Page 17 of Undone

Bingley watched him in silence for several moments before speaking, his voice gentler than before.

"I understand what you fear. Had you told me this in London, I believe I should have answered much as I do now. I do not make light of it, Darcy. If you are right, it is a terrible burden to bear. But I cannot persuade myself that this is the protection you imagine it to be. You believe you are sparing Miss Bennet from some greater injury, yet the only injury you know with certainty has come from your own hand."

"It may spare her worse."

"It may," Bingley acknowledged. "But it may also cost you a great deal upon nothing stronger than fear."

Darcy turned from the window but remained silent. He could not deny that some part of him had already asked the same question.

"You do not yet know who is responsible for any of this?" Bingley asked at length.

"No."

"Nor how far they are prepared to go?"

"No."

Bingley nodded slowly. "Then caution is warranted. Surrender is not."

Darcy did not answer.

"You believe you are protecting Miss Bennet," Bingley said after a moment. "Perhaps you are. I only wonder whether you have convinced yourself of that because it is easier than admitting you are afraid."

The words lingered between them.

At length Darcy said, almost too quietly to be heard, "Perhaps."

Bingley's expression softened, and the glint in his eyes suggested that the single word had told him more than Darcy had intended.

"I shall not urge you beyond your own conscience. That decision is yours alone. Only remember this, Darcy. Whoever has spent these years taking so much from you has already claimed enough. Do not yield the remainder of your happiness without first making him earn it."

Darcy offered no reply. He remained standing at the window long after the conversation had ended, outwardly as composed as ever. Only his thoughts betrayed him, returning again and again to the question Bingley had left unanswered. Was he acting from prudence... or from fear?

~

Elizabeth

Longbourn

The Bennets gathered for breakfast most mornings around nine o'clock, and Elizabeth had come to know the hour as one best approached with patience, for her mother rarely let a subject of consequence wait until the tea had properly steeped.

Mrs. Bennet had begun her account of the assembly before Elizabeth had properly taken her seat at the table and showed no sign, a quarter of an hour later, of approaching its conclusion.

"You cannot conceive it, Mr. Bennet. You were not there to witness it, but I assure you Mr. Bingley danced the first with Jane, then stood up with Charlotte Lucas for the second, which was only proper, considering Sir William's position and his having introduced him to so many of the company," she declared, waving her hands for emphasis. "But he returned directly to Jane for the third, and everybody agreed it was most remarkable for a gentleman of his consequence at his very firstassembly in the neighbourhood. Lady Lucas herself declared she had never seen a young man so struck, and I am sure I never saw Jane look half so handsome as she did whilst dancing with him."

"You have, I think, omitted very little of the evening," Mr. Bennet observed over his coffee. "I confess myself relieved to hear there remains something yet to tell."

"You may laugh, Mr. Bennet, but I tell you Mr. Bingley is exactly the sort of young man one hopes for, amiable, handsome, and five thousand a year besides. If Jane does not fix him I shall be very much astonished, for I never saw a gentleman so taken with a young lady in all my life." She paused only long enough to draw breath before continuing. "Though I cannot say the same for his friend, that Mr. Darcy.

"Mrs. Long says she mentioned Mr. Darcy's arrival in a letter to her sister in Town, who replied with the strangest reports concerning him. It seems there is a notion in society that those who have much to do with Mr. Darcy are forever meeting with some misfortune or other. Nobody appears able to explain it. His name has simply become attached to a surprising number of unfortunate tales. Whether there is any truth in it I cannot say. It certainly has not improved his temper, for he behaved abominably the whole evening, standing about the room as though he thought himself too fine for the company. He was heard, moreover, to say the rudest thing imaginable about our own Lizzy, that she was tolerable, if you can credit it, tolerable, and not handsome enough to tempt him. The impudence of it! As though any gentleman has the right to pronounce upon a young lady in that fashion."

Elizabeth looked up from her plate, her brow furrowing. "Mrs. Long's account is a very curious one."

"So I thought," Mrs. Bennet replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Mrs. Long says her sister could make neither headnor tail of it, only that people in Town have begun speaking of Mr. Darcy as though ill fortune follows him wherever he goes."

"I cannot think it anything more than coincidence," Jane said gently. "Misfortune visits every family sooner or later."

"Indeed," Mary agreed. "People are apt to discover patterns where none exist. A few unfortunate events, repeated often enough, will soon become a superstition."