by Jessie Lewis
“She was in perfect health when you saw her twelve days ago. Men are sent to war on less reliable information than that.” Darcy looked wholly unmoved; thus, he added, “Have you heard from nobody else at Pemberley?”
“No. I have written to them all, but too recently I fear, for I have yet to receive any replies. No post has arrived here today. I hope to find something awaiting me in Lon—” He ended abruptly. “Why are you grinning at me in that stupid manner?”
“Who do you mean by all?”
“The staff, your grandmother, Georgiana, Bingley.”
Fitzwilliam could not constrain his laughter. The poor boy was a lovesick fool.
“What is this about Bingley?” Ashby enquired, peeling away from the crowd by the door and ambling over to join them. “What has the idiot done now?”
Darcy did not answer. Fitzwilliam glanced heavenward in exasperation. There had persisted an iciness between the pair of them these past two days of which he was grown excessively weary. “Darcy has written to him to enquire as to the state of play at Pemberley.”
“Indeed!” Ashby snorted. “That man is more trouble than he is worth. Still, with any luck, he will be gone by the time you get back, Cousin.”
“Darcy? A moment of your time before you go, if you would?” Anne called.
It was a fortuitous interruption, forestalling the angry retort heralded by Darcy’s steely glare. Fitzwilliam wished Ashby would cease provoking him, but knowing his brother’s petulance was directly proportional to the injury Darcy’s recent letter had done to his pride, he thought it more probable that it would continue for some time to come.
“I doubt Bingley will be gone,” he said quietly once Darcy had turned to speak to Anne. “Indeed, I think I have understood that he has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again.”
“Yes, I know,” Ashby replied, taking his proffered hat from a footman and lowering it precisely over his impeccably oiled hair. “He is taking the Hertfordshire chit and decamping to Nova Scotia.” He tugged the brim to a suitably jaunty angle and turned his back on the servant to receive his greatcoat about his shoulders. “Bon voyage and good riddance, I say. Though why he would not simply wait and find himself one in a less interesting state when he arrives there is anybody’s guess. The man is a fool.”
Fitzwilliam raised an eyebrow. “You are singularly well informed, Brother. I believe you are mistaken, though. Darcy did not mention to me that Bingley was contemplating taking anybody with him.”
“What does Darcy know?” Ashby muttered, tugging on his gloves. “I heard him say just now that he has not heard from his wife at Pemberley in two weeks. Mine had a letter from Bingley’s but two days ago.”
“They are not supposed to be writing to each other!”
“Sod Darcy and his bloody decrees,” Ashby grumbled. “Am I to stop every man’s wife putting pen to paper?” He resorted to pouting like a schoolboy thereafter, glaring sullenly at Darcy as he and Anne joined them.
“What have you there?” Fitzwilliam enquired, indicating the small velvet drawstring bag Darcy had evidently received from Anne.
“A brooch my mother gave to Lady Catherine when she married. She desired that it be given to Elizabeth.”
“Why?” Ashby scoffed. “She did not even like her.”
Fitzwilliam cringed, but he was surprised when Anne answered, not Darcy.
“My mother had many objections to Mrs. Darcy, but disliking her character was never one of them. Indeed, by the end, she had formed a stout respect for her—a sentiment I suspect was as much attributable to Mrs. Darcy’s consistently principled qualities as to the invaluable contrast to your wife’s consistently vexatious ones.”
Ashby coloured deeply, and his lips went from pouting to snarling, but he did at least refrain from voicing his umbrage to his newly grieved cousin, instead settling for glaring yet more viciously at Darcy. Darcy walked away, leaving Fitzwilliam to bear the brunt of his brother’s prodigious indignation.
“Do shut up, man,” he interrupted at length. “It does you no credit to carry on in this manner. I comprehend that you took objection to Darcy’s letter, but it is not Elizabeth’s fault that her own sister conspired with your wife to spread gossip all over Town.”
“If Darcy does not like gossip, he ought not to have married so far beneath him.”
“And if you do not like your wife being unfavourably compared to other women, you ought not to have married such an irksome termagant.”
“Oh, go to the devil, Dickie. You really are an arse.”
Thus, though he had travelled here in his brother’s carriage, Fitzwilliam returned to London in Darcy’s, whose humour thankfully improved every mile farther north they went. The spat with his brother did not trouble him a jot, for such was their customary mode of discourse. Ashby would likely have forgiven him by dinnertime. He would no doubt forgive Darcy also in due course, and unquestionably before Darcy forgave him.
That thought provided Fitzwilliam with the first true moment of wistfulness in the whole affair. For though they would resolve their differences eventually, Lady Catherine would have scolded them all back into harmony far sooner had she still been alive.
***
Saturday, 13 March 1813: London
“You know where it is,” Darcy said, leaving Fitzwilliam to pour his own drink as he walked directly to his desk and the stack of letters there upon.
It had been a longer than usual journey home as a consequence of Rosings’ stable master sending out every other carriage before his, meaning they arrived at every coaching inn last in the procession of all Lady Catherine’s other London-bound mourners. Fitzwilliam had readily accepted his offer to dine at Darcy House before returning to Knightsbridge, though he declared his need for sustenance was not half as great as his need for alcohol since he had emptied his hip flask before they left Bromley.
“Anything?” his cousin enquired.
Darcy finished rifling through the letters and tossed the lot back onto the desk. “No.” It was only the expectation of finding news awaiting him here that had allayed his alarm in Kent, but there was nothing from Pemberley. He rubbed a hand over his face and attempted to reason away his disquiet.
“There you are then, you see? I was right.”
“How so? I have no letter from Elizabeth.”
“And neither do you have a letter from my grandmother or Bingley telling you some harm has befallen her. Cheer up, old boy,” he added, proffering a drink. “There is nothing more troubling afoot than the discovery that your wife is a dreadful correspondent.”
Though he disliked it intensely, Darcy would rather that explanation than have his misgivings substantiated. That she would have written was in no doubt, yet he supposed she might not have written often. Indeed, she could not have much news except in an emergency, and then she or someone else would have sent an express. And as Fitzwilliam had said, it was possible, even likely, that a letter had gone astray. Yet, one solitary note of commiseration seemed scant comfort from a woman more commonly overflowing with compassion. And two or more letters were unlikely to have been lost.
Comprehending that reason might not prove sturdy enough armour against his encroaching sense of foreboding, he reached for the drink his cousin held out and took a sizeable swig. “Come,” he announced. “Let us eat.”
“Give them a fair chance to get it on the platters, Darcy. We have only been here five minutes.”
“Let us do something else then. I have no wish to sit about brooding.”
Fitzwilliam grinned roguishly and pointed to Darcy’s scar. “How about I give you a matching gash on the other cheek? That one gives you a shocking failure of perfect symmetry.”
Darcy gave him an answering smile. “My imperfections have a new advocate, but by all means let us see if your countena
nce can be evened up a little.”
A little under two hours saw both men back in Darcy’s study, exercised, fed, and sufficiently distracted from their troubles to enjoy a last quiet drink together before the colonel returned to his barracks. “I may have had one too many glasses of wine with dinner,” the latter said, “but I do believe I shall miss the old bat.”
Darcy looked up from the letters he had retrieved from his desk and smiled ruefully. “She was too imposing a character not to leave a noticeable void in her absence.”
“True, true. Visiting Rosings will not be half so much fun without having to run the gauntlet of her disapprobation.”
Darcy did not reply, for he had come across a letter from an unexpected quarter.
“Bad news?” Fitzwilliam enquired.
“I cannot decide. It is from Colonel Forster. Wickham is being tried for attempted murder.”
“Surely not! His punishment was meted out months ago, the matter was done and—”
“This has nothing to do with his attack on Elizabeth,” Darcy interrupted. Holding up a hand to stay his cousin’s questions, he read to the end before summarising. “He has seduced another young girl and been caught up in some violence with her brother.”
“I see.” Fitzwilliam sucked in his breath. “I hate to say it, Darcy, but he ever had a whiff of inevitability about him.”
Darcy folded the letter closed. “He has asked that I meet his bail.”
“He what? He ought to hang for insolence alone!”
Darcy pushed himself to his feet and crossed to one of the bookcases flanking the chimney to retrieve the stack of other correspondence from Forster that was filed there. He set the letters down on his desk and pulled at the ribbon tied about them, slowly unravelling the bow. “I shall not be paying his bail. The girl has died after a miscarriage.”
“Good God!”
There was nothing more Darcy could add to that sentiment. He was done with Wickham and could only be thankful his father was not alive to see him sunk so low.
The pile of Forster’s letters collapsed as the ribbon untied completely, spilling in all directions over his desk. His eye went immediately to one that was too crumpled to be folded neatly, knowing exactly which it was but not recalling how it had come to be filed with the others, for his recollections of the day he read it were hazy at best. He picked it up, unable to resist reading it. Even now, its contents left him cold. She never awoke.
He shook his head and refolded it, chastising himself for even looking. As he restacked the pile and added Forster’s latest to it, another letter drew his notice whose seal had not been broken. He turned it over and was perplexed to discover it addressed in Bingley’s distinctive hand, though even more untidily than usual. With the strongest curiosity, he opened the letter, smiling at first glance, for the spatters of ink, diligently noted time of writing, and general effusiveness of the first few lines told him Bingley was far into his cups when he wrote it. By the start of the second paragraph his amusement had well and truly died.
Netherfield
June 5 June 6, 3am
Darcy
You must congratulate me, for I am engaged! Or at least I shall be tomorrow, once I ask her, which I mean to do, for my mind is made up at last. Indeed, I cannot recall, as I write this, why it was not made up before. She is everything a woman ought to be—handsome, witty, comely, clever, handsome—and so wonderfully affectionate! I never see her that she is not pleased to see me also. I never knew a woman who enjoyed my company so well or made me feel so welcome.
It is unpardonable how long it has taken me to comprehend my feelings. I suppose my wish not to disappoint her sister a second time made me reluctant. Can you guess what has made me acknowledge them at last? A song! One I heard sung in the tavern this very evening. A coarse, bawdy song of which I ought not approve, yet I cannot condemn it, for it has taught me my heart at last. Henry Lucas calls it ‘The Bennet Ballad.’ It has a verse for each of her sisters. Miss Lydia is said to .I shall write it out as best as I can recall it.
Marry the fifth Take the fifth for a wife ^only if you dare, For a man bound to her will needs must share, Wed the fourth if you value not common sense, For silliness (there is something about folly here) Take the third for a wife to atone for your sins, She’ll preach you to death but yield not her quim, (ha!) Marry the first and be every man’s envy, ’Til ennui strikes and witless rends ye, (this has been my struggle!) Hail the man that marries the second, She is the jewel, alluring and feck fecund, She’ll fill your days with laughter and wit, And by night, beguile ye with that arse and those tits!
Is that not a fine verse? You will object to it, I know, but then you are not as drunk as I. And even you cannot deny it is witty. Inaccurate, though, for I am constantly beguiled by her figure, day and night. Not that I do not anticipate her night time charms being unparalleled! She is an angel, and I shall marry her and make her mine! The next time I write, it will be with the news that I am engaged to Miss Elizabeth Bennet!
Bingley
It was necessary to read it twice before he was able to grasp the full magnitude of the revelation. A thousand remembrances of past conversations, insinuations and looks swirled in his mind’s eye, demanding that he reassess their import, but there were too many to make sense. Arrant fury overwhelmed him as every thought in his head coalesced into one, abhorrent memory: Elizabeth in Bingley’s arms.
“Good God, Darcy, what in blazes does it say in that letter?”
He looked up to meet Fitzwilliam’s troubled gaze. “I will kill him.”
He thrust the letter at his cousin and turned in mute rage to slam both hands down on his desk. The nearest candlestick skittered sideways, its flame guttering. There he stayed, forcing air in and out of his nose. He could not speak. There were no words to express what he felt and no way of unpicking the knot of deception such a letter presented. The bastard was there now with Elizabeth!
He shoved himself away from the desk and stalked across the room. There was not enough space to contain his savage indignation. The sheer audacity of Bingley taking up in his house, dining at his table, conversing, joking, playing cards, dancing with Elizabeth—all the while wishing she were his! It was a worse betrayal than Wickham’s, who at least had done him the courtesy of being furtive.
Behind him, Fitzwilliam let out a long, low whistle. Darcy whirled about, having almost forgotten he was there. “A whistle?” he challenged, barely able to contain his fury. “The discovery that my brother by law, who has been one of my closest friends for above ten years and who is presently at my house under orders to safeguard my wife from harm, has in truth coveted her since before we wed draws from you naught more than a puerile whistle?”
“Untwist your ballocks, Darcy. I do not make light of it. It is objectionable in every way. Yet, it is evidently drunken prattle written, if I am not mistaken, before he knew of your attachment to her.”
“I care not when he wrote the damned thing. He is in love with my wife!”
Fitzwilliam flicked the letter straight and ran his eyes over it again, shaking his head. “Nay, it says nothing of love in here. ’Tis naught but sot’s ardour. I daresay Bingley has lusted after most every woman of his acquaintance at some point or another in his cups. He no doubt forgot the sentiment as soon as his head cleared.”
Darcy wished with all his being that were true, yet foreboding had pursued him all the way from Kent, and it would not be so easily satisfied.
“Indeed, he must have,” Fitzwilliam insisted, “for it was her sister he married.”
“He did not intend to.” Icy tendrils of alarm knifed through Darcy’s gut. “Jane threw herself at him and contrived to be discovered. He had no choice.”
Fitzwilliam squeezed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you certain? I cannot imagine why a woman such as Jane Bin
gley should need to entrap a husband.”
Jane’s pitiful objection last Wednesday rang in Darcy’s mind: He does not esteem me! “She must have known he meant to offer for Elizabeth.”
“There is no evidence of that beyond these few impolitic ramblings,” Fitzwilliam said, gesturing at him with Bingley’s letter, but Darcy’s mind was already far beyond that point.
“He all but admitted it the night before the wedding,” he muttered incredulously. “How could I have forgotten? He drank himself into oblivion and came to me complaining that he doubted his affection for Jane.”
“Perhaps he was merely nervous of marriage.”
“That is as I assumed at the time.” He sneered bitterly. “No wonder he claimed he could not speak of it with me.”
His cousin made a dismissive noise and stalked to the sideboard, slapping the letter into his chest as he passed him. “This is all too tenuous for my liking, Darcy. You are too apt to see the worst in every situation. Besides,” he said as he refilled his glass, “Bingley is hardly the most discreet of men. If he was enamoured of Elizabeth, more people than Jane would have seen it.”
Such a comment was guaranteed to send Darcy’s mind whirling off into the annals of his memory, searching for evidence of just that. Regrettably, he found it.
“Mr. Bingley is at Longbourn, sir, mourning the loss of Miss Eliza.”
Even the damned butler had known it!
“True to form, gentlemen! One has his bird in the bag afore the other has decided which to aim for.”
Facetiousness had masked that speaker’s better knowledge admirably, but retrospection stripped all such allusions bare. “Bennet knew,” he said with utter, sickening conviction.
“And pray, what sudden penetration that was not previously in your power has led you to this unhappy conclusion?”
“Retrospect is a pitiless exponent, Fitzwilliam,” he retorted, in no humour to be persistently gainsaid. “When I sought his permission for Elizabeth’s hand, Bennet remarked that had I offered sooner, I might have saved Bingley weeks of indecision.”
