Page 55 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

The silence that followed was rather extraordinary.

Elizabeth looked at her mother, who stood in the centre of the entrance hall with her colour beginning to recede and a slightly stunned expression, as though she had surprised herself. Jane caught Elizabeth's eye. Elizabeth pressed her lips together. Jane turned away.

“Well,” said Mrs Bennet at last, somewhat breathlessly. “There is no occasion whatsoever to look at me like that, Elizabeth. I was perfectly civil.”

“You were, Mama,” Elizabeth agreed, meaning it entirely. She took her mother's arm and guided her toward the sitting room. “Perfectly civil.”

Chapter 18

Darcy had returned to Pemberley on a Tuesday. He’d stopped at Bingley’s in Yorkshire on the way and invited his friend to join him for a visit. The truth was, he felt a need for his dearest friend’s company after the events that had transpired.

Bingley, being the affable man he was, had taken him up on the invitation and joined him at Pemberley a week later.

He had now been at Pemberley three days, and in that time he had contrived to mention Hertfordshire in nearly every conversation.

"I wonder how Miss Bennet fares," he said now, standing at the library window with a glass of Madeira he had scarcely touched. "I have heard about the family at length, but not about her specifically.”

"I will say, you had an impressive amount of knowledge about the family, given how far away you were."

Bingley had the grace to colour. "As you know, the Hursts made use of the property. One hears things." He turned from the window. "Alas, I have not set foot in Netherfield in months, Darcy. It begins to seem a cowardly sort of absence."

"You had reasons."

"I did," Bingley said, though without heat. "I was foolish to let my mind be changed about her so easily. I do not blame you, nor my sisters. It was my own foolishness that led me to where I am today." He set the glass down. "The lease is nearly run out, in any case. I must go down after Christmas and settle things with Mr Morris, one way or another—renew, or give it up altogether. I cannot keep a house I never occupy."

"And Miss Bennet?"

The name sat heavily between them. Bingley was quiet a moment. "I should like to see her. I confess it freely, since you have guessed it. But so much time has passed. She may remember me only as the man who came, and paid his addresses, and vanished without a word of explanation." He shook his head. "A woman of any spirit would not forgive it. And Miss Bennet has more spirit than the world credits her with."

"You will not know until you go."

"No." Bingley almost smiled. "I suppose I will not."

Darcy meant to say more—meant to encourage him, to undo some small part of the harm he knew he had done—but his own thoughts pressed too close, and the words would not come as he wished them to. Bingley, watching him, seemed to understand.

"You are thinking of her," he said. "Miss Elizabeth."

Darcy did not deny it.

"Will you not tell me what happened at Lucas Lodge? You returned like a man who had been struck. You have said almost nothing of it since."

For a long moment Darcy said nothing. Then, because it was Bingley, and because the silence had grown intolerable, he told him. Of the letter he had written—every word of it torn out of him, laid bare on the page as he had never laid anything bare in his life. Of the appointed hour, and the frozen pond, and the cold that had crept through his coat as he waited. Of the slow, sickening understanding, as the light failed, that she was not coming.

"She never even sent word," he finished. "Not a line. I had thought—whatever else she felt, I had thought she would at least do me the courtesy of a refusal. But there was nothing. Silence is its own answer, I find."

"Or the letter never reached her," Bingley said gently.

"You are determined to comfort me."

"I am determined to be accurate," Bingley returned. "I only say the case is not so plain as you have decided it is. You read her silence as contempt. It might as easily be a letter gone astray, or a household in mourning too disordered to notice a note, or—" He stopped. "You assume the worst of her feeling because you think the worst of your own deserving."

Darcy turned away. He had no answer that did not sound like the pleading of a man who wished very much to be persuaded.

He was spared the necessity of finding one. A knock came at the library door, and a footman entered bearing a packet upon a salver—travel-stained, heavily sealed, the direction written in a hand Darcy knew.

"From Scotland," he said. "At last."

Bingley straightened. "The inquiries you spoke of?"