Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Seventeen

After their conversation Bingley hared off posthaste on the road to Longbourn, barely giving Darcy time enough to convey a wish of the best of luck and ask Bingley to convey his greetings to his wife's family.

The matter was now out of his hands, and if Jane and Bingley did not reconcile, his conscience would know that he had done as best he could to repair the damage of his poor judgement. And if Bingley did receive a favorable response, he would enter the married state without reservation, misunderstandings, serious fear that his wife disliked him, or a disdain for his own judgement in the matter.

Jove, he just wished he could show Elizabeth that he wished to become worthy of her.

At least if matters between Bingley and Jane went well, she would be happy.

That was a worthy cause for its own sake.

He imagined Elizabeth smiling as she received a letter from her sister with the happy news, and including a line about how disordered Bingley's coat was from his long ride to Longbourn. The image made his heart glow.

He just wanted her to be happy, and that seemed to him now to be the principal reason that he had not been happy these past weeks — he feared that she could never be happy with him.

She might think better of me once she hears that I arranged for Bingley to call on Miss Bennet again.

That thought frustrated Darcy. He despised it. It was beneath him.

When there is a matter of principle, one should act in accordance with the principle. A good deed ought to be done for its own sake, not in hope of reward.

He wished that he had told Bingley to mention nothing of his involvement in the matter. He did not want Elizabeth to think that he helped her family so that she would think better of him. He wanted her to think better of him… because he now deserved to have her think better of him.

Your selfish disdain for the feelings of others .

He… he had been selfish, and he had not thought about Elizabeth's feelings, or the feelings of so many others.

And he did not want to be selfish.

Papa had taught him that so long as he showed an open hand to those who were dependent on him, and who he was connected to, and so long as he returned fair treatment for fair treatment, he had no other duties towards society.

The primary duties of a gentleman were towards his family, his dependents, his land, and his king.

The Almighty was also important.

But the feelings of those wholly unconnected with him had no importance.

Elizabeth had been wholly unconnected to him.

No, no, he did not even have that excuse.

Once they married, he still paid far more attention to his own pride than the feelings of his wife — he had been too focused upon his rights, her rights, and upon who was getting the better of their bargain. He had treated himself as an object to be bought or sold, and her as well, and he had been too full of this commercial notion of marriage to ever ask her: What do you want?

The next morning Bingley burst in on Darcy who sat over his breakfast with Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had stayed over the night again, and had convinced Mrs. North to have a bizarre and extremely stinky fish dish made for him for breakfast.

"Darcy, my dear, dear man! We are to be brothers!" Bingley burst in, followed by the butler who apologetically shrugged behind him.

The staff at his London townhouse was terrible at protecting him from anyone he actually wanted to see.

"From your mood," Darcy stood to greet Bingley, "may I assume that your journey to Longbourn was a success?"

Bingley shouted, "Not at all! Not in the slightest!" As he said that he embraced Darcy with a full hug. "My dear man, I am so happy!"

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at them with an amused grin. "Unusual for a man to be so happy after an unsuccessful journey."

"Can you believe she was in London? London all this time! For the past month, since Christmas. She was in London! Just two miles from my rooms. I could have walked to see her any day. Perhaps the time when I thought I saw her on Bond Street it was her."

"Oh." Darcy felt a sort of oddness about how he had mismanaged his marriage so far that he'd had no idea that his wife's sister was present in London.

"Yes! I felt like quite the nitwit when I burst into Longbourn, banging the door open and demanding to see the lovely Jane, only to be told, turn round, turn round. Cheapside is your happy side."

"That easy?"

"Well not quite. Bennet insisted I talk to him before he'd give the address. The man has a terrifying stare. He got the whole story of everything from me."

Darcy winced. "Including my role in initially dissuading you from Jane?"

"Do not worry. I told him all about how you had explained that you had made a mistake."

This did not at all relieve Darcy of the twinge he felt at hearing that his behavior had been bandied about with Mr. Bennet. That Elizabeth had said she was presently not in communication with her father did not make the matter better.

Colonel Fitzwilliam raised his eyebrows. "Darcy admitted he made a mistake to you as well? Marriage changed him. This is why I intend to never marry."

"You should! Being loved by a perfect angel is enough happiness to be worth anything. I am wholly prepared to be changed by Jane!"

"You called on her after riding back to London, and then mutually convinced each other of your regard?" Darcy asked.

"She agreed to be my wife! I feel terrible. She told me about how sad and surprised she was when I left — and Caroline. Oh, I am quite cross with her . Did you know that Caroline and Louisa had both known Jane was in London? She called on us as soon as she arrived in town, and it had been three weeks, and Caroline still had not returned the call."

"A way to announce the end of an acquaintance," Colonel Fitzwilliam said. "These games are why I will never marry. Unless I change my mind."

"You will marry one day, and you'll be very happy for it," Bingley replied. "Marriage is happiness, and delight, and oh, I am so happy!"

He lurched forward to hug Darcy once more, and then went to hug Colonel Fitzwilliam, even though the officer was still seated, and actively shoveling fish and eggs into his mouth. Colonel Fitzwilliam kept his hands up to fend off the gentleman.

Bingley laughed. "And I am off already. The Gardiners told me that I could call on them any time, and I intend to hold them to that offer. I just needed to thank you and announce our happiness."

Darcy felt a strong sense of warmth towards Bingley. Even if he and Elizabeth never found happiness together, at least Bingley would be happy with Jane.

It would need to be enough to see Elizabeth happy.

"You are going to call on Elizabeth's aunt and uncle now? The ones at Gracechurch Street?"

"Yes," Bingley said. And then he looked at Darcy with a sly expression. "Caroline is beyond annoyed that we will be so closely connected to tradesmen."

"I will come with you. I have not yet called upon them, and I owe Elizabeth that duty."

"Oh, do not speak like that ," Bingley said. "Fine fellows. Very gentleman-like. Both Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are more refined than any of my father's friends ever were. You'll like them."

That promise hardly convinced Darcy of the matter. Bingley was a fine man, but not particular. However, it was Darcy's duty to his wife to not only call on her relations, but to also make the best effort he could to enjoy the call.

Without bothering to finish his breakfast, Darcy rose from the table. "Let us be off."

"Ten minutes, both of you," Colonel Fitzwilliam said. "I'll come with you. To keep you two out of trouble, further marital entanglements, and the like."

"The entire journey," Darcy replied, "is a result of already existing marital entanglements. And in any case, you can hardly worry that we will precipitously enter new ones."

"Do not tell me what I cannot worry about. I am a soldier, I assure you, my ability to worry is honed and strong. Besides, I've some hope to meet another one of your wife's sisters and become entangled with her."

"I thought you were determined this morning to never marry," Darcy replied.

"We wouldn't marry this morning."

"There are three more," Bingley exclaimed happily, "but they are all in Longbourn. Miss Gardiner is only eleven, but remarkably clever already."

"Richard," Darcy said with a forbidding voice, "you hardly need to come."

"Oh, but I must," the officer said, having somehow finished his whole dish in the past two minutes, while continuing to speak to them. "My curiosity demands it. And besides, just as you must do your duty to your wife's relations, I must do my duty to my cousin's wife's aunt and uncle."

"That is not a duty."

" You know how dedicated I am to my family. It is like my father always says, nothing matters like family."

Though it was an unfashionable neighborhood from the standpoint of the aristocracy — too touched by crowds of men endlessly running back and forth on matters of business, and with the main street filled with shops and ground floor store fronts, the simple fact was that Cheapside was not cheap . It sat at the very heart of the City of London, at the beating center of the greatest commercial empire in the world, in the midst of the richest city in the world, except perhaps Paris.

They walked past warehouses heaped with expensive goods, shops with every sort of finery, and also the fine fa?ade of the Bank of England. The scent of money filled the plazas and streetways, like a miasmatic mist.

The aristocrat whose wealth came from a dozen generations of landowners sneered at the tradesmen of the district who dirtied their grubby hands in the horrors of commerce . But the Englishman in him found a strange pride to know that these men were skilled at that dirtying.

While nothing to Darcy House, the home on Gracechurch Street that Bingley led Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam to was a substantial thing, with windows rising up three stories, and a solid oak door.

Bingley leaped forward soon as they left the carriage, and eagerly knocked before trying the handle himself.

Was that how he'd gotten past Darcy's butler? For that matter, was this how Colonel Fitzwilliam kept making his way into the house?

They were greeted by a tidy looking maid in uniform who grinned and bowed to them, looking with a little confusion at the two gentlemen who'd accompanied Miss Bennet's suitor for this very early call.

Darcy explained that he was Mr. Darcy, the husband of Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's niece, Elizabeth.

Her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh the one who—" Then she clapped her hand over her mouth, let it down, and then said, "The master and mistress will be delighted to see you."

"Ooooh, do tell." Colonel Fitzwilliam rubbed his hands. "You have sparked my curiosity, and I will not rest until the spark has lit straw on fire — just what is Darcy known as the one who?"

The girl flushed and looked down. "Ah, nothing. Nothing."

"Nothing complimentary, I hope," Colonel Fitzwilliam said. "For if you are too embarrassed to praise my cousin to his face directly, you need not worry. His pride is always under good regulation."

"Don't bother the poor dear," Bingley said bowing past the servant. "Jane in the drawing room? — thank you, very much."

As they followed Bingley, Colonel Fitzwilliam whispered, "Perhaps the one who can barely speak a word in company when he does not like or know the people?"

"Most likely the one who is so rich, tall and handsome," Darcy whispered back.

Bingley paused as he put his hand on the drawing room door's handle. "From something said, I believe there was some displeasure regarding how you had not called when you and Elizabeth were in London in December. Nonsense, of course."

The tone with which Bingley said that showed that his loyalty on the matter was clearly given more to Miss Bennet's family than to Darcy.

Upon their being ushered into the drawing room, Miss Bennet — Jane — leapt up from the table to beam at Bingley.

If the expression on her face was an act, Jane was an actress of exceptional ability.

But it wasn't. She loved Bingley.

After the first embrace of the engaged couple, Jane looked at him with an uncertain expression.

A gentleman rose from the couch, where he had a copy of The Times spread out before him on a low table. He had a facial similarity that reminded Darcy somehow of Elizabeth, and even more strongly of Jane and Mrs. Bennet.

The sharpness in his eyes showed more of Elizabeth than Mrs. Bennet, or even Jane.

Next to him a fashionable looking woman with a friendly smile and clever eyes also came to stand.

Bingley made the introductions, "This is Mr. Darcy, my dear friend, and Miss Elizabeth's — I mean Mrs. Darcy's… I mean Elizabeth's husband."

They both laughed.

"And this is his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam. Darcy, Fitzwilliam, this is Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Fine capable persons."

Bows all around.

Mr. Darcy then said, before they had a chance to ask, "I realized when Bingley told me this morning about his plans to call on you that I have been unacceptably backward in having not called on you before. I hope you do not mind that I have chosen to impose on you at such an unseemly hour."

"And with such an unseemly guest as Colonel Fitzwilliam." Bingley winked at the officer.

"I am always seemly around lovely women. Now you must introduce me to this angel." That was said to the giggling eleven-year-old daughter of the house.

"Oh, that is Betsy," Bingley said offhandedly.

"Mr. Darcy, are you the one who married Cousin Lizzy?" she asked, in a formal mode.

Darcy bowed to her, and said, "I am."

"Do you have any letters from her?"

"Not with me," Darcy replied to the child in a serious tone. "Circumstances led me to depart for London in a hurry, but I promise that should I ever come to town without her again, I will make sure Elizabeth has an opportunity to send a package for you."

"We are not bothered at all by the hour," Mrs. Gardiner said to Darcy with an easy smile. "We are very glad to see you. Is Elizabeth well?"

"She was…" Darcy always wanted to be scrupulously honest. She had been sobbing the last time he saw her, and he had been full of rage. "She was in good health when I left Pemberley."

Even that he was not certain about. He suddenly remembered that she'd had little appetite in the mornings for the past two weeks.

Was Elizabeth well?

For the first time since he'd come to London, Darcy had a reason that he wanted to see her which offered a stronger motivation than his fear of her rejection. He needed to see her and hear her tell him that she was in good health.

But surely if she had some illness that was progressing, he would have been told.

Mr. Gardiner studied him with an expression like that of an eagle.

"Mr. Darcy." The hand grasp was firm and confident. "At last we meet."

Darcy met his considering gaze with trained confidence, but he knew he was being dissected, and he did not like the sensation.

Colonel Fitzwilliam said to Mrs. Gardiner, "The real reason I am here is that Darcy tends to engage in faux pas without me. The most ridiculous sorts of difficulties and entanglements. He has always been like that since he was four."

Darcy looked over the Gardiners. They made a fine looking family, with four children. Darcy in truth had some awkwardness around children.

His cousin, Viscount Hartwood's, two children were the only young ones he'd spent any substantial time around, and even with them… he simply did not know what to do to entertain them, and in turn they had never made much effort to demand he entertain them.

Jane and Bingley were mostly absorbed in the solemn task of gazing upon each other's faces, and they had drifted to the other end of the room, so they might privately whisper whatever couples who were so very in love with each other whispered.

Darcy wondered what exactly the mysterious words that kept them so engaged were.

By some mysterious means, Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into a game with the children that involved them all arranging toy soldiers in a line, while he instructed the two younger boys on the proper way to keep the men in military formation.

Darcy sat across from Mr. Gardiner and Mrs. Gardiner. He said to Mrs. Gardiner, "I heard that you grew up in Derbyshire, not far from my own estate."

"Ah, Lambton! Yes. A delightful countryside. My father was the vicar at the parish there."

That made her the daughter of a respectable person. Darcy had not known it, but he was glad to hear it.

"Elizabeth has visited Lambton several times to speak to your acquaintances."

"I sent her north with letters. It was an excuse to remember old friends. You know the poem by Burns, ‘If auld acquaintance be forgot.'"

"And never brought to mind. We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne."

"That precisely," Mrs. Gardiner replied. "When old acquaintance are brought to mind, without an ability to excuse inattention by the cost of franking the letter, it seemed to me that I had an obligation to remind my old friends of the good times we had — We had planned to make a trip to the Lakes this summer, but Mr. Gardiner and I have discussed making the trip to Lambton instead. I have renewed my correspondence with several friends, and well…"

Their niece lived only a few miles away.

"And Elizabeth would be delighted to see you." Darcy spoke again before residual snobbery and his own sense of the importance of not giving too much notice to tradespeople could stop him, "You must make a definite plan of it, and stay at Pemberley when you come. With the use of the carriage the five miles distance to Lambton would not be at all difficult to manage."

"Oh." Mrs. Gardiner could not hide the surprise on her face.

Mr. Gardiner did hide it. Or perhaps he was simply not surprised. His examining gaze did not change.

A very intelligent eagle. The man would make a fine poker player.

Bingley overheard this plan and exclaimed, "You must invite Jane and myself as well. Jane said she is wild to see Lizzy again."

Lizzy.

His wife was now Lizzy to his friend, while he hardly knew if she would even speak to him when he saw her again… After a spasm of envy, Darcy smiled widely. "Nothing could delight me further than for all of you to visit — and for a long time. Perhaps two months beginning after the season."

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner exchanged a glance. Wordless communication traveled between them, and then Mr. Gardiner gave Darcy a sincere smile. "I am delighted to accept your invitation, and I look forward to seeing your famed estate. "