One brief nod—still too much movement.
“Why can he not build something himself?”
“He has no money.”
“Ah, and you have no land. I begin to comprehend why you are tempted.”
Bingley tried, in his best approximation of sobriety, to explain that he was not at all tempted. “In any case,” he concluded, “it is too blasted far away.”
“’Tis about to be in the middle of a blasted war,” said his brother, Hurst, wafting his drink about in a drunken gesture of distance.
“I’ll wager they’ll not see a bit of fighting that far north,” said another of the dinner guests from the far end of the table.
“That is a gamble I should not like to make,” Tindale countered. “But then, we all know how you prefer your odds, Wrenshaw.”
“The material question,” their host, Verney, asserted, “is what potential has the land? I could endure a good deal of unrest if my house were built on a lode of gold.”
“He does not need to leave the country to invest in the land,” somebody argued. Bingley had given up attempting to fathom who said what.
“Quite right! He could stay here and invest in mine!”
“You cannot have much land left, Wrenshaw. Did you not recently sell half your estate to Mr Darcy?”
“Not quite half. Only three hundred acres.”
“Three hundred acres and still you are in deep? What the devil did you wager this time, man?”
Wrenshaw mumbled something about a horse and a duchess, whereupon Bingley gave up all attempts to follow the conversation. His legs felt heavy, and he amused himself by wriggling his toes in his shoes to see whether he still could.
“Here is a wager you can afford, Wrenshaw,” Verney shouted. “Two pounds to the man who can guess which woman has put that stupid grin on Bingley’s face.”
Bingley laughed for show, though his cheer evaporated at the mention of women.
“’Tis not Miss Rivers is it, old boy?” Tindale said with a wink.
“No,” Bingley replied, reflecting briefly upon what he had always considered to be two of Miss Rivers’ best virtues. “I have long been reconciled to never becoming better acquainted with those. Just as I am resigned to the loss of Miss Bennet.” He sighed morosely.
“Miss Bennet? Who?—”
“For all our sakes, do not ask, it will only encourage him!” Hurst lurched to his feet, splashing brandy down his waistcoat, and hauled Bingley from his chair by the elbow. “Come, you are too foxed by half to be brooding over women.”
Bingley was also, it transpired, too foxed to object, and he mumbled his thanks to Verney as Hurst bundled him towards the front door. In the time it took him to correctly align all the fingers of his hands with those of his gloves, their carriage had been summoned, and the two gentlemen were homeward bound.
“I must say,” said Hurst a short while into the journey, “notwithstanding your professed heartbreak, you seem to be rallying remarkably well.”
“I shall not forget her, Hurst. Miss Bennet is an angel.”
“So you keep saying. Indeed, I cannot altogether account for your giving her up.”
“She did not love me.”
“A man with your fortune does not require a woman to love him.”
“Darcy did not agree. He said her sincere regard could be the only inducement to such an imprudent match.”
“That only goes to show just how deuced imprudent a match he considered it!”
“But Dar?—”
