Chapter 27
Caroline Bingley was in great anticipation as the Bingley coach came to a halt outside of Darcy House. Just like she and Louisa had planned, she would soon be engaged to the master of this house, and the Bingleys would finally rise to the top of society just as they deserved.
Louisa Hurst could taste their imminent rise into the first circles. She had made a mistake marrying one as low as her husband, but she would not allow her younger sister to make that same error.
A Darcy footman opened the door of the conveyance. Bingley alighted, followed by Hurst. The former handed out his younger sister and the latter handed out his wife.
Unlike the previous rather regrettable excursion to this house, the butler stood next to the open door to receive the expected callers.
The Bingley sisters preened as they glided up the steps and into Darcy House like they were duchesses.
They both saw the butler and footmen’s attentiveness to them as proof that they were about to receive their due.
Once all the outerwear had been taken by the servants, the sisters and the two men followed the butler up to the first floor and the main drawing room, the one which was next to the music room.
On entering the drawing room, the sisters were taken aback that Mr Darcy was not alone. A fashionably dressed couple stood near him.
Darcy introduced the Gardiners to the Bingleys and Hursts. He was not surprised that the sisters did not recognise the name of the Bennet sisters’ ‘tradesman’ uncle. “Bingley, Mr Gardiner is your landlord, or should I say, was your landlord at Netherfield Park,” he added.
“Darce, why did you say that Mr Gardiner was my landlord? I never replied to the agent’s letter, so the lease is yet mine,” Bingley asserted.
“Mr Bingley, do you truly believe that if you ignore a problem, it will go away?” Gardiner barked.
“Your sisters told one and all, rather proudly mind you, that you had left the estate with no intention of returning. The letter Phillips sent you reminded you of your duty under the lease and the agreement you signed. I believe his epistle told you that no reply was the same as a negative reply. Darcy has the right of it; I am no longer your landlord.”
“I-I l-lost all the m-money I-I p-p-paid?” Bingley stammered.
“As is clearly stated in the lease and reinforced by the letter you chose to ignore.” Gardiner saw Mrs Hurst was about to speak.
“Before you embarrass yourself attempting to prevaricate that nothing was received, the missive was delivered by hand by my personal courier who received your butler’s signature on receipt. ”
Mrs Hurst closed her mouth. What was whatever Charles lost compared to what Caroline would have once she had access to the Darcy coffers?
“That is all well and good,” Miss Bingley stated, “but why are you at Mr Darcy’s house on a day his particular friends were invited to call on him? He has a very important question he needs to ask me, and you are no longer needed.”
“Mr Darcy, does this harpy have a say over who is welcome in your house?” Maddie enquired innocently.
“She does not, nor will she ever be the one who makes those decisions,” Darcy replied.
It was not a look of admiration as Darcy’s eyes raked over the three Bingley siblings.
“I thought that your performance the last time you called was as bad as you could all behave, but it seems I was wrong.” He paused and tapped his forehead as one would when they forgot something.
“I was remiss. Did I mention that the Gardiners are the Bennet sisters’ aunt and uncle?
You remember…the ones you denigrated while seated in their own house. ”
The sisters spluttered, and although they could not see him, Hurst grinned. “How can you allow a tradesman and his wife into your house? Are the shades of Darcy House to be so polluted?” Mrs Hurst demanded.
“But Mrs Hurst, has not Mr Darcy allowed the son and daughters of a tradesman into his company and some of his houses?” Maddie responded.
“But we were educated at the best seminary, and we are wealthy,” Miss Bingley screeched. “We move in the upper echelons of society whereas you live in Cheapside!”
“Miss Bingley, you can put a pig in silks, jewellery, and feathers, but it still remains a pig,” Maddie shot back.
The Bingley sisters only had to look at one another to see each was wearing the items the tradesman’s wife had listed. They were both formulating replies to put the nobody in her place when the lady continued.
“Like your brother, my husband earns some of his money from trade, but unlike your brother, he is a landowner, which the Bingleys are not. Many of us are very wealthy, but we do not go around in a vulgar fashion boasting about our income or the size of our dowries,” Maddie returned.
“You see, if I were gauche like you, I would mention that my husband’s income is more than three times that of your brother’s, or I could be vulgar like you and mention the amount of my daughters’ dowries, which is significantly more than yours, but I am not like you, so I will not mention the amounts.
“Additionally, when you boast about your education, do you not know that most gently born persons, especially those higher in society, pay to have their daughters educated at home? Only daughters of lower gentry, impoverished nobles, and like yourself, daughters of tradesmen, attend the schools about which you so like to boast. Even my lowly nieces were all educated at home. You,” Maddie looked at both sisters in turn, “are delusional.”
“Mr Darcy, how can you allow this woman to speak to us, your particular friends, in this manner in your house?” Mrs Hurst asked with syrupy sweetness.
“Because Mrs Hurst, your brother was my friend. Neither you nor your sister were anything to me, other than an annoyance I tolerated to maintain my friendship with your brother,” Darcy said with steel in his voice.
The sisters blanched, and Bingley looked anywhere except at Darcy. “But you said you had a question for me,” Miss Bingley whined.
“No, Miss Bingley, I said I had questions. And where in my note did I write that I wanted to ask you anything?” Darcy turned to Bingley. “Why did you sign your name to that note full of blatant lies that you recently sent me? Based on something I have seen, I gather Mrs Hurst was the fabulist.”
“Ahem, I mean, well you see, that is to say…” Bingley mumbled.
“And that, as well as what I am about to ask next is why after today, we will no longer be friends,” Darcy growled. “Please tell me when I ever gave you permission to court Miss Darcy, and when did all of my family express their approbation of said courtship?”
Bingley was genuinely confused. “Of what do you speak?” He wondered.
“Just that Miss Bingley wrote a letter to Miss Bennet in an attempt to discourage her from pursuing you in which she announced your courtship to Miss Darcy and the approval of all of my family,” Darcy spat out.
“If the tradesman and his wife told you that, they are dissembling. I saw the letter Caroline wrote and she never…” the words died in Mrs Hurst’s throat.
“You mean this letter?” Darcy extracted it from his pocket and allowed it to fall open. “Bingley, whose writing is this?” He placed the letter in the said man’s hands before either of his sisters could manufacture another lie.
His ears burned as he read the words. “Caroline, how could you have written this work of fiction?” Bingley demanded.
The claim that the letter was a forgery died on Mrs Hurst’s lips.
“But Louisa told me what to write,” Miss Bingley whinged. She did not see the malevolent look her older sister shot at her.
“I did not,” Mrs Hurst dissembled.
“Enough lies from you two! And you, Mr Bingley, you aspire to be a gentleman, but you know not how to behave like one,” Gardiner said.
“Me? What did I do?” Bingley responded.
“You raised the expectations of my niece, Miss Bennet, by dancing the three most significant sets with her at your ball in front of her family and neighbours. Had you been a gentleman, you would have known that one does not dance those sets with a single lady unless there is an understanding or there is about to be one. Did you call on her father? No. You ran away like a puppy with your tail between your legs. Instead, the two viragos wrote that vitriol laced letter full of prevarication!” Gardiner glowered at the immature man.
“But my sisters and Darcy told me she did not like me,” Bingley replied lamely, ignoring most of what had been said to him. “They said her mother would force her to accept me.”
“And did they shackle you to a wall making it so you were not able to return to Hertfordshire to ascertain the truth for yourself? What did they do which made it impossible for you to do so? Further, are you so capricious that you cannot make decisions for yourself? I suppose after the way you treated Miss Johnstone; it is no surprise you treated Jane so cavalierly,” Gardiner asserted.
Seeing the shocked look on his former friend’s countenance, Darcy added, “Bingley, do not look so flabbergasted by what Gardiner told you. How many times have Richard, Lambert, and I warned you that the way you treat your angels is not honourable? By the by, Mrs Gardiner is Lambert’s sister.”
“Do you not realise the consequences for women when you raise expectations and then, often at your sisters’ behest, you abandon them?
They are seen as having been jilted and that harms their reputations while you are on to your next angel without a care in the world,” Maddie informed the shaken man.
“By the by, at your ball one of my footmen heard those two harpies planning to harm Jane’s reputation by scheming to have you abandon her. ”