Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
THE CHALLENGE
Darcy’s butler met him in the vestibule of his home, looking alarmed. “Mr Bingley awaits you in the drawing room, sir,” he informed him. “Lord Saye and Colonel Fitzwilliam are with him.”
“You seem perturbed by that, Higgins,” he said. “Is something amiss?”
“Only that Mr Bingley seemed quite more perturbed than usual. I should not have admitted him save for the fact that Lord Saye and Colonel Fitzwilliam assured me you would wish for the meeting.”
“Well, I shall have to see, I suppose.” Darcy handed Higgins his gloves and then his hat. “Is there anything else?”
“Lord Saye asked to be brought some cold meats and cheeses, and bread,” Higgins reported. “And ale. He says he cannot enjoy theatre on an empty stomach. Mrs Hobbs was happy to oblige.”
Darcy rolled his eyes. “I am not certain what he means by theatre, but I daresay I am soon to find out. Where is Miss Darcy?”
“I suggested to Mrs Annesley that the ladies walk out and happily that suggestion was taken.”
Darcy inclined his head. “Good man.”
When Darcy arrived in his drawing room, he found his cousins—one lolling and the other merely lounging—in his most plush chairs with near-identical expressions of anticipatory amusement. A robust collation was spread on the table before them, with glasses of brandy in their respective fists.
Bingley had neither ale nor a snack; he paced, his colour high, and a letter, presumably Darcy’s own summons, clutched in his fist. He paused as soon as Darcy entered, taking one step towards him and brandishing the letter. “What the devil is the meaning of this, Darcy?”
“I should think it sufficiently plain, but if you require an explanation, I am more than willing to give you one. Sit down, Bingley.” With a distinct lack of agitation, Darcy moved towards the sofa nearest Saye and Fitzwilliam, took a seat, and gestured to Bingley to do likewise.
“I have no wish to sit,” Bingley replied venomously.
“Well, I have no wish for you to loom over me while I am trying to eat,” Saye informed him. “Pray do as Darcy says.”
At Saye’s unexpected intervention, Bingley looked momentarily uncertain. With a sigh, he took a seat, but not on the sofa. Instead he chose a chair at a slight remove.
“Not there,” Saye remarked, leaning forwards to select a piece of ham and put it on his plate. “You are too far away. How are we to have a civilised conversation if you are so awkwardly positioned over my shoulder?”
“I do not wish to sit near a man who wants to shoot me,” Bingley replied, sounding more sulky than venomous.
“I daresay every man in this room has considered shooting you at some point,” Saye replied.
“Saye,” Darcy warned. “Let Bingley sit where he wishes.”
“Perhaps he ought to drag the chair over,” Fitzwilliam suggested.
“That,” said Saye while considering the selection of cheeses before him, “seems an excellent compromise.”
With another enormous sigh, Bingley rose to do just that. Alas, the chair in question was one of the heaviest Darcy owned, one that had been in the family for many years. Bingley tugged and heaved and managed to move it a foot or so before Fitzwilliam enquired, “Would you like assistance?”
“Yes,” Bingley said shortly, his face having grown flushed.
Fitzwilliam then rose and went to where Bingley tugged.
“I do not think you ought to drag it about so,” Saye offered while eating a bite of his ham. “Might damage the carpet, ugly as it is.”
“You think my carpet is ugly?” Darcy asked him. “Ungenerous of you.”
“Excessively ugly,” Saye replied genially. “Too much gold.”
“We should lift it,” Fitzwilliam suggested to Bingley and this, for some reason, restored Bingley’s vexation.
“I came here to speak to Darcy!” he nearly shouted at Fitzwilliam. “Not move chairs about like a footman!”
“Now that is a bit high in the instep,” Saye replied. “Was not your father a lumper? I should imagine he heaved a chair or two in his time.”
Fitzwilliam had induced Bingley to lift the chair, and thus was Bingley’s reply given amid huffs of exertion. “My father,” he said, “made a fortune in shipping. He was not a lumper.”
“But surely someone along the family line was a lumper?” Saye enquired, making a lazy circle in the air with his fork. “You know, there was once a Fitzwilliam who served as a gravedigger.”
Bingley, his face beaded with perspiration, tossed himself into the chair.
“Is that true?” Fitzwilliam enquired as he took his seat again. “I had not known that.”
“I think we may thank him for our naturally-given shoulders,” Saye informed them all. “Every Fitzwilliam man is broad-shouldered with a slender waist.”
Darcy only smothered a grin of amusement.
Well was he aware of such a tactic. Introduce tomfoolery to cool heated tempers.
Or in Bingley’s case, make him angrier for the need to delay his fit.
“In any case, now that we are all settled,” he said, “Bingley, you were asking about my summons? It could not have surprised you.”
Bingley gave him an incredulous look before saying, “Indeed, in fact, it does surprise me. My dearest friend wishes to murder me? Yes, I should call that a surprise.”
“And my dear friend,” said Darcy in his haughtiest accents, “has proved himself a disgrace. I daresay we are both surprised, although who owns the greatest share of it remains to be determined.”
Bingley’s colour changed, and his mouth fell open. It seemed, strangely, the first time that he truly comprehended Darcy’s position in the matter. “I—”
Darcy held up one hand. “Allow me to be very plain. You will hear me, as I think you have failed to hear me before.”
Bingley pressed his lips together and gave a short, tightly wound nod.
“You made promises to Jane Bennet. I do not mean merely the promises that are implied by a gentleman’s particular attentions to a young woman over a sustained period, though those are themselves not trifling. I mean specific promises of impending matrimony. Given in words. In private.”
“To say nothing of the promises you made with your fowling piece,” Saye added with a smirk. “None so specific as that.”
Darcy continued without acknowledging Saye’s nonsense.
“She is a gentlewoman, Bingley, with every quality of mind and character that the word ought to convey, and she trusted you as such women trust, which is to say, completely, and wholly. She gave herself to you as a wife gives herself to a husband, having full belief in the things you said and promised her. And she is now carrying your child.”
Bingley looked down and took a deep breath.
“You gave her your word, and a gentleman,” said Darcy, speaking very exactly, “does not go back on his word. A gentleman, having made a promise, honours that promise. For many years now, I have forwarded you in society as a gentleman. I have urged people, including people in this room who would much prefer to shun you—”
“That would be me,” Saye offered with a smile.
“—to include you and invite you to be a part of the ton. I introduced your sister to Hurst—”
“That was certainly a mixed blessing,” Bingley muttered.
“I have had you as my guest at Pemberley a countless number of times. I have been your guest at Netherfield, your first foray into country life and society. And you have repaid that largesse with decidedly ungentlemanlike behaviour at the first difficulty you face.”
“It is my entire life,” said Bingley. “All my life.”
“So is it hers,” Fitzwilliam said. “If you mean to shoot a gun, you ought to be prepared to pick up the body.”
“It is not I who means to shoot anything. He means to shoot me!” Bingley thrust a finger at Darcy.
“I meant that metaphorically, you sapskull.” Fitzwilliam rolled his eyes.
“Metaphor or not, it is not fair! Darcy, you know you are a far better shot than I! Who should I even have as a second? I always thought that if I found myself in such a difficulty, you would second me.”
Fitzwilliam laughed at that while Saye observed, “This must be a frequent occupation of yours, then, if you have so carefully considered the circumstances of it.”
“It would not be my choice to shoot you,” said Darcy. “But do be assured that if it comes to that, along with it comes this firm vow. You and your family, Bingley and otherwise, shall not be recognised by any Darcy ever again.”
Bingley’s mouth dropped open again.
“Pray do not gape so,” Saye ordered, leaning forwards to take up some grapes. Popping one in his mouth, he said, “The sight of that bit that hangs down over your tongue is nauseating, and I am eating.”
Bingley closed his mouth. “You would see me ostracised?”
“Yes,” Darcy replied simply while Saye and Fitzwilliam offered their own pledges to do the same, with Saye adding, “If I am being perfectly fair, I must own that I might ostracise you anyhow.”
“Your other choice is as follows,” Darcy said, his gaze fixed on Bingley.
“You leave here and go directly to Hertfordshire. You present yourself to Mr Bennet, and you ask for Miss Bennet’s hand in marriage, saying nothing of your inducement.
You will then return to town with that gentleman’s signature which will effectively cancel my summons.
You will then marry Miss Bennet, with whatever expedition is practicable, and you will provide her child, which is also your own, with your name and your protection and whatever else is required. ”
Bingley said nothing.
“Should you do all of that, you will find that I intend to marry Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Thus will you not only remain my friend, but also become my brother. Your wife will be my sister. Your child will be my niece or nephew. And I give you my word that I will not speak of what has passed beyond those persons who are already aware of it.”
“You know,” Saye added, “the only possibility you have of ever getting rid of that vile sister of yours is to remain in Darcy’s graces. For a woman like that to also wear the mantle of a dishonourable brother? Impossible. You two would live your life long together.”
Bingley winced but then protested once again, although Darcy thought his voice now lacked the vigour and self-righteousness of their former conversations. “You cannot do this.”
“Cannot do what?”
“You sit there and you lay out my choices as though I am a—as though you have some right—Darcy, you are my friend. You have been my friend for six years. And you summon me here with a challenge, and you sit there and tell me that I must marry a girl I…I…”
“A girl you what?” Darcy’s voice was quiet, and very precise.
Bingley’s jaw tightened. He ran a hand through his hair with considerable violence, then rose from his chair. He walked towards the window two paces, then turned on Darcy with the expression of a man who has been cornered and knows it but is not yet ready to acknowledge it gracefully.
“You manoeuvre me to your own purpose,” he said.
“You have placed me in a corner, and you dress it up as honour and friendship and consequence, and it is nothing more than—than you wishing to marry Miss Elizabeth. You want her family tidied away before you take her, and I am the mechanism by which that is accomplished.”
“Be very careful, Bingley, of what you say next. You are moving onto ground from which there is no return.”
“No return?” Bingley threw up his hands. “There is no return from any of it!”
“I am not demanding that you marry Jane Bennet to tidy away an inconvenience. I am demanding it because she is a lady, and a good one, who has come to desperate circumstances through your doing. I am doing this because there is a version of yourself, the version whom I have called my friend, who knows this as well as I do.” Darcy gave Bingley a stern look.
“Do not make me bury that version of you, Bingley. I would find it a very great loss.”
The room was silent until Fitzwilliam observed, “No one put you in this corner but you yourself, Bingley.”
Bingley went to the window, looking out. There was another long, long silence. Even Saye abstained from eating and drinking while Bingley remained staring out into the sights of an afternoon in Mayfair.
Eventually he turned back to them. With a slight inclination of his head, he said, “Excuse me, but I must depart. It seems I have business in Hertfordshire and no time to spare in getting myself there.”