Page 5 of I Have Faults Enough

Bingley said nothing that evening. But he did not sleep well, and in the morning he did a thing he had not done above twice in his life, he sought Darcy out before breakfast, in the small room Darcy used for correspondence, and asked him, without preamble, whether he believed Miss Bennet had truly been indifferent to him, or whether he had only supposed it.

Darcy was some moments in answering. He had his pen in his hand, and he set it down slowly, before looking squarely at his friend.

"I believed it," Darcy said at last. "I believe it still, upon the evidence I had. But I will not pretend the evidence was of the surest kind, or that I am the properest judge of a lady's heart."

It was, for Darcy, a remarkable admission, and had Bingley been a man of keener observation he might have wondered at the particular seriousness with which his friend delivered it, and wondered further what private account Darcy might be keeping, that he should speak thus.

But Bingley was not, and never had been, a close observer of anything but open weather and good company, and he took the words only for what they plainly offered, not a retraction, but a door left unlatched.

It was enough, and Bingley was sure that he did not require more than that.

He did not tell Caroline he was going. This was, in itself, so unlike him, as he had spent the past several years consulting his sisters' comfort in every arrangement of his life, from the hanging of curtains to the choosing of a cook, until consultation had become so settled a habit that he scarcely knew he practised it, that when he came to write the order for his horses, his hand hesitated a moment over the paper, as a man's hand will hesitate before a door he has never before opened without knocking.

However, this time, he did not put the pen down. Bingley wrote to his steward and housekeeper at Netherfield to have the house made ready, and he said nothing at all to Caroline, and when she came down the next morning to find him already in his boots and his greatcoat, with his portmanteau standing packed in the hall, her face underwent a series of alterations, surprise, and then, a very determined sweetness, that he observed with more amusement than he usually permitted himself at his sister's expense.

“Charles. Surely you cannot mean to go into Hertfordshire today. In this weather, and without the least notice? Louisa will be excessively disappointed, we had thought to have the Walters to dine on Thursday," she started.

"You must have them without me," he said, and was surprised to find how easily the words came. "I have been from Netherfield above a month, Caroline, and my tenants must think me a very careless sort of landlord. I ought to have gone back a fortnight since."

"Your tenants," said Caroline, in a voice that made plain what she thought of this excuse, and might have gone on, for she was not a woman easily routed by a single reverse, had not Darcy, coming through the front door, with his own hat in his hand, remarked, in a tone of perfect and infuriating mildness, that he believed he would go into Hertfordshire himself, as he had promised to look over some drainage on the Netherfield home farm before the winter set in properly, and had rather see to it now than leave it till spring.

It was not true, and Bingley, who had known Darcy twelve years, and had never once heard him invent a reason for anything, looked at his friend with an astonishment, as though drainage were a subject upon which a man might reasonably be expected to feel sudden and pressing anxiety in the third week of a London December.

Caroline, faced with the defection of both gentlemen at once, had no resource left but to declare that she and Louisa would follow within the week, as soon as Netherfield could be made ready to receive them. By this, she meant, though she did not trouble herself to say so, that she intended to arrive in sufficient time to superintend whatever might require superintendence, and, more particularly, to ensure that nothing occurred which might escape her notice.

She was, however, somewhat relieved by Mr. Darcy’s departure, because she trusted his judgement where Mr. Bingley was concerned. If anyone could persuade her brother to steer a wiser course, Caroline thought, it was Mr. Darcy; she was not altogether easy at the prospect of Bingley being left to his own inclinations, particularly where Jane Bennet was concerned, and Mr. Darcy would do good to attend to her brother.

Caroline made another statement, and eventually left the corridor in which they had been standing, vexed beyond belief. However, Bingley scarcely attended to what Caroline said.

He was already, in his mind, some twenty miles down the London road, and did not fully return to the hall in which he stood until Darcy, settling his hat, asked him, in the same mild tone, though something in it now made Bingley glance at him twice, whether he meant to travel post, or would take his own carriage.

Finally, Bingley remarked that he would take his carriage, and Darcy nodded in agreement, informing Bingley that he would follow Bingley the following day.

"By all means," said Bingley, and found himself, for the first time in a month, entirely and simply happy, so happy that he did not think to ask why a man so recently reluctant to have him go to Hertfordshire at all should now be in such haste to arrive there with him.

CHAPTER 4

Bingley came alone to his estate in the country. There was something almost furtive about it, he thought, as the last miles of the London road gave way to the more familiar lanes of Hertfordshire, that he had spent the whole of those six-and-twenty years being extremely agreeable to a great many people who had opinions about his happiness, and remarkably little time to help him pursue it.

The sensation of doing a thing entirely upon his own judgment, of arriving somewhat expected, announced to no one but his steward and housekeeper, accountable to no sister's raised eyebrow; it was so novel to him that he found himself in high spirits before he had so much as glimpsed the chimneys of the house.

Netherfield, when he came to it, wore the look of a house left a month under dust-sheets and hastily uncovered. The housekeeper had had perhaps two days' notice of his coming, and met him in the hall, although she did not seem too pleased at the little time offered to restore the house, she had done her job well.

The fires had been lit in the rooms he was like to use, and the stables were in good order, and he found, upon the whole, that he cared a good deal less about any of it than he would have supposed a month before. That night, Bingley ate a very indifferent dinner, alone, at an hour too early to be fashionable, and went to bed with the settled intention of riding to Longbourn the following morning.

And yet, sleep that night did not come easy for him. He lay lying awake some while in a room that to him smelled faintly of the dust-sheets. His thoughts were of Miss Jane Bennet, and what she and her family might think of his unexpected arrival. And then, before he had fallen asleep, Bingley came to a decision to abandon all his planning entirely, because he found he did not care in the least what might be thought, and only wished it were already morning.

Finally, the next morning arrived, and Bingley rode to Longbourn before noon.

He had rehearsed, in a vague way, what he might say upon being admitted, some civil generality about business that had detained him in town, about being glad to find himself again in so pleasant a neighbourhood, but the whole of this small store of preparation deserted him the moment he was shown into the room and found Miss Bennet there, seated near the window with some needlework fallen still in her lap, and colouring, unmistakably, helplessly colouring, in a manner that no absence and no quantity of his sister's careful persuading could conceal.

Bingley did not remember, afterward, above half of what was said in that first quarter hour. Mrs. Bennet talked a great deal of the shocking dullness of the neighbourhood in his absence, and of how they had none of them expected the pleasure of seeing him again so soon, said in a tone that made plain she had expected precisely this and had been saying so, to anyone who would listen, for the better part of a month.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet, coming into the room some minutes after him, greeted him with civility, but he later found her engaged in a sort of watchfulness. He precipitously felt that she was reserving judgment upon him until he should proved himself.

Unfortunately, he had not attention enough to spare Miss Elizabeth more than a passing notice, so entirely was he given over to the business of staring at Jane Bennet, who seemed to not quite look at him at first, even though her colour remained high.

Bingley called again the next day, though he had expected Darcy at any time, he could not help but go to Longbourn, as soon as calling hours arrived.