I tilted my head at him. “You are not serious.”
“Obviously, I am quite serious. She is beautiful and sweet, and I think of her constantly, and I wish she had been stuck under my roof for weeks on end. I should like her, in fact, to be always under my roof, and I—”
“You cannot marry that sort of a girl, Bingley!” I cried.
“Why can’t I marry her?” said Bingley. “I’m aware she has little fortune, but she is the daughter of a gentleman, which confers some respect upon me, and I am not in need of money.”
Yes, perhaps he was right about that. Perhaps he need not follow the same sort of strictures as I must follow. “I don’t think she fancies you,” I said. “I think she’s been thrust at you by her mother, who was very obvious about the fact she wants to marry her daughters to men of consequence, and you are nothing but a coin purse to the mother, who is manipulating the daughter to put her in your way.”
Bingley’s lips parted. He bowed his head.
“Apologies,” I said. “I would not have put it so baldly, truly, but I am a bit out of sorts.”
“That is not true,” said Bingley.
“I have observed the eldest Miss Bennet, and she does not seem to pay especial attention to you, Bingley. She danced withyou, yes, but what woman would not dance with you? You know it is considered impolite to refuse.”
“You really think she is being forced into it by her mother.”
“I quite do,” I said. “You could find yourself a woman who would not have the burden of rescuing her entire family the tyranny of an entail, who would be free to love you for yourself. You don’t need to marry this one.”
He was silent.
“Besides,” I said, “how many times have you been in love with some pretty girl or other over the past few months? This is the third girl you have considered marrying.”
“I was not nearly as serious about either Miss Smith or Miss Howard,” said Bingley, disgruntled.
“The fact remains that you will likely forget about Miss Jane Bennet as soon as you have quit Netherfield and see some other pretty face.”
“I don’t think I shall,” said Bingley. “And I don’t think you’re correct about the way she feels about me, either. I believe that her regard for me is genuine. I have spent time speaking with her, just the two of us, and you have not. You do not know, Darcy.”
“That may be,” I allowed. “At any rate, in your little scheme to have the two of us both married into this family, such as it is—”
“It is not a scheme!”
“You have failed to consider the fact,” I went on as if he had not broken in, “that Miss Elizabethhatesme.”
Bingley poured us both more brandy. “Ah, so, that is what is holding you back, then.”
“It is not holding me back. I am not even considering marrying her.”
“You have very obviously considered marrying her, in detail, down to the obscene number of portraits you would have done of her.”
“All right, that was a mean-spirited jest at Caroline’s expense. It was not meant to be indicative of—”
“Darcy,” he said, and he had suddenly gotten quite good at interrupting me. “Deny that you fancy her. Deny that you wish to make her your wife. Look into my eyes and tell me that none of that is true.”
I scoffed, but I declined to look into his eyes or to say anything at all.
“That is what I thought,” he said, taking this as triumph.
“She would not allow me to accompany her to speak to her family,” I said. “She did not wish me to be in the room when we were all speaking. What sort of man would I be if I said to her, ‘Look here, if you wish to save your family’s reputation, you will allow me into yourbed’?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s like that, her hatred.”
“It most certainly is,” I said.
“Well, I do not think she finds you physically odious, that is all.”
