He was right about that, I supposed. There was a pecking order, and everyone knew where it was they fit into it, and all of that was common knowledge.
“Anyway,” I continued, “I am making a hash of this, because I am actually trying to apologize.”
“No, no, you need not.” He waved that away, giving me a little smile. “You are often disgruntled, and I do not mind. It is part of your charm.”
“I am not often disgruntled!” I protested and realized that I sounded disgruntled and cleared my throat again and ducked down my head, feeling embarrassed.
“It takes you a bit of time to adjust to a new setting,” said Bingley. “I ought not have brought you down here the day of the ball, I see. I do not often have the sort of forethought that others might, I’m afraid.”
This was true. He did not. “Perhaps that’s part of your charm,” I said with a little shrug.
He met my gaze, that serious expression back. “Are you, in fact, charmed by me?”
I drew back. “What?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “No, no, never mind. It is as I thought. James was mistaken. He seemed so certain, but I see that he simply does not know you.”
“Mistaken about what?” I said.
“Oh, it does not matter, since it was a mistake,” he said. “Please, put all of this from your mind, I beg it of you, Darcy.” He laughed a little.
“But when you two were talking about me, which I did notice, by the by, what were you saying?”
“He thought things about you that are not true, is all.”
“What things?”
“Oh, heavens, Darcy, I have dug myself into a hole, have I not?” He shook his head, looking quite chagrined. “It’s nothing for you to worry over.” He took a step backward. “Pray, excuse me, I am off to seek out something to drink, I think.”
I did not wish him to run away and not explain himself to me, but he had turned his back upon me and was obviously of a mind to do exactly that. I could have caught him and pressed him, but I did not.
The following day, I began to think more seriously about my scheme to get a very urgent letter from someone or other, something so urgent it would require my immediate departure from the country and the company of Mr. Bingley and his sisters.
I had a thought that I might write the letter myself, go on a walk alone, and then claim I had been given it by someone who had ridden from London to put it directly in my hands. It would have to be some family emergency, I thought. Not my sister, though, since that hit too close to home with what had happened in the summer. So, perhaps a cousin or an aunt or something. Some illness, death’s door, must rush to their bedside, something of that nature.
But as I sat down to write the letter, I began to think that it would not do if it were in my own handwriting, and I had written letters to Bingley and he would distinguish it, I thought. At the very least, I could always determine who a letter was fromwithout looking at the return address because I would recognize the hand that had written my name upon it.
I experimented for a bit with writing with my left hand, which was illegible, and then I decided to write everything slanted so that it disguised my handwriting fairly well, at least I thought so. The letter itself was quite short.
I was prepared.
But then, for three days, I was stymied in my attempts to take walks alone.
Sometimes it was Mr. Bingley himself, but often it was Miss Bingley, who seemed to always simply happen to be walking whenever I was. She would spot me on the grounds of Netherfield, wave, and come over to walk with me, exclaiming, “Mr. Darcy, what a lovely surprise to see you out here again!”
Miss Bingley was, of course, trying to marry me, but only insomuch as she was trying to marry positively all of her brother’s friends. She treated all of the men that Bingley brought into her company in much the same way as she treated me. If there had been anyone else for her to throw herself at, she would have been throwing herself at all of us equally, but I happened to be the only person here, so I bore the brunt of it.
Near as I could tell, Miss Bingley did not much care who it was she married as long as he was well settled and respectable. She did not seem to want a match with someone she had anything in common with or a match that would be borne of true affection or love. She seemed to be approaching the matter strategically, trying to flatter her way into an alliance of some sort.
She was not exceedingly plain, though she was not the sort of pretty that would turn heads. There was nothing exactly wrong with her, I supposed, but she also was the most grating of company, and I wished to be rid of her more than I had wished for anything on God’s green earth.
I was beginning to think that I was going to have to alter my plan, or simply to steal away in the night, politeness be damned.
I was also beginning to worry that my letter would be investigated, that the Bingleys might make inquiries about the health of my (entirely fictional) dying relative, and this was going to come out to them one way or the other, and then they would know I had made up a story to get out of their company, which would be quite worse than simply stealing away in the night, all told, though both would be rather bad.
On the fourth day, Bingley told me we had all been invited to a dinner at the Lucas household.
“That’s the penniless knight,” I said.
