An End to Estrangement - A Pride and Prejudice Variation

Part 12

"That rain! How it persists!"

Caroline Bingley's voice was shrill enough and loud enough that it broke through Darcy's thoughts and he looked up, surprised to notice that he was not, in fact, alone in the Netherfield parlour. Seated across from him, in a happy little circle closer to the fire than was surely comfortable if their reddened cheeks were any indication, sat Caroline Bingley and Mrs Hurst, both attempting to sew with varying degrees of success, and Mr Hurst, who had abandoned even the pretence of industry, whose head lolled forward, his chin against his chest, snoring loudly.

Darcy made a sound that might have been agreement and straightened in his chair, drawing his attention back to the book before him and focusing his powers once more on reading. He managed scarcely a paragraph before Caroline spoke again.

"How engaging your book must be, Mr Darcy!" she declared, pausing theatrically to make a stitch. "You have scarcely spoken a word to us all afternoon, but remained hunched over your pages as if they contained all the secrets of the universe." She laughed, and the sound made Darcy close the book with a thud. He would have no success at reading now.

"It passed the time," he allowed, leaning over to deposit the book safely on an end table. "I fear your brother has been caught out in this weather, Miss Bingley. Did he say when he would return?"

This was a confession that he had not been listening to Charles that morning at breakfast, when his friend had earnestly outlined his plans for the day, surreptitiously urging Darcy to join him on a ride around Meryton. Darcy knew his friend well enough to deduce that "around Meryton" meant "in the direction of Longbourn", and fearing they would be compelled to call there, and he would be thus forced into society once more with Elizabeth Bennet, he declined, hiding in his room until he could be certain that Charles was gone. Now, seeing the weather, he was pleased with his decision, even though he had begun to feel the prickling discontent that plagued him when he had spent too long cooped up indoors and idle.

"I am surprised he has not already returned to us!" Caroline admitted, turning to Mrs Hurst and seeking her sister's agreement. "He did not plan to call anywhere, I do not believe."

"Perhaps he ran across some acquaintance or other," Mrs Hurst said, finishing her own stitch with nothing like the care her sister had displayed, and sighing, for the topic of her brother's activities did not interest her.

"Yes, Charles is forever finding friends," Caroline said, shooting Darcy a look that he hurried to quell, fearing that if he did not, Caroline would seek to return to a topic she had dedicated far too much time to over the past few days.

"I wonder, Mrs Hurst," he began, but not quickly enough to dissuade Caroline from her course.

"I expect he has gone to Longbourn. Do you know he has called there twice already?"

"Once," Darcy corrected. He permitted a tight smile when both ladies looked at him. "He has only called there once before today, to my knowledge."

"Oh, then you are mistaken, Mr Darcy!" Mrs Hurst said, her eyes brightening at being in possession of gossip. "Yes, I believe you were in Meryton at the time. Caroline went with him though, didn't you? And what do you make of our neighbours?"

Her thin lips curved into a cruel smile and Darcy felt as if he might imagine what Caroline thought of the Bennets without needing to hear her opinion expressed at that moment. There was no escaping it, however, as Caroline let out a theatrical sigh, setting down her sewing and surveying her audience with delight.

"Well! I must say I think Jane Bennet is a delight."

This unparalleled praise surprised Darcy and he could not help but be drawn in, leaning forward in his seat and suddenly eager to hear Caroline's opinion of certain other Bennet daughters.

"But her sister!" Caroline scowled. "You know, dear, that I expressed some hesitancy at our forming too great an allegiance with their family after their behaviour at the assembly?"

She turned to Mrs Hurst as if this was the resumption of some earlier conversation Darcy had not been privy to, and Mrs Hurst nodded knowingly.

"The youngest girls are so wild!" she declared, with a pious sniff. Darcy clamped his jaw closed, refraining from reminding Mrs Hurst and her sleeping husband that two high-spirited girls were not the only ones who might now repent of their excitable behaviour at the last assembly. I suppose you would claim it was mere exuberance that turned your cheeks red and not the quantity of punch you imbibed? He swallowed, unwilling or able to insult his friend's sister, however much he might privately felt she deserved it.

"They are young," he put in, but Caroline spoke over him.

"That is no excuse! If anything, it is more of a warning! Just think what may lie ahead of them if they do not learn to better control their impulses and act with decorum." She turned to him, an appealing smile on her thin cheeks. "Imagine poor Georgiana, Mr Darcy! You would not like to hear tell of her getting up to all sorts of mischief, and you so far away as to be unable to intervene?"

This was so close to what had actually happened to his sister that for a moment Darcy wondered if Caroline was part witch. She had no way of knowing, of course, that Georgiana's decision to remain at Pemberley and attend to her studies and music was nought but an excuse. She was recovering from the havoc Wickham had played with her heart and her future, and the quantity of money Darcy had paid to extract her from his former friend's clutches. He scowled, his blood boiling at the mere recollection of all that Wickham had cost him in the duration of their long acquaintance.

"You see?" Caroline turned, triumphant, to Mrs Hurst, as if Darcy's silence had been all the confirmation she required. "Mr Darcy agrees with me. He would not care to see his own young sister behaving so - not that she ever would, for Georgiana is a dear, and far more sensible than either of the younger Bennet sisters."

"Than any of them at all," Mrs Hurst put in, her eyes narrowing. "The second-eldest, what was her name? Emily?"

"Eliza," Caroline declared, speaking with such thinly disguised loathing that Darcy could not be mistaken as to her true opinion of Elizabeth Bennet. "Now, she is the brains of the operation, I fear. She is clever - or thinks she is." Caroline sniffed. "I have never much thought brains counted for much, but I suppose if one cannot be beautiful..."

"You danced with her, Mr Darcy, did not you?" Mrs Hurst turned to draw him back into the conversation. "What was your opinion of her?"

"Miss Bennet?" Darcy hesitated half a moment before choosing to be deliberately obtuse. "No, I believe it was your brother that danced with Miss Bennet." He paused, feeling a mischievous flicker of delight at taunting the two sisters for their cruel dismissal of Elizabeth. "Twice."

"Oh, no, that is Miss Jane Bennet!" Caroline laughed. "We speak of Miss Eliza, her sister. Do you recall? You danced with her, I believe, although you parted rather quickly once the dance was over. I dare say she was a rather stiff partner..."

"I did not find her so," Darcy remarked, his voice little more than a whisper. He was torn, for in seeking to avoid Elizabeth Bennet he seemed now to be forced to speak of her, neither option appealing to him. To his great delight, he heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway and Bingley's jolly voice accompanied by another, quieter gentleman's in reply. He glanced around the room again, certain that he did not recognise the voice and guessed, from the way Mrs Hurst leaned over and shook her husband awake that they, too, were anticipating the arrival of a stranger.

"Ah, good, you are all here!" Bingley declared, throwing open the door to the parlour with a flourish. "That makes introductions easy! My dear Mr Egerton, I would like to introduce you to my family, and my good friend - you must permit me to describe him as handsome, although he will more than likely deny such a charge. Very well, I shall simply be truthful and tell you he is the very best man I know - Mr -"

"Darcy," Egerton supplied, his sightless gaze fixed on the ground. Nobody present could have denied the bitterness ringing in his voice. "Yes, we are already quite well acquainted."