Page 41

A RAPPROCHEMENT OF SORTS

D arcy heard his sister in the hall, talking to Mrs Annesley, and forced himself to continue staring at his newspaper, determined to reveal no hint of his discomposure.

Georgiana had already seen too much of it in his behaviour that day and clearly been unnerved by it.

More than ten years her senior, he was more of a father to her than a brother.

It must have been vastly disturbing when he appeared at her door an hour earlier, insisting that she call on Elizabeth and adamant that he would wait in her sitting room for her return.

After her initial surprise, however, she had seemed to comprehend his predicament.

She had left with a gentle smile and a promise to make a friend of Elizabeth if she could.

He had tortured himself over the decision of whether or not to go to Gracechurch Street himself.

He had settled on this approach for fear that Elizabeth might yet dislike him.

Yes, she had sought his comfort, but being frightened and feeling an affection for someone were two very different things.

By his calculation, there was still a high chance that she would not wish to see him, in which case, he would not impose his presence upon her merely to satisfy his own desire to see her.

That was something he would have done before Elizabeth taught him how a true gentleman ought to behave.

It was a shame she had not taught him any lessons in patience, for Georgiana took an absolute age to remove her coat and bonnet and change her shoes and have a chat with the housekeeper about the devil knew what. Darcy was nearly out of his mind by the time she came into the sitting room.

“I am returned!”

He lowered his newspaper, feeling sick with anticipation. “What was your success?”

“She was not there. She has gone to Kent.”

It was all Darcy could do to keep his countenance.

“But her sister and aunt were very welcoming,” his sister continued. “They said Miss Elizabeth would be sorry to have missed me, which I thought was kind.”

“They are both exceedingly kind ladies. I am glad you liked them. Was anything else said of Miss Elizabeth’s state of mind? Whether she was distressed by recent events?”

“No, only that they hoped her departure would allow people to forget the recent speculation about you both.”

The prospect that Elizabeth wished to forget him drove a spike of misery right through him. He averted his eyes from Georgiana’s earnest gaze, for it only made everything feel worse. In the periphery of his vision, he saw her slide into the nearest chair, from which she continued to regard him.

“May I ask you a question, Brother?”

“Yes.”

“I recall what you said before about Miss Elizabeth’s condition in life, but she appears to have gained society’s favour.

Fitzwilliam said that even our uncle thinks you should get on and marry her—those were his words, not mine.

” She cleared her throat delicately. “I was wondering why you have not?”

Darcy laughed bitterly and shook his head. “Because, Georgiana, despite what you have been led to believe, your brother is a thoroughgoing idiot. I would ride to Kent and offer for her today if I thought she did not view the prospect of being married to me with repugnance.”

Georgiana gasped. “That cannot be true!”

“She has left London without taking her leave of me. That speaks much to the truth of it.”

He could not bear to hear his sister argue the point. He thanked her for her efforts that morning and made his excuses.

It was a short walk home; he took a circuitous route, hoping the exercise would expunge some of his pent-up frustration.

He was still deliberating the wisdom of taking his sister to Rosings Park, that she might call on Elizabeth at the Hunsford parsonage instead, when he arrived home and was informed that a most unexpected visitor was waiting on him in the saloon.

Bingley coloured deeply when Darcy entered the room. “Ah. Darcy. You are home.”

Darcy took his time answering, too angry to think of anything to say that was not spectacularly impolitic. “Have you decided you can tolerate my sanctimony, or have you come to carry your point?”

Bingley’s shoulders slumped. “I have come to apologise for my behaviour the other day—and that comment in particular. I lashed out because I was caught, and it was unpardonable.”

Darcy stared at him. “Are you under the impression that a few intemperate words are the extent of your unpardonable behaviour?”

“Look, I know what happened at Netherfield was wrong, but you cannot expect me to keep apologising for it every time we meet.”

“You truly have no idea of the trouble you have caused, have you?” said Darcy, walking with quick steps across the room. “Every rumour with which London is brimming—every ‘problem’ that you so helpfully advised me to deal with—has arisen because of your actions at Netherfield.”

“How so?” Bingley replied in an affronted tone.

“When you disappeared off the face of the Earth to dabble in whatever folly has kept you busy these past months, your sisters begged me to find you and persuade you to desist. Miss Elizabeth has been searching diligently for her mother, who, as I presume you know, left Longbourn not long after your ball. And despite your demurrals, our every attempt to find one or other of you repeatedly led us to the same places—where we were repeatedly observed. The rest, I trust I do not need to explain to you. You know how society works.”

Bingley shook his head. “But I was not with her mother.”

“Then where in blazes were you?”

Bingley recoiled at his sharp tone but soon went from shaking his head to nodding it contritely.

“I was avoiding you. There is nothing more to it than that. I was ashamed of what I had done, and I did not wish to endure your judgment, no matter how justified it might be. And I confess, I assumed your displeasure would be all the greater once I heard the reports of your attachment to Miss Elizabeth.”

“Upon my life, I have no attachment to Miss Elizabeth!” Darcy’s pacing brought him to the sideboard, and he poured himself a drink to calm his temper. After a long draught, he turned back to Bingley with a moderately more collected air.

“But do not believe that she has been untouched by any of this. Between your cuckoldry with her mother and the rumours that have sprung up about her and me as a result, Miss Elizabeth has been living under the threat of ruin for months. All because you did not wish to be judged.”

Bingley ran a hand through his hair. “I am truly sorry, Darcy. I had no idea.”

“That, I suppose, is preferable to your having behaved thus full in the knowledge of the pain you were occasioning.”

“I trust you know I am never intentionally cruel.”

Darcy was not convinced that Bingley ought to be much comforted by this assertion, for thoughtlessness, however inadvertent, could be just as destructive as a conscious disdain for the feelings of others. He ought to know; he had demonstrated both well enough of late.

“Miss Elizabeth knows, then, does she?” Bingley asked. “About…you know…”

“Yes, she knows.” Reminded that he was far from blameless, Darcy sighed deeply and turned to pour Bingley a drink of his own.

“She—both of us have been working under the assumption that you and Mrs Bennet were carrying on the affair here in London.” He handed Bingley his drink and muttered a disconsolate instruction for him to sit down, which he did, his countenance now pale and his expression bilious.

“And I thought I was ashamed before! Does her sister know?”

“No. Miss Bennet has been spared that pain.”

They sat in silence for a moment or two before Bingley said, hesitantly, “I have not been carrying on the affair.”

“Meeting Mrs Bennet in Gunter’s was a singular occurrence, was it?”

“Yes!” he said pitifully. “I ran into her the first time just after Christmas, completely by chance. It was excruciating, and we both did an excellent job of pretending nothing had happened. But that was when I met Juliette.” He cleared his throat. “That is, Mrs Randall.”

Darcy made no reply, and Bingley stammered over the next bit of the story.

“It was she who arranged the meeting in Gunter’s. Mrs Bennet asked to see me. It turns out she wished to apologise for what happened. She blamed herself.”

“I hope you corrected her!”

“In a manner of speaking, although…she was coming on mightily strong?—”

“You should have walked away.”

“I know! I was just so dashed fed up with being a failure with the opposite sex. I had barely recovered from Miss Coltrane’s rejection before I met Miss Bennet—and I thought she did not want me either.

You have no idea what it is like, Darcy.

No one in their right mind would refuse you, but trust me, it hurts like blazes. ”

“I know better than you think, but the solution is not…what you did.”

“No,” Bingley said dejectedly. “No, it is not. I saw her but once more after that, and only then to conduct the meeting that you prevented from taking place at Gunter’s.

We talked, we both apologised, and we parted ways.

That is all. Indeed, I almost ran into her again on Bond Street yesterday and went out of my way to avoid her notice. ”

“She is still in town?” Darcy asked stupidly, for evidently she was.

He felt it like a tangible blow when Bingley nodded.

The only thing that had kept Elizabeth in London, tolerating the ton’s gossip for so long, was her object of finding her mother and persuading her to return home.

If she had left for Kent without resolving the matter, he could conclude but one thing: she had decided that being talked into marriage with him was a worse fate than her family’s scandalous downfall.

“But I give you my word, I have not pursued the acquaintance beyond those few meetings,” Bingley went on. “If I have seemed to be in the same places as her, it is probably because I have been with her friend.”

Darcy sipped his drink morosely. “And what of Mrs Randall?”

Bingley shrugged. “She is fun—and unattached. I have made so many mistakes, you must agree it is safest for me to avoid innocent young women.”

“It would be safest to exercise some self-control—and I hate to break it to you, but she is not unattached. She is under the protection of a man with three times your fortune and some very influential friends.”

“I know, but she was not when I first met her. Mr Redbridge is a recent acquirement.”

“That does not seem to have put you off, if your activities at the Four Feathers are any indication.”

“That was a final farewell,” Bingley mumbled sheepishly.

“I have no plans to see her again. But you must admit, if it were not for Mrs Bennet, you would scarcely have raised an eyebrow at my acquaintance with Mrs Randall. I have been discreet. If you had not been looking for me, you would never have even known that I was seeing her.”

Darcy regarded Bingley steadily, unable to counter his argument, despite how much he wished to.

Bingley wilted in the face of his silence.

“I beg your pardon. I keep venting my spleen at you, when it is I who am in the wrong. I am too used to depending on your judgment—it makes me feel your disapprobation more keenly. Nobody likes to think of themselves as a disappointment. It is making me captious, and I apologise.”

Darcy shook his head. “You are not the first person to point out your reliance upon my judgment. You should not have to answer to me for your actions. I will never condone your conduct at Netherfield, but it is not for me to judge. That is for the Bennets alone to do.”

Bingley sucked in a deep breath, his expression repentant and glum. “I may still call you a friend, then?”

Darcy was vastly relieved to have discovered that Bingley was not the cur he had feared, sneaking about with a married woman; he was still the same man he had always been, and his act of adultery, whilst no less egregious, remained in the singular. Yet there were other considerations.

“I should like to say yes, for ten years of friendship ought to count for something. But if I have my way, my future wife is unlikely to be so forgiving.”

Bingley sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Miss Elizabeth? I thought you said you were not attached?”

“We are not—and it is looking less likely by the moment that we ever shall be. But I am not ready to give up on her yet.”

“Gads, Darcy. I really have given you some bother, have I not?”

He had indeed, although it was also true that, had Darcy not been required to chase Bingley about town, he would not have been thrown together so frequently with Elizabeth and would never have come to understand that he loved her. For that alone, he could forgive Bingley a great deal.

“Yes, you have,” he replied. “But if I am ever fortunate enough to win Miss Elizabeth’s hand, I shall be in a good humour for the rest of my life, so you never know—I might be persuaded to recognise you again in ten or twenty years.”

Bingley gave a small, grateful smile. “If only at the club, eh?”

Darcy inclined his head. “Only at the club.” He knew not how he was ever to bring it about, but if he were to make Elizabeth his wife, then Berkeley Square, and Pemberley especially, would be for her above all others.