I was spared the task of conjuring a reply when Mr Bennet came out of the shop with a box and three bundles wrapped in brown paper.
We went next to a sweetshop and the adjacent tea shop, where Mr Bennet bought delicacies and importedteas for his daughters. He then declared himself bankrupt and exhausted, and we went back to my townhouse.
The lecture,which fell on the following evening, was interesting, I admit. Mr Bennet and Mrs Annesley paid profound attention to the lecturer. Meanwhile, Mr Gardiner, his wife, and I were less fascinated by the birds than by the various characters who flock to a meeting of the Royal Society. We finished the evening with glasses of wine at Mr Gardiner’s house and stayed in convivial conversation far longer than I would have suspected possible.
Having discovered my guest was perfectly capable of making plans for all of us, I was not required to think of what we would do the following day. This was just as well, because whatever I would have decided would have been interrupted.
To my surprise, a friend arrived to visit me. “Bingley?” I called out when he came into my study after breakfast.
“I would wager you did not expect to see me today,” he said happily. “I too had some business requiring that I come to town. I wonder if you would have time to look it over? That is unless I interrupt?—”
“I have no plans at all. Give me a moment to tell my sister you are here.”
After the ritual of greeting Bingley, Mr Bennet took my sister and her companion to see the Elgin marbles, and I gratefully declined to see them for the tenth time, citing business.
Bingley laid before me a mundane proposal with little likelihood of return. “I have doubts about this fellow,” I said carefully. “Perhaps we should visit my man of business for his opinion?”
This was the gentlest approach I had at my disposal. Drummond was able to tell a man he was an idiot and make him feel clever all at once. The meeting took longer than I would have liked because we had no fixed appointment and had to wait our turn. But the outcome was satisfying, as the money that was burning a hole in Bingley’s pocket got put to better, more secure use, and my friend’s pride remained intact.
Bingley invited me for dinner at his club, so I sent a note home for my sister and obliged him. I had, after all, not been the best companion to him in Hertfordshire. Though he was curious as to my purpose in London with Miss Bennet’s father, I had no inclination to discuss the matter. Instead, we talked of other subjects and of Netherfield Park, which he informed me he liked a great deal but had not yet decided upon for a long-term commitment.
After dining, we spent several hours at the card table. Since we had taken my coach, I then took Bingleyto his house in town, and at his urging, went inside for a glass of brandy.
No sooner had the butler opened the door than a figure appeared on the landing above us.
“Caroline? What are you doing in London?”
“I could not bear it another minute, Charles. Really, that place was beyond endurance! I do not care where you send me. I closed the house and?—”
“You closed the house? You cannot have done so! Our guest was set to return to us on Monday.”
“Well, I am very sorry if I have offended Mr Darcy,” she said, as though I were not standing beside her brother, “but he is capable of changing his plans.”
“Where is Hurst? And Louisa?”
“They brought me here, of course, and then Hurst took Louisa to visit his brother. Why they cannot be content to live in a house of their own is?—”
“We shall speak of this later. I say, Darcy?—”
“I am not incommoded in the least. I suppose my trunks are waiting for me to send someone for them, Miss Bingley?”
“I suppose they are,” she said, turning on her heel and going back up the stairs.
“I believe I must stay with—I am very sorry,” Bingley said to me. He was as close to angry as I have ever seen him.
“Do not regard it in the least. When I take MrBennet home, I shall stay the night at Longbourn. There is nothing easier.”
I spent five minutes assuring him I had not taken offence, that he really must stay in London and see to his family, and I left without having imbibed any brandy, which was just as well. I had a great deal of thinking to do, and I may have even indulged in it unwillingly had I sat late into the night nursing a bottle of strong spirits.
One thing that Icould notput off thinking about, was the arrival of Christmas, which was bearing down on us. I would have to take Georgiana to Pemberley. We never spent the festive season anywhere else, and our people would think it unlucky for us to break with tradition. In fact, I was usually home by now and had put it off far longer than I should have. My sister might have wanted to inquire why we lingered, but she was still too in awe of me to do so.
“I must take my sister to Pemberley,” I told Mr Bennet that evening after I explained that I would have to beg for room and board on Monday night.
“Do you plan to bring her and go north from Hertfordshire?”
“Only if our visit would not be an imposition.”
He insisted it would not, but then he said, “Describe to me your library at Pemberley. Is this,” he waved his hand around the room in which we sat, “as your sister tells me, a miniature in replica?”
