He rubbed at the back of his head, and Darcy was glad to see Bingley’s evident embarrassment, because it suggested to him that his friend was about to return to his more ordinary and pliable state of mind.
“Now, Bingley, I can assure you that such a loss of a part of the ordinary bodily functions does not change a person in essentials. You had said you were coming to love Jane. I believe it now, and that she loves you as well. I have seen how you worried over her during her illness — love is a matter of essentials. It only—”
“By God, will you quit on the matter — let it go. Let it go.”
“Bingley—”
“By God!” Bingley’s face turned into a bitter sneer. “Are you so confident that I cannot know my own mind? Make my own decision without your counsel? — I assure you, I am full capable of being my own man. And I’ll not marry a blinded, blighted girl to accommodate your sensibilities. This is my own business, and not yours.”
Darcy tilted his head, rather surprised by Bingley’s firm tone. “I had thought—”
“She’s gone. I’ll always mourn the Jane Bennet who I danced with and talked with so many times — but she is gone. All that is left is a lesser thing. A stub of the person who was there before. The too early burnt out candle.”
“I have never… that is the worst nitwittery I have ever — Is that how you think about me?”
“You are not a woman who I am considering for marriage. But it does not signify in terms of your friendship or conversation. This is not aboutyou— not your business. It is my business who I marry — I am done. I shall leave for London tomorrow, soon as Jane Bennet vacates the house. I suspect I’ll not return to Netherfield any time soon, if ever.”
“I see,” Darcy replied. And he did see. “If you do not object, I shall remain a few days longer to make parting calls upon the acquaintances I have made here.”
“That is your business, not mine.” Bingley pressed his hand against his face. “Darcy, you have been like a brother to me, but the way you get at a matter like a bulldog, never giving up on trying to make the world behave as you wish to see it work — it can be a deuced unpleasant thing to be the subject of all that gnawing and shaking.”
“What do you mean?”
“Damnation, every word. Every damned word. Everything you say — I hear that judgement in it.”
“Perhaps it is your own better self speaking to you.”
“If it is, then devil take my better self — I’ll not marry a cripple. And you may have an unmeasurable sympathy for everyone else crippled like you are, and demand we all pretend like nothing has changedbut it has changed.”
“Mr. Bingley.”
“You are a cripple. Jane Bennet is a cripple. If you are so insistent that she hasn’t lost her value, marry her yourself.”
Like his father taught him. Take deep breaths. Count them off. Do not reply in anger. Pay attention to the reddish glow of the coals in the fire. To the waving of the tree branches through the window. To the indrawing of air, and then then exhalation. Let the anger drain out, and say what you mean to say as a gentleman.
But hearing this from Bingley hurt.
“If you continue to speak to me in this manner,” Darcy said at last, after consideration, “you are likely to do irreparable harm to our friendship.”
Bingley sighed. “Be who you wish to be — you can manage yourself… Women… women are different. Fragile, less than us. Less robust, with less ingenuity and… determination. Unable to stand up under the blows of fortune. You… Darcy, I admire you beyond anyone else I know. But I’ll not marry Miss Bennet. That is the end of it.”
“I suppose it is.” There was really nothing more to say, so neither of them spoke more.
Bingley stared out at the sky studying the approaching grey clouds of a storm. After a while Darcy retrieved his book upon the agriculture of Hertfordshire, and read the last chapters of it.
It was time to finish the book, as he would be leaving Netherfield, Hertfordshire, and Elizabeth in a few days.
Chapter Twelve
The whole day after Elizabeth and Jane returned to Longbourn was filled with noise, tumult, and Jane tripping while Mrs. Bennet awkwardly tried to lead her somewhere. Mr. Collins could not cease talking to her — Elizabeth had hoped he would have disappeared while she was at Netherfield, but he had not.
Loud sermons harangued forth from Mr. Collins to Jane upon how bearing up under misfortune was the duty of all Christian subjects, how blindness was oft a curse delivered by the Almighty upon the wicked, and how Mr. Collins was certain that she would now be forever a burden upon her family.
When he saidthat, Mrs. Bennet moaned in agreement, though she added, “I still have some hope for Mr. Bingley.”
“Depend upon it,” Mr. Collins replied, “no reasonable gentleman would marry a blind woman, if he was not obliged to.”
The whole time Jane kept a soft accepting smile on her face.
