Chapter 29
Bingley was having a quiet breakfast after a mostly sleepless night. The revelations of the previous evening had been quite shocking, and he wondered how he could have been so blind.
He had left the ball in a daze. He was vaguely aware that Caroline was complaining, but he had not listened to a word she said. Eventually she must have given up as he had wandered into Hurst’s study and helped himself to the decanter of brandy, which he had half emptied while sitting by the fire.
For a while he wondered if Deveril had ensnared Jane because of his title, but then he remembered Darcy saying she considered himself immature. Well, Deveril was six or seven years his senior, so he must be more mature.
But Jane had not met the man till she came to London after Bingley had spent a month or so getting to know her… courting her even… in an unofficial sort of way.
She was always so beautiful, kind, and gentle.
Bingley had been so proud every time he danced with her or walked with her on his arm.
Miss Bennet had made him feel so very special the way she smiled at him and introduced him to all her friends.
He had thought her the kindest lady possible, the way she praised all her friends telling him of the ladies’ accomplishments.
In retrospect, perhaps she had truly been trying to move his attention from her to one of the other ladies. But what did he do wrong that she was not interested in him in the first place?
Those thoughts were still running through his head when he was having breakfast and reading the morning paper.
He almost skipped the society pages but checked them, nonetheless. As expected, he found the article regarding the presentation of the Bennet sisters to Her Majesty.
Almost immediately below that article was an announcement which tore at his heart.
The Duchess of Barrington is pleased to announce the engagement of her son, Lord James Deveril to Miss Jane Bennet of Longbourn in Hertfordshire.
It was short but to the point. But now he wanted to find out why.
~T~
Darcy was expecting Bingley as he had realised that his friend did not know where the Misses Bennet were staying. The article about the presentation had mentioned Audley Street, but not given further details.
After greeting Bingley, Darcy advised, ‘I suggest we have a cup of coffee first since it is a little early to call on the ladies.’
Once they had both been served, Bingley asked, ‘You seemed to know something of Miss Bennet’s feelings. Can you tell me more?’
‘While the lady mentioned she was not interested in you, she did not go into any details. After all, she is a lady, and those things are private.’
‘You know, I could not help but wonder if Deveril’s title had something to do with her decision.’
Darcy chuckled as he said, ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. I was present when she discovered Deveril’s position, and she was shocked. They were already courting at the time and for a while I wondered whether she was going to call it off.’
‘I wish she had.’
‘Deveril worked hard to change her mind and he had one big advantage… she already liked and respected him. I suspect that was largely because he likes and respects her.’
‘Respects her…’ murmured Bingley. ‘I wonder…’
While they had their coffee, Darcy sent a note to Gardiner House, requesting an interview for Bingley. During their wait, Darcy remembered to tell Bingley that the man Caroline had seen with Jane, was her uncle, Mr Gardiner, dispelling his idea that it could have been Deveril.
~T~
The sisters and Mrs Gardiner received them in the drawing room. Darcy was not much surprised to find that Deveril and Fitzwilliam were also present.
Despite having just finished coffee at Darcy’s house, Bingley accepted the offer of coffee as it bought him some time, and he joined in the general conversation. But soon his period of grace was at an end.
‘Mr Bingley, last night you asked me a question. Do you still want to hear my answer? And if you do, would you prefer to hear it in private? In chaperoned privacy, I mean.’
Bingley looked around the occupants of the room before he addressed Jane. ‘I presume everyone here knows about this?’
‘To a greater or lesser extent,’ Jane confirmed. ‘My sisters in great detail, most of the gentlemen less so.’
‘You might as well tell me now.’ Bingley sighed. ‘Considering what a fool I made of myself last night…’
Very well, Mr Bingley, but please understand that what I tell you will hurt you although I have no wish to do so.’
‘I understand.’
‘The main problem was that you only ever saw my physical beauty. You never bothered to look at me. You did not care about what I think or feel, and you never respected me.’
‘I respected you greatly,’ protested Bingley.
‘No, Mr Bingley. You went through the forms of showing respect, but you did not feel respect. You gave the impression of feeling nothing but avarice. You wanted to own me like an ornament. You cared nothing about how I felt otherwise you would have noticed that I was trying to avoid you.’
Jane sighed. ‘I suppose that I could have cut short your interest by falsely responding to your advances, but I refuse to lower myself to play such games. And admittedly there was a small chance that I was wrong about you, and you were truly serious. I would never lead someone on.’
‘I could never have lost interest in you.’
‘Mr Bingley, please allow me an analogy. You appeared to me to be like a puppy, who will chase anything that moves and will do so quite charmingly. But once that puppy has caught whatever it was chasing, it usually does not know what to do with it. It might play with it for a while and then lose interest and chase something else.’
‘A puppy?’ Bingley’s eyes widened in shock. He was horrified that he had been perceived to be so immature as to be compared to a puppy.
He felt worse when he heard Fitzwilliam mutter, ‘very apt.’
‘Was there anything else,’ Bingley asked, hoping that there might have been a serious reason for her disinterest.
‘I have to confess that we felt you had several shortcomings.’
‘Go on.’
‘You are supposedly the head of your household, and yet you allow your sister to insult one and all. You do not check her behaviour. If she is rude to people above her in rank, it does not greatly matter, we will usually simply laugh at her, but she was ridiculously demanding of the staff as well as rude, disdainful, and even cruel to all who had no way of defending themselves. Yet you did nothing to stop her. That is not the character of a man I can respect.’
‘Oh.’
‘And then there is of course the matter of the estate. You leased Netherfield to learn how to become a landed gentleman, yet you paid not the slightest attention to the running of the estate, leaving all the work on the shoulders of the steward.’
‘I was waiting for Darcy to come and teach me.’ Bingley said, trying to defend himself. ‘But what has that to do with anything?’
‘I will explain the relevance in a minute. In the meantime, are you telling me that there was not a single gentleman in the area who offered to assist you by giving advice?’
‘Well, there were several gentlemen who did so, including Mr Bennet.’
Elizabeth interjected, ‘Yet you did not take any of them up on their offer. As much as it pains me to admit that our father is an indolent master, but while he is indolent, he is not completely neglectful.
‘I was busy paying court to your sister… Miss Bennet.’
‘Which was completely unwelcome, but that is irrelevant to this question. The point is that we were raised as gentlewomen. As such we understand the needs of an estate and the people on it. We do not respect a man who does not care for his estate, who ignores his responsibilities and only thinks of his own pleasures. And we would never consider such a man as a potential husband.’
‘I see. Thank you for explaining so fully. Is there anything else?’
Mary’s eyes became shadowed as she sighed and said, ‘There is.’
~T~
‘There is something else, although we did not find out about it until we came to London where we learnt that you have a reputation for falling in and out of love on a regular basis.’
‘Yes, what of it. I did nothing that I do not see other young men do. We all pay attention to ladies. We all flirt a little and then we move on.’
‘Mr Bingley, those other young men flirt with many young ladies, do they not?’
‘Indeed. I thought it was quite despicable how they could be so flighty,’ declared Bingley earnestly.
The sisters all gave him looks of varying levels of horror.
‘Those young men who flirt with many ladies do not raise the expectations of any one of them, since they all can see that those young men are not serious.’ Elizabeth stopped and shook her head in disbelief.
‘You on the other hand focused on a single lady at a time.
By ignoring all others, you raised the expectations of that lady that you were seriously interested in her.
You raised the expectations of her family and her society.
They all expected you to make an offer for the lady very soon.
But then… poof… you lose interest and move on to the next lady. ‘
She transfixed him with a hard stare. ‘What did you think would happen?’
‘Well… I expected that she would flirt with the next gentleman until she met up with one where the interest was mutual.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘Yes, of course. It was what I was doing all the time, similar to the other chaps I knew except, as I said, I was not as flighty as they.’
Elizabeth looked at Mary and asked, ‘Do you want me to explain?’
Mary shook her head and replied, ‘This is my story. I must tell it.’
She set up straighter and confronted Bingley.