I would go back to London on the morrow.
Thus decided, I quit the ball entirely and went to bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
Once I was back in London, I decided to put Mr. Bingley entirely from my mind and not to spend any more of my time in his company.
His secret I would keep as I had made a promise that I would do so, and since I did not wish him harm, nor wish harm to those associated with him. But I did not wish to be associated with him. I wanted to put the whole of the time in the country that autumn behind me, and to never think on it again.
In this, I was almost entirely successful.
There was only one point in which I failed.
I kept thinking about Miss Elizabeth Bennet. It had to be only because she was pretty, I supposed, because I did not know her well. I hadn’t much occasion to converse with her. I knew that she seemed loyal to her brother and that she was determined not to get married and that she went and read books to an old lady.
It wasn’t an entire picture of a person.
Perhaps that was why I still thought of her. I had no notion of who she was. Perhaps if I had gotten to know her, I wouldn’t have been plagued with such thoughts of her, but I was.
They came unbidden at all manner of times. I would be having tea with my aunt the Countess of Matlock and think,Iwonder how Elizabeth Bennet would fit into this room?I would be at a ball in town and think a thought much the same.
But the absolute most dreadful of these thoughts were the ones that came to me at night, when I was alone in my bed.
For, of course, Miss Bennet would not fit into the room at all there, and I was not in a position to know anything about her in that manner. She was not the sort of woman I could marry, and I must put aside all of those sorts of thoughts.
It is an odd thing about unwanted thoughts, however. It seems that the more one scolds oneself and bids such thoughts not to come, the less that they listen.
I spent too much time engaged in trying to understand the pattern: why was I having thoughts about Elizabeth Bennet and what had caused it to happen? If I could determine this, perhaps I could put an end to the whole business.
In this, I had very little luck, however.
I thought that perhaps the business with Bingley, finding out all about his secret, had put me quite out of sorts, and this was why I had latched onto her. Perhaps I had felt a deep and burning desire to prove to myself that I was, in fact, attracted to women, and so I had become utterly attracted to her.
But this didn’t make any sense, for there had never been any worrying on my own part that I would be attracted to Bingley. I could be quite assured that I did not function in that way.
I briefly considered the idea that perhaps I was really just that attracted to Elizabeth Bennet, but I discarded it. I could not be. What was there about her to attract me?
I wondered if it was because I had insulted her. Perhaps I was trying desperately to make up for that, and this was the result?
But the more that I pondered this, the more the unbidden thoughts came. I thought of her now nearly constantly. It was driving me mad.
Several months had passed away by now, and I had spent them in London in the company of friends and family. My sister Georgiana was doing much better after the incident with Mr. Wickham in the summer, and she seemed ready for her debut into society, but she had indicated she would rather it be pushed back a year, and I had not objected.
She and I saw each other often, and I was certain that very little lasting damage had been wrought upon her by Mr. Wickham, since I had caught the entire business in time.
Finally, restless, I accepted an invitation to see my aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the country in Kent in late March. I would only go if my cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam accompanied me, though, for my aunt could be quite a lot to handle.
My aunt believed that I was going to marry her daughter, my cousin Anne, but there were no binding obligations to this effect, no betrothals written up, and I had determined quite some time ago that I had no interest in it.
I had spoken to Anne about it, and she had been in agreement, saying that she had no interest in me in that way, and that there was…
Well, it was peculiar, wasn’t it?
When I had spoken to Anne, she had said that she would be an heiress in her own right and she would be the owner of Rosings and that she did not see why she needed to get married at all.
It was odd, because it was almost exactly what Elizabeth Bennet had said.
But since I’d had a great deal of time to think that all through, I knew it did not make sense, because if there was no one to pass the inheritance down to, then it died with you.
