Chapter Sixteen #2
The prospect simultaneously filled Darcy with hope and terrified him. “But how do I woo her?”
Bingley shrugged. “How should I know? She is your fiancée. But you need a plan. Perhaps start with a gift…a necklace?”
Darcy recalled the diamond bracelet. “No…” But…that gave him the ghost of an idea. That…might succeed.
“Perhaps—” Darcy hiccupped. “Perhaps I will.” He staggered to his feet and then lurched to one side, steadying himself with a hand on the wall. “I should probably start tomorrow, not today. I can plind a fan—find a plan. I must be more foxed than I thought.” He chuckled.
As Darcy mostly conversed with himself, Bingley gently took his arm.
Elizabeth would like that Darcy laughed at himself. He would tell her the next time— Oh, yes, she had left. The memory was a bucket of cold water. She had left, and Darcy was drunk.
“What will I do without her?” he asked Bingley.
Bingley pulled him toward the door. “You will go to bed and devise a plan in the morning. Come, I will help you to your bedchamber.”
Sleep and oblivion sounded good to Darcy. Tomorrow, he would discover if his plan still seemed like a fine idea. He let Bingley lead him out of the room.
***
Elizabeth’s homecoming was not as she anticipated. She thought that life at Longbourn would resume the familiar rhythm of Sunday services, visiting friends, solo walks, and trips into Meryton with her sisters.
But after a week at home, she realized that her world had permanently altered.
Longbourn was plunged into preparations for Jane’s wedding.
Jane, perhaps wisely, had granted her mother free rein for the event.
Mrs. Bennet talked of nothing save lace, flowers, food for the wedding breakfast, and invitations.
Mary followed Jane about the house, reading Fordyce’s advice on good wifely behavior.
Every day, Kitty and Lydia reported on another young lady or mother who was jealous of the Bennet family. The number of green-eyed women increased so rapidly that soon the sisters would be compelled to cite names residing outside Hertfordshire.
However, the daily recitation soothed Mrs. Bennet’s nerves, which were “worn away to nothing” by wedding schemes.
The constant activity even perturbed Jane so much that one day she was heard uttering unkind words about the neighbor’s pigs.
However, she quickly recovered herself and apologized to the (greatly bemused) neighbor.
Mr. Bennet ceased attending meals and took his food on a tray in his study. Mrs. Hill was forced to double the amount of brandy she usually purchased.
Jane deserved every felicity, and Elizabeth was scrupulous not to do anything to tarnish it. Fortunately, everyone was too preoccupied with their own concerns to notice that Elizabeth did not receive letters from William. Nevertheless, their absence fed her loneliness.
Whenever anyone pressed her about her own wedding preparations, Elizabeth simply explained that they intended a long engagement and deflected the attention to Jane.
She planned to write to William and break off the betrothal a week or so after the wedding.
Jane and Mr. Bingley would be on their wedding trip and would not hear about it until they returned.
But when Elizabeth was honest with herself, Jane’s wedding was not the principal source of her disquiet.
The truth was that she no longer fit into the family in the same way.
She was less interested in hearing neighborhood gossip from her sisters and less tolerant of her father’s treatment of his wife.
Increasingly, she spent her time alone on solitary rambles throughout the countryside or re-reading books she had read several times.
Naturally, Elizabeth missed the excitement in London.
She missed seeing Lady Sterling and her friends.
She missed discussing Herodotus with William and visiting the British Museum.
She wished she had seen more concerts and plays in Town.
She wished she had more time to acquaint herself with Miss Darcy.
Surely she would readjust to life at Longbourn; her London sojourn had only lasted a few months after all. However, she sometimes worried that London had changed her in a fundamental fashion.
When her father aimed cruel words at her mother, she would think, “William would never speak to me that way.” He might be proud, but he would not treat another with such disrespect.
It was foolish to think about him at all. She had destroyed that relationship quite comprehensively. But it was probably natural that he haunted her thoughts while she observed Jane’s happiness.
Jane’s situation was different from Elizabeth’s.
Mr. Bingley possessed humbler ambitions, and his family fortune originated in trade.
He neither knew Italian nor cared if his wife did.
Not to mention that he truly loved Jane, and she loved him.
It was foolish for Elizabeth to compare their situations, but it was impossible not to.
Occasionally, she casually asked Jane if Mr. Bingley mentioned William in his letters, but he only reported that his friend was well and very busy.
Elizabeth supposed he had attached himself to Lady Julia, and they would announce an engagement directly after his betrothal to Elizabeth ended.
Presumably, all would be revealed when he arrived at Meryton for Jane and Bingley’s wedding.
Elizabeth endeavored not to brood over the cause of her uneasiness, telling herself she was merely reacquainting herself with country life. But late at night, when she could not sleep, her thoughts would drift toward William. She always cut them off. Unrequited love was too pathetic to dwell on.
Bingley had taken the lease on a local house called Netherfield, and William was due to arrive there three days before the wedding.
As the day approached, Elizabeth grew increasingly agitated.
She could not settle with a book and took no pleasure in guests’ visits.
Her stomach was uneasy, such that no food appealed to her.
Experiencing a deep yearning for silence and solitude, she frequently absented herself from the house.
Elizabeth had one solace: she had written to Lady Sterling and received an enthusiastic invitation to join her household.
It was something to anticipate with eagerness.
Her ladyship would attend the wedding and then resume residency at her Hertfordshire estate.
Elizabeth could escape there after the wedding.
It was far enough from Longbourn that she might have some measure of peace and start a new chapter of her life.