Chapter Fourteen
Jonathan Darcy elected to breakfast at Netherfield.
This was not only to be with Miss Tilney—Juliet—but also, given the choice between dining in a place which had recently been host to a poisoning and spending more time seated by his silently glowering father, he felt that inspecting coffee cups was not so great a burden.
However, his father chose to ride with him; and as Jonathan could not concoct any plausible reason to gallop at top speed, instead of escape, he was obliged instead to be glowered at on horseback.
Yet after only minutes, his father said, “You are riding exceptionally well, Jonathan.”
“It is scarcely a difficult path.”
“I meant to refer to your health. Your stamina, your bearing. After you were wounded, your mother and I feared your recovery might never be complete—as indeed it is not for many persons.”
Gunshot wounds were indeed perilous long after the fateful pull of the trigger.
Wounds that neither destroyed organs nor caused fatal bloodshed could fester into gangrene or lesser infections that nonetheless forever caused pain, limping, or loss of strength.
Even now, years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, men who had been wounded in that conflict could still be seen hobbling, walking bent, wearing eye patches and the like.
Jonathan’s frustration with being coddled had obscured to him the breadth of the risks he had taken, the severity of the fear he had occasioned within his parents.
“I was fortunate, Father,” he said. “I have given thanks to the Lord many times for my deliverance.”
“As have I.” Mr. Darcy’s smile encouraged Jonathan somewhat, until he added, “A father cannot protect his son against every danger, but he cannot be prevented from trying.”
As Jonathan interpreted this to be an allusion to Juliet as the “danger” afoot, he did not respond to this, but looked toward the horizon, where Netherfield could just be seen upon the low hill.
Jonathan and Juliet had sent a note the night before, requesting Mrs. Brooks’s return on the morrow, and he had scarcely entered Netherfield before the Brookses’ carriage arrived.
From the window he marked the small size of the carriage; well-kept as it was, any observer would see that it was of an older style.
His aunt had driven herself, which was not particularly noteworthy when covering such short distances in the countryside, but Jonathan knew none of Mr. Bingley’s sisters, nor even his aunt Jane, would ever have done so.
The Brookses could not have had servants enough to employ a coachman—no doubt other men working for them performed this task when possible, but when one could not be spared, Aunt Kitty must be obliged to convey herself.
“She wears her lovely new gloves,” said Juliet, who had come to his side at the window without his even realizing it.
“So she does,” he replied. “Good morning, Miss Tilney.”
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy.” She smiled slightly, and some measure of his inner disquiet was soothed. He could neither fear nor resent any difficulty necessary to have her forever beside him.
Aunt Kitty came to the study and greeted them with civility, but no warmth. Her reserve chilled when she heard their question. “You want to know why I should happen to see my sister’s laundry?”
“It was hung largely out of sight of the house, Mrs. Brooks,” Juliet pointed out. “You would have had to go to some trouble to see it.”
“Unless,” Jonathan proffered, “you had some other reason to be in the vicinity of the stables?”
To his surprise, Aunt Kitty seemed to soften.
She appeared younger to him in that instant, her face more like the one he remembered from the earliest days of childhood.
“No. You are correct. I went to look at Jane’s things, and those of Mrs. Lofton.
And Mrs. Hurst. They have clothing of the latest fashions, especially Mr. Bingley’s sisters.
Their garments are of finer materials than anything that could be obtained from Mrs. Mount’s shop.
A woman wishes to know these things, even when she cannot aspire to have the same. ”
Juliet said, “It is indeed difficult, ma’am, to have desires above one’s income.”
Aunt Kitty laughed. “Yet it is not above our income! That is the rub.”
“I would not have thought this a prosperous parish,” said Jonathan. Did the Meryton church have a generous patron he somehow knew nothing of? Or perhaps Mr. Brooks was eventually to inherit more than Jonathan had previously suspected.
“It is not a prosperous parish,” Aunt Kitty replied. “We would be obliged to live on little in any case, and yet, Mr. Brooks will not allot our household but a half of that. He squirrels it all away, for what purpose I know not. He does not care how shabby—my feelings—he does not care.”
Jonathan, who had never had any particular reason to practice economy, could not guess at Mr. Brooks’s motivations, and it appeared that Juliet was even more struck. “Only a half! This goes beyond thrift.”
“It is miserliness,” said Aunt Kitty. “My misery is only made greater by beholding what my sister may have that I may not. Yet still, sometimes…I must look.”
After she left the study, Juliet said, “This would explain why the Brookses come here so often.”
“So that Mrs. Brooks should have more occasion for envy?”
“If she is obliged to run her household on half of what a country parson receives, that house cannot be a very comfortable one,” she answered. “Mr. Brooks’s demeanor is cold, unwelcoming. Perhaps any amount of envy is easier to endure.”
Jonathan could well imagine that this was so, but nonetheless he added, “Yet still, she has her new gloves.”
During this time, Mr. Darcy had little to occupy him save to talk to the other visitors in the household; and, as this would expose him to Mrs. Allerdyce, it seemed an entertainment not worth the risk. Ultimately, in defiance of the hour, he asked Mr. Bingley for a game of billiards.
The billiards room at Netherfield was not a large one, and it was farther from the study than Mr. Darcy would have preferred.
Though he had no intention of eavesdropping, he somehow felt as though his proximity would help his son remember what was owed to his family.
Yet he could imagine how Elizabeth would have laughed at his foolishness—such sense of humor as Mr. Darcy had about himself came always in her voice—and therefore the game was to be played.
Mr. Bingley, through their long friendship, could privately ask Mr. Darcy much that would never be spoken in wider company, as he did when he said, “I take it Georgiana still needs Elizabeth near?”
“The companionship of another woman is very welcome to my sister. Rarely have I been as thankful that Elizabeth has become a sister to her in every sense but blood.”
Bingley, so unassuming in most respects, became ruthless with a cue in his hand. He sank a difficult shot easily while saying, “Jane little anticipated such a response to her letter.”
Mr. Darcy would not have admitted as much to nearly any other person, but to Bingley he said, “Elizabeth was not so alarmed by its contents as I. She even attempted to dissuade me from coming, but it is better that I am here.”
“Has not Jonathan previously investigated murders without your being present?”
“Yes, of course. That is not the source of the difficulty.” Mr. Darcy tapped lightly, nudged a red ball into the pocket. “I fear Jonathan’s lack of prudence regarding Miss Tilney may lead him to make a grievous error.”
Mr. Bingley looked up from the green felt of the table. “You mean, you are afraid that he will not ask Miss Tilney to marry him?”
It took a moment for Mr. Darcy to be certain of what he had heard. “I am afraid that he will ask her. Bingley, you know of the scandal—the duel—”
“Yes, yes, all of that.” Bingley banked a shot off the side of the table before it spun into the hole.
“Unfortunate and distressing, I know. However, we have come to know the girl a bit during her time here, and it requires very little acquaintance to realize that any rumors against her in such regard are without merit. Jane likes her very much, and I confess, I do as well.”
“It is not a matter of liking her,” Darcy said.
“She has ever been a regrettable influence upon Jonathan.” He had not forgotten how, when they had all first become acquainted, Miss Tilney had persuaded Jonathan to slip away and sneak around their host’s study like thieves—a breach of etiquette so shocking it could have ruined her reputation then and there.
Mr. Bingley tutted the shot Darcy then missed.
“To us, Jonathan seems much improved these past few years. Of course we have always loved him, and his character and heart have ever been excellent. Yet he is more confident now. Better able to navigate changes and troubles. Easier in his conversation with people he does not know very well. Some of this may only be greater maturity, but do you not feel Miss Tilney’s influence in these changes? ”
“That, I put down to his success in the investigations.”
“Is she not his partner in those?” Mr. Bingley struck one ball into another, sending them both straight into their targets.
“In the greatest confidence, Darcy, I will tell you—Miss Tilney has received an offer of marriage, one she has been urged to accept. She confessed as much to Jane. The same painter who so insulted her honor believes he can best repair it by wedding her.”
The relief Mr. Darcy felt at that moment! “Then she is not ruined forever. She will be respectably wed elsewhere. That is the best, most rational end to the entire business.”
Mr. Bingley put down his cue. “Darcy, are you quite mad? The best end to this is a girl forced to marry a man she cares nothing for, only for the sake of gossip?”
When put that way, Mr. Darcy could not answer. He had not changed his mind—but he saw, for the first time, how very much his reason had diverged from his decency.