“Agreeable! I should say!”
“It is done, then. Shall he report to you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow — Yes! He may come tonight! I shall send a note round this minute if you will allow.”
“By all means!” Darcy gestured to the door, then turned to his sister. “If you will excuse us.” Once in his study, he pushed a sheet of paper across his desk and flicked open the inkwell as Bingley availed himself of a chair.
“This could not have come at a better time.” Bingley grinned as he took the pen Darcy offered and then bit his lip in all seriousness as he dipped it into the inkwell and set himself to writing. Darcy sat back and watched Bingley scratch away at his note, content with both the utility of the help he was able to offer and its glad acceptance. “There,” his friend exclaimed, dotting the i of his name with a flourish and pushing the note toward him. “Tell me if it is acceptable. I would not wish to risk Hinchcliffe’s opinion with a misspelled note.”
The short epistle was soon read, but as Darcy looked back to Bingley with assurance upon his lips, he caught him in what could only be termed a dejection of spirits, his eyes focused on nothing present in the room, the laughter lines about his face gone slack. Even as Darcy watched, Bingley’s shoulders slumped and a furrow appeared across his brow. Quickly returning his gaze to the note, Darcy felt his contentment vanish. The prescription he held in his hand for the relief of Bingley’s social obligations would do nothing to cure the heartsickness that resided still in his friend’s bosom. As he trained his eyes upon the note, a wave of wretchedness engulfed him. What a pitiable pair they made! Bonded now in more than friendship, each had found his soul’s match in a Bennet sister; and as a result of Darcy’s interference, they both suffered the certainty of living the rest of their days only half alive. Yes, Charles loved Jane Bennet just as surely as Darcy loved Elizabeth. He had eyes to see that now. It was worse in Bingley’s case, for Jane Bennet loved him back, if Elizabeth was to be believed; and he believed Elizabeth. How damnably conceited of him to have held himself the arbiter of love! He had wronged Charles, wronged him unforgivably in a high-handed manner and in a matter that Charles’s own heart should have sought out, free from his influence or interference. What recompense for such a grievous error could he ever make him? Even this kindness smacked of a patronizing superiority.
“Ahem.” He cleared his throat and straightened his waistcoat, giving his friend opportunity to recover himself. When Bingley’s head came up, Darcy pushed the note back across the desk. “It will do. Shall it be sent?”
“Yes, by all means,” Bingley returned with a quick, faint grin. “I would not wish to accept the wrong invitations.” He took up the note and slowly creased it into precise thirds as Darcy looked on, dismayed at his quip. Did Charles truly have so little faith in his own judgment? Had Darcy’s attempt to act his mentor convinced him instead that it was safer to put his life in the hands of others he held wiser than himself ? If this was so, he had done Bingley a further wrong.
“You need only take young Hinchcliffe’s recommendations as suggestions, Charles. The final word is yours in this as in all your dealings. If you should find yourself somewhere you discover you would rather not be, you will know what to do. You have ever landed on your feet in any social occasion in which I have observed you.”
“Is that so?” Bingley’s face brightened tentatively. “A compliment, Darcy?” His uncertainty cut Darcy to the quick. When had he fallen into the pattern of treating his friend as less than his equal? How had the man borne his condescension?
“No, the truth, Charles.” He faced him squarely. “If more of humanity was possessed of your innate good nature, your ability to make those around you comfortable and well disposed toward the world, Society would not be half the gauntlet that it is.” He paused to see the effect of his words. The brightness in Bingley’s face had gone a bit flush, but the grin on his lips assured Darcy it was from pleasure rather than anger or embarrassment. “Lord knows, I could profit from some of your talent.” Darcy sighed both for the truth of his confession and for his relief that Bingley was coming back to himself. “Perhaps I should apply to you for lessons!”
“Lessons!” Bingley laughed and rose from his seat. “Shall the master and student change places?”
“No.” Darcy shook his head and stood. “You are graduated, Bingley! I have encouraged you, wrongly, to lag behind in the classroom. I would rather we were friends coming to each other’s aid.” He extended his hand, which Bingley, though surprised, took readily. “Equals standing ready to assist each other along the way.”
“Of course, Darcy, of course!” Bingley beamed at him.
Darcy nodded and strengthened his grip on Bingley’s hand. “I overstepped the bounds, my friend. What I can rectify, I shall. I promise you.”
A knock at his study door a week later brought Darcy’s head up from his book and that of his hound from close contemplation of that activity. Trafalgar rose from his station at his master’s side and padded over to the door, his nails clicking against the polished wood floor between the islands of carpet laid about the room. As Darcy watched, the dog reared on his haunches against the door and batted expertly at the knob until the latch disengaged, then jumped back to nose open the portal. A happy whine from deep within the animal’s chest told Darcy who would soon appear.
“Trafalgar has become quite the gentleman, Fitzwilliam.” Georgiana leaned down to stroke the broad, silky brow above liquid eyes turned to her in hope.
“A highly discriminating one, though.” Darcy shook his head at his sister’s fawning supplicant as he rose to greet her. “He will do the pretty only for those of whom he approves. You, my girl, merely happen to be one of that select party.”
Georgiana laughed and, with one last pat, straightened. “I have come to inform you that Miss Avery has gone, and you may leave the safety of your den for other parts of the house.”
Darcy looked askance at her. “Do you mean to imply that I have gone to ground?”
“I cannot help but notice that you have managed to be absent or to find pressing business in here every time Miss Avery calls.” She smiled at him as she came to his side. “Even so, she thinks you are the perfect gentleman.”
“Georgiana!”
“And that I am the perfect young lady.” She sighed. “It is a bit difficult, is it not, to be so worshiped?”
Darcy took her arm and led her to a settee. “Is it very hard to receive her? I know I have imposed upon you abominably.”
“No, Brother, not ‘abominably.’ Miss Avery is a very different sort of friend but not an unwelcome one.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “Fitzwilliam, she is so crushed by the weight of her brother’s scorn one moment and his dismissal of her existence the next. His opinion of her she takes as the world’s. It is no wonder that she is so timid. When I think —” She stopped and pressed her face into his shoulder.
“When you think what, sweetling?” he prompted, brushing her curls lightly.
“When I think how kind you have always been to me, encouraging me…Oh, thank you, Fitzwilliam!”
He had turned and was halfway back to his desk when it suddenly occurred to him. He turned back. “Georgiana, are you still of a mind to subscribe to that society?”
“The Society for Returning Young Women to Their Friends in the Country?” He nodded. “Oh, yes, Fitzwilliam! Have I your permission?”