Page 65 of A Question of Character

“As viewed,” Bingley repeated.

Darcy had very nearly asked whether the phrase included the mushroom growing near the scullery door.

By dinner, Bingley’s disappointment had become impossible to disguise. He had wished to be within easy reach of London, with good roads, pleasant country, and a neighborhood sufficiently genteel to satisfy his sisters without alarming himself. The first estate had failed on nearly every count except distance. The second, viewed the following morning, possessed a better house and a worse situation, standing so near Rosings Park that Darcy could almost hear Lady Catherine’s opinions forming across the fields.

“If you lease this place,” Darcy told him as they rode away, “you will be miserable within a fortnight.”

Bingley blinked. “Because of the house?”

“Because of my aunt.”

“Lady Catherine?”

“She will disdain you for taking a leased estate, disdain your sisters for wishing to be received, disdain your fortune for having been earned before you possessed it, and then expect you to dine at Rosings every Sunday so she may instruct you in improving all three.”

Bingley stared at him for several seconds. “You are serious.”

“Yes.”

“That is the most alarming recommendation against a property I have ever heard.”

“It was meant to be.”

The third house had been harmless, respectable, and so dull that even Bingley could not persuade himself into enthusiasm. Its owner had filled every room with heavy furniture and heavier opinions, and the pleasing prospect lay from an upper window one could not reach without passing a corridor that smelled strongly of mice.

At last Bingley conceded defeat.

“I had hoped to be settled before autumn,” he said, looking with some dejection toward a field of barley waving beyond the inn yard. “Caroline will be intolerable if I return with no house.”

“Miss Bingley has survived disappointment before.”

“Not with any grace.”

“That is different.”

Bingley gave him a rueful grin. “You are very severe upon my poor sister.”

“I am occasionally accurate.”

“You must write to your man of business. If anyone can discover what is worth knowing before it is known everywhere else, it will be one of your people.”

“I shall write when I reach Ramsgate.”

“And you will not forget?”

“I have not yet reached such an age.”

“No, but you are in love, and that makes men unreliable.”

Darcy’s horse shifted beneath him. “Bingley.”

His friend laughed, the first genuine laugh Darcy had heard from him since the first roof stain. “I shall say no more. Simply write to your man, and I shall be grateful.”

Darcy promised it, parted from Bingley the next morning, and took the road back to Ramsgate with an increasing desire for his own chair, a clean coat, and a letter from Ireland. The last was unreasonable. Elizabeth had not promised to write to him. She would write to Georgiana. Perhaps Mrs. Gardiner would mention her. Perhaps Georgiana would read aloud some paragraph concerning Irish roads or disagreeable inns. Perhaps that would be enough.

It would not be enough.

The house came into view late in the afternoon, its pale front catching the light from the water and the windows shining under a sky swept clean by wind. Darcy was close enough to see the railings when he noticed the carriage.