I had little hope that a single frothy anecdote would meet with any more success in engaging Georgiana than had my few attempts to reconcile with Miss Bingley. One attempt at reparation never leads to reconciliation. A kind of campaign of many such peace offerings over time would be required. Miss Bingley was a lost cause, I decided, because I did not have the will or the patience to befriend her. Besides, encouragement would only render her more determined to possess me, and I did notlike the idea of being anyone’s trophy. I had made a career out of avoiding that very thing.
But I would try to build a bridge with my sister no matter how long it took. Retrospection and some flash of insight communicated to me by Elizabeth Bennet gave me reason to believe I had done a poor job of concealing my anger. My sister, being fairly modest, would naturally assume I was angry withher,and this misunderstanding had surely caused her endless grief ever since.
This brought me full circle. I replayed my entire morning’s conversation and smiled to remember Elizabeth’s flashing eyes when she said of Wickham,I am sure you killed him.Without a doubt,shewould have killed Wickham with her bare hands had she been in my shoes, gossip be damned.
As the ball approached,days at Netherfield became thick and miserable with unspoken unrest. Miss Bingley, failing to bring me to my knees with a proposal of marriage through the expedient of pouting, began to grate on her brother. Even Mr and Mrs Hurst grew tired of her occasional rants and snide references to the inferiority of the county of Hertfordshire.
More than once the conversation ended abruptly when I arrived for breakfast, and the air around the tablebecame oppressively polite. Clearly, they argued regularly, forcing me to go earlier and earlier to break my fast so as to let them fight in peace. And this left me free to go earlier to Longbourn.
It was just as well. The Bennets’ attendance at the assembly meant that the neighbourhood was free to knock down their door. The family was now plagued with company, and twice I had to leave after the usual quarter of an hour instead of making myself at home for the morning.
“I am glad you came when you did, Mr Darcy,” Jane Bennet said one morning after I apologised for finding them still at the breakfast table. “We are expecting callers at eleven, and I did not know when we would be able to take Bandit out for his training.”
I was unsurprised to see the mongrel sitting in anxious alertness at her feet. Dogs at Pemberley were allowed indoors if they were well-trained pets, but they were put in the loose-box in the scullery during meals without exception.
“He howls unrelentingly, sir,” Miss Elizabeth remarked as she stirred her tea. She refused to look at me and did so to great effect. How she could cause me to feel sode tropand uninteresting through the simple act of eating her breakfast was a mystery.
“Pardon me?” I asked, taking the chair Mr Bennetoffered to me.
“I refer to Bandit. Clearly you are astonished to see he has the liberty to beg for scraps. We must look like the Ye Olde Man & Scythein Yorkshire after the hunt.”
“A little,” I said. “All that is missing are strings of birds hung from the rafters in various stages of decay.”
She strove mightily to continue snubbing me but ended her campaign on a chuckle before she turned to her sister. “Do you take Bandit out today, Jane?” she asked.
“I would like to go. Will you come with me?”
“Certainly, unless Mary wishes to get out of doors.”
“Why do we not all go,” I suggested. “The air is sharp, and we shall make quick work of our walk, I think.”
We went then, and the wind was biting cold. Even the dog, who had a cast-iron construction, seemed unconvinced of the viability of our plan. He managed—barely—to pay attention to our commands and eyed the road behind him longingly.
A brisk, cold walk rendered Longbourn almost heavenly with warmth and welcome when we returned. I went to sit with Mr Bennet in his book-room for some time, and only decided to go when I heard the knocker. From the sounds in the hall, I felt certain the Lucas family had arrived, Sir William having a distinctive and penetrating voice. I went with Mr Bennet to greet his company and stayed for fiveminutes more for the sake of politeness before excusing myself. I left the parlour and was heading through the vestibule when Miss Elizabeth came out into the hall behind me.
“Mr Darcy,” she said almost surreptitiously, “might I have a moment of your time?” In a flash we were back in the breakfast parlour, now cleared of dishes and deserted.
“I met a lieutenant in the militia yesterday by the name of Wickham. He was at my aunt’s house for a card party. I do not know whether this is the man you told me about, but he is rumoured to come from some county in the north. He is newly kitted out in a red coat and charming as the sun in May.”
“The devil you say.” I put my hat and crop on the table and stared at her. “I suppose it is him. How could it not be? He has plagued me all my life.”
“What will you do?”
“I suppose I will have to kill him,” I said darkly.
“No truly, what will you do?”
“I-I do not rightly know. What should I do?” That I asked a lady for advice on a purely male matter of business struck me as madness. I opened my mouth to retract my question and to beg her pardon, to ask her to overlook?—
“I am glad you asked me, sir,” she said briskly. She then began speaking and gaining momentum until I feltI had been given my marching orders and was expected to click my heels and salute.
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Because you are not serious. You cannot be! What you suggest is a heinous thing to do to a man, even though he is a villain.”
She tossed her curls and flashed her eyes at me. “I am always struck,” she said, “when what is considered ordinary abuse of a woman, is decried as unthinkable and inhumane when applied to a man.”
“I-I did not mean to imply?—”
“You will suit yourself in this matter, but should you decide to follow my advice, you must act as quickly as possible. The plan relies on the supposition this man does not yet know you are in the neighbourhood, so he cannot make the connexion to you and your family. Now, pray excuse me. My long absence might be noticed, and I do not want to have to lie to my sister.”
She swept out of the room and left me reeling in the turbulence of her wake. Not even an hour of formulating every possible objection was required for her idea to begin to steal its way into my imagination. My greatest resistance centred around the underhandedness required.
Agentlemanwould deal directly with his enemy, look him in the eye and enact a frontal, justifiedrevenge. But when dealing with a man who isnota gentleman, I began to wonder whether he deserved to be treated as one. Miss Elizabeth’s plan was both wild and wicked, and it was also the very definition of poetic justice.
With the sinking feeling that Elizabeth Bennet could handily induce me to do anything by simply tossing her curls, I went in search of my coachman.
