CHAPTER FORTY Mr. Bennet Counts the Days
CHAPTER FORTY
Mr. Bennet Counts the Days
Mr. Bennet had once imagined the marriages of his daughters as distant events likely to arrive one at a time, allowing a father sufficient leisure to mock the preparations and retreat to his library when overwhelmed.
He had not planned for two daughters to marry on the same morning. Nor had he expected to like both men enough to make losing the daughters more painful. Bingley came to the library often. At first Mr. Bennet suspected nerves. Later he understood the young man genuinely liked talking to him.
“Do you intend to remain at Netherfield?” Mr. Bennet asked one afternoon.
“Yes. At least for several years.”
“Several?”
Bingley smiled. “Jane would like to be near her family. I would too.”
Mr. Bennet raised a brow. “You may regret that after Lydia visits three times a week.”
“I like Lydia.”
“You are young.”
Bingley laughed. “I have spoken with the owner about renewing the lease,” he said. “And perhaps purchasing, if he is willing.”
Mr. Bennet looked up from his book. “That is serious.”
“Yes.”
“Miss Bingley knows?” Bingley winced.
“She does now.”
“And survives?”
“Barely.”
Mr. Bennet smiled.
Darcy entered without knocking. Mr. Bennet looked offended. “Marriage does not grant library privileges before the ceremony.”
Darcy paused. “Shall I go out and knock?”
“Yes.”
Darcy went out.
He knocked. Mr. Bennet called, “Come.”
Darcy entered again.
Bingley laughed helplessly. Darcy looked at him. “You have encouraged this household.”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
Mr. Bennet closed his book. “What do you want, Darcy?”
“To return this.” He handed over a volume borrowed two months earlier.
Mr. Bennet took it.
Neither man spoke. Bingley looked from one to the other and suddenly understood he was unnecessary. “I believe Jane wanted me in the drawing room.”
“She did not,” Mr. Bennet said.
Bingley stood anyway. “She may by now.”
He left.
Darcy remained standing. Mr. Bennet gestured to a chair. “Sit. You make the room nervous when you loom.”
Darcy sat. Mr. Bennet turned the returned book over in his hands. “You leave for Derbyshire two days after the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“Lizzy tells me you will stop in London for a week.”
“Yes.”
“And then Pemberley.”
“Yes.”
Mr. Bennet was silent.
Darcy understood suddenly. “She will write.”
Mr. Bennet looked at him. “Of course she will.”
“You may visit whenever you wish.”
“I know.”
Darcy waited. Mr. Bennet sighed. “I have spent years wishing for my daughters to be secure. It is inconvenient to discover security requires them to leave.”
Darcy’s expression softened. “She loves Longbourn.”
“I know.”
“She loves you.”
“I know that too.” Mr. Bennet’s eyes moved to the shelves. “I have not always deserved it.”
Darcy said nothing. That silence was different from his old silences. It did not hide judgment. It made room. Mr. Bennet looked back at him. “I have been lazy with my family.”
Darcy thought of Elizabeth’s words months earlier. “You have begun to change that.”
“Too late for Jane and Lizzy.”
“Not too late to matter.”
Mr. Bennet studied him. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
Darcy considered. “Yes.”
Mr. Bennet nodded slowly. “Then perhaps there is hope for us both.”
The next morning Mr. Bennet accompanied Lydia into Meryton himself rather than waving her off with Kitty and a servant.
Elizabeth noticed.
She said nothing. Her father noticed that too.