness of character in your friend. It would have been a detriment for Jane to be married to such a man. Do not mistake her reticence and serenity for lack of will, however. Jane does see the best in all, but like you, her good opinion once lost is lost forever.”
“Now, sir, I must shock you, for I know disguise of every sort is your abhorrence, even if you employed such underhanded tactics yourself on behalf of your friend. You have spoken of Cheapside as if it is a place for lepers. While it is true that my uncle’s warehouses are there, and that he still owns a townhouse nearby, his primary residence is on Portman Square in Mayfair.
” Elizabeth noted Darcy’s eyes widen in shock and she continued somewhat smugly.
“Jane chose to stay at the townhouse near Cheapside until she had ascertained Mr Bingley’s intentions, and that of his sisters.
The Cheapside house is typically used for meetings with business clients, for my family has taken great care in hiding the extent of our fortune.
Hence, you can see that your accusation that Jane would have accepted your friend purely for his wealth is entirely baseless.
You disregard the fortune hunters that you so often admit to your presence, yet it is the Bennets of Longbourn who are seen as the undesirable connection. ”
“I must entirely disabuse you of the notion that we, that any of my sisters or myself, would marry for material gain. You have heard of ‘King Midas’? Edward Gardiner is my uncle, sir. He owns Gardiner and Associates and is well known among the Ton.”
As he nodded Darcy’s stomach sank. He knew the name.
Indeed, who did not know it? Few men were accepted as investors and fewer still could call Gardiner a personal friend.
His Uncle Reggie was one of the lucky few.
Though Darcy knew all of this, he had failed to make the connection to Elizabeth or her family.
Elizabeth finished her litany of grievances by outlining the business agreement her uncle and her father had made years ago.
Mr Bennet, it seemed, had a keen business sense not often employed by wealthy landowners.
He had provided the funds for Mr Gardiner to start his business, settling for a fifty percent share, though he was given more.
Mrs Bennet knew nothing of the arrangement, explaining her genuine concern and erratic behaviour, and her husband’s clear dismissal of her nerves.
Darcy could understand Mr Bennet’s motives.
“Besides owning half of the company as a silent partner, my father has underreported Longbourn’s income to curb my mother’s spending habits so that all the available money was sent to Uncle Edward to invest over and above the ownership in the company.
He has used some of the money, but most of the substantial profits from Gardiner and Associates and the other money he invested has been reinvested each year, increasing our wealth exponentially.
You have no idea just how wealthy we are; without pride I would estimate that we currently rival the royal family.
“Miss Bingley used to crow about her twenty-thousand-pound dowry as if that made her better than her family’s roots in trade.
I and each of my sisters have more than ten times her dowry, that is each!
That does not count the five percent of Gardiner and Associates that each of us owns.
If you take Mr Bingley’s total wealth and add his sister’s dowries to it, I and each of my sisters have far more just in our dowries!
I know this, as we investigated the Bingleys before I approved the lease to Netherfield.
” It hit Darcy; Netherfield belonged to Miss Elizabeth alone!
As Elizabeth detailed her family’s holdings in Hertfordshire that included much more land and another estate, Darcy realised with a jolt that the Bennet’s fortune dwarfed that of the Darcy holdings by a wide margin.
Though the original small Longbourn estate itself was entailed, all other holdings were secure.
“We own a townhouse in London on Grosvenor Square, which is where I believe, after Miss Bingley mentioned it once or a hundred times, where Darcy house is? You will remember about a year ago that Lord Inverness had to sell his townhouse and estate to cover his debts of honour. His estate, Dovedale was purchased by my uncle, Edward Gardiner, as it is close to Lambton in Derbyshire, where his wife was born, and the townhouse was purchased by us. We have not taken up residence there yet, but we will be using it soon enough. Yes, the ‘tradesman’ that Miss Bingley disdains so freely is a landed gentleman! Not to mention that his immeasurable wealth makes theirs look like a drop in the ocean!”
“As much as I love them, I am not blind to the faults of my family. Jane and I took Mary under our wing more than two years ago. It is why she behaves so much better than the other two. Before Jane and I departed Longbourn, we convinced our father that the time has come for him to exert his authority. He has just hired a governess, and my younger two sisters are no longer out. When he believes that they are ready, they will go to school. As soon as I inform my father that I have made our position public, he will inform my mother about the true wealth of the family. My mother may be a flighty woman of mean understanding, but unlike the Bingley sisters or Lady Catherine, she is not malicious!”
“Lastly, sir, let me put paid to your assumption about our connections. When my father was at Trinity College, he made friends with members of the peerage who he used to help when they had trouble with their classes. He has maintained and strengthened the connections. Lord Jersey and his Grace, the Duke of Bedford are two of his closest friends! The Duke and Duchess honoured me with the acceptance of being my godparents.”
“I think that it fit your beliefs of our relative positions in society, feeding your feelings of superiority without ever knowing of our connections and wealth. Even were we poor, would it follow that you did not have to behave as a gentleman?”
“The only reason I am sharing any of the information about our wealth is that you did, offer for me, believing us to be poor and without connections. Your arrogant assumptions would not allow you to contemplate my refusing you. You should know that you are in good company. My sycophantic cousin, Mr Collins, offered for me and was roundly refused. And take careful note that despite the entail no one forced me to marry him. You should know, Mr Darcy, that the only reason I or any of my sisters will ever marry will be if we find men who can be partners in every sense of the word, whom we would love, respect, and esteem and receive the same in return.”