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Chapter Nine
Mr and Mrs Bingley stayed the week. I enjoyed the visit, but it was apparent that husband and wife had a great distance between them. I could not tell, truthfully, whether Mr Bingley made any effort to breach it, but then, men were often less sentimental. Georgiana never mentioned their troubles, beyond her brief remark that first evening. Still, I heard her sometimes making bitter little asides to him that were probably meant to be cutting, but which seemed to float right over his head, all unnoticed. I saw his attempts to converse with her, as if she were not angry or upset, as if those feelings could be safely discounted until they disappeared.
I thought then, how grateful I was that Jane had never had the opportunity to marry him. Gentle, kindly Jane would have little understanding of how to stand up for herself to a man like Bingley. He was amiable, truly, but he was not sensitive. What he could not understand, or did not want to understand, he would ignore, for as long as he was allowed to ignore it. She was much better off with Mr Tilney, who paid special attention to her feelings and was devoted to her happiness.
The morning before their departure, I met Mr Bingley in the breakfast parlour. He said that my husband had already gone off with Mr Williams. I took my bread to the fireplace to toast it.
“I say, you should let the boy do that,” Mr Bingley said, waving at the footman, Bertie, standing ready to assist.
I smiled politely at Bertie. “He knows I prefer my own way,” I said. I hated anyone else to do it, for I was particular—disliking if it was too charred or too light. My mother had understood the trick of it, being something of a toasting expert. Although she was seldom affectionate—at least to me—if a servant put toast before me that was not exactly right, she would snatch it away and deliver me a perfect piece, simply because she knew my preferences, and she wanted me to have it as I wished. It took me some years to realise it, to look upon that perfect toast as another child might remember sweet maternal words and embraces.
“Will Georgiana be down soon?” I asked him, more to make conversation than to obtain a report of her whereabouts. Since their visit began, she had never risen early.
He only shrugged, his attention more on the parlour window where a dreary sky showed through. At least it was not raining.
Suddenly he said, “I do remember those days at Netherfield, and with…with your family. I have been remembering them a great deal, since we received the letter from Darcy announcing he’d wed you. I-I had put them out of my mind because—well, to be honest, it was painful to recollect those good days, the good times we all had together. It nearly broke my heart to leave, it truly did.”
I hardly knew what to say to this. I think I murmured an apology or something equally nonsensical.
He peered at me intently. “I still wonder…that is, the wondering has been…gnawing at me these weeks, since his announcement. I have tried and tried not to ask it, but my curiosity will not be repressed. Did I make a mistake? Ought I…to have stayed?”
I do not believe I have ever been more astonished. What did the answer matter now? What use was there in dwelling upon what could never be undone? The very act of asking it meant an acknowledgement that he had, indeed, known he had raised Jane’s hopes.
I smiled in my kindliest manner. “It was the best possible decision you could have made,” I said, with utmost sincerity. “It all worked out perfectly, did it not?”
His eyes widened with something like surprise. It was, perhaps, not at all the answer he had expected. Could he have been replaying those past events in his mind as some sort of youthful, dramatic catastrophe? It had seemed as such to me and Jane back then, of course, when we were youthful. But he had been in control of those events, not us, and to recast them as some sort of Shakespearean tragedy now, when he had every opportunity for happiness in his current situation, was simply ridiculous.
“I…I suppose so,” he mumbled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glimmer of movement, a black shadow turning away from the breakfast room.
Mrs de Bourgh had been lurking, eavesdropping on our talk. But why she would wish to, I could not say.
* * *
Mr Darcy and I stood together on the portico as the Bingley carriage set off. I wanted to tell him about that odd breakfast conversation, but it seemed hurtful towards his sister, that her husband should even wonder whether another woman had once loved him. Besides, he seemed distant, perhaps even unhappy.
“Your sister is a perfect combination of sense and good humour,” I said. “I enjoyed her visit very much. I hope they will come often.”
He looked at me then, as if he had, briefly, forgotten I stood near him. “You were good to her. Thank you.”
“She is the easiest person in the world to be good to,” I said.
He glanced at the sky, as if judging the weather. “Would you like to go for a drive?”
I was surprised by the offer. “I thought you and Mr Williams had maps to review?” He had spent a good deal of time this week thus occupied, telling Bingley they were yet incomplete.
He shrugged. “It will wait. The roads will be wet, but Mr Frost is the best driver in the country. Or so he informs me.”
I laughed. “In that case, I would love to go for a drive. Let me change, and I will be right down.” He nodded, and I hurried up to our rooms. But I paused on the stair, looking behind me. Mr Darcy had not followed me back inside—Robert still held the door; instead, he remained on the portico, staring, long after the Bingley carriage rounded the bend and disappeared.
My wardrobe was, sadly, still not to my liking, but of course I had not yet had the time to improve it. When he offered a drive, I assumed we would go to Hopewell, the nearest town of any size, from which I might select such improvements—or at least, note where they might be obtained. To my surprise, however, we trotted right on through it.
I did not mind, particularly. While it was chilly and grey, it was not storming, the roads wet but decently surfaced. Mr Darcy’s carriage was well sprung and equipped with blankets and foot warmers; it reminded me of our honeymoon, driving together towards no destination in particular, simply viewing the sights and enjoying our companionship. I curled in closer to my husband, and he put his arm around me.
“Is it too cold for you?”
“No,” I said. “Is my hat poking you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Take it off.”
