The Darcys and the Bingleys

by Marsha Altman

  “Geoffrey,” Elizabeth said, half serious, “you will cry and crawl all you like, but you will hold that in until your father gets home. Do you understand?”

  “I daresay he doesn’t,” Mr. Bennet said. “Now, perhaps we should take my grandson somewhere else before he further incriminates himself in front of witnesses, and you will tell me all about Darcy’s current marriage-related schemes.”

  They were actually able to make an easy escape into the parlour, what with the women fawning over the forcibly idle Jane and her daughter. Elizabeth called for tea as she took Geoffrey into her own arms and faced her father’s inquiries. When the servants had left, she spilled all of the details, which was basically a summary of the entire visit of Bingley and Darcy, brief as it had been. “I’ve not heard from them since, but as it’s only been a few days, there may not be news. Odd, is it not?”

  “Odd, indeed.” Mr. Bennet frowned his thinking frown. “Drawing from my own experience in talking people out of marriages—”

  “Papa—”

  “I still am inclined to say, with no informed perspective whatsoever on this matter, that surely if Miss Bingley has found someone suitable, then he must be suitable. But then again, if Charles Bingley has found some reason to disapprove—”

  “Which he hasn’t—”

  “Yes. Stranger and stranger. I would say either he has some brotherly instinct or he is simply unwilling to let her go. Though the latter does not seem likely, knowing what I do of his general disposition. Thinking of it, it was insightful of him to go to Mr. Darcy on the matter. To be frank, Elizabeth, if any man is good at finding fault in people, it is your husband.”

  “I am not insulted,” she said with a smile.

  “And you say this suitor—he is Scottish nobility?”

  “An earl. But with a new fortune made in Australia. His own estate is apparently in disrepair.”

  “Well, I am also somewhat an expert in old estates being in disrepair,” Mr. Bennet said in all humour, “and I cannot fault him on that. It is a curious matter, though. So your husband headed off to Town—”

  “He was more than willing to take me,” she quickly defended, “but he was correct in his assumption that I would not leave Jane alone.”

  “But now that she is not alone—”

  “I cannot think of a reason to join him. I barely know Town; I do not know what help I would be,” she said honestly.

  Mr. Bennet took his tea and went into his thinking posture. There he was for some time, and Elizabeth was busied watching Geoffrey, whom she had set down on the floor and who was making his way about the expensive carpet.

  Out of nowhere, Mr. Bennet announced, “I have never been to the north.”

  “Never?” This came as no surprise. Her father was not a great traveller and spoke almost nothing of his trip to the Continent when he was a young man, except to say it included only the major parts of France. Despite his love of appearing at Pemberley, she was sure he did not enjoy the journey there one bit.

  “Yes, I suppose I should see it once before my death, and if your mother is correct, I will surely drop any day now. We must go at once then—at least to the lowlands.” He continued before Elizabeth could object. “It is not terribly far from here, I understand—three days or so to the border, perhaps less if we did not stop at the major sites to admire the grand beauty of the English countryside. Though of course your mother would have no interest, nor would Kitty, and they would be of great comfort to Jane in her time of need, or, at least, keep her utterly distracted. She might not even notice we are gone.”

  “The two of us?”

  “Well, if we take my grandson, he might come home with not only his first words but a Scottish accent. And then the master of Pemberley would be most displeased on both accounts,” he said.

  “Papa, be serious. We have no reason to go to whatever barony this earl controls, nor do we know its location, only that it is in the lowlands.”

  “You said he is Lord James Kincaid? Then surely, there can only be so many earls named Kincaid living in the lowlands, and if my geography is right, the lowlands are not very large at all. I’m sure the information we need would be easy to acquire.” He stood up. “Though, if you would prefer to stay back with the women—”

  “Now you are just making fun,” she said. “And what explanation should we give for this?”

  “Give whatever explanation you like; Mr. Bingley is so accommodating that we could take six carriages with us, and he would not be the least perturbed. And if this is to be a thing to make Mr. Darcy fall so horribly out of love with you, I would be quite surprised.”

  “But Jane—”

  He took her hands. “Jane still has plenty of time. And I would place my remaining fortune on a bet that she will not put up any objection to you getting some fresh air. But I think if we are to do this, then time is of the essence.”

  She could not imagine it. Actually, she could imagine it, but it still seemed like such a wild endeavour.

  “Mr. Bennet!” came Mrs. Bennet’s usual shrill cry.

  “Also of the essence is a way to explain this to your mother,” Mr. Bennet said. “You’d best think of something while I handle whatever crisis she has imagined now. You were always the quick thinker, Lizzy. I have no doubt you’ll have the whole plan by the time I return.”

  He was right in his estimation, and as soon as the carriage was ready and Geoffrey put down for his nap, Mr. Bennet and his second eldest daughter were on the muddy roads of Derbyshire headed north.

  ***

  There were many reasons why Mr. Darcy liked to fence. It was one of the few athletic endeavours he truly enjoyed beyond walking, not because he was a lazy man, but because he had no great love of killing birds or other animals, archery seemed entirely medieval, and there were few other sports which a man of leisure could be expected to take part in and not be considered an uncouth ruffian. He also liked it because he was quite good at it, or so he fancied himself. Perhaps this love had blossomed the first time he bested George Wickham at twelve years old. It was a time when a year was a marked difference between boys, and Wickham had already had a growth spurt despite his age, while Darcy was still a “boy” in appearance, and so he took great relish in his first successful duel against him. It was at that point that Wickham gave up the sport entirely, or at least gave it up in Darcy’s presence.

  And then there was Cambridge, where fencing was a way to arguably be “social” without actually having to chat much. Darcy considered talking during a match unprofessional, as did most of his peers, and by his second term he had invented multiple excuses to escape from the postmatch drinking bouts. He kept his athletic figure (which at times was more of a flaw than a boon, especially when being at balls), and he even wrote home that he had made “friends”—which delighted his father to no end, he imagined.

  Though Darcy was never captain and probably would never reach that skill level, he kept it up over the years at fencing clubs and with his private trainer at Pemberley. During the period between his proposal at Rosings and his return to Hertfordshire, he had nearly worn his trainer out.

  Darcy’s wife, of course, had her own explanation for all of this—one he did not care to think of. He made every attempt to change the subject when she brought it up, but she had the wit to make such comments in bed, where he was entirely at her conversational mercy and merely waited it out, usually with a pillow over his head.

  The final reason (if he counted Elizabeth’s reasons) for his love of the sport was that it was, in his estimation, the best way for him to get the measure of a man. There was something about the intimacy of swordplay—an expression he did not use around his wife, lest it give her further ideas—that brought out the nature of a man. He knew he was exposing himself, in fact, as a man of great strength and determination but also of honour. He never cheated, or not intentionally and to his knowledge, and he never resorted to the dirtier tricks of swordplay that were somehow within club rules.
Even as a fighter, he was Mr. Darcy of Pemberley and Derbyshire, and showing anything more or less would be an assault on his general character. He did not know if other fencers shared his beliefs, but he did not doubt that a few philosophers among them did.

  There were numerous reasons why he had never fenced Bingley. The first and most obvious was that Bingley had only minimal instruction, and there was no way Darcy could properly lower his skill level to make the match even without making it obvious. The second was that Bingley absolutely refused and looked terrified at the prospect the one time it was brought up over a meal in Cambridge. The third and most complex was that Darcy had no desire to fence Bingley because he knew Bingley. Charles Bingley was a man whose character was generally obvious to everyone, even the last bit of it, the bit that was so much innermost to Bingley that he was hardly aware of it, even though Darcy knew just by being his acquaintance. In other words, Darcy could get the measure of the man, full and complete, from a few conversations. Bingley was kind, generous, outgoing, and good on every level. He was so determined to see the good in everyone and so agreeable that he willingly suffered the social consequences of occasionally looking like a dunderhead, but Darcy was convinced that he was on some level aware of what he was doing.

  Bingley was not stupid; in that unspoken estimation, Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were wrong, and it was one of the reasons that Darcy disliked them both so. Bingley was actually very intelligent. What little aspect of the Bingley family trade he did take part in, he was good at in terms of numbers. And in Darcy’s estimation, he relied a little too much on his stewards and servants, but social propriety kept him from taking a real interest in the origins of his fortunes, and he knew it. It was, in fact, in academics that Darcy had truly come to know him. Though Darcy was in his final year and Bingley in his first at Cambridge, they both were in the same Latin lectures, Darcy having put them off for as long as possible, which was most advantageous to Darcy, for it seemed that Bingley was quite skilled in languages and, by the end of the semester, was practically Darcy’s tutor.

  So the one proposal for a match between them was quickly and eagerly denied by Bingley, and Darcy pressed no further.

  But Bingley was not the matter at hand. Instead it was this Lord Kincaid, Earl of ____shire, who was enough of a fencer to have a visitor’s pass at the exclusive London Fencing Club, to which Darcy paid membership dues whether he was there more than once a year or not.

  The contest was to be in the early afternoon, after Darcy had finished his supposed business meeting. Of course he had nothing of the sort, with his steward at Pemberley, but he was reluctant to be seen strolling the streets of London when he was supposed to be here on most urgent matters, so he stayed inside his considerable townhouse. Unfortunately for him, Georgiana did not depart quickly enough, and she immediately noticed his hanging about. She found him in the parlour reading a book Elizabeth had recommended from his own library.

  “Brother—”

  As she went into her inquiries, he realised he could hide it no longer without a string of lies that he had no desire to burden his sister with. Clearly, if they were to be in the same house during this conspiracy, she was at least to know of it. “I must confess, I am not here on the type of business that would require a meeting with a steward.”

  “Oh,” she frowned. “Darcy, you’re keeping something from me.”

  “Am I that easy to read?”

  “To most people, you are an enigma. But to me, yes, you are easy to read. And to my sister, you are an open book, I think.”

  He smiled at the memory of Elizabeth. “You have taken on some of her wit, I see.”

  “So you are saying I have no wits of my own?”

  “All right,” he said, and motioned to the servant for tea. “She is definitely a bad influence on you.” When the servant was gone, he motioned for his sister to join him and explained the whole matter to her to the best of his abilities.

  “How strange,” Georgiana replied to all of this. “Everyone likes him—except you and Mr. Bingley, it seems. But you have no reason for it.”

  “Call it a brotherly instinct.”

  “I can speak for your brotherly instincts,” she said, without having to elaborate further, and it was nice to see that even a passing, obscure reference to the Wickham incident did not only not bring her to tears but could be instigated by her. “So how do you think you will go about this investigation? Though, I do not know much on the matters of business.”

  “I do, but not business abroad, beyond our holdings in the East India Company. I confess to knowing next to nothing about Australia. Bingley knows more than I, and his guess is as good as mine.”

  She bit her lip then said, “I should remind you, Brother, that you now have relatives in trade.”

  The Gardiners! Of course! And they were right here in Town! “Georgiana, I am in your debt. Would you care to join me on a call to the Gardiners?”

  “I would love to.” She put a finger to her lips. “And yes, I know—not a word of this to anyone. You do not have to say it.”

  “Clearly your intelligence surpasses my own,” he said, and kissed her gratefully on the cheek after rising. “Now I must prepare for my actual business in Town. Thank you, Georgiana.”

  “Only promise me to keep me a part of all of your exciting conspiracies, as this is the most exciting thing to happen to me in months.” She added with dramatic gravity, “I mean, terrible as it is.”

  He could not help but chuckle a bit. “Yes, terrible indeed.”

  ***

  Darcy arrived on time, but Lord Kincaid was already there. They shook hands before donning their protective gear. “I am still honoured to fight the master of Pemberley.”

  “Being master of Pemberley has nothing to do with fencing,” Darcy said good-naturedly (something he had to put a good deal of effort into). “If it did, I would enjoy it a great deal more than I do.”

  They separated to warm up and faced each other in full armour, their face masks completely obscuring their expressions as the master watched on to make the calls. This lack of expression would be no trouble to Darcy, not as a fencer or a reader of other fencers. He was accustomed to the necessities of safety and had learned long ago that reading a person’s body language during a fight was far more important than their facial expression anyway. By his own estimation, stance was nearly everything, the selection of movements a close second. He was not here to win, however much he would prefer it, but to make out this man’s character, and he also knew all of the dangers of fighting an unknown opponent who had the advantage over him of knowing Darcy’s reputation while Darcy had no such knowledge.

  The contest was silent. Kincaid took an aggressive stance, Darcy cautiously neutral as he was with all unfamiliar opponents. He had stamina enough and would be as aggressive as he chose when the time was right, but at the moment, his interests were not in victory but in study. He parried and counterattacked where it was appropriate, which was easy enough. They were well matched by his early estimation, which made for an interesting match but only if he kept his side of it. Switching into an aggressive stance, he moved forward and awaited Kincaid’s response. It was of course defensive, the intelligent move of an experienced fighter for more than the logical reasons. Kincaid could remain aggressive himself, but he had not yet seen Darcy aggressive, and he did not know the ferocity with which he would be attacked. Darcy considered himself to be, at the moment, quite mild, in fact, his mind admittedly on other things.

  So successful was his advance, despite all of Kincaid’s parries that prevented a match point, that Kincaid had nearly pushed out of bounds and the fencing master told him to take a step back. It was then that Kincaid’s strategy changed, suddenly aggressive, and it was only Darcy’s intuition and agility that caught it in time. Had Kincaid been drawing him out? He would have time to worry about that later. He did not have to see the hidden expression to know it. Undoubtedly, from the way the muscles in his collar and neck w
ere tensed, Kincaid was seething that his initial attack had been parried, and he would stab until it succeeded.

  Well, that could be dispatched. Darcy had not been second on Cambridge’s fencing team for nothing. Having learned what he wanted, he parried the next strike and countered to the breast, hitting the layers of cotton and leather with his tipped foil. With a real sword, it would have struck him near the shoulder and possibly killed him, but that was not that situation.

  “Match point!” announced the fencing master. “To Mr. Darcy.”

  They saluted each other, removed their masks, and shook hands with very tired arms. Kincaid’s face was a mask of congeniality—but it was a mask. “It seems you are not a good enough advocate of your abilities, Darcy.”

  “You are quite skilled yourself, Lord Kincaid,” he said evenly. “Excellent match.”

  “Indeed. Would you care to join me in the lounge afterwards?”

  Darcy leaned against the pillar and considered. There were reasons on both sides, and an excuse could easily be made for rejecting the offer to drink with this man. But this was not an opportunity to pass up, he decided. “I would be delighted. Half an hour, shall we say?”

  “Delighted.” Kincaid shook his hand again and disappeared to wherever he was going to change. Darcy, as a senior member, had his own changing room and a bath ready for him. He barely paid attention to the servant helping him change out of his sweat-soaked clothes. He had much to think about.

  ***

  Fortunately it was midafternoon now, and even in the fencer’s lounge, Darcy had an excuse not to get drunk with his new fencing partner, as was the habit of many of the regulars. In fact, he was inclined to have no alcohol at all, but that could not be avoided. When he appeared properly recovered and dressed, Kincaid was there to greet him again. “Darcy.”

  “Lord Kincaid.”

  “You have bested me. I insist you call me James.”

  “Very well then,” Darcy said, but still didn’t. They took seats at a small table, and Darcy ordered what he knew to be the weakest beer in their stocks.