Chapter Eight #2
But I did hope that the elements of the true tale that were interesting might overtake the others. Being trapped in a dilapidated house, the stairs falling down, that sort of thing? Perhaps that would supplant a story of a trip to Scotland.
I should have simply left.
I had resolved to go back to London, after all, because I now realized what I’d been doing here. This had been in service of Georgiana. I was trying to concoct a cover story to explain why I was marrying her to Bingley.
Except I wasn’t going to marry her to Bingley, and I was sure of that now.
So, there was no point in being here, none at all.
Still, I stayed, and I was not entirely certain why.
Bingley himself was not cold towards me, but not entirely warm.
Caroline, of course, was frosty. She wasn’t even speaking to me, but then, she wasn’t speaking to much of anyone.
When she did speak, she said she wished to go back to London, and then fell entirely silent after that.
But there was little hope of that, it seemed. Bingley was set upon giving the ball he had promised to the Bennet sisters. He would have liked Caroline to play hostess for him, to see to the invitations and the like, but she would have none of it, and it all fell to the servants and Louisa.
I could not be here for that ball.
I needed to go.
I tarried, however.
I listened to servants’ conversations after they saw me in the house. I would follow them and stand behind doorways or round corners, to hear if they spoke to others about what was being said of me.
I should have predicted it, truly.
The story was that I had eloped with Miss Elizabeth, and that, somehow, she’d fallen and sprained her ankle, and then I had decided I wanted none of her and sent her home and washed my hands of her.
I did not like it.
What I did not need was for there to be whispers like this about me, not when Georgiana’s situation was so precarious.
It was all the more reason for me to quit the country and return to London, hopefully ahead of the rumors, so that I could have already had my own version of events—the true version—out to everyone before it overtook everything.
It was really the worst way it could have gone.
That was one thing a gentleman did not do.
A gentleman did not break an engagement, even if it were made in an untoward way.
A woman might change her mind, but a gentleman, once having promised his protection and financial resources to a woman, he did not simply pull that out from under her.
If I had done what they said I’d done to Elizabeth, I would have been a very bad man indeed.
It wasn’t the sort of thing that would prevent my moving about through society, of course. Men were censured, but women were shunned. However, it could materially lessen my own marriage prospects. No one wants to align their own daughter with a man who backs out of marriage proposals.
If I went back to London, though, I could probably mitigate all of it. I should go back to London. I had been here too long. If all of this was for Georgiana, then I should definitely go back and see to her.
Still, I tarried.
One afternoon, I went to Meryton with Bingley. He was delivering some of his invitations for the ball, and I came along mostly to have some time on horseback, with the wind in my face, which might help me to think this all through.
There, we saw the rest of the Bennet sisters—Elizabeth was notably absent, not being able to walk on her ankle.
They had some man along with them, some guest of the family, and I might have gotten introduced to this Mr. Collins, but I was distracted, in a very bad and upsetting way, by seeing someone who I had not expected to be here.
It was him.
Mr. George Wickham, the man who had destroyed my sister. He had the audacity to touch his hat, in greeting, and to smile at me.
I got on my horse and left.
I galloped straight back to Netherfield, and when I got there, Caroline was in the hallway as I swept through it, going back to my bedchamber.
“You haven’t married her,” she said to me. “You haven’t even tried to marry her.”
I did not acknowledge her. I went down the hall even faster.
She came after me.
I opened the door to my bedchamber and attempted to shut it behind me.
She caught it, holding it open. She stood there, her expression determined, her eyes bright and intense, her breath coming quickly.
I pulled a bit at the door, and there was a moment there, a moment wherein I knew my superior physical strength could end this.
I could simply close that door on her, leave her outside in the hallway, and she would be forced to stand there and bang on my door, ineffectual, impotent, and I would have some sort of victory over her.
But something about doing that felt wrong in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Perhaps it was simply that it would not have been fair, though what I owed to Caroline Bingley in terms of fairness I was not sure. I did not suppose I owed her a damned thing.
However, it simply was not the sort of man I was.
So we stood there for a moment, both of us holding the door, standing quite close.
And then I let go and stepped backward and raised my eyebrows at her, permitting her to have this victory, to have forced her way in.
She lifted her chin. “I knew you didn’t actually wish to marry her.”
I sighed heavily. “I should apologize to you for what I said on that walk. It was beneath me. I descended to a level that I ought not have descended to. I am sorry.”
“I teased you too mercilessly,” she said, looking away. “It was beneath me as well.”
A long pause. Finally, I said, “Well, we shall both forgive the other and move on from this. No reason to discuss anything else. If that’s all?”
“I simply don’t understand, I suppose,” she said. “I have gone back and forth, this way and that, inside and outside, and I cannot make it into sense, sir.”
I only blinked at her. “What don’t you understand?”
She squared her shoulders. “Well, there were two ways of it, I suppose. There was the way that I told myself was the right way of it, and then the way I feared it was. The right was that everything was as it had been before, everything that you had done hitherto had meant everything that I had thought it meant, but that you simply… you simply thought she was pretty and you made some offhand comment of it. To me. You said it to me. That is why it does not make sense. Because if everything was the way that I had perceived it to be, you would not have told me you found another woman pretty.”
I hung my head, letting out another sigh. “Perhaps I needs must explain—”
“But if it were the other way, wherein you never felt anything at all for me, and you had no intentions towards me, and you were planning to marry her, then you would have done it already. You have every excuse to do it.”
I wished, then, I had simply pushed the door closed on her. But no, I had not done that. Curse my intention to be honorable. Curse my concern for this woman’s feelings. Now, I would have to have this very awkward conversation. “You thought that I had intentions toward you.”
“You don’t.” This realization made her voice break.
I flinched. “Perhaps I see why you thought it, and I did not act with care when it came to you, and I was thoughtless and gave you leave to believe it. I should have realized how you would have interpreted my behavior, and I did not, not until it was too late. Then, I could have disabused you of the notion plainly, but I was a coward, and did not wish to have that conversation with you, and everything got worse.”
She shook her head. “No, you are simply pretending that you never did, because I know you did. I am certain you had intentions of my brother marrying your sister. I am positive. You asked me those questions that one evening we all spent together, asked me pointed things about what my brother said about your sister, and there is no other way to interpret that.”
I rubbed my forehead. Well, I had thought I was being subtle, but I clearly had not been at all. “It was a consideration, yes, Bingley for my sister. But it was not something I was set on, not even that. And I never, I promise you, I never considered a match between you and I.”
She went stiff.
“I am sorry, Miss Bingley. I can see that I was careless. I can see why you were confused and hurt. It is my error.”
She drew in a breath, and I could see she was thinking through a number of things, that she was putting it all together in her head.
“So, then, it is a third thing, one I did not consider. You wanted a match for them, but you never… and you spent all that time with me and we had all those shared jokes and you danced with me—at the ball here, it was only me—”
“I danced with your sister as well.”
“Who is married already!”
“I was thoughtless,” I said. “I am sorry.”
“Right,” she said with a very tight smile. “Well, then. This conversation is an exercise in pain for us both. We shall simply end it.” She backed out of the doorway.
“I do apologize,” I said. “I really did not—”
“Please stop,” she said.
I bobbed my head.
She started to turn away, but then she turned back. “But her? You are not going to marry her?”
“The truth is, Miss Bingley, I have been betrothed to my cousin since practically the cradle.”
Her lips parted, and she took that in. Then, she gave me a very relieved smile. “Oh, I see. Oh, of course. What a fool I have been.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
I shut the door, resting my forehead against it, and I let out a long, low groan.
There were no more excuses. I would return to London immediately. I would no longer tarry in this place. It had become nothing but one punishment after another.