He enjoyed visiting the new pictures displayed each season. When Bingley agreed to join him in viewing this year’s exhibition, there was no way to refuse his sisters after Bingley said how much they were also wanting to see it.
“Mr Darcy,” Miss Bingley said, coming to his side yet again. The platform was thousands of square feet, but she insisted on pressing as close to him as socially permissible. “What did you say that tower was?” she asked, pointing into the distance.
He held out the sheet that labelled every sight in the scene. “You are welcome to take this for yourself.”
“Oh, I could never. I know how much you look forward to viewing the panorama.”
Darcy held back the question that if she knew that, then why would she talk to him so much that he could not look one moment at the scene without her interrupting him?
“Did the others see enough? Would you be good enough to ask Bingley if he is ready to leave?”
Miss Bingley agreed to do his bidding, and he enjoyed one minute of quietly appreciating the scene before Bingley, Hurst, and the ladies joined him. As they went down the stairs, he decided to come back another time on his own.
As they waited for their carriage to return, a hackney stopped between Leicester Place and Cranbourn Street at Mr Barker’s panorama. A fashionable-looking man descended and handed down a woman about his age. Darcy started when he saw the next lady, and not believing what he saw, he turned away.
Was he now going to imagine seeing Elizabeth Bennet all over town? It was bad enough he thought of her nearly every waking moment. He hoped there was a letter from the woman from the matchmaking office waiting for him when he returnedhome. If he was envisioning every brunette of average height to be Elizabeth, he needed a distraction more desperately than he realised.
“Miss Bennet!” Bingley cried, and a second later he added, “And Miss Elizabeth.”
Darcy’s stomach now resided somewhere near his throat. He tried not to look at her in case his gaze involuntarily betrayed every feeling in his heart. He wanted to look at her, wanted to talk with her, wanted to know how deep were her affections for him. But she was just as unsuitable in February as she had been in November. Had he not gone to the trouble of corresponding with a stranger, hoping to forget her? And now here she was in front of him.
He felt overwhelmed by all sorts of distressful feelings.
Before he could so much as pass an eye over Elizabeth, he caught Miss Bingley’s pale face and saw her lips were pressed into a thin line. Secrets had a way of not staying buried, and a falsehood was about to be unearthed right now. While he could not say he regretted separating Bingley and Miss Bennet, he now deeply regretted every lie and omission attending to it.
Introductions were dispatched, and Darcy could admit to a little surprise that these well-mannered people were the aunt and uncle in trade. He greeted everyone and was certain not to show Elizabeth any more notice than the others of her party. Elizabeth seemed reserved, only saying “How do you do” without looking at him.
During the bows and curtseys, Bingley had inched nearer to Miss Bennet. “You must have just arrived in town,” he said cheerfully. “Otherwise, my sisters would have mentioned seeing you.”
Darcy felt so ill at ease it was painful. Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst avoided looking at anyone but each other. It was plain to him that Miss Bennet was not comfortable. She stood silent,with a pained expression and pink cheeks. No matter what her feelings for Bingley were, she had just learnt her friend had lied. And Elizabeth was giving him a bitter look as though she somehow, impossibly, suspected his involvement.
The silence stretched, with Bingley looking at Miss Bennet for an answer she was not about to give. She may have no love for Bingley, but Darcy respected that Miss Bennet refused to abandon Miss Bingley and tell her brother what his sister had done.
After staring at Miss Bennet for a long moment, Elizabeth said to Bingley brightly, “Did you not know we were in town? We have been here since just after Christmas.” Bingley’s jaw fell open. She then looked at Darcy with the same glint in her eyes. “Did you also not know that we were in London, Mr Darcy?”
Elizabeth put him in an awful position. No, he had put himself in this position by keeping the truth from Bingley. He still did not think Jane Bennet loved his friend, but he could not continue the deception. “I remember Miss Bingley saying she had the pleasure of seeing Miss Bennet in Grosvenor Street in January.”
Elizabeth held his gaze, and it seemed like she was determined to make him feel his guilt. “So you must have known at least Jane was here,” she finally said to Bingley, “since she called on Miss Bingley a month ago.”
“Is this true?” Bingley asked his sister. “Why did you never mention it?”
Miss Bingley, who had been looking at her sleeve’s cuff, looked up and said, “Oh, did I not? I must have. If you are too busy with your other friends, like Mr Darcy and his sister, to remember the comings and goings of my acquaintances, I do not blame you.”
Miss Bennet looked anywhere but at Miss Bingley. Darcy could see that she knew her former friend had deceived her, andthis entire conversation was an injury to her. Mrs Gardiner put an arm through hers, and Mr Gardiner looked disapprovingly over all of them.
“No one ever mentioned to me you were in town, Miss Bennet.” Bingley looked delighted. “How long do you intend to stay?”
Bingley and Miss Bennet spoke, he with great animation and she with a less engaging countenance than she typically wore. Miss Bingley was silent and red—from mortification or anger, Darcy could not tell—and the Gardiners were trying in vain to say some pleasant nothings to Mrs Hurst.
He and Elizabeth looked at one another, and he felt in danger of their sinking into total silence. He was torn between wanting to ask if he could call on her and not wanting to open his mouth until it was time to take his leave.
“How suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr Darcy.”
He heard the suspicion in her voice. He bowed and said, “It was a rather hasty departure.”
She looked at him, but he added nothing else. She then purposefully looked at Bingley and Miss Bennet. “Were you expecting Mr Bingley now to be less sensible of Jane’s merits than when he first took leave of her in November?”
Darcy wondered when would the carriages arrive. Elizabeth was too clever by half. “I could not speak of my friend’s thoughts and feelings any more than you could speak of your sister’s.”
