Chapter Twenty-Four
Darcy arrived at Grosvenor Square from his sister's breakfast table with a single purpose fixed firmly in his mind, and found, waiting for him in the hall, a note from Bingley requesting his presence that same morning on a matter Bingley described as "rather urgent, and concerning my sister's conduct, which I believe you have some interest in seeing properly addressed at last."
He went, though every part of him strained toward Gracechurch Street instead, and found Bingley in a state of controlled fury Darcy had witnessed in his friend perhaps twice before in the whole course of their long acquaintance.
"She has done it again, Darcy. Caroline.
I have this morning had it confirmed, from a source I trust entirely, that she carried you some account of Miss Bennet's conduct at Mrs. Fenwick's gathering, an account considerably more damaging than anything Miss Bennet actually said or did, and that she carried it to you with the deliberate purpose, I do not doubt, of driving a wedge between yourself and a lady whose happiness she has never once wished to see secured, whether by yourself or by any other man. "
"I know it," Darcy said, quietly. "I have had occasion, this very morning, to learn the truth of the matter directly, and to understand how thoroughly I permitted your sister's account to govern my conduct without troubling myself to verify a single particular of it."
"Then you understand why I have summoned you.
" Bingley's voice carried a firmness Darcy had rarely heard from his generally easy, accommodating friend.
"I mean to end this, Darcy, today, and I wished you present when I do it, both because the matter concerns you directly and because I find I require a witness to my own resolve, having failed, on previous occasions, to hold to it as firmly as the circumstances required. "
Caroline was summoned, and arrived with the particular wariness of a woman who suspected, before a word had been spoken, the general shape of the reckoning awaiting her.
"Charles. Mr. Darcy. To what do I owe the honour of so formal a summons?"
"You will sit, Caroline, and you will hear me out entirely before you offer whatever defense you have prepared, for I promise you it will not answer what I mean to say.
" Bingley's voice, though controlled, carried an edge Darcy had never before heard him direct at his sister.
"I have learned that you carried Darcy an account of Miss Bennet's conduct at Mrs. Fenwick's gathering, an account you knew, or ought to have known, was distorted considerably beyond the truth, delivered with the deliberate intent of damaging an understanding you had every reason to know Darcy valued above nearly everything else in his present life.
I warned you once already, Caroline, that I would not permit your tongue to continue doing this family's genuine harm for the sake of your own private disappointments.
I find I must now make good on that warning, in terms considerably plainer than I employed before. "
Caroline's composure, which had weathered his earlier reproach with some remnant of dignity, began, under this fresh and more specific accusation, to fracture entirely.
"I only repeated what I had heard, Charles, I did not invent"
"You did not merely repeat it, Caroline, you selected it, from among whatever conflicting accounts were circulating, precisely because it was the version most calculated to wound, and you delivered it to Darcy at a moment when you knew, from long observation of his character, that he was least equipped to question it carefully.
I do not think you invented the account from nothing.
I think you seized upon it, and shaped it, and delivered it with a precision that speaks to considerably more design than simple gossip generally requires.
" Bingley drew a breath, and when he continued, his voice had gone quieter, though no less firm.
"I have decided, Caroline, that I can no longer trust you to conduct yourself, within my own household, in a manner that does not actively work against the happiness of people I hold in genuine regard.
I will be removing to Netherfield within the fortnight, and I extend the invitation to accompany me only on the condition that you conduct yourself, from this day forward, with a restraint you have not yet demonstrated any capacity for.
Should you find that condition unbearable, Caroline, I am prepared to make separate arrangements for your establishment, arrangements that would grant you your own household, and your own consequence, entirely apart from mine, so that your conduct need no longer reflect upon a family you seem determined to embarrass at every opportunity. "
The silence that followed this speech was, Darcy thought, considerably more complete than anything he had witnessed in the whole of his long acquaintance with the Bingley household.
Caroline's face had gone pale, the full weight of her brother's uncharacteristic firmness settling over her with evident and genuine shock.
"You would separate our household, Charles, over a matter of gossip?"
"I would separate our household, Caroline, over a persistent pattern of conduct that has caused genuine harm to people I care for, of which this present business is only the most recent and most damaging instance.
I do not say this lightly, nor without considerable regret, for you are my sister, and I have loved you the whole of my life.
But I find I love the peace of my own household, and the happiness of my friends, rather more than I am presently willing to sacrifice for the sake of preserving your comfortable position within it, unaltered and unaccountable. "
Caroline left the room without further argument, and Darcy, watching her go, felt something in the whole tangled business settle, at last, into a resolution he had not fully anticipated when he entered the house that morning.
Whatever remained to be repaired between himself and Elizabeth, the source of Caroline's interference, at least, had been addressed as thoroughly as it was ever likely to be addressed, and he found, walking from Bingley's house toward Gracechurch Street with a purpose he had not permitted himself to feel in the whole of the preceding difficult week, that he was, for the first time in some days, entirely free to give the matter that remained his full and undivided attention.