“Twenty?” I said, shaking my head. “You will not get twenty people to agree to go with you to some country ball in the middle of nowhere within the next three hours.”
“Will I not?” He gave me a mad grin.
I sighed.
“Oh, tell me I can count upon you, Darcy,” he said. “Do say you will come!”
Of course, I ended up being the only person he convinced.
Well, he convinced his brother-in-law Mr. Hurst, but that hardly should have counted, because Hurst was easy to convince to do anything if one said there might be cards to play.
I sat in the carriage with Bingley and Hurst and Bingley’s sister, Mrs. Hurst, and Bingley’s other sister, Miss Caroline Bingley, and I gazed out the window and scolded myself inwardly.
I should have known better. Bingley was always this way. He was impulsive and he was excitable and he misrepresented positively everything.
I did not have high expectations for this ball as it was, but as I looked out of the window of the carriage, I began to caution myself to lower them even more. Also, as soon as it seemed remotely polite, I needed to get myself out of this dreadful predicament and back to London.
What was the shortest visit I could possibly manage?
Perhaps four days?
Oh, no, that likely wouldn’t do. I would likely need to stay an entire fortnight. Inwardly, I groaned, but outwardly, I kept my countenance blank.
Perhaps I could pretend to get a very important letter from someone or other, someone who would require my presence elsewhere and then I could simply leave much earlier.
Yes, but how was I to accomplish such a thing? I should have to pay someone to deliver a pretend letter to me, likely, and that would mean finding some servant that was not employed by Bingley and I should have to pay them ever so much money to keep their mouth shut, and all of it was sounding worse and worse.
By the time we arrived at Nether-whatever-it-was-called, the Gates of Hell itself, really, wasn’t that what the netherworld was? By that time, I was in a bit of a bad temper, and I will own that.
There was not much time to settle in, either, since we had better make haste to ready for this ball we were attending, even though Bingley had quite overpromised, not bringing anywhere near the amount of people he’d claimed to be bringing back. I was really his only triumph, and I disliked being carried here and there like his prize, ‘the rich gentleman from Derbyshire who graces us with his presence’ and whatever else it was they were whispering about me when I arrived.
But to be fair, the ball was not terrible and the girls were not ugly, not at all.
On the other hand, before the ball, Bingley and I had a bit of a row, and I could not simply back down out of it, you see, for that would mean that I was agreeing that I was having a good time and that Bingley had won.
The row began whilst I was tying my own cravat, because my valet had not yet arrived, and so Bingley, Hurst, and I were sharing the same man, who was running about in a tizzy.
I stood in the hallway, tying my cravat, bellowing, “Come to the country, Darcy! It will be a lark, Darcy! There will be ever so many pretty girls, Darcy!”
And Bingley appeared, his cravat perfectly tied and said, “Oh, all you do is complain. It is going to be a lovely time, and you have not even given anything a chance. You are determined to be melancholy, and I wish I had not even invited you.”
“You what?” I said, leaving off my cravat, which I was having a devil of a time with. “Youbeggedme to come.”
“Yes,” said Bingley, coming across the hallway and taking my cravat in his hands. “Yes, I did, and see how you repay me. You had best get quite drunk on whatever it is there is handy when we arrive, because I shall not bear you if you are sober.”
I looked down at his deft hands. “What are you doing?”
“Hmm?” he said, grinning up at me as he finished tying my cravat. He patted my chest, smiling, and his voice lowered. “Try to have a bit of fun, Darcy.”
I furrowed my brow. “You… you…” I backed away. I did not like the way he was looking at me. Had he always looked at me that way? I felt acutely uncomfortable. “Obviously, I am not going to have any fun at all.” This was a very stupid thing to say, and I fully own that now, but at the time I felt quite entirely out of sorts, and I could not quite explain my own reaction.
“Well, if you are determined to be that way, be that way,” he said.
“Iamdetermined to be that way,” I said.
Anyway, it was sort of childish, but by the time we got to the ball, I had rather committed to it, you see, so I couldn’t do anything else about it.
Bingley chattered away, pointing people out. “That’s the Bennet girl,” he said. “Her family is at Longbourn, and her brother has come by to visit me ever so many times. He is there, James Bennet, and that’s the father and mother. I understand they don’t speak to each other, not anymore. Mr. Bennet got a second child on his wife and then he ceased to touch Mrs. Bennet.”
