Page 5

The weight of it had ridden on him since Kent, and speaking it aloud did not make it lighter. Bingley would marry Jane Bennet on Saturday. After that came the years. Christmases, christenings, the family gathered at Netherfield until they were grey. And at every one of them, Elizabeth. She would be in the next chair, or at the far end of the table, come in from her walk with a wet hem and her opinion of him exactly what it was now. She would be civil. She would be faultlessly, unrelentingly civil, and he would sit and receive it, year after year, and give it the name of friendship.

But there would be strain. Would that strain extend to Bingley in the end and ruin the friendship that had withstood Darcy’s interference?

Would the unease between himself and Miss Elizabeth Bennet cost him his friendship after all? He could not know, and that was a state of affairs he abhorred more than most others.

How he wished he could undo all of it. It would be easier if he had never laid eyes on Elizabeth Bennet at all, never lost his foolish heart. He should have talked Bingley out of Netherfield from the start.

He had called her tolerable once, that first night, and been perfectly content with the estimate. It was the last accurate judgment he had ever made of her.

***

That afternoon, Mrs Bennet and all her daughters descended upon Netherfield, as they had done more than once. He had made sure to spend the time in the garden, not wishing to run into them.

They stayed for two hours, borrowing items from the house for the wedding breakfast, while going over the details with Caroline Bingley and Charles.

When they left, Miss Bingley found him in the garden later that afternoon, and fell into step beside him without being asked.

“I am worn to nothing,” she announced. “I have been agreeable since noon, Mr Darcy, and I do not expect to recover before the start of next season.”

“The effort did not show.”

“You are too kind.” The remark passed her by entirely. “But you must allow it a trial. The mother speaks of nothing but lace and settlements, and always in one breath. The youngest laughs at her own jokes before she has done making them. Miss Mary offered to favour us with a song, and I was obliged to suffer through it.”

“They are to be your relations.”

“They are to be Charles’s relations.” She lifted her skirt clear of a root. “And then there is Eliza. The worst of the set, whatever the world may choose to say of her fine eyes. Such airs. She sits apart and passes judgment on the company as though the office had been granted her by royal appointment. Every remark must be turned over and polished before she will consent to part with it. She fancies herself wittier than anyone in the room.”

She is wittier than anyone in the room. The words assembled themselves but he did not utter them.

“You would do better not to abuse your brother’s future family,” he said instead. “The day is set and the banns are read. Nothing you say can answer now. You had far better resolve to receive Miss Bennet kindly. She has done nothing to deserve otherwise, and your brother will remember all his life how she was used at the outset.”

“Oh, Jane.” The name was waved away with a flick of her wrist. “I have no quarrel with Jane. Jane is all sweetness and no substance, and I might sit beside her a twelvemonth and take no harm by it. It is the rest of them. The mother, the sisters, the whole of dreary little Meryton, dining at my brother’s table until we are old.” She examined a sprig of laurel as though its health were her chief concern in the world. “But the wedding is not until Saturday, Mr Darcy, and Saturday is three days off. A great deal may happen in three days. Engagements have come apart on far shorter notice, from causes no one foresaw. I do not mean to sit with my hands folded while my brother throws himself away.”

He did not let that pass. “You will do nothing of the kind, Miss Bingley.” He stopped on the gravel and made her stop with him. “Charles has chosen, and any hand raised against it now would fall on him as much as on her.”

“There,” Caroline said, unruffled, almost pleased. “That is the Mr Darcy I know. I had begun to think Hertfordshire had softened you.”

“I mean it.”

“I am sure you do.” She smiled and said no more, and he knew he had not moved her an inch.

He ought to have pressed her harder. He did not.

For beneath the anger was something he could not honestly deny, however it shamed him to own it. If some mischance were to carry the engagement off before Saturday, it would be a relief to him. There would be no wedding. No endless civil years at the far end of another man's table. No Elizabeth Bennet across a dozen Christmases, come in from her walk with a wet hem, looking at him as though she had taken his measure long ago and found it wanting. He would not have to see her at all.

So he said what he ought, and not one word more than he ought, and told himself it was enough.

Chapter Three

Elizabeth

“That is the third time you have unpicked it, Lizzy.”

Elizabeth looked down at her lap. She had pulled the needle through so many times that the bow had come apart entirely. The white satin lay across her skirt in a sorry tangle.

“So it is,” she said. “I seem to have no talent for bows this afternoon.”

“You have every talent for bows.” Jane took the ribbon from her and began to set it right. “You have had no talent for anything since the gentlemen called.”