Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bingley's Confidence
Marriage did not make Charles Bingley less amiable.
Jane made him less afraid of displeasing.
Darcy watched the change with satisfaction and, occasionally, embarrassment at how long he had once mistaken Bingley's openness for weakness.
The proof came over drainage.
Bingley had purchased a neighboring parcel of land adjoining Netherfield, and Darcy advised against one proposed improvement because he believed the eastern field too wet to justify the expense.
Bingley disagreed.
Firmly.
They sat in Darcy's study at Pemberley with maps spread across the table. Jane and Elizabeth were nearby, ostensibly reading letters while actually listening.
Darcy pointed to the lower field. "You have not accounted for spring flooding."
Bingley leaned over the map. "I have."
"Not sufficiently."
"According to you."
"According to the ground."
Bingley smiled. "No, Darcy."
Darcy stopped.
Across the room Elizabeth lowered her letter.
Jane's mouth twitched.
Darcy leaned back. "No?"
"No. I had Mr. Jarvis examine the drainage last month. The ditch can be extended along the boundary for half the cost you estimated."
Darcy frowned. "And the tenant obligations?"
"Accounted for."
"The eastern road?"
"Also."
"The winter runoff?"
Bingley tapped another paper. "Here."
Darcy read.
Elizabeth whispered to Jane, "Look."
Jane smiled. "I see."
Darcy finished the report and placed it down. "I still think you are wrong."
Bingley laughed. "Excellent."
Darcy looked at him.
"What?"
"You are pleased I disagree?"
"Immensely."
Darcy slowly smiled. "Then I withdraw my objection."
Bingley immediately frowned. "No, don't. I may have missed something."
Darcy laughed.
Elizabeth joined them. "This is very healthy."
Bingley looked suspicious. "For whom?"
"Everyone except the eastern field."
Jane kissed her husband's cheek. "Charles has become obstinate."
"I was excellent already," Bingley protested.
"Of course."
After Jane and Elizabeth left the room, Bingley remained beside the maps.
"You know," he said, "there was a time I would have assumed you knew better simply because you sounded certain."
Darcy looked at him. "I know."
Bingley frowned. "Do you?"
"Yes."
"I used to think it was admirable."
Darcy sat back. "It was not."
"No. But neither was it entirely your fault. I liked being told I had chosen well. It saved me the trouble of wondering."
Darcy was quiet.
Bingley smiled. "Jane does not do that."
"No."
"She asks what I think. It is exhausting."
Darcy laughed.
Bingley looked toward the door through which their wives had disappeared. "Worth it, though."
Darcy smiled. "Usually."
Bingley stared. "That is not what a man happily married is supposed to say."
"You have not met Elizabeth before breakfast."
From the corridor came Elizabeth's voice: "I heard that."
Bingley burst out laughing.
Darcy closed his eyes.
Some things remained exactly as they should.
Bingley's confidence appeared in other places too.
He stopped allowing Caroline to arrange every London visit.
He learned to refuse investments he did not understand.
He disagreed with Jane without fearing disagreement meant unhappiness.
When their eldest son wished to enter the navy, Bingley listened to Darcy, Jane, the boy himself, and two naval officers before making up his own mind.
Years later he said to Darcy, "You know what changed me?"
Darcy expected Jane.
Bingley surprised him. "You stopped answering before I had decided what I wanted to ask."
Darcy looked away.
"Was I really that bad?"
"Terrible," Bingley said cheerfully. "But very useful."
Darcy shook his head.
Bingley clapped him on the shoulder. "Marriage improved you."
Darcy stared.
Bingley grinned and walked away before Darcy could answer.
Elizabeth, who had heard from the terrace, laughed for several minutes.
Darcy and Elizabeth's new children eventually learned there had been grief in their parents' marriage that no one could quite explain. Clara noticed first. She was fifteen when she found her mother crying in the chapel on a date that meant nothing to the family calendar.
"Mama?"
Elizabeth wiped her face. "I am well."
Clara sat beside her. "That is what people say when they are not."
Elizabeth almost laughed. "You sound like your father."
"He says I sound like you."
"Then we have both failed."
Clara smiled, then waited.
Elizabeth could not tell her about Anne. Not without telling everything.
So she chose a truth. "There are people I loved who are gone. Sometimes I remember them on particular days."
Clara took her hand. "People I knew?"
"No."
"Do you want to tell me about them?"
Elizabeth looked at her daughter.
Anne had been patient. Thomas reckless. Henry thoughtful. Margaret musical. If she spoke of them, they would become ghosts in Clara's home.
"Someday," Elizabeth said.
Clara nodded. "All right."
Then her thumb moved once, twice, three times across Elizabeth's fingers.
I am here.
Elizabeth stopped breathing.
Clara frowned. "What?"
"Nothing."
Elizabeth pulled her close.
The gesture had passed naturally into the family without explanation.
Perhaps love repeated itself in smaller ways even when lives did not.
As the children grew, Darcy and Elizabeth debated whether they should ever tell anyone the truth. The question returned every few years and never produced the same answer.
When Clara was twenty and preparing to marry, Elizabeth wanted to tell her.
Darcy did not.
"Why?" Elizabeth asked one night after Clara had gone to bed.
"Because what would she do with it?"
"Know us."
"She knows us."
"Not all of us."
Darcy looked at his wife for a long time. "No child knows all of a parent."
Elizabeth sighed. "You have become insufferably sensible in old age."
"Marriage improved me."
She threw a cushion.
They decided against telling Clara.
Years later Matthew almost discovered the truth by accident. He found one of Darcy's old notebooks containing references to events before they happened. Darcy had recorded only fragments during the first year--dates, names, questions--and forgotten the notebook existed.
Matthew brought it to him. "Father, why did you write 'Wickham--Forster--before Brighton' years before Aunt Lydia ever went there?"
Darcy looked at the page.
Then at his son.
Elizabeth, across the room, stopped breathing.
Darcy said, "Because I was concerned about Wickham before Brighton."
Matthew frowned. "And 'Bingley--do not interfere'?"
Darcy closed his eyes.
Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.
"A reminder to myself," Darcy said.
Matthew looked suspicious. "You needed to remind yourself not to interfere with Uncle Charles?"
From the doorway Bingley, now silver-haired, said, "Constantly."
Everyone turned.
Bingley grinned. "Your father considered my life a public works project when we were young."
Darcy glared.
Matthew laughed and returned the notebook.
The danger passed.
Later Elizabeth said, "Charles saved you."
"I shall never recover."
They burned the notebook that night.
Some evidence did not need to survive them.