“No, but there is every reason to hope she might improve. I did, once I was made aware of my faults.”
“You mistake me, Darcy. I have no wish to redeem the situation. Even were she to revert to the sweet girl you thought smiled too much, she would not be the woman I want.” He lifted his empty glass in query. “May I?”
Darcy acceded with a nod.
“Besides,” Bingley added whilst he poured himself another drink, “people do not alter as much as all that. You are no less proud than you were. Lizzy has merely learnt to tolerate it better.”
His conversational tone belied any hostility. Nevertheless, Darcy was wounded, appalled at the merest possibility of its being true. Suchwas his agitation that he missed what Bingley said next and was obliged to ask him to repeat himself.
“I said I plan to settle in Nova Scotia.”
Darcy stared at him, endeavouring to judge whether he was in earnest.
“You will advise against it, I know,” Bingley added, returning to the table. “But I have learnt the perils of yielding too easily to persuasion.”
“I am glad to hear it. It is a shame you have not yet learnt to yield to good sense.”
Bingley flinched. “You mean to lecture me on how the country is at war, I suppose?”
“No, I should think that far north you would be as far from their army as we are from Napoleon’s here. I meant only to express my sincerest doubt that going so far and giving up so much would ever improve your situation. It is a vast undertaking.” When Bingley did not respond, Darcy leant forwards with his elbows on his knees and fixed his friend with a serious look. “The imprudence of my attempting to induce you one way or the other speaks for itself, but this is not the same as hopping in your carriage and racing off to London on a whim. I beg you would not act with your usual precipitance. Give the idea some more thought.”
Bingley slammed his glass down on the table. “Ihavegiven it thought! I have done nothingbutthink on it these past two weeks whilst I have sat here watching you have everything I want and knowing I shall never have it!”
Darcy sat back, startled by his vehemence and heartily sorry for it. He was well aware of his own extraordinary good fortune and pitied his friend’s plight, for it was probable Bingley would never know equal felicity with a woman such as Jane.
“I am sorry the succour you sought here has come at such a price. Yet, you must not permit my situation to influence yours. At the risk of sounding like persuasion, I will say this—you are a very good friend, and I should be excessively sorry to see you go.”
Bingley stammered his thanks and promptly excused himself to seek out some of the air he had earlier disdained.
Darcy rubbed a hand over his face and stood up, pondering where he might find Elizabeth, that he could relay the whole of it to her—and rather uncharitably attempting to guess how much it would cost him to purchase Netherfield in the event that Bingley did not, thatMrs Bennet’s threat of coming to live at Pemberley need never come to fruition.
Saturday 20 February 1813, Derbyshire
“You must go. I absolutely insist.”
“I should feel as though I were deserting you.” The look Elizabeth gave her made Georgiana feel silly. “That is, I know you do not need?—”
“Dear Georgiana,” Elizabeth interrupted, reaching to squeeze her hand, “I did not mean to imply that I would not miss you, only that you must not feel guilty for wishing to go. Miss Castleton is your friend, and her invitation is an excessively generous one.”
“It is, is it not?” she replied, allowing herself to smile at the prospect of a week’s dancing instruction from Mr Thomas Wilson himself, alongside half a dozen of Henrietta’s school friends.
“Indeed it is! I am quite jealous, which is why you must go. Then, you may relay to me in detail all that you learn.” She fidgeted in her chair as she spoke, attempting to find a more comfortable attitude.
“Here, allow me,” Georgiana offered, leaving her own seat to help better arrange her sister’s cushions. “You poor thing! This is why I do not wish to leave you.”
“When I am grown so fat that I cannot even arrange my own cushions, I shall simply give up sitting in the orangery and take to my bed. It still would not be a reason for you not to go to Hornscroft.”
For a fleeting moment, Georgiana felt chastened—until she caught herself and laughed instead, feeling rather pleased to have grown better used to Elizabeth’s sportive manner.
“Besides,” Elizabeth continued, “I shall not be without female company. Tabitha is coming to Pemberley.”
A week at Hornscroft Hall abruptly quadrupled in appeal. “Mrs Sinclair?”
Her dismay must have been obvious, for Elizabeth laughed outright. “She is not so very objectionable, you know.”
“Mayhap not, but she is disposed to be quarrelsome. Ought you not to be avoiding such excitement?”
“On the contrary, I have great hopes the trouble she is bound to cause will provide a creditable distraction from any anxiety I might be feeling.”
