~~~
Evening came and the company retired to the parlour after dinner without the usual separation of the sexes at Miss Bingley’s insistence. Darcy thought playing cards with Caroline Bingley and the Hursts was better than allowing his horse to kick him, but only marginally. Therefore, with the greatest alacrity he occupied himself writing a letter to his sister. He had much tosay about Miss Elizabeth and the neighbourhood, and the time seemed propitious.
He had not seen the lady since breakfast as she mostly kept to her sister’s room. Miss Bennet was a good deal more ill than anybody had thought, and had been alarmingly feverish all day. The local apothecary asserted she merely had a bad cold and would most likely be fine in a few days, but Darcy was sceptical. It sounded more like conjecture than anything else, but it was not his business. Bingley invited Miss Elizabeth to stay and sent a servant to Longbourn for a trunk before the lady had much to say about it, but she seemed appreciative.
The lady requested a tray in her room with a simple meal for both luncheon and supper, and tended to her sister all day without relief.
Miss Bingley, as usual, latched on to his person like a small dog to a trouser leg, prattling on about his writing, his letters, his sister, her accomplishments, and he knew not what else. Aside from ensuring she did not slip in some type of verbal matrimonial trap, he paid her not the slightest attention, even when she started reading the second volume of the book he had been reading earlier, while taking turns around the room to try to show off her figure.
Hurst was asleep as usual. Bingley was three-quarters out himself, vacillating between slumping forward onto his chest and falling back against the chair, looking about as lively as Hurst customarily did.
Darcy was deep in a most interesting paragraph when two things almost simultaneously impinged on his consciousness.
First, Miss Bingley’s endless droning prattle sharpened into focus—enough to catch the disjointed end of a tirade she directed at her sister, at a volume she apparently thought confidential—or more likely she simply did not care.
“—That dress… no… fashion… no lace… and those eyes. Why does she not cover them like proper blind people do? Does she not know how disconcerting it is for people of quality to look at them? And her conceited independence—does she not know we all put up with her only out of pity? Everyone knows no man, no matter how desperate, will ever take her over someone who is… whole and complete, not to mention more attractive and better dressed? Why is she even here? Is she trying to trap poor Mr Darcy? You must have seen her pawing over the gentleman. She cannot be trusted. She probably takes liberties with the local men. You saw how she attached herself to the only true gentleman in the neighbourhood. I am certain she is in league with her mother to secure him while her vulgar sister traps Charles. Those sorts of people should not be let loose on the rest of us more deserving—”
Darcy was instantly, absolutely, and coldly furious. It was nearly the angriest he had ever been in his life, comparable only to his rage at Wickham, so visceral was the reaction. Before he knew it, he snapped the quill in half and surged up, knocking both the chair and his desk so violently the inkwell flew onto the carpet, scattering papers everywhere. His fists curled into balls, his face contorted with rage, prepared to deliver the set-down of a lifetime. Full of righteous wrath, he felt for the first time that he could seriously consider striking a woman, when the sound of furniture falling outside the parlour arrested him, followed closely by the thud ofsomebodyhitting the floor. No cry followed, nor anything else besides the sound of an impact—a hard impact—and his anger turned to fear.
He forgot Miss Bingley entirely, fighting his way through the morass of badly placed furniture toward the door. He had a dozen yards to cover, his progress impeded by Miss Bingley jumping up in alarm and grabbing his arm—an action that came within a hair’s breadth of earning her a slap, or worse.
In a span that seemed to take an hour, he finally crossed the parlour to the door, skidding to a stop outside in the hall. Mortified, he saw a small, broken end table lying in the middle of the flagstone floor, and the back of Elizabeth Bennet’s dress as she ran up the stairs. Both her hands clutched the bannister; she limped badly, stumbling almost to her knees every fourth or fifth stair, only to catch herself and continue without uttering a single sound. Terrified, he called to her, hurried to the stairs, and gave chase as quickly as he could, trying his best to offer assistance. When he reached the top, he rushed toward the guest wing, only to hear Miss Elizabeth’s door slam shut like a harbinger of doom.
The gentleman stood breathing hard in the hall between the Bennet sisters’ rooms, looking both hurt and ready to kill someone, when Bingley appeared. The master had slept through the words, so Darcy repeated them softly, as verbatim as he could. They attempted to speak through the door to Miss Elizabeth, but she would not answer, though he was quite certain he heard heavy breathing, as if she had collapsed against the door and slid to the floor. Eventually, they summoned a maid, then the housekeeper, to check on both sisters. The servants reported that the elder Miss Bennet was still quite feverish but resting, and Miss Elizabeth claimed all was perfectly well, and she had retired for the evening.
Neither was the least bit deceived by that assertion, but they could do nothing regarding the Bennet sisters save await the morning to apologise and set things as right as they could.
As for the younger Miss Bingley, Darcy hoped her brotherfinallyfound the courage to deal with her appropriately; but with a sinking feeling akin to what he had felt three years earlier with George Wickham, he hoped rather than believed. In the end, he doubted the result would be any noticeable improvement. As for himself, he wasentirely donewith Caroline Bingley. He resolved never to speak another word to her. Hedetermined to sever all connections and cut her direct if she ever tried to talk to him. He asked Bingley to the library and informed him of this resolution, and that his sisters would no longer use his name to gain invitations, then left it to the younger man to rein his sister in.
~~~
Dawn found a very troubled Darcy alone in his room; he had listened to the sounds of the house and the woods outside for hours. He had not made the disparaging remark in this latest debacle, but his failure to defend Miss Elizabeth in the breakfast room, and his own insults regarding the Bennet sisters’ marital prospects, put him clearly at fault.
He had to admit that months of indulgence had allowed Miss Bingley to believe she could push the limits of civility beyond all bounds with impunity. He had even agreed with her on many occasions with assertions that were uncharitable at best. Oh, how he wished he had spoken! Like Bingley, he found the implacable wall of Miss Caroline Bingley was one no sane man would willingly scale.
It was past time for him to act the man—and probably far too late. Allowing someone in his presence to disparage a woman was beyond the pale, yet he had let the harridan escape censure for months out of laziness and misplaced manners.
He was determined to make amends. He had rehearsed apologies for hours, made notes, and even attempted half a dozen letters; he need only await a decent hour to speak to her.
He hoped to catch her alone to avoid embarrassment, but the thought caused him even more shame.Did he seek to avoid embarrassment for her, or for himself?Lacking a clear answer, he could not ascertain if he was any closer to being a true gentleman or not. Yet he was determined: he would make amends and start acting the gentleman.
He was startled from the debate by the sound of a coach arriving despite the early hour. Wearing only his banyan, he ran to a window overlooking the drive and stared down in consternation.
He watched helplessly as the coachman jumped down and hurried out of sight toward the front stairs.
The man returned minutes later supporting Miss Bennet. She looked pale and sickly, but walked mostly under her own power, albeit slowly and with an occasional stumble. Her sister, Miss Elizabeth, held her other arm, though she limped noticeably on her left side.
No servants assisted. Most likely, this was at Miss Elizabeth’s orders to save them from Miss Bingley’s wrath; or the sisters had simply sent a note to Longbourn the previous evening and sneaked out with nobody the wiser.
Miss Bennet spoke to Miss Elizabeth, apparently giving directions.
The step up seemed too much for the elder sister, but in a trice, Miss Elizabeth put a foot on the step and a hand on each side of the door, then climbed in unassisted, still favouring her injured leg and nearly falling when it collapsed as she put too much weight on it.
Once inside, she turned and the coachman simply picked up Miss Bennet and set her carefully inside with a look of longstanding respect and affection. Miss Elizabeth helped her sister to a seat, sat beside her, and spoke to the coachman, who nodded and climbed aboard.
As Darcy watched helplessly, Miss Elizabeth pulled a rug off the far seat, settled it around herself and her sister, and wrapped her arms around the elder Miss Bennet protectively. The coach left, presumably to Longbourn.
~~~
