Chapter Nine #2
“I quite do,” I said. “You could find yourself a woman who would not have the burden of rescuing her entire family the tyranny of an entail, who would be free to love you for yourself. You don’t need to marry this one.”
He was silent.
“Besides,” I said, “how many times have you been in love with some pretty girl or other over the past few months? This is the third girl you have considered marrying.”
“I was not nearly as serious about either Miss Smith or Miss Howard,” said Bingley, disgruntled.
“The fact remains that you will likely forget about Miss Jane Bennet as soon as you have quit Netherfield and see some other pretty face.”
“I don’t think I shall,” said Bingley. “And I don’t think you’re correct about the way she feels about me, either. I believe that her regard for me is genuine. I have spent time speaking with her, just the two of us, and you have not. You do not know, Darcy.”
“That may be,” I allowed. “At any rate, in your little scheme to have the two of us both married into this family, such as it is—”
“It is not a scheme!”
“You have failed to consider the fact,” I went on as if he had not broken in, “that Miss Elizabeth hates me.”
Bingley poured us both more brandy. “Ah, so, that is what is holding you back, then.”
“It is not holding me back. I am not even considering marrying her.”
“You have very obviously considered marrying her, in detail, down to the obscene number of portraits you would have done of her.”
“All right, that was a mean-spirited jest at Caroline’s expense. It was not meant to be indicative of—”
“Darcy,” he said, and he had suddenly gotten quite good at interrupting me. “Deny that you fancy her. Deny that you wish to make her your wife. Look into my eyes and tell me that none of that is true.”
I scoffed, but I declined to look into his eyes or to say anything at all.
“That is what I thought,” he said, taking this as triumph.
“She would not allow me to accompany her to speak to her family,” I said. “She did not wish me to be in the room when we were all speaking. What sort of man would I be if I said to her, ‘Look here, if you wish to save your family’s reputation, you will allow me into your bed’?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s like that, her hatred.”
“It most certainly is,” I said.
“Well, I do not think she finds you physically odious, that is all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, because you’re not. You’re… that.” He gestured at me, making a face. “Really, Darcy, must you be so tall and so broad-shouldered and so very rich? Could you not have a flaw of some kind?”
I had nothing to say to that either. I sipped at my brandy instead, glaring at him.
“Anyway, you know, she was in a great deal of pain on that day, and she refused the laudanum, and she may have changed her mind since then, that is all. You were trapped with her in a house overnight. Did you two simply quarrel the entire time?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Actually, I said awful things to her at one point. I said that I could easily say I had compromised her, and that it would not matter what she said otherwise, that I could force her hand if I wished.”
“Oh, because you do not wish to marry her,” said Bingley into his own brandy, rather sarcastic.
“It does not matter what I wish!” I protested.
“Anyway, I did not mean it, but she was quite appalled and said she would not marry me if I were the last man alive or something of that nature, and I shall not be the man that does that, that does what I said I would do, that forces her into a marriage!”
“So, you will instead be the man who forces her family into ruin, who prevents the happiness of every single one of her sisters, because no one will marry into a family like that, and will ensure they are all turned out when Mr. Collins inherits and—”
“All right,” I said. “That’s enough.”
“I’m only saying, if it’s about being honorable, Darcy, you—”
“Yes, all right, I said.” I got up from the chair where I had been sitting. I looked into the fire. “All right. You have made your point. It is well taken. I shall go and speak to her in the morning.”
“You will?” Bingley stood up, too, quite surprised. “That is all it took. Well, why am I surprised? I should have made it about honor to begin with, should have made it about whatever is expected of you.”
I looked over my shoulder at him, a bit wounded.
“You have an odd sense of honor, though, I may say,” said Bingley. “One that is less concerned with people’s actual feelings or with actual harm and instead concerned with appearances.”
I turned away and said nothing to that either.
“Well, that is, Darcy… I repent of saying that,” said Bingley. “I should not have been so forward with you, really. It is not my place, and I—”
“Stop it,” I said. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re rather spineless?” I turned to him.
He drew back.
I shrugged. “Since we’re trading insults, are we?”
“I didn’t mean to—” He broke off and licked his lips. “Yes, fine. You are an insufferable prig and I am spineless. And all it takes to break us of these things are those Bennet women.”
I looked back into the fire.
“She changes me, Darcy, you see? She makes me… her entire family’s reputation is in danger. How can I stay silent?”