“I do not wish to speak of this here.” Hartley gestured to the footmen waiting attentively to instantly serve any of the twenty or so gentlemen conversing in the large darkly paneled room. “Will you gentlemen attend me at my townhouse this evening?”
“Of course but let us go quickly,” Bingley said. “Poor Jane! I told her that I would likely be home early. But this is a matter on which my curiosity is such that I cannot leave until I hear it. But please, do not tortureMrs. Bingleyfor too long.”
“Young marriage,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “But are you sure that your presence is not more of a torment than your absence?”
“Very,” was the simple satisfied reply from Mr. Bingley. He called to a servant to ask for paper so he could scribble a note to his wife, and as he waited for the man to return, Bingley said, “Can you believe that Darcy tried to convince me not to marry Jane?”
“No!” said Hartley. “Our Darcy interfering in a matter of the heart? What was his objection?”
“Chiefly that he found her difficult to understand. Mrs. Bingley smiles too much, you see.”
This brought laughs to the whole group.
The writing implements were delivered, and Bingley scribbled a note which Darcy hoped, though he doubted, would explain to Mrs. Bingley the delay in that gentleman’s return.
As it was handed to the footman, Bingley said to Lord Hartley, “I’ll charge you to dine with us within the week. After you have occupied an evening of mine, it is only fair that I occupy an evening of yours. Darcy and Fitzwilliam, you both must come as well.”
“I must return to Kent tomorrow. There are a great many estate matters I should attend to. This is part of why I accepted my father’s summons. His recent attack of apoplexy has reduced his abilities, and he is right that I ought to know the peculiarities of the estate and be familiar with its present circumstances.” Hartley paused. And then he added with a wry expression, “Though when he should die, I will of course not have the ‘stomach’ required to do honor to the title, no matter how I apply myself. He still brings me to cry with little effort.”
The group of them set off. It was less than half a mile to Hartley’s townhouse, so they went by foot.
“Let me see if I understand correctly,” Hartley asked as they ambled along in the reddish London dusk, “You tried to prevent Bingley from marrying an acknowledged beauty of the highest degree, because she likes to smile. Darcy, I knew you to be a contrary man, but this astonishes me beyond all.”
“You make it to sound absurd,” Darcy replied. “And I do repent the advice. Bingley, I will say it again, it was to your benefit when you ignored me.”
“Yes, butwhatexactly did you say? I wish to gossip as much as if I were an elderly lady,” Hartley said.
“Allow me to tell the tale.” Bingley smiled, and he spoke loud enough that all of them could easily hear over the sound of carriages rattling past them on the fashionable cobblestoned London streets. “Mr. Darcy’s chief arguments, besides what has already been mentioned, that Jane always is smiling, were that Mrs. Bennet is a particularly awful specimen of that mercenary species ‘the mothers of daughters of a marriageable age’, and that Mrs. Bennet was particularly likely to pressure her daughter to agree to marry me against her inclinations, and also that he did not like Mrs. Bennet.”
“Good God,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Darcy. “The woman was not to beyourmother-in-law.”
Laughing Bingley said, “In Darcy’s defense, he had a more serious cause of his dislike for Mrs. Bennet. From the time he met her, he always had a friendly and protective sentiment towards Mr. Bennet’s ward, Miss Elizabeth, and he thought that she was ill treated by Mrs. Bennet—I assure you, I have spoken further to Lizzy. She really is all gratitude towards Mrs. Bennet.”
This brought a grimace to Darcy’s face. “She shall say that. But it does not mean that her treatment is how it ought to be.”
They reached Hartley’s familiar townhouse. Hartley hurried up the step and opened the door, and he said to the butler as soon as that gentleman appeared, “Bring out that excellent port you got for me in January.”
“I really think you misunderstand Lizzy,” Mr. Bingley said to Darcy as they handed their light coats to the servants attending on them. “She is a happy creature.”
Darcy felt jealous at Bingley’s familiar use of her name. He had not thought that often of her, but whenever he had thought of her, it had been with a sharp sort of longing and painful remembrance of her beauty.
“I know that Miss Elizabeth is a naturally happy creature. That does not excuse Mrs. Bennet’s treatment of her. And I have no reason to believe thatthishas been improved by your marriage to Mrs. Bingley or by Mrs. Collins’s marriage.”
“Arguing over a woman?” Colonel Fitzwilliam exclaimed. “I can very well imagine our Mr. Darcy thinking that he knows better than everyone in an affair of the heart, but I never imagined this.”
Bingley and Hartley laughed, but Darcy did not join them. He had some tenderness around the point.
When they settled in the drawing room, glasses of port poured from the decanter, Bingley asked, “Now tell us your story.”
“No, no, not yet. Who is this Lizzy?”
“Just Mr. Bennet’s ward.” Bingley waved a dismissive hand. “She is a short thing, penniless, and not particularly pretty. No one but Mr. Darcy would notice her. But she is quite clever. Always laughing at everything. But do not thinktoomuch about it. Darcy chiefly interested himself in her affairs because he thought she was mistreated—which she is not.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “A man seeking to save a not too pretty damsel in distress. Not even I expect to hear wedding bells.”
“She is extremely pretty,” Darcy exclaimed in annoyance. “Quite as beautiful as your own Mrs. Bingley. It is merely that she takes great care to look as poorly as she can, so that she will avoid Mrs. Bennet’s displeasure, and that prevents everyone from seeing that.”
“Oh.” Lord Hartley’s eyes and mouth went wide. “Thisputs the matter in a different light.”
