Chapter 16
“You are leaving already, Mr Darcy?” Miss Bingley asked, her voice cloyingly sweet. She set her hand on Darcy’s arm, arresting his progress through the ballroom’s main reception room.
Intent only on getting out of this loud, crowded place and putting some distance between himself and the extraordinary encounters of the evening, Darcy recoiled at her touch. In the confusion of his mind, it took a long moment to comprehend who was restraining him and why.
“Yes, I am going,” he answered shortly, pulling back his arm from Miss Bingley and placing both hands behind his back to prevent any further unwanted contact.
“I do not believe you have danced at all,” she protested with a show of sorrow that would have done credit to any Drury Lane actress. “How very unfortunate for the ladies that we shall lose you so soon.”
As Darcy was in no mood for the mental and verbal fencing required to ward off Miss.
Bingley’s flirtations, he responded to this with no more than a nod and a muttered word of thanks.
He looked over her shoulder towards the doors, only a few feet away.
Yes, that was the way back to the cloakrooms, he was almost sure of it.
He could bid a polite goodnight and leave.
“Ah, Mr Darcy,” Mrs Louisa Hurst stepped into Darcy’s path at that moment, before he could break away, and as though herding him back towards her younger sister.
“I have just received the most interesting news from Mrs Penrose, who has connections in Hertfordshire. We were quite shocked, weren’t we, Caroline? ”
Darcy winced. He did not particularly wish to hear gossip from Hertfordshire or anywhere else, and had never met Mrs Penrose. And yet, news from that area might concern the Bennets.
It might concern Elizabeth…
“Oh, very shocked, although we already understood from you, Mr Darcy, that Mr Wickham was not to be trusted,” agreed Miss Bingley, her eyes gleaming as she saw the involuntary interest rise in Darcy’s face despite himself.
“Wickham is never to be trusted,” he confirmed, silently cursing the scoundrel’s name for the second time this evening. “What of him?”
“Well, he was said to be pursuing a certain Miss King of Meryton, who has ten thousand pounds,” Mrs Hurst began.
“An heiress, of course,” Darcy said contemptuously. It could hardly have been otherwise. “What has come of his pursuit, then? Is there a scandal?”
“It was the talk of the neighbourhood for weeks, apparently. I dare say Mrs Bennet and her ilk have thoroughly enjoyed themselves,” tittered Miss Bingley, hiding half her face slyly behind her fan. “Poor Jane!”
“Poor Jane,” echoed Mrs Hurst, looking back over her shoulder as though fearing to find that young woman behind her. “Jane has every virtue, but such a family…”
“Quite impossible people,” Miss Bingley commented, shaking her head. “One wonders how they managed to raise dear Jane. I dare say she is far more suited to her future life as Countess of Grantchester. In her position, I should not return often to Longbourn.”
“Indeed, Sister. I dare say, she will not.”
Each line of the sisters’ exchange irritated him, and soon Darcy could take no more of their ignorant sniping. “What of George Wickham?” he asked again. “Did he make his intentions known to Miss King or her family?”
“Oh, he must have done, for her family took fright and carried her off to Liverpool where she will be quite safe,” Mrs Hurst said, clearly relishing her completion of the story.
“They were said to be afraid of an elopement, although that might just be embellishment from the gossips. Mr Wickham must stay in Hertfordshire with his regiment, of course.”
“Good,” Darcy remarked. “Miss King is lucky that she has family and friends ready to defend her from such predations.”
Although he did not tell the Bingley ladies, Darcy knew from experience that George Wickham was quite willing to entice innocent young women into elopement, whether motivated by their fortunes or their bodies.
In the latter case, it was also regardless of whether he really meant to marry them or not.
Not many months had passed since Darcy thwarted Wickham’s attempt to lure Georgiana to the altar, though she had been only sixteen at the time.
Since their youth, there had also been local girls from the villages around Pemberley who met a more awful fate at Wickham’s hands after being led astray by his false promises of love and marriage.
“You ought to meet Mrs Penrose,” Louisa Hurst then suggested. “She would be most interested to hear what you have to say about Mr Wickham.”
“Regrettably, I cannot. I am leaving now,” Darcy said with as much politeness as he could muster. In truth, he could think of little less appealing than spending a further half hour talking about George Wickham.
“What a shame,” sighed Miss Bingley, batting her lashes energetically.
Darcy looked askance at her. Though she must have intended the gesture as an enticement to him, it looked rather more as though she struggled to rid herself of a mite of dust or some other irritant that had fallen into her eyes.
“I had hoped we would enjoy more of your company tonight,” Miss Bingley continued.
“Charles is in low spirits, and you are such a good influence on him.”
“Your brother is quite capable of pulling himself together when he chooses to,” Darcy replied dryly.
No sooner were the words spoken than Darcy had to acknowledge the irony, if only to himself.
He had hardly lived up to his own ideals of self-control tonight.
“You must excuse me, Miss Bingley, Mrs Hurst. Enjoy the rest of your night.”
Stepping back and avoiding eye contact, he gave Bingley’s sisters no further opportunity to detain him.
Automatically, his mind turned to contrast Miss Bingley’s manner with that of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, who only ever met his eye with a direct gaze, who implied little but said exactly what she meant.
Elizabeth Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet…Her name and face ran through Darcy’s mind as he walked to the cloakroom. What was it in her that so fascinated him? Why could he not put her from his mind? Why must she haunt every other waking thought and reflection?
Why did he feel as though her name should instead be Elizabeth Darcy?
“Elizabeth…” Darcy heard himself murmur aloud, drawing a curious glance from the footman who retrieved his coat, and clenching his jaw to prevent any further speech escaping from his lips.
While he was able to stop his speech, Darcy could not still his racing thoughts or the unsteadiness of his heartbeat.
His feelings were both unusually intense and ambivalent, swinging between different points of view in a most disorienting fashion.
It felt unreal to think that he had very nearly proposed marriage to Elizabeth Bennet tonight. Or had he actually done so?
I ought to offer you my hand…
Darcy had certainly implied that he wished to make such an offer, and Elizabeth had rejected him out of hand. Her reception of his almost-proposal was nearly as incredible as the fact that he had revealed his feelings to her at all.
What on earth had come over him to even make such an offer?
The Bennet sisters were without fortune, title, or desirable connections.
Elizabeth’s personal charms should not have been able to overcome such disadvantages as these.
She was outspoken, lacking in deference, and independent to a fault.
Yet Darcy was drawn so strongly to her that he seemed to have no power to resist.
Surely he ought to thank his lucky stars that she had not accepted him, even while he smarted under her rejection and felt indignant at her accusation.
Yet he very much feared that pain and indignation played a far greater role in his feelings towards the night’s events than did any thought of gratitude.
Did Elizabeth really believe the things she said, thinking Darcy motivated solely by worldly concerns?
…what other motivation could there be but disdain for my sister’s lack of fortune and rank and prejudice against it?
Money, rank, and title were important, certainly, but Darcy was hardly so much of a fool as to think they were everything. Could Elizabeth truly think he was? Darcy gave a disgruntled snort at the very idea as he walked through the reception hallway where late-coming guests were still arriving.
The second Miss Bennet was a most impossible young woman, her attitude wrong-headed and stubborn, and her quick wit deceived by her affections. Her feelings for her elder sister did her credit, regardless of her unfortunate way of expressing them. Her feelings for George Wickham, however…
Were you trying to save Mr Wickham from great unhappiness when you ruined his life too?
Darcy ground his teeth angrily as he recalled her concern for the scoundrel who had blighted or ruined so many lives, almost including Georgiana’s.
This was the part of Elizabeth’s misunderstanding that rankled the most. The thought of her holding affection for Wickham put Darcy into such a heat of rage that if the man himself had appeared, they might almost have come to blows.
Darcy’s rational mind soon soothed his blood on that count.
No, there could be no real personal attachment between Miss Elizabeth Bennet and George Wickham.
She lacked the fortune he aspired to, and possessed a strength of personality, intellect, and moral principle that set her beyond Wickham’s other manipulations.
Elizabeth must be subject only to the same general hoodwinking as her friends and neighbours around Meryton.
The rogue was likely up to his usual tricks.
He had doubtless spun his tales of deceit to half of Hertfordshire since joining the militia.
Wickham’s guileless face and easy manner took in most people at first, as they had taken in Darcy’s father.
People of sense usually became wise to him in time, however, and the citizens of Meryton and its surroundings would be undeceived eventually.
Recalling the story of Miss King being carried off to Liverpool by her relatives, Darcy reflected that Wickham’s position as a favourite of Hertfordshire families was likely fading.
In any case, it was not Darcy’s business.
He had protected his own family and offered what restitution he could to those injured by George Wickham around Pemberley.
Beyond this, he could not be Wickham’s keeper.
Nonetheless, it wounded Darcy to think of Elizabeth Bennet believing the blackguard Wickham’s word over his own.
He knew he must accept her rejection of his suit and already blamed himself more for exposing himself than her for declining him.
Declining? It was hardly the right word.
Elizabeth had comprehensively rebuffed and spurned him without a hint of regret, encouragement, or hope.
You must be the last man on earth I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
Under such circumstances as these, Darcy told himself sternly, he could only hope to accept Elizabeth’s decision with grace and dignity.
He would not seek her hand again, given her evident resentment against him and his inability to explain his opposition to her sister’s marriage to Lord Grantchester.
Elizabeth’s misunderstanding around George Wickham, however, he might honourably correct. He felt bound to do so, the more he considered it. Even if he could not win her regard, Darcy wished for her to think of him fairly, if she thought of him at all.
Yes, Darcy must write a letter explaining as much as he could.
He had done what he could with Lord Grantchester in regard to his marriage to Jane Bennet.
Now, he would do what he could to correct Elizabeth Bennet.
It must be a thoughtful and considered letter too, not something impulsively dashed off tonight that they might both later regret…
After that, in both cases, he could only trust to fate, time, and someone else’s natural sense of justice. There should be an end of some sort to these two interconnected issues that plagued and tormented him.
“Darcy House,” Darcy told his driver tersely as he climbed into his carriage and slammed the door closed behind him.