Chapter 25
On their arrival back at Curzon Street, Louisa Hurst knew that her carefully laid plans to rise in society on the back of Caroline’s marriage to Mr Darcy were in serious jeopardy.
Just before she entered the Bingley coach, when she had seen Mr Darcy watching the events outside of his house, the look had not been at all a friendly one. In fact, it had been a look of disgust.
Because she was convinced that Mr Darcy meant to break with her brother at the club, she had to delay the meeting for as long as possible. There must be a way to be in Mr Darcy’s company first before word of him dropping their acquaintance was known.
Mrs Hurst was bound and determined that she would see Caroline be Mrs Darcy, so there was no choice but to find a way to be in his company so that Caroline would be able to compromise him.
Said sister was sitting and wringing her hands.
Like their weak-willed brother, Caroline thought all was lost. Nothing was lost; they just needed a new plan.
She sat at the desk her brother used and wrote a note to Mr Darcy declining his request to meet him. She made up some reason for the refusal.
“Charles!” Mrs Hurst called out. Her brother was seated on a chair, his head in his hands, already accepting defeat. So typical of her brother. “We need to speak of what to do about Mr Darcy.”
“What do you mean?” Bingley responded. “I should have followed my inclination and gone to see Darcy first. Your and Caroline’s insistence we would be welcomed has cost me Darcy’s good opinion. Did you not hear him at Netherfield Park when he said once his good opinion was lost, he never forgave?”
“What we need to do is give him some time to calm himself. Therefore, you will not be meeting with him today. If you do not meet him, nothing bad can occur,” Mrs Hurst insisted.
“How can I not meet him? If I do not arrive at White’s, he will send a letter severing the connection,” Bingley lamented.
“Read this,” Mrs Hurst commanded as she thrust the epistle into her brother’s hands.
Bingley read the words on the paper. “What will this do? And if Darcy discovers I sent him this, which is a prevarication, all will be lost. You know how much he hates disguise,” he whinged.
“How will he know? It is not like he has you followed all about Town. Just sign it, and I will have a footman deliver it. I am right, you will see.”
Although he came close to telling his older sister she had said the same before their ill-fated aborted invasion of Darcy House, Bingley held his peace.
He took the letter, made his way over to the escritoire in the drawing room and signed his name.
‘At least Darce will be able to read this one,’ he thought as he waited for his signature to dry.
“Louisa, do you truly think this will salvage the situation?” Miss Bingley asked hopefully.
“I am positive, Caro,” Mrs Hurst asserted.
Once he was sure the ink was dry, Bingley sealed the short missive and handed it to his sister to write the direction.
Signing this letter caused him to remember the letter he had received from Mr Phillips in Meryton.
The agent for the landlord had asked for confirmation or denial of what his sisters had said regarding not returning to Netherfield Park.
The letter warned that if he abandoned the lease, all money was forfeit and said that if Bingley intended to resume residence, a letter to that effect was to be received by today, Friday and with residence reestablished by Monday of the coming week.
He had taken his sisters’ advice and cast the missive into the fire. They asserted that without a reply the tradesman solicitor would do nothing. He suspected they were wrong, but he did not want the trouble he would purchase if he went against them.
At least with the letter Louisa had written for him things would be set to rights with Darcy. She had worded it rather cleverly.
In minutes, a Hurst footman was on his way to Darcy House.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Darcy was in his study when Killion knocked and on entering the room, proffered him a letter on the silver salver the butler carried.
“Thank you, Killion,” Darcy said.
The butler bowed and made his way out of the study, pulling the door closed behind him.
Although he did not recognise the script, Darcy was very familiar with the return direction.
He was suspicious that Miss Bingley was attempting to effect a compromise by writing to him, not that it would do her any good.
He did, however, break the seal and open the epistle.
Seeing Bingley’s signature at the bottom of the neat, feminine writing, he decided to read it.
29 November 1811
Hurst House
Darcy,
Please excuse the misunderstanding earlier today. It was out of concern we called, not having seen you since the day of our return to London. Had we not been driven by worry, we would never have been so insistent we be allowed to enter your home.
The lies he read made Darcy scoff. He had to give the author of the letter credit for being creative in her prevarication.
He was not sure which sister was the one who wrote the words, but he cared not.
The drivel he read cemented his resolve to break with Bingley. He returned to the work of fiction.
Given how worried my sisters were, I was comforting them and did not inform your butler I would not be able to attend you later today.
I will be busy with my man of business for some days, and I will inform you when I am available.
Regards to your sister,
Charles Bingley
As he was too angry to reply to the letter crafted by an accomplished fabulist, knowing he needed to allow his anger to ebb first, Darcy threw the paper into the fire crackling in the grate.
It was satisfying to watch the hungry flames consume the lies and turn them and the paper they were scribed on into ash.
He was very surprised that knowing him that any of the Bingleys thought he would believe the claptrap. Could it be that they never really knew him at all?
Darcy sat back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
He had thought Bingley his friend, but had it always been that Bingley and his sisters used Darcy to advance themselves in society with no concern for him?
Is that why it seemed that Bingley had never conveyed his messages about never marrying Miss Bingley?
He compared Bingley to Lambert, and the former was found wanting.
The latter was a true friend who was not out to see what he could gain from Darcy.
He remembered when the Kympton living had become available.
Lambert had given him a list of possible candidates; his name had not been one of them.
In fact, when Darcy had preferred him to the second living, Lambert had tried to talk Darcy out of bestowing it on him.
Darcy was aware that the curate Lambert employed to cover the duties in the parish he was not in, was paid half of the value of the Kympton living, which was many times more than most curates earned.
Not only that, but Lambert made the parsonage in Kympton available to the curate.
Lambert was a man who cared more for others than himself. Darcy could not say the same for Bingley, and certainly not his sisters.
Nothing would stop the severing of the connection, certainly not the work of the fiction Bingley had signed his name to, but Darcy would not make the break in writing. He owed it to Bingley to look him in the eye when he told him.
Before Darcy could return to his correspondence, the magnificent eyes and beautiful face of the woman he knew he loved invaded his consciousness.
How he would win her was a problem for another time.
Unlike Miss Bingley who would order her wedding clothes if he smiled at her, he suspected that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was one of the few ladies in the realm who would refuse him if she had no affection or respect for him.
If he had the privilege of seeing her again, he needed to prostrate himself before her and beg her forgiveness.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Mr Bingley did not reply to Uncle Frank, did he?” Jane lamented. She was prepared for this outcome, but it still hurt. She was not one to open her heart with ease, but she had done so for Mr Bingley.
“No Janey, I am afraid not,” Aunt Maddie stated gently.
“No letter or even a note was received from him by the end of the day yesterday. The same is true today, and as of a short while ago, there was no one who returned to Netherfield Park from London. As I previously told you; I take no pleasure in being proved correct about him, but this is what we expected.”
Richard Fitzwilliam was sad that Miss Bennet’s heart was still engaged.
Over the days since he had come to know the Bennets, he had begun to develop feelings for the eldest Bennet sister.
He had considered all three of the eldest Bennet sisters.
Misses Lizzy and Mary were wonderful, but they were not for him.
As one who would be thirty in less than two years, he felt it was time to follow his brother’s example and find a bride.
He had always said he needed an heiress, but if once she was over Bingley, he could win Miss Jane Bennet’s heart, then he would not care about her lack of a dowry.
He was not poor. His funds had been built by living frugally and saving as much of his allowance as possible along with his wages.
His father insisted on giving him an allowance, no matter Fitzwilliam’s protests.
Additionally, he had a ten-thousand-pound legacy Uncle Robert had bequeathed him.
All of these funds were invested with Gardiner.
Thanks to that man’s acumen in investing, he had more than twenty thousand pounds to his name.
If it came to that and he sold out, that would bring in another four to five thousand pounds.
He would leave the money with Gardiner, and that would give them around two thousand pounds to live on each year.