Chapter Eighty-Six
When Mr. Bingley returned the next day to Longbourn, he was greeted with wide smiles by everyone.
Jane blushed rosily as she sat beside him.
Mrs. Bennet cooed over him, pronouncing him the handsomest man who had ever lived, and the son she had always longed for.
Embarrassed, he excused himself briefly to visit Mr. Bennet in his library.
“Had enough, have you?” Mr. Bennet remarked, getting up to shake Mr. Bingley’s hand.
“Very much – no, actually, I came to give you this.” A little flustered now, Mr. Bingley held out a small pouch.
Mr. Bennet looked at it, looked up at Mr. Bingley, and then finally took the pouch and opened it.
“It is five hundred pounds,” Mr. Bingley said. “I will have to go to London to get the rest, but I thought you might need – with the wedding coming up – I just thought –“
Mr. Bennet rescued him. “It was a very good thought, indeed, Mr. Bingley, and I know not how to convey my gratitude.”
“It is my honour to help you, Mr. Bennet,” Mr. Bingley said. “But it occurs to me that you and I might both benefit from Darcy.”
“Indeed? How so?”
“Well, he owns a very large and profitable estate, and he has come here to teach me how to be an estate owner, and it seems to me that –“ Mr. Bingley stopped, having just realised that he was about to insult the man who was to be his father-in-law.
Mr. Bennet raised a sardonic brow. “You thought that I might benefit from his lessons as well? Quite right, Mr. Bingley, you need not be embarrassed. I do not doubt that I could serve as a lesson as to what not to do, if nothing else.”
Mr. Bingley escaped as soon as he was able, preferring to face the ladies in the parlour rather than the lion in the study.