Mr. Bingley
Chapter 7
Mrs. Bennet was in a frenzy when she heard that Netherfield Park, the large estate on Longbourn’s western border had been let at last, after having been empty for over five years. What had her even more excited was the fact that the person leasing it was said to be a young, single man in possession of an income of five thousand pounds a year! ‘What a perfect thing for Jane’ Mrs. Bennet thought with glee.
“Mr. Bennet! Mr. Bennet!” she shrieked all the way to the library and, bursting the door open without waiting for an invitation to enter, she almost ran in and plopped herself into the chair in front of her husband’s desk.
“Madam, I think that I had made it perfectly clear that this room is off limits to you and your nerves” Mr. Bennet looked up placidly from his book.
“Oh, nonsense Mr. Bennet! Wait until you hear the news. Netherfield is let at last and you…”
“Mrs. Bennet, I must insist that you leave this room immediately” he said firmly.
“Mr. Bennet! I will not be…” she started to screech, fanning herself wildly with her lace handkerchief.
“ I have sent away my most beloved daughter only so that I will not have to listen to your caterwauling” Mr. Bennet spat with unprecedented resentment and bitterness. “Your intrusion on my peace here would make that sacrifice utterly meaningless, wouldn’t it? Now leave!” he snarled.
Mrs. Bennet was speechless maybe for the first time in her life. Never before did Mr. Bennet speak to her thus, nor was his despise of her this obvious. She never for a moment regretted Elizabeth’s departure from Longbourn, but she was furious that Elizabeth’s departure made Mr. Bennet even more rude to her than usual.
Mrs. Bennet opened her mouth to protest vehemently but the steely look in her husband’s eyes and his almost shouted “Get out. Now!” stopped her. She stood in a huff and stomped out of the room.
Mr. Bennet had been constantly plagued by nightmares for the past two years, ever since receiving Mr. Gardiner’s extremely angry letter announcing to him that Elizabeth had no wish to live at Longbourn ever again and that she had decided to join the Peninsular war as a nurse.
Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw his little girl in the middle of the horrors of the war, in grave personal peril, and all because he had failed to take her side against the most horrible woman he had ever known. It was no wonder that his patience with the shrew he had to call his wife was waning fast. He could not imagine what he would do if any harm came to his beloved Lizzy because of his lack of action and protection of her.
Lizzy was disgusted with the lot of them, probably with him most of all, and with good reason. He had failed her. He had failed the one child which was the most precious of them all. Jane was all that was sweet and good, but she showed no spirit. Mary was introverted and sermonizing. Kitty and Lydia… he did not even have any idea what they were, but by the sound of them they were exact replicas of their mother. Elizabeth alone had his wit and in addition to that, she had the spark which had eluded him all his life. She was a much better version of himself as, while he preferred to live in his library immersed in the wonderful world of words, his Lizzy joined theoretical knowledge with practical experience. While he lived vicariously through his books, Elizabeth lived life at its fullest, going out, doing things that he only dreamed of doing. Had she been a boy… oh dear, what a man she would have been. She was the best of the Bennets, there was no doubt about that in his mind.
His disgust with himself and his wife grew with every day that passed since his dear girl left her home, preferring a life of uncertainty and peril to the misery that was a certainty at home. The home that he failed to make her feel comfortable, loved, cherished and safe in. A home that he had abandoned to the whims of the most undeserving woman of his acquaintance only to preserve his own comfort and the quiet of his book room. Well, he had failed in that too. Ever since Gardiner’s intelligence of Lizzy’s decision of joining the war, he had lost all his peace, at day and at night.
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Mr. Charles Bingley came to Netherfield Park with a small party only consisting of his sisters, Miss Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Louisa Hurst as well as the latter’s husband, Mr. Gilbert Hurst.
Bingley was a very pleasant, jovial fellow, ready to like and approve of anyone he met. The son of a respectable and very wealthy mill owner in Scarborough, he had been given the education of a gentleman. His father’s dream had been to become a landed gentleman. Unfortunately, Mr. John Bingley died before he could see his dream come true, so it was up to his son to make that dream come to life.
Miss Bingley was in a snit as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, her brother’s best friend and one of the most prominent gentlemen of the First Circles, had declined her brother’s invitation to join them in Hertfordshire. Initially she had been partial to his brother’s plan to lease this estate located at a such convenient distance from London, as she had counted on this sojourn to impress Mr. Darcy with her prowess as the hostess of a great country house, not to mention having him spending a great amount of time in her sole company. Him declining Bingley’s invitation thwarted that. Ever since her brother became friends with the scion of one of England’s oldest families, Miss Caroline Bingley had decided that she will become the next Mistress of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy’s magnificent estate in Derbyshire, and everything else Darcy. The only chink in her plan was that the gentleman himself did not seem at all eager to make her his lady, despite the fact that he and Charles Bingley had been friends for nearly six years now. Her only comfort was that so far, the gentleman was showing no preference to any other lady of the ton, no matter how much they hounded him.
Caroline and Louisa tried very hard to forget that their father had been a mill owner, just like their grandfather had been before him, and that their maternal grandfather had been only a carriage maker, albeit a very successful one who managed to endower his daughter well enough that Mr. John Bingley and his family considered her an appropriate match. In other words, they were coming from a family of successful tradesmen , but the sisters were determined to leave all that behind and forgotten. Having received the best education that their father’s money could buy, Miss Caroline Bingley fancied herself entitled to be considered to be part of the First Circles, conveniently ignoring the fact that the only invitations they received from that stratum of society were the ones that Mr. Darcy handed down to their brother. She dreamed that by marrying Mr. Darcy she will not only become an integral part of that much coveted part of society, but also a much admired and envied leader of it.
Therefore, her brother’s decision to lease Netherfield Park even though Mr. Darcy declined his invitation, doubly annoyed Miss Caroline Bingley as instead of bringing her into Mr. Darcy’s constant company, their sojourn there robbed her of the opportunity of at least meeting that exalted gentleman at some functions in town.
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“Make haste Jane! Make haste!” Mrs. Bennet fluttered her handkerchief the way she always did when she was very excited or considered herself in the throes of a nervous fit. “The carriage is waiting and the assembly will start soon. I have it on good authority that means to attend.”
“We shall go as soon as Mary is ready, Mama” Jane replied calmly.
“Oh, hang Mary!” Mrs. Bennet shrieked. “Anyways, all she does at an assembly is just sit in a corner and bury her nose in a book. It is you whom must see as soon as he enters the room. If only your father would had called on him as he should have done, you could have been introduced by now but…”
“I shall not go without Mary” Jane stated flatly. “If she remains at home, so shall I.”
Ever since Elizabeth left Longbourn, Jane saw her parents with different eyes. Her own goodness made her try to see goodness in everyone else around her. However, she could not deny that neither her mother nor her father had treated Lizzy fairly. She missed her dearest sister and best friend, and she was greatly worried about her sister’s wellbeing so far from home. Yet, her natural meekness and desire for harmony, a trait she had inherited from her father, prevented her from openly censoring her parents’ behaviour. But she was no longer unwilling to stand up for what she knew was right.
Mrs. Bennet wanted to berate her eldest daughter but she thought the better of it. She wanted Jane to meet and if Jane was determined to have Mary with her, so be it. Not that it was any danger of Mary, or anybody else for that matter, attracting ’s eyes away from her beautiful Jane once he saw her. But for to see Jane, they had to be in the assembly room.
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The assembly room was as crowded as usual and Mrs. Bennet panicked that they missed their chance to be amongst the first to meet and his party. As she had predicted, as soon as they entered the room, Mary made a beeline for the most secluded chair in the room, half hidden by a large potted plant, and pulling out her copy of Fordyce’s Sermons from her purse she immediately immersed herself in her book. Mrs. Bennet sighed, fully despairing of ever being able to marry off her middle daughter. Fortunately Kitty just came out too, although presently suffering from an unfortunate cold and unable to attend the assembly, and Lydia will be coming out in just another year. She was sure to have more success with them, especially if Jane married this fabled . Her nerves were greatly appeased when she learned that had not yet arrived.
As it turned out, Mrs. Bennet should not have worried at all. The Netherfield party did not arrive until the third dance was underway. Decided to make a grand entrance, Caroline Bingley delayed her party as long as she could claiming a wardrobe mishap and ensuring that they arrive well after the ball had begun, thus attracting everybody’s attention.
The admiration of their expensive attire was almost what Caroline and Louisa could have wished for, had the unwashed Meryton society been able to fully appreciate their exquisite elegance. To their satisfaction, they heard many hushed exclamations over the lace of their gowns and their elaborate, feathered turbans. Soon however, the sisters’ matching looks of contempt made the good people of Meryton turn from them in disgust and, far from being sought out and flattered by all those in attendance like they had fully expected to be, the two scornful women found themselves standing by the wall with no one even trying to approach them.
Mr. Hurst quickly found the refreshments table and parked himself next to it, happily abandoning his wife and his sister-in-law to their own devices.
Bingley had been intercepted by Sir William Lucas as soon as he passed the threshold, and the jovial gentleman took him on a tour of the room, introducing him to the more prominent families of the neighbourhood, beginning of course with his own.
Sir William used to be the mayor of Meryton while owning the flourishing mercantile shop. During his mayoralty he had been knighted. After that great honour he felt that owning a business was beneath him, so he bought Thinsdale which he promptly renamed Lucas Lodge and retired from business. Lady Lucas deplored the reduction of their income which this action had caused, but she consoled herself with the fact that at least, now they were the highest ranking family in the neighbourhood.
When Sir William introduced Bingley to Mrs. Bennet and Miss Bennet, Bingley was so struck by the beauty of the latter that he was barely able to attend one word of the inane chattering of the former.
“Miss Bennet, if you are not otherwise engaged, would you please do me the honour of dancing the next with me?” Bingley bowed low over Jane’s hand.
“I am not engaged sir” Jane blushed prettily, lowering her eyelashes.
Mrs. Bennet could not contain her satisfied grin, nor could she withhold her loud bragging to the other matrons in attendance of how her Jane’s beauty will not fail to capture in no time at all.