Page 154 of Companions of Their Youth
Darcy scarcely spoke to Elizabeth.
He saw her often enough, of course. He and Bingley called at Longbourn every day, but the house was never quiet. Visitors streamed in from all corners of the neighborhood, bearing flowers, good wishes, and insufferable gossip. Most had anticipated Jane’s engagement and come to coo over the eldest Bennet daughter, but they also knew of Elizabeth’s sudden betrothal to the somewhat taciturn Mr. Darcy of Derbyshire—and they had come to discover how it all came about.
Elizabeth bore it with grace, even humor, but their interactions were limited to stolen glances and brief exchanges between interruptions. Darcy longed to speak with her properly—to sit beside her in peace, to ask what thoughts still burdened her, to press her hand in more than fleeting comfort.
Instead, he found himself penned into drawing rooms and corners, speaking more with Mrs. Bennet and her neighbors than with his bride-to-be. On one occasion, he had not been seated five minutes before a young mother attempted to thrust her mewling child into his arms while declaring howfine a godfather he would make. He had never retreated so quickly from a settee in his life.
At Netherfield, things were little better.
Miss Bingley had taken the news of his engagement in a manner not quite so genteel as she no doubt intended.
At first, she had kept to brittle civility, making subtle jabs and asking whether Elizabeth would receive instruction in deportment before being presented at Pemberley. But after the third morning of watching Darcy set off for Longbourn again, the cracks in her composure finally fractured.
Darcy had just pulled on his gloves when Miss Bingley appeared in the front hall, her color high and her movements sharp with agitation.
“I must speak to you,” she said to her brother, ignoring Darcy entirely.
Bingley halted, brows lifted. “Now?”
“Yes. Now.” She looked between them with barely contained ire. “This,” she spat, “ismadness. That you should ally yourself with such a family—so low, so vulgar, so loud—have you completely lost your mind, Charles?”
Darcy stopped cold, staring at her in wonder, and she rounded on him. “How many times this week have you gone to Longbourn? How many hours spent fawning over a family with no name, no refinement, no—”
“Caroline,” Bingley said warningly.
She rounded on him. “You are throwing yourself away on Jane Bennet! A sweet face, I grant you, but nothing else. She has no conversation, no connections, no sense. And as for Eliza Bennet—she is clever, yes, but she is also coarse. She will make amockeryof us. Of you!”
“I say!” Darcy protested hotly, but Bingley raised a hand.
“No,” he said flatly. “I will handle this.”
Miss Bingley blinked. “Handle what?”
“This,” Bingley said. “Your behavior. Your disrespect. I have listened to your insinuations and endured your bitterness for three days, but I will not allow you to insult the woman I love. Or her sister.”
“Someonemust speak sense!” she burst out. “You will regret this marriage, Charles! You are about to make a fool of yourself in front of all of Hertfordshire!”
“And what would you have me do?” he asked. “Delay my engagement until you are satisfied? Cast Jane off because she does not meet your standards? I would sooner ask a fishwife to act as hostess than grant you the right to govern my happiness.”
That stopped her cold. “You cannot mean that.”
“I do,” he said. “If Louisa will not take your place, then so be it. We may do without a hostess altogether. Jane will be my wifein less than a month. And in the meantime, I am master of this house—and you, sister, will show respect or you will leave.”
She gasped. “You would turn me out?”
“I would,” he said calmly. “I must.”
Darcy watched the exchange in stunned silence. He had never seen his friend speak with such quiet command, never witnessed the steel that now lined his voice.
Part of him expected it would dissolve—that Caroline would cry or plead, and Bingley, soft-hearted as ever, would relent. But instead, she turned on her heel with a gasp of fury and stormed from the hall.
The next morning, she was gone—packed off to an aunt in Scarborough before the kitchen fire had even been lit.
Bingley merely shrugged and dug into his plate of ham and eggs.
And with that, the house was quiet again.
Colonel Fitzwilliam, for his part, had little time to notice household squabbles. He spent each day with Colonel Forster, finalizing the reports, gathering documentation, and preparing the materials necessary to convene the field court-martial.
