Bingley was looking at his friend in surprise, but immediately agreed, “Well, that would suit me; when would you like to go?”
Darcy had heard from the Gardiners that Mr. and Mrs. Wickham were to spend some time with the Bennets, but he knew Wickham had to be in Newcastle by the second week of September; he therefore said: “I should like a week or so to catch my breath, and you can send word ahead to Netherfield; we shall see the others off to Scarborough, then go straight down—unless you have something to do in Town?” Bingley shook his head, and they were agreed.
That night as he prepared to retire, Darcy chanced to observe Perkins’s face, looking rather glum, reflected in the looking glass; concerned, he asked, “Perkins, if I am not prying, how have you managed with Miss Bingley’s maid?”
Perkins turned a woebegone countenance to his master. “Lord, Sir, I thought that, what with the time we had been away, she might have forgot. But when I got back yesterday, there she was, same as ever. Well, I told myself while we were in London that I’d just up and tell her, like you said, and so I did. For a minute every thing seemed all right; she just stood there, all quiet, like. Then she lets out a shriek like a banshee and tries to claw out my eyes! I barely escaped, Sir! Every time I’ve had to go through the house my heart’s been in my throat, not knowing which corner she might be around. Hadyn has been scouting for me; he’s new-married himself, you know, and says he understands how mad women can be when a man makes them angry.”
Darcy did not need this new example to make him wonder at the ways of men and women, but at least here he could take steps.
“I see; very well, Perkins: Mr. Bingley and I are going back to Netherfield in less than a fortnight; most of my hunting togs are still in London, I believe. You head up to Town to-morrow, if you like, and get it all down to Hertfordshire; stay—take a day in Bakewell, if you will, to see you mother. I shall make do with Reynolds during your absence.”
Perkins’s face spread into a wide grin. “Thank you, Mr. Darcy! You’re sure you won’t have need of me?”
“No, not to worry. Take it as payment for all the help you have given me with her mistress. I understand they will all shortly go off to the north, and they will not be joining us at Netherfield, so Miss Bingley’s maid should have had sufficient time to recover before you have to see her again.”
“I really don’t know how to thank you Mr, Darcy; escape from Clarissa, and a chance to see Lara: I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, all it costs me is having Reynolds shave me for a time—and I am sure that he and I can manage my neck cloths between us here in the country: it seems a good return for a reasonable investment.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you again, Mr. Darcy. Oh, and don’t forget, Sir, that the green coat must not be worn under any circumstances, until I can see to the rent in the seam,” Perkins told him. “No, hold, Sir: I’ll take it with me, and make the repairs in Town.” After this, he went about his duties briskly and in much better spirits. He wasted no time in executing his instructions, and was gone before Darcy rose the next morning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The days passed easily; the Hursts and Miss Bingley left for Scarborough shortly after Darcy’s return, although not before miss Bingley entreated Darcy strenuously to accompany them, and Darcy and Bingley spent a quiet interval of a week or so, shooting during the day and playing cards with Georgiana in the evening. Darcy was glad of the respite, but his feeling of having left a task undone began to urge him southward.
The second week of September, therefore, Darcy and Bingley made their way back to Hertfordshire. Since having made the decision to return to Netherfield, Bingley’s fears about their welcome, after their rather hasty departure the year before, had increased, but these were somewhat diminished by the reception he got from the servants at Netherfield: there seemed to be no lingering ill feelings at their having left so abruptly, and on the first evening they dined very pleasantly on country pork, and duck with peas and onions. The gentlemen settled in, and spent the next several days finding their way about the place again, and scouting possible courses for a hunt. In Bingley’s case, he was also steeling his courage for a visit he both longed for and dreaded; finally, on the third day since their arrival, he told Darcy at breakfast, “I believe I shall pay a visit to Longbourn to-day; should you care to you accompany me?”
“Certainly,” said that gentleman. “We have yet to deliver our condolences,” he joked. But, he, too, had some decided trepidations, thinking how he might be received by Elizabeth; he had not seen her since having left her in tears at Lambton, and moreover, as the only person outside her immediate family to know of her sister’s elopement, she must necessarily view him with greatest embarrassment.
As they approached the door, his friend sent a nervous look his way. “I find my mind is more uneven than I had anticipated, Darcy,” he said. “Our departure was so sudden last year, I fear we must have left hard feelings behind us.”
“Possibly,” Darcy allowed, “although there is but one way of knowing, and it is also the necessary first step towards effecting a reconciliation, if one is wanted. Come, now: unto the breach!” He reached past Bingley and rang the bell.
They were admitted, and, allowing Bingley to precede him down the hallway, Darcy braced himself to once again see Elizabeth: he must follow this course and weather the storm he had himself called forth; his embarrassment was acute, but against what was owing to Bingley, seeing her again was no more than what was required. As they entered the drawing-room, Bingley was greeted effusively by the lady of the house; Darcy was careful to keep his attention on Miss Bennet, who, he thought, betrayed a degree of emotion—embarrassment, or pleasure? —on Bingley’s greeting her; Elizabeth he barely glanced at, although he was aware of her every least movement—quite nearly her every breath. She had merely curtsied in return to the compliments they offered, and seated herself again at the work table with barely a word. He felt this subdued welcome very much, but it did no more than confirm his expectations; so, while Mrs. Bennet went on at length on how happy she was to see Bingley again, he carefully held himself in, and tried by his behaviour to avoid causing Elizabeth any more distress than she already felt.
Only when Mrs. Bennet’s unmistakably cold words of greeting to him released him to speak did he permit himself to ask Elizabeth: “Miss Elizabeth Bennet: I hope that Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are well?” She, scarcely looking up from her work, answered in the affirmative, but in so hurried a manner that he had difficulty distinguishing the words; clearly, his reference had brought back memories of their last meeting at Lambton, which would, of course, upset her deeply. After a few minutes she did call upon her civility to ask after Georgiana, which pleased him, but, to spare her discomfort, he did not allow himself to engage her in further conversation. He seated himself at some distance from her, and gave his consideration over to Miss Bennet; that Elizabeth made no attempt to speak to him again after their brief exchange was further confirmation of his deductions, but this small triumph had little power to soothe him.
Observing Miss Bennet, the first thing to strike him about her was that she seemed to be listening to the conversation between her mother and Bingley with peculiar attention. Her hands stopped their work whenever he spoke, and once or twice he thought he saw the colour rise to her cheeks at something that was said; surely this was not a sign of indifference—whether approval or disapproval he could not be certain, but surely not indifference.
While he tried his best not to catch the sense of what Mrs. Bennet said, he could not help but hear with what pleasure she spoke of the marriage of her youngest daughter to “Mr. George Wickham, Esquire”, his commission in the army, and his posting to the north. By this did he at least have the pleasure of understanding that the Gardiners had not disclosed his rôle in the matter, and that he had no reason to fear that Elizabeth might have to bear with that too, in seeing him.
Their visit was not long, but by its end he had already seen
enough to begin to doubt his previous conclusions concerning Miss Bennet; Elizabeth, without question, had been frequently suffering during their time there, but her sister had shown no such signs of distress—if anything, he felt, he would have said she showed interest; nothing else described it so well. On the ride back to Netherfield, Bingley was cautiously enthusiastic: “That went well, I thought,” he opined, looking at Darcy to gauge his reaction. “There surely was no displeasure evident; there did not appear to be any ill-feelings for the manner in which we left the country last time, certainly.”
“True,” Darcy agreed, “if we are to go merely by Mrs. Bennet’s manner, there has been little change, indeed, from the sentiments of last autumn. I was not seated where I could see properly: did Miss Bennet offer any clue as to her feelings?”
“I smiled at her once, and she seemed to smile in return; her self-possession makes it hard to know for certain, but I thought I felt something, there. No ill-feelings, at any rate.” Darcy nodded at this; his newly-formed sensibility to the impressions of the heart made him give this far more weight than he would have done a year prior, and he also had Elizabeth’s assertion of Miss Bennet’s affection for Bingley to support his observations. The two rode on, each preoccupied with their separate interpretations of what had transpired during their visit.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They were not to return to Longbourn until the following Tuesday, when there was to be a large party gathered from among the families of the neighbourhood. Bingley was eager in his preparation, being the first one down for the only time in Darcy’s memory; Darcy, being himself always punctual, was therefore down in time to allow the gentlemen to be amongst the first to arrive. He was pleased, and Bingley was delighted, to see a faint blush rise to Miss Bennet’s cheek as she smiled at them on receiving their compliments; and Elizabeth seemed to smile upon Darcy with more warmth than at their last meeting; yet she still had little enough to say to him. During the arrivals, they were neither one given any peculiar attention, but later, on entering the dining-room, Bingley was fortunate enough to find a seat next to Miss Bennet; luck did not favour Darcy, however, and he found himself once more adjacent to Mrs. Bennet, with Elizabeth at the extreme opposite end of the table. At least on this occasion she restricted herself to the minimum conversation required by strictest propriety, for which Darcy was thankful. Bingley darted a happy glance at Darcy as he sat down next to Miss Bennet, and Darcy returned a slight smile and a lifted eyebrow in brief conspiratorial acknowledgement, then looked casually away. All through dinner he was able to observe Miss Bennet: as before, her outward demeanour was reserved, but Darcy was now sensitive to the fact that she spoke infrequently to any one but his friend, and attended to Bingley intently, stilling her own comments when he spoke. To Darcy this again indicated a notable interest; as for Bingley, he wanted nothing more than her company to be perfectly happy.
But his friend’s happiness was Darcy’s only reward through the dinner; although the food was good, the company at his end of the table could not have had less to say for itself; Darcy looked forward to the time they might re-join the ladies after dinner, in hopes he might have some conversation with Elizabeth, or even just some portion of her notice.
When that time came, he entered the drawing-room and looked round, only to see Elizabeth tightly surrounded by ladies at a table to one side, where she and her elder sister were doing the honours by helping every one to tea and coffee. There being no hope for a tête a tête, Darcy merely helped himself to a cup of coffee from the table; Elizabeth did not even glance at him as he passed by. He drifted off in another direction, but he often looked back to where she stood, envying those to whom she spoke. He was careful, though, to pay attention to those around him, holding himself to his new standards of comportment, and not allowing himself to simply stand to one side, observing without participating.
He joined Mr. Bennet and Sir William, standing off to one side of the proceedings. “Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Bennet greeted him laconically; Darcy merely bowed his acknowledgement, as he had noted Mr. Bennet was averse to unnecessary conversation. Not so Sir William.
“How good to see you here amongst us again, Mr. Darcy; will you be long in the country?”
“A few weeks, Sir William; Bingley wanted to get in some shooting.”
“As my wife has given him free use of all my game, I am reasonably assured he will be pleased with his success,” Mr. Bennet observed in a vexed tone. “But if memory serves where Mr. Bingley’s skill with a gun is concerned, he is unlikely to thin their numbers by much,” he said. “You, Mr. Darcy, are another matter: I trust my wife failed to mention you specifically; might I expect that you will limit yourself to the Netherfield coveys?”
Knowing him to be in jest—primarily at least—Darcy replied, “I fear, Mr. Bennet, that Mrs. Bennet did authorise Bingley to bring his friends, if he would; but, to oblige you, I shall restrict myself to an instructional rôle when we avail ourselves of your wife’s generous offer to decimate your game.”
Mr. Bennet gave him a droll look: “Of course; she would do. Very well, Sir; I thank you for your abstinence.”
Darcy made an overly formal bow, and received the hint of a smile from Mr. Bennet.
He staid with them until the crowd around the table where Elizabeth stood eventually eased, and he took the opportunity to return his cup to her. On this occasion he was rewarded by the enquiry: “Is your sister at Pemberley still?”
“Yes, she will remain there till Christmas,” he replied.
“And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?”
“Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough, these three weeks.”
Barred by propriety and a foreknowledge of failure, he could not speak of those things he most pressingly wanted to say, and, try though he might, he could find no subject for conversation which might be broached with entire safety and propriety; yet he was perfectly unwilling to leave her, and stood by her without speaking for several minutes before another young lady came up and addressed her in whispers. Darcy left her side at that, disappointed, but not surprised; he could only invite, he could not command, and if it were to be his lot to dance attendance on Elizabeth for weeks, or even years, in hopes of gaining some measure of her regard, so be it.
Meanwhile, as the evening progressed, he was able to watch his friend monopolise Miss Bennet more and more. His smiles thawed her own, and Darcy could almost see her interest in Bingley re-kindling in response to his candid warmth and very evident esteem.
For the rest of the evening, however, Darcy and Elizabeth were kept apart by being placed quite a distance away from each other at the whist tables; he tried to keep his attention where it belonged, but, as the play at his table was unrelievedly stupid, and the conversation not much better, he had a great deal of time to look Elizabeth’s way, and wish they could be at the same table. And, unaccountably, Bingley’s carriage was among the very first to arrive, so the two gentlemen left without any further opportunities for either to speak to the one he wished to hear from most. But on the way back to Netherfield, Darcy was pleased to see that his friend was in excellent spirits; evidence, he thought, that so far things were promising well.
The day following, Darcy and Bingley took part in a hunt hosted by the Gouldings, a family in the neighbourhood comparable in standing to the Bennets. As they lived at a considerable distance the opposite direction from Meryton, there could be no chance for the friends to be in company with the Bennet ladies; and, indeed, throughout the day Darcy was turning over in his mind a step he felt little enthusiasm for, but which he knew to be the best thing for both Bingley and himself: his removal to London. Given her obvious discomfort in his company, he could conceive of no adequate reason to trouble Elizabeth with his continued residence in the neighbourhood, and surely Bingley would do better with Miss Bennet if he, Darcy, were to take himself out of the way. He took up the topic with his friend that evening.
“Bingley, I shall be returning to London for a time; there are a few matters I should attend to.”
Bingley looked at him in surprise. “But you will not be gone long?”
“I should imagine I can be back by this Saturday week.”
“Very well, Darcy; I am sorry to hear it, though. You will let me know if anything changes?”
“Of course,” Darcy hesitated, loath to initiate what would be a painful relation, for both of them. “To be quite honest, Bingley, something has changed, and it affects you.” Bingley looked at his friend expectantly. Darcy paused again, struggling to overcome his reluctance to reveal his miscalculations to his friend; then, calling upon his sense of duty, he started in: “The truth is, Bingley, I believe the steps I took last November with regard to Miss Bennet and yourself to have been in error.”
“In error?”
“Yes. At the time I was fully convinced that she held no esteem for you; I can no longer make that claim.”
“You are saying that you believe Miss Bennet has feelings for me?”
“I am.”
For a long moment Bingley said nothing. Then, an especially large grin split his face. “But, Darcy, this is marvellous!” he cried. “How do you know?”
“Much the same way I thought I knew before, but this time I watched with more heart than head. At a minimum, I can now make no positive claim against her having a regard for you, and am rather inclined to believe the opposite to be the case, given my recent time with the two of you in company.”
“Cautious dog!” Bingley cried. “Would it do you an actual harm to just once make a categorical statement of fact on a matter of the heart?”
Darcy's Tale, Volume III_The Way Home Page 19
