He then plopped himself down onto a red velvet chair. He hung his head down and would not look at any of them. “I won’t — oh, if only everything was as it had been two weeks ago. If only I didn’t need to make this choice. But I know… I know what will best constitute my own happiness. I am sorry for poor Jane Bennet, but it is no longer her — I wish for her sake… perhaps for mine as well, that she had died.”
“Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.”
Elizabeth could not even remember standing. Yet she stood in front of Bingley’s chair glaring at him. She had a sense of oddness, as though she were observing herself like an actress in a play.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
Bingley looked at her, as mournfully as a dying puppy.
“You sniveling, little, useless, weak, irresolute, disgusting, deceptive, disappointing, honorless — villain. You villain, yes, a man can smile, and smile and be a villain.”
“I am resolute in this,” Bingley replied. He sat higher and stiffer. “You’ll not make me lose my determination by comparing me to the hunchback king.”
Elizabeth slapped him as hard as she could.
The crack echoed across the room.
She stared at her hand, then at the red mark growing on Bingley’s face.
He did not look angry, only sad.
Caroline Bingley looked at her in white shock, while Darcy rose and made his way across the room with his crutches, and then he leaned heavily on one crutch and held the other one out between her and Bingley, softly pressing her away from him.
His intense eyes for once were easy to interpret. They were pitying and understanding.
Suddenly Elizabeth could not stay in the room a moment longer. She turned and fled, wiping the furious tears from her eyes as she went.
Chapter Eleven
All was silent in the drawing room after the reverberations of the door that Elizabeth slammed when she left had quieted.
Darcy studied Bingley.
He hardly knew.
Part of him had never been so disappointed in a man as he was in Bingley.
“Well.” Miss Bingley stood, and she grabbed Mrs. Hurst’s arm. “I shall look in on dear Jane to give her my condolences on her fate. It is a sad thing — and one which is whollynother fault, and which wholly does not leave her unworthy of affection.Iremember my mother, and that she still loved me, even when she could not see.”
Darcy was more than a little surprised to see Miss Bingley’s anger at her brother, but that she had many flaws did not mean that she had no virtues.
The two gentlemen were left alone in the room. Darcy still leaned on his crutches standing by Bingley. He sighed and walked back to one of the chairs and settled in it.
He studied Bingley again.
“Devil take it. No.” Bingley ground his teeth together. Darcy had not needed to say anything. Bingley stood from the chair, returned to the window to lean over it, looking out at the half bare branches. “No, no, no, no. Upon my honor, a dozen timesno.”
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
“Then I never loved,” Bingley spat back. “I’ll not say no man ever has, I know my own disabilities — damnation, man. Devil take you — must you both quote the Bard? Not a week before you counselled to not marry Jane Bennet, or at least to be in no hurry to make a decision. Andnow.”
“I have not given any advice.”
“Don’t— you judge me with those eyes. With your manner.” He walked back and forth clenching and unclenching his fists. “I hardly understand why you even ask me such a question. No — I will not tie myself to a blind woman for life. Could you imagine being unable to ever even dance at an assembly with your future wife?”
“Very easily,” Darcy replied coldly.
Bingley looked at him. He flushed red, and then chuckled awkwardly. “Yes, well. Yes, well. Heh.”
