Chapter Nineteen
Darcy
Having visited the townhouse the Bennets occupied and divulged what he knew to Elizabeth, Darcy had intended to take his carriage directly home.
But Bingley had come out of the house behind him, and when Darcy's carriage drew up Bingley had got in without being invited, and said: "I can tell something’s wrong. Tell me what happened."
So Darcy told him. He kept it in order and without elaboration, because the facts were adequate without embellishment. He told his friend about his visit to Madame Voclaire’s and Mrs Bingley’s confessions.
He explained Mrs Bingley’s plan to sabotage Mary Bennet by spreading the news of her origin, her goal of securing Mr Thwaite for Miss Bingley, and what she had asked Darcy to do with the information.
He divulged what he had said in response, how he had then gone directly to the Bennets afterwards, and what had occurred there.
Bingley listened throughout without saying a word.
This was, in itself, sufficiently unusual to be notable; Bingley's usual response to narrative was participation through interjection or question, and its complete absence signalled a change.
Darcy watched him peripherally and said nothing further when the account was finished. He gave it time.
When Bingley finally spoke, his voice had a timbre that was utterly unlike him. It was not loud, the volume one might expect from a man in the grip of anger.
"She cultivated a friendship with Mrs Bennet from the beginning. Deliberately."
"Yes. From what I can establish."
"And Caroline knew."
"She was aware of the scheme. I believe she was an active participant in the schemes directed at garnering Mr Thwaite’s attention."
Bingley’s jaw was clenched. "Take me home."
Darcy gave the instruction without argument.
He could see, in the set of Bingley's face that this was not a request that would benefit from discussion.
He had seen Bingley in many conditions over the course of their friendship: enthusiastic, charmed, briefly despondent, rapidly recovered, occasionally embarrassed, frequently delighted. He had never seen this. This was new.
They heard the voices as they approached the drawing room.
Mrs Bingley, in the self-satisfied register she employed when reviewing a plan she considered well-advanced.
Caroline's tone was lower and more deliberate, adding detail.
There was laughter, not the performed variety, but the private kind, the sound of two people who believed themselves unobserved and were at ease with what they were discussing.
"She'll find the Telemann scores impossible to refuse," Caroline was saying. "And once she accepts the gift, Mr Thwaite's mother will surely take to me, which I believe will be pivotal to the relationship—"
Bingley appeared in the doorway and the laughter ceased. Mrs Bingley recovered first, with the speed of a woman long practised in social adjustment. "Charles. We were not expecting you back so early."
"No," Bingley said. "I imagine you were not."
He entered the room without haste. Darcy took position near the door, visible, a constraint on what could be denied, but not intruding on what was Bingley's to conduct. Caroline had risen from the sofa. Her face had arranged itself into purposeful neutrality.
"I want to know," Bingley said, "whether what Darcy has told me is true. That you cultivated a friendship with Mrs Bennet deliberately in order to extract information about the Bennets. That you went to Portman Square not as a friend but as a woman gathering intelligence."
Mrs Bingley appeared to have run the calculations and concluded that partial honesty was more serviceable than total denial.
"I sought to understand the household you were becoming attached to.
You are my son and heir, Charles. A mother has not just the right but the responsibility to act in that capacity. "
"Did you or did you not cultivate Mrs Bennet's confidence for the purpose of finding something that could be used against the family? Yes or no. It is a rather straightforward question."
There was a brief pause. "I sought information. Yes."
"And what you found was an important secret from a woman who trusted you, about a lady who had done nothing to deserve the nefarious plans you intended for her. Then you encountered Darcy earlier and urged him to help you spread the secret."
"I went to Darcy because he is a man of sense and he could be counted upon to understand multiple concepts."
"You went to Darcy because you assumed he would share your views.
Yet no person of good nature would consider a girl's uncertain origins sufficient grounds for discrediting her and separating her from the man who cares for her.
You were wrong about him, and I am grateful for it.
" Bingley had not raised his voice once.
This was, Darcy thought, more effective than shouting would have been.
"What you intend to do to Mary Bennet, and to Mrs Bennet, who trusted you, is cruel. It is not protection. It is not strategy. You merely decided that your own kin’s interests were worth another person's destruction."
Mrs Bingley's expression shifted, not into contrition but into a more complicated look.
That of a person who had expected some resistance but not at this pitch.
"You do not understand what I have been trying to say. The Bennets are not suitable. Mary Bennet’s origins are unclear, the household's finances are propped up by a man who courts one of the sisters, the father is absent, and the younger girls are barely—"
"The Bennets are not suitable," Bingley repeated.
"That is what you have been telling me since the start of the season.
That Jane Bennet is not what I deserve and I can do considerably better.
That I ought to marry a wealthy daughter of an aristocratic family who has been properly vetted and properly connected.
I do not want a wealthy daughter of an aristocratic family.
I want Jane Bennet. She is the finest woman I have met in several seasons of being presented with women you consider suitable, and I plan to tell her this soon.
I also intend to apologise to her family for what has been done by mine, after which I shall ask her to marry me. "
Mrs Bingley stared at him with her mouth agape. "You have never spoken to me like this. And seeking Jane Bennet’s hand in marriage…surely you can't be serious."
Caroline rose to her feet. "Charles, if you would simply consider—"
"You." He turned to his sister. "You have spent the better part of this season pursuing a man who has given you no encouragement whatsoever, because Mama told you it was worth attempting.
You have attended events specifically to displace a woman who has offered you no provocation.
You have conducted yourself in a way that I am ashamed to have been associated with.
As the head of this family, I will hereby set a firmer hand on your allowance.
I will only make a review on this in the next quarter, if your behaviour seems appropriate. "
Caroline's composure broke. "You would not. Charles, you cannot do that to me!"
"I have already decided. You will hear from my steward.
" He returned his attention to his mother, who was still gobsmacked.
Her analytical eyes seemed to be taking a new measure of her son and revising several prior conclusions.
"You and Caroline will return to Scarborough this week.
The house is available and ready to be occupied on short notice. "
"We have engagements in London," Mrs Bingley said. "We cannot simply leave."
"You will send your regrets. I am embarrassed by what has been done this season. I cannot afford the possibility of further interference. You will go to Scarborough, and you will remain there until the season has concluded. When that is over, we shall discuss what is to come next."
"Charles." His mother's voice had dropped into the lower, more personal register she used when she was speaking to him as a son rather than as a figure of authority.
It contained real feeling — Darcy had never doubted that she loved her children, only that the love did not excuse what she had done to justify her opinions.
"I have only ever wanted what was best for you. Everything I have done this season has been for your sake and your sister’s. Surely you know that."
Bingley looked at her for a long moment. On his face was a look that was not anger, which would have been easier to identify. It was the expression of a son who loved his mother and had found that this love did not always translate to liking someone and every facet of their behaviour.
"I know you believe that, but what you did was wrong. No attempt to convince me otherwise will ever change that." He adjusted his hat. "I will have arrangements made for the carriage."
Caroline made one further attempt, as they left, to introduce a new line of defence. However, Bingley did not stop walking. The hall door closed behind them resoundingly.
In the street, Bingley stood in the cool afternoon air with his arms crossed. He had discharged a difficult task and appeared to have not yet decided what to do with himself in its aftermath.
"You handled it well," Darcy said, because it was true and also because Bingley needed to hear it stated plainly.
Bingley released a short, humourless breath. "I have been easy with them for too long. What ought to be done next?"
"An apology to the Bennet family. In person, from you directly. It should come before any further circulation of Mrs Bingley's intelligence, if that is still possible to contain."
"Today?"
Darcy considered. "Give them the morning. There is much to contend with in that house at present."
Bingley nodded. "My heart goes out to Miss Mary. To learn a thing like that about yourself, about everything you thought you were…I cannot imagine what it must be like."
Darcy thought back to Mary Bennet’s quietness, which reminded him of his own sister’s timidity.
She was not the first one noticeable in a line of her sisters but she certainly made an impression in her own way.
The intelligence in her eyes could not be mistaken.
Neither was the obvious preference she had for retreating into the background.
She was not quite as witty and conversational as Elizabeth Bennet, who was unrivalled in that aspect, but he had noticed that she was observant and polite in the few interactions they had shared.
If Mrs Bingley had succeeded in her plans, the days afterwards would cost Mary a lot. Darcy felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps he ought to have stopped Mrs Bingley earlier, but he had no way of knowing she would go this far. Mothers, after all, could be mischievous and scheming in their own unique ways.
But this was…
Unjustifiable.
"Thankfully, she will have her family for support."
"Indeed. With a defensive fleet made up of Misses Jane, Elizabeth, Lydia and Kitty, no one could stand a chance." Bingley said, smiling faintly.
They parted at the corner of Brook Street. Darcy walked north.
He had asked his carriage to go ahead without him and walked because he needed to clear his thoughts.
The weather was undecided about whether to rain and the afternoon light was declining towards the flat grey of evening, the streets were occupied enough to require navigation without demanding engagement, which was what he needed.
He had done the right thing by visiting the Bennets.
He was incredibly sure of this, as much as any important decision he had undertaken thus far in life.
Mrs Bingley had given him information with a purpose he found contemptible, and he had used it for a contrary purpose, which was the only use it merited.
The family had been warned. Whatever they chose to do with the warning was not within his jurisdiction.
He had also been dismissed.
This was the other certainty, and it was less comfortable to stand with.
He turned it over as he walked, not seeking a resolution, only seeking to understand why it persisted.
If his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, had said something equally unfair under equivalent strain, he would have assessed it as a product of distress, made no grievance of it, and moved on within the hour.
If any other person of his acquaintance had delivered the same words in the same tone, the same would have applied. He was not, in general, a man who carried injuries.
A more honest accounting arrived, with the reluctant precision of something that had been evaded for too long and was now stating itself.
Elizabeth Bennet's opinion of him was not a matter he was capable of treating with the detachment he applied to most things.
It had not been, he suspected, since that first meeting at Almack's, when she had made it clear that she wasn't exactly enamoured by him.
It had persisted through several assessing conclusions he had drawn about the Bennets before setting them aside.
It had survived the rational explanations he had assembled about her circumstances, her motives and the nature of her ideological position in the world.
Why her voice, echoing from the hallway in a townhouse in Portman Square, should follow him through the streets with this much tenacity — that was the question he had not yet answered with the honesty it deserved.
He turned into Grosvenor Street, where he lived, and did not pretend, this time, that the answer was not where it could be found.
She had made a lasting impression on him, from the beginning and at every subsequent encounter, in the way that very few people had ever managed to do. Not through beauty, although that existed in folds, and not through position.
It was not by any of the conventional instruments of such impressions but through the unique nature of her mind as it engaged with the world.
The calibrated intelligence and refusal to be anything other than herself in all circumstances.
She was not easy to dismiss. He had tried, which had produced nothing more than a temporary and unconvincing conclusion.
He was not yet ready to name what this amounted to. He was, however, aware that he was walking home with the sound of her voice still in his head, and that this was not the behaviour of a man who had satisfactorily resolved a question.