Page 42 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

"Yes, Lizzy."

Kitty departed and the drawing room went quiet once more. Jane refilled the teacups but no one drank from them. The logs in the fireplace spattered as they were mowed into ashes. The process seemed like a sign or symbol of something more significant, yet unknown.

Kitty's footsteps returned, quicker on the descent than on the ascent, and with a different intensity to their rhythm.

The door opened.

"She is not there," Kitty said, eyes wide in near disbelief. "Her room is empty."

Chapter Nineteen

Darcy

Having visited the townhouse the Bennets occupied and divulged what he knew to Elizabeth, Darcy had intended to take his carriage directly home. But Bingley had come out of the house behind him, and when Darcy's carriage drew up Bingley had got in without being invited, and said: "I can tell something’s wrong. Tell me what happened."

So Darcy told him. He kept it in order and without elaboration, because the facts were adequate without embellishment. He told his friend about his visit to Madame Voclaire’s and Mrs Bingley’s confessions.

He explained Mrs Bingley’s plan to sabotage Mary Bennet by spreading the news of her origin, her goal of securing Mr Thwaite for Miss Bingley, and what she had asked Darcy to do with the information.

He divulged what he had said in response, how he had then gone directly to the Bennets afterwards, and what had occurred there.

Bingley listened throughout without saying a word. This was, in itself, sufficiently unusual to be notable; Bingley's usual response to narrative was participation through interjection or question, and its complete absence signalled a change. Darcy watched him peripherally and said nothing further when the account was finished. He gave it time.

When Bingley finally spoke, his voice had a timbre that was utterly unlike him. It was not loud, the volume one might expect from a man in the grip of anger.

"She cultivated a friendship with Mrs Bennet from the beginning. Deliberately."

"Yes. From what I can establish."

"And Caroline knew."

"She was aware of the scheme. I believe she was an active participant in the schemes directed at garnering Mr Thwaite’s attention."

Bingley’s jaw was clenched. "Take me home."

Darcy gave the instruction without argument. He could see, in the set of Bingley's face that this was not a request that would benefit from discussion. He had seen Bingley in many conditions over the course of their friendship: enthusiastic, charmed, briefly despondent, rapidly recovered, occasionally embarrassed, frequently delighted. He had never seen this. This was new.

They heard the voices as they approached the drawing room. Mrs Bingley, in the self-satisfied register she employed when reviewing a plan she considered well-advanced. Caroline's tone was lower and more deliberate, adding detail. There was laughter, not the performed variety, but the private kind, the sound of two people who believed themselves unobserved and were at ease with what they were discussing.

"She'll find the Telemann scores impossible to refuse," Caroline was saying. "And once she accepts the gift, Mr Thwaite's mother will surely take to me, which I believe will be pivotal to the relationship—"

Bingley appeared in the doorway and the laughter ceased. Mrs Bingley recovered first, with the speed of a woman long practised in social adjustment. "Charles. We were not expecting you back so early."

"No," Bingley said. "I imagine you were not."

He entered the room without haste. Darcy took position near the door, visible, a constraint on what could be denied, but not intruding on what was Bingley's to conduct. Caroline had risen from the sofa. Her face had arranged itself into purposeful neutrality.

"I want to know," Bingley said, "whether what Darcy has told me is true. That you cultivated a friendship with Mrs Bennet deliberately in order to extract information about the Bennets. That you went to Portman Square not as a friend but as a woman gathering intelligence."

Mrs Bingley appeared to have run the calculations and concluded that partial honesty was more serviceable than total denial. "I sought to understand the household you were becoming attached to. You are my son and heir, Charles. A mother has not just the right but the responsibility to act in that capacity."

"Did you or did you not cultivate Mrs Bennet's confidence for the purpose of finding something that could be used against the family? Yes or no. It is a rather straightforward question."

There was a brief pause. "I sought information. Yes."

"And what you found was an important secret from a woman who trusted you, about a lady who had done nothing to deserve the nefarious plans you intended for her. Then you encountered Darcy earlier and urged him to help you spread the secret."

"I went to Darcy because he is a man of sense and he could be counted upon to understand multiple concepts."