Mistaken

by Jessie Lewis

  Elizabeth could not immediately think how to respond, for so much in what he said offended her. “You will have to explain your meaning, sir,” she said at length.

  “I have seen how he treats you. You need not protect him on my account.”

  She gaped at him, her cheeks burning hot and her indignation hotter. “I have no need to protect him on anybody’s account. He is the best man I have ever known.”

  That appeared to confuse him greatly. “But he abandoned you to go to Kent!”

  “His aunt is dying!”

  “I would not have gone.”

  “I can well believe that! It would require too much in the way of consideration for other people!”

  “Oh yes, Darcy is all consideration. He considers every duty under the sun more important than you.”

  “I have the deepest respect for his sense of duty.”

  “Even though he spends more time jaunting about the country fulfilling it than paying any attention to you? Why do you continue to defend him? I know you have been made miserable. I have seen it.”

  “When?”

  “Not ten minutes ago, for a start, when you admitted to weeping over whatever he wrote, or did not write, in that letter,” he said, pointing to her pocket.

  Incredulous, Elizabeth withdrew the darling sketch Beth Powell had given her that morning and unfolded it for him to see. “This? A picture of Darcy holding my hand, drawn in the crayons he gave one of his tenant’s children out of the goodness of his own heart? Aye, it made me cry—because I miss him!”

  It observably gave Bingley pause but regrettably did not deter him completely. “No. I know you have been distressed by his aloofness. I have seen him brush off the touch of your hand. I have heard him forbid you from speaking. I have seen you feign a headache to escape his company.”

  She shook her head, which only encouraged him to oppose her more vehemently.

  “What then of his pride, of his regret for marrying outside his precious sphere? Though you claim to have resolved the matter, I have not forgotten how he blamed you for all the rumours we heard at the theatre last year. Would that were the only occasion I had seen him punish you for your lesser consequence, but I have heard him lament it too many times.”

  Elizabeth could offer no better response than incredulous silence.

  “Truly, Mr. Bingley, your persistence is verging on the deranged,” Mrs. Sinclair voiced for her.

  “Very well,” he said to Elizabeth, “I shall not go on listing all the ways in which he disesteems you, for you know better than I how little he respects you. You, who said to me that there is nothing more wretched than being unable to respect one’s partner in life!”

  Disbelief and affront drew a wordless cry from her lips. He seemed in absolute earnest yet spoke of his oldest friend as though he were a stranger. “I was referring to my mother and father when I said that, not myself!”

  “Need I remind you,” said Mrs. Sinclair, “that Mrs. Darcy is with child? I must insist you stop this before she becomes any more distressed.”

  “Her condition has not prevented Darcy from quarrelling with her nigh on constantly! I have never heard you object to his conduct!”

  “I am old, not senile. What is your excuse?”

  “Tabitha has no need to object to Darcy’s conduct, for there is naught objectionable in it!” Elizabeth cried. “I shall not pretend we never disagree, but it is seldom and never without swift resolution. You have mistaken teasing and debate for discord. You have wilfully misunderstood everything you have seen to justify your treacherous feelings.”

  “But it was you who said when I arrived at Pemberley that we could comfort each other now that I was come.”

  “I meant we might comfort each other for having been ill used by Jane, not Darcy! I love my husband in a way you are unlikely ever to comprehend. But I am under no obligation to justify my happiness to you. Rather, it is you who must justify your betrayal. How could you? He has been the very best of friends to you. He has lent you his counsel, his time, his companionship, his houses, even his reputation, from which you and your sisters have squeezed all conceivable profit. He trusted you. How could you contemplate stealing his wife and child?”

  A flush of something that ought to have been shame, but which she thought was more likely petulance, reddened his countenance. “I did not plot and scheme to steal his wife and child. The notion was but an impulse of the moment. Indeed, my design was to leave! I have passage booked on a ship sailing on the fifteenth of this month.”

  Despite her experience of having her impressions of people completely overturned in the course of one conversation, this volte-face was proving particularly difficult to countenance. She had always considered Bingley such a kind and amiable man. The discovery of such a profound selfishness was excessively painful.

  “You were simply going to leave without telling anybody? What about Jane? Have you no scruple in abandoning her?”

  “She will not care! She has loathed every moment of being married to me. I wonder that she went to so much trouble to bring it about.” He shook his head and almost sneered. “How she will repent if ever she discovers you would not have had me anyway.”

  “What is your meaning?”

  “She only threw herself at me to prevent me from offering for you.”

  Elizabeth’s babe kicked and writhed, mayhap stirred by the rushing of blood in her veins, loud to her own ears and doubtless thunderous to his. “You did not mention that when you arrived here, spinning us your tales of woe,” she said coldly.

  He paled but said nothing, though Elizabeth supposed there was little he could say in defence of such duplicity.

  “She has known all this time that you loved me?”

  “Er…well…it would seem so, yes.”

  “Oh, Jane!” she whispered, sick to her heart.

  Bingley squirmed and looked miserable and offered no excuse.

  “You have stolen my sister from me! You, who knew how heartbroken I was at our estrangement, have stood by and pretended to be puzzled by her bitterness and jealousy, all the while knowing the cause!”

  “That is not true! I was not aware she knew of my feelings until we argued just before I left Netherfield. How would I have suspected? What woman in her right mind would trick a man she knows does not love her into marriage?”

  His obstinate ignorance brought tears to Elizabeth’s eyes. “One who loves him very, very much.”

  “She did?”

  “I daresay she still does. Else she would not care that you do not.” She took a deep breath and swiped away a tear, determined not to weep on his account. “How could you? You have betrayed us all.” He could not have looked more wretched, but she could summon no pity for him. “Get out of my sight, Mr. Bingley. Better yet, get out of my house.”

  She really thought he might begin to weep when he mumbled a pitiful query as to where he ought to go.

  “I have long been an advocate of your leaving the country,” Mrs. Sinclair opined. “The idea has had few supporters as I understand it, but I suspect exile is presently the safest option available to you.”

  Bingley nodded glumly. “I shall leave England as planned in two weeks.”

  “I think not, sir,” Elizabeth objected. “You must see it is your duty to return to Netherfield and be a proper husband to my sister.”

  “I should let him go, Lizzy,” Mrs. Sinclair demurred. “He is of no use to anybody this side of the Atlantic.”

  “He is of use to Jane.”

  “A ringing endorsement, by all accounts!” She levered herself to her feet with her cane. “Mr. Bingley, you have the privilege of being the most unparalleled idiot I have ever known. And since I have been alive for the best part of a century, I urge you not to underestimate the scope of such a commendati
on.”

  Bingley sent Elizabeth a plaintive look. “For what it is worth, I truly love you.”

  “It is worth nothing, Mr. Bingley. Nothing at all.”

  She took the arm Mrs. Sinclair held out for her and left, resolutely refusing to shed a tear until later when she was securely closeted beneath the covers of Darcy’s bed.

  ***

  Friday, 5 March 1813: London

  Caroline Bingley arrived home in a foul humour, having passed the previous two hours being out-ranked, out-shopped, and out-flirted by her friends. “Where is everybody?” she enquired, flicking her things at the butler.

  “Mr. Hurst is at his club, ma’am. Mrs. Hurst is taking the air with her daughter, and I believe you will find Mrs. Bingley in the parlour.”

  She inclined her head and walked with little anticipation of pleasure to the parlour. Her expectations were not disappointed. She found Jane hunched over a letter, sobbing uncontrollably into a handkerchief from which a needle still dangled on a thread from a corner. With a resigned sigh, Caroline sat next to her, patted her knee with the furthest ends of her fingertips and enquired what was the matter.

  After one or two false beginnings, Jane managed to communicate that the letter was from her sister. “Mr. Darcy gave it to me yesterday, but I have only now had the courage to read it.”

  “I take it whatever made you delay opening it has come to bear?”

  She shook her head. “I knew not what to expect, but this is worse. She writes that Charles is seriously contemplating going to live in Nova Scotia!”

  “I see. You may cease your fretting this instant if that is all that has distressed you. Charles has never seriously considered anything in his life. Even if the thought has occurred to him, he will get no further than choosing which of his neck cloths to pack. He will come home; you may rely upon it.”

  “In that case, what comfort will it be to know it was only irresolution that made him stay?”

  Caroline weighed her low opinion of Jane’s fortitude with the need for frankness and decided the latter was more pressing in the present circumstances. “Pardon my saying so, but if you do not begin to give him a little encouragement, irresolution may well be the best for which you can hope. My brother has a great natural modesty of which Louisa and I have ever despaired. He is the sort of man who requires considerable urging to resolve on anything.” In response to Jane’s look of bewilderment, she added, “Your determination to be as cold and indifferent a wife as ever lived is not likely to convince him to love you.”

  Perhaps she might have worded it better. The tears returned.

  “Cold and indifferent?”

  “My dear, you are hardly what one would call a demonstrative wife.”

  “But you impressed upon me the importance of not being one! You disdained my meekness! You instructed me in my tone of voice, my address and expressions—in all the things that would make me more acceptable to your sphere. Indeed, Lady Ashby was adamant that becoming more fashionable would earn me his esteem!”

  “With all due respect, Lady Ashby does not know my brother. He evidently liked you better when you did nothing but smile at him incessantly. By all means, continue as you have been in public, but if your wish is to make Charles love you, I am afraid you will have to indulge him occasionally.”

  Histrionics rendered her next speech all but incoherent, though Caroline gleaned the gist: Jane’s efforts to be a good wife had only pushed him into her arms.

  “Whose arms?” she enquired, certain she already knew the answer.

  “Lizzy’s!” Jane cried, collapsing face first into the handkerchief. Caroline pried it from her grip lest she poke herself in the eye with the needle.

  “I had hoped he would overcome that little fascination before you discovered it.”

  “You knew about it too?”

  “Regrettably.” She wondered who else did.

  “For how long have you known?”

  “Since he decided to offer for her and somehow got himself engaged to you instead.” Colour flooded Jane’s countenance, and Caroline wondered belatedly whether she had only worsened matters. “Forgive me; I assumed you knew about that.”

  “I did,” Jane whispered. “It is what we argued about at Netherfield, though I suspected long before then that he had feelings for her. I have been so anxious to make him admire me more than he does her. How insufficient have been all my pretensions to becoming a woman worthy of being loved! Had I only shown him more affection than I felt instead of less, he might never have done what he did!”

  “What he did? What do you mean?”

  “He got a child on her!” she howled.

  “What? Mrs. Darcy’s child is my brother’s?” They were all doomed.

  “No. He got a child on the next best thing—Miss Greening.”

  Caroline stared, nonplussed.

  “Amelia. The maid at Netherfield. The one who looked like my sister.”

  Well, how completely, absolutely, utterly splendid. The buffoon had truly outdone himself on this occasion. “Is that why you dismissed her?”

  “No. I dismissed her because she looked too much like Lizzy, and I did not want Charles to have any reason to be reminded of her. But either I acted too late or he sought her out afterwards, for she is with child.”

  “This is disgraceful. How—when did you discover it?”

  “In September when Lizzy was at Netherfield. Mr. Darcy found a stupid little picture of her on Charles’s desk that my cousin had drawn, and I knew instantly why he had kept it.”

  She sniffed grotesquely. Caroline gave her back the handkerchief, needle and all.

  “I went to his study to find it—well, to burn it, in truth, I was so cross. But instead, I found a letter from a Mrs. Pence, who wrote that Miss Greening had felt the quickening and asked that the agreed funds be forwarded.”

  Caroline grew angrier by the moment. She wished her brother had shown half as much flair for cunning before entangling himself with the Bennets. “But you do not know when it happened?” Nor if it had continued, she dared not add.

  “No. I have tried to guess. I asked my mother how long one usually waits to feel the quickening, but she misunderstood why I was asking and announced to everybody that I was with child.”

  Caroline recalled that evening all too well. This new information only made her loathe Mrs. Bennet more. “Is Charles aware that you know?”

  Jane shook her head. “I could not bear to hear him admit it.”

  Caroline peered at her dubiously. “I confess I am struggling to account for your having been so concerned with earning his esteem, given all this.”

  “As have I on occasion, but I—well, I suppose it is simple, really. I love him. I do not believe I know how not to. I have loved him from the very first moment I met him.”

  Caroline’s every moral fibre protested as the words, “He does not deserve you,” reluctantly crawled off her tongue. “Why on earth did you not mention it to anybody else?”

  “I told Lady Ashby. She said it was a part of married life and advised me never to speak of it.”

  “Well, she would! On dit, her husband has half a dozen children from the other side of the sheets. I doubt his taking lovers troubles her in any other way than whether her pin money is diminished.”

  “You used to speak more highly of her.”

  “She is a viscountess. I speak highly of her rank and influence. As a person, she is more comparable to a lemon. She adds flavour to other things but is sour and horrid on her own.”

  That this should surprise Jane was exasperating. It seemed, despite her low expectations, that Caroline had still managed to underestimate her new sister’s naivety. She wished she had not, for much of this misfortune might have been averted had she more firmly pointed Jane in the direc
tion of the real world from the start. “I am surprised you did not tell your sister.”

  “I might have, had she not come to my room that evening, after my mother made the announcement, to tell me she was also with child. It was too much. In one day, I had learnt that Charles still admired her and had got a child on her facsimile. She might as well have told me they had lain together.” She let out a little whimper and added, “It was childish and unjust of me to blame her. Yet I slapped her for it.”

  “I daresay it did not do too much harm.”

  “But it has!” She lifted her crumpled letter and read from it. “I shall never have the words to explain how deeply your jealousy and mistrust have wounded me. You are no longer the sister I once knew. You have lost all your goodness, and I have lost my Jane.” She burst into tears again and dropped her hands and the letter back to her lap. “I have blamed her for everything, but Mr. Darcy is right. This is more my fault than I ever comprehended.”

  “An observation worthy of a good deal of solitary reflection, I am certain,” Caroline replied, her limited supply of compassion abruptly exhausted at the thought of expending an ounce of it in defence of Elizabeth Darcy.

  “You are right,” Jane gasped between sobs. “I hardly know myself anymore.”

  “I am for Bath tomorrow,” Caroline grudgingly admitted. “Allow me to take you as far as Netherfield. Indulge your reflections in the peace and quiet of the country while you prepare yourself for Charles’s return.”

  “You are convinced he will?”

  “I am. And if you are determined to make him love you, you had better work out how to return yourself to the artless country moppet you used to be before he does.”

  ***

  Wednesday, 10 March 1813: Hertfordshire

  “This is it, ma’am,” the footman said, opening the carriage door and indicating one of several buildings flanking a dingy-looking inn.

  Jane looked up at the grimy windows set in rotten frames then down to the letter retrieved from her husband’s desk. It was a poor quarter of Hatfield indeed, yet there was no doubting this was the place. If anything, that only strengthened her resolve. Gathering her cloak about her, she stepped down over the stinking runnel of slop separating the houses from the street and knocked on the door. A stout, officious-looking lady in a pinafore and mop cap opened it.