Page 8 of A Mismatched Compromise

“Why was Miss Elizabeth in the library?” Darcy asked finally, looking up at his friend.

Bingley shook his head slowly. “I do not know,” he admitted. “I did not think to ask.” He was silent for another long moment. “I do not know why I did not ask. I should have. There must have been a reason she was there — I do not believe she is the sort of person who just wanders off with no purpose. But it was… It all happened so fast,” he said. “All of it. It happened very fast, Darcy.”

Darcy looked back into the fire. “What about Lydia Bennet? She was there so quickly, and she didn’t arrive from the ballroom.”

“Did she not?” Bingley frowned, looking up. “I did not — I did not see where she came from. She was there all of a sudden, and immediately started in with that confounded wailing.”

“She came from further down the corridor. Not from the direction of the ballroom.” Darcy paused. “I was coming from the ballroom, and I saw her, though I was too far away at the time to realise that it was her. She came from down the corridor and was standing near the library for a moment before she opened the door.”

Bingley stared at him. “What — why was she doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Darcy said. Which was true. The chaotic events of the evening all indicated that all was not right, but Darcy could not recall a time when he had so little grip on the events that had transpired around him. Elizabeth Bennet was certainly witty and intelligent, but it seemed that proximity to her did not have the effect of amplifying those traits in him.

Bingley seemed to accept this, and to dismiss the question of Lydia’s actions, as he turned back to the fire. After a moment, with the determination of someone who has decided to salvage what can be salvaged, he said, “She is…she is remarkable, you know. Miss Elizabeth. She finds things funny that most people would not, and she’s kind without making a point of the fact that she’s being kind. She is very…” He searched for the word. “Honest. One always knows where one stands with her. And, of course, she is quite pretty.” He glanced at Darcy, grinning faintly, his indomitable cheer attempting to reassert itself even in the face of the disastrous events of the evening. “Those are all fine qualities in a wife, Darcy.”

“Yes,” Darcy said. “They are.”

“So, we might very well get on well together in time. People have built good marriages on far less than that.” he said, nodding several times at his own words, with the air of one trying to make the best of a difficult state of affairs by comforting himself with things he knew to be true.

Something could be true, Darcy thought, and still not be enough. He said nothing aloud, for it would not have helped his friend to come out with too much honesty. Bingley preferred to focus on the positive aspects of any given situation, rather than the ways in which it might fall short of his own expectations or needs. Perhaps he was wise to do so.

“It needn’t be a disaster, Darcy,” Bingley said earnestly then. “It may be perfectly fine.”

Darcy looked at his friend, took in the forced steadiness of his posture and the tightness around his eyes, and realised that this was the most time he had spent with Bingley in weeks during which the man had not said Jane Bennet’s name. “You are right,” he agreed quietly. “It need not go poorly.”

It was the most dishonest thing he had said to Bingley all evening, perhaps ever, and it cost him rather more than he expected it would.

Bingley finished his brandy and rose to his feet, saying goodnight with a lack of enthusiasm that was entirely unlike his usual self, and went to bed. Darcy remained in his seat, watching the fire burn down. Though he knew he ought to go to sleep likewise, he felt too bruised and exhausted to move. He was still sitting there when a soft knock sounded at the door.

It was Thomas, one of the senior footmen, who entered, twisting his cap with an air of indecision. “Mr Bingley, sir — ah. Sorry to bother you, Mr Darcy. I was looking for Mr Bingley. I have something that I thought perhaps I ought to tell him, but then I thought maybe it would just be a bother, but Mr Stevens said that it ought to be reported, and so here I am, sir.”

“You can tell me,” Darcy said. “I will pass the information on to Mr Bingley if it is something he should know.”

Thomas nodded, obviously relieved, and told him that earlier that evening, before the screaming and the subsequent commotion, one of the younger footmen had noticed a man near the side entrance to the house, the one that connected to the servants’ passage and, beyond that, to the garden path along the east wing. Though the man was in uniform, he did not seem to be a guest — he hadn’t gone down to the ball, and had instead spent a good amount of time loitering near the side entrance, which had struck the footman as odd enough to mention to Mr Stevens, the butler. Mr Stevens had gone to speak to the man himself.

“What did he say?” Darcy asked, leaning forward intently.

Thomas shifted his weight slightly. “He was very pleasant about it, sir. Friendly-like. He said he’d lost his way and was looking for the road.” He paused. “Mr Stevens didn’t quite believe him, as the side entrance don’t connect to the road, it connects to the garden. But the man was nice enough, and there was no real cause to detain him. He left quick enough when Mr Stevens suggested he should go, that he did.”

“Did you see which direction he went when he left?” Darcy asked.

“Back toward the garden, sir. Not the road.” Thomas hesitated again. “Mr Stevens was able to hear a name from one of the officers at the ball who stepped out for a bit of air and recognised him. He was giving him a bit of a joke about not coming down to the ball.”

Darcy felt his heartbeat quicken and forced himself to remain calm. “The name.”

“Wickham, sir. Mr George Wickham.”

Darcy was quiet for a long moment, long enough to make the footman fidget uncomfortably. “Thank you, Thomas,” he said. “You did well by reporting this. I must ask that you say nothing further about it to anyone.”

Thomas nodded, clearly relieved to have discharged his duty, and left.

Darcy sat alone in Bingley’s study for a long time after that, the name turning itself over in his mind with a curious sense of inevitability.

Wickham had been at Netherfield tonight, lingering by the side entrance, using his not inconsiderable charm on the servants and the butler and who knows who else. Darcy didn’t know what the man was about here at Netherfield, but he knew in his very bones that Wickham never went anywhere or spoke with anyone or performed any action without some internal plotting regarding how the person or the words or the act would benefit himself. It was no coincidence that Wickham had been here — of that Darcy was grimly certain. But the shape of Wickham’s role in the night’s events was unformed, amorphous, frustratingly so. Darcy clenched his fists, angry with himself that he had, once again, allowed Wickham into the sphere of people he lo — people he cared for —

Darcy sighed. Once again, he had allowed Wickham into his sphere, where he was able to hurt those around him. He nodded, vaguely pleased with his own mental phrasing, and how it spoke to his frustration while allowing himself to remain vague about…

Blast it. He was hardly remaining vague. Darcy pushed himself to his feet and determinedly climbed the stairs to his bed. There was no use fretting about Wickham and…other things now. He would sleep, and the new day would bring more clarity with it. Darcy lay down, but despite his fine resolutions, he did not sleep. The events of the evening arranged and rearranged themselves in the dark — the collision as Bingley had described it, the scream with its bright note of excitement, Jane’s hand holding her sister’s, Bingley’s face as he proposed marriage to a woman he did not love, while the woman he did care for held her hand. Wickham at the side door. Wickham, turning away to the garden, not the road. Wickham, always at the edge of every disaster.