Incredulous, Elizabeth withdrew the note Darcy had sent her from the very first stop on his journey to London. It read only?—
Elizabeth,
I adore you,
Fitzwilliam
—but it meant more to her than a thousand words. “This? Aye, it made me cry—because Imisshim!”
Her objection observably gave Bingley pause, but it did not deter him for long. “No. Iknowyou have been distressed by his aloofness. I have seen him brush off the touch of your hand. I have heard him forbid you from speaking. I have seen you feign a headache to escape his company.”
She shook her head, which only encouraged him to oppose her more vehemently.
“What then of his pride, of his regret for marrying outside his precious sphere? Though you claim to have resolved the matter, I have not forgotten how he blamed you for all the rumours we heard at the theatre last year. Would that were the only occasion I had seen him punish you for your lesser consequence, but I have heard him lament it too many times.”
Elizabeth could offer no better response than incredulous silence.
“Truly, Mr Bingley, your persistence is verging on the deranged,” Mrs Sinclair voiced for her.
“Very well,” he said to Elizabeth, “I shall not go on listing all the ways in which he disesteems you, for you know better than I how little he respects you. You, who said to me that there is nothing more wretched than being unable to respect one’s partner in life!”
Disbelief and affront drew a wordless cry from her lips. He seemed in absolute earnest yet spoke of his oldest friend as though he were a stranger. “I was referring to my mother and father when I said that, not myself!”
“Need I remind you,” said Mrs Sinclair, “that Mrs Darcy is withchild? I must insist you stop this before she becomes any more distressed.”
“Her condition has not prevented Darcy from quarrelling with her nigh-on constantly! I have never heard you object tohisconduct!”
“I am old, not senile. What is your excuse?”
“Tabitha has no need to object to Darcy’s conduct, for there is naught objectionable in it!” Elizabeth cried. “I shall not pretend that we never disagree, but it is seldom and never without swift resolution. You have mistaken teasing and debate for discord. You have wilfully misunderstood everything you have seen to justify your treacherous feelings.”
“But it was you who said when I arrived at Pemberley that we could comfort each other now that I was come.”
“I meant we might comfort each other for having been ill-used by Jane, not Darcy! I love my husband in a way you are unlikely ever to comprehend. But I am under no obligation to justify my happiness to you. Rather, it is you who must justify your betrayal. How could you? He has been the very best of friends to you. He has lent you his counsel, his time, his companionship, his houses, even his reputation, from which you and your sisters have squeezed all conceivable profit. He trusted you. How could you contemplate stealing his wife and child?”
A flush of something that ought to have been shame, but which she thought was more likely petulance, reddened his countenance. “I did not plot and scheme to steal his wife and child. The notion was but an impulse of the moment. Indeed, my design was to leave. I have passage booked on a ship sailing on the fifteenth of this month.”
Despite her experience of having her impressions of people completely overturned in the course of one conversation, this volte-face was proving particularly difficult to countenance. She had always considered Bingley such a kind and amiable man. The discovery of such profound selfishness was excessively painful.
“You were simply going to leave without telling anybody? What about Jane? Do you feel no scruple in abandoning her?”
“She will not care! She has loathed every moment of being married to me. I wonder that she went to so much trouble to bring it about.” He shook his head and almost sneered. “How she will repent if ever she discovers you would not have had me anyway.”
“What?”
“She only threw herself at me to prevent me from offering for you.”
Elizabeth’s babe kicked and writhed, mayhap stirred by the rushing of blood in her veins, loud to her own ears and doubtless thunderous to his. “You did not mention that when you arrived here, spinning us your tales of woe,” she said coldly.
He paled but said nothing, though Elizabeth supposed there was little he could say in defence of such duplicity.
“She has knownallthis time that you loved me?”
“Er…well…it would seem so, yes.”
“Oh, Jane!” she whispered, sick to her heart.
Bingley squirmed and looked miserable and offered no excuse.
