by Lynn Messina
The term, he thinks, is overcompensating.
By the time Darcy strolls over to Bennet, ostensibly to leave her empty coffee cup on the table, he’s convinced she doesn’t feel anything for him beyond a sort of residual fondness. Regardless of her emotions, he’s deeply grateful for her kindness and will have no peace until he expresses it. He opens his mouth to do just that, but Darcy speaks first, offering an unexpected compliment on the quality of the dinner. She then remarks on the style and comfort of the room. Her comments are so polite and mundane, it seems inappropriate to follow them with heartfelt gratitude, like giving a flight attendant a standing ovation for pointing out the emergency exits, and instead he asks about her brother.
“Is he still at Pemberley?”
“No, he’s returned to London to pack up his things.”
“And then he’ll come back to New York for good?”
“Yes, he starts Juilliard in two weeks.”
The conversation is stilted and awkward, and Bennet, unable to bear it a moment longer, opens his mouth to thank her for saving Lydon. He has barely spoken three words—please let me—before Meryton volunteers him to escort the Gouldings to their car.
Bennet bites back a growl, politely excuses himself and waits impatiently as the guests make their good-byes. Henry stands near the door, a delighted glow brightening his eyes, as he considers the successes of the evening: the sparkling conversation, the delicious meal, his grandson’s burgeoning interest in the museum.
When Bennet comes back, Henry is reviewing these triumphs again for Darcy’s benefit, and Meryton, preferring not to engage in further conversation with Bingley’s proud friend, is helping the waitstaff clear the table. In fact, he’s more hindrance than help, for he doesn’t know where anything goes and insists on putting the coffee cups where the salad forks belong.
John and Bingley are nowhere to be seen, but the mystery of their disappearance is immediately answered when Bennet walks into the cozy sitting room off to the left and finds the couple engaged in a passionate clutch before the fireplace. John’s arms are wrapped so tightly around Bingley, it’s clear he has no intention of ever letting go. Bingley, her own hands grasping the lapels of his suit jacket, obviously has no quarrel with his plans. If this tableau hadn’t told the whole story, the faces of both, as they hastily notice him and break apart, would have. Their situation is awkward enough, but his is still worse. Not a syllable is uttered by either, and Bennet’s on the point of scurrying away when Bingley squeals with happiness and propels herself into his arms for a giddy hug. Then she runs out of the room.
“Would it be appallingly smug of me to say I told you so?” Bennet asks mildly.
Although appallingly smug would be an appalling understatement, John is too happy to mind anything and, just like Bingley, engulfs Bennet in an enthusiastic hug. Then, stepping back, he wonders what the proper interval is between declaring one’s feelings and proposing marriage.
“Surely, there’s a minimum,” John says.
Bennet’s knowledge of courtship timelines is no more complete than his brother’s, but he considers the depth and sincerity of their connection and says six weeks. A month would be too short; two months seems intolerably long. Satisfied by this logic, John takes out his phone and makes a note on his calendar. Looking over his shoulder, Bennet reads the entry: Propose to Bingley, make self happiest creature in world.
A moment later, Bingley returns with a bottle of champagne, and Meryton, following not the bubbly heiress but the bubbly itself, which costs upward of $100, enters behind her. Although nobody says a word, he immediately perceives the change and clutches the mantelpiece rather than accost the couple with his happiness. Then he returns to the kitchen to get flutes, which Bingley, in her haste to return to John, hadn’t bothered to look for.
She pops the cork as she calls for Darcy. “We’re having a toast,” she explains, though she doesn’t say why and her friend doesn’t ask. Like Meryton, Darcy quickly grasps the situation and accepts the glass of champagne without any appearance of outward discomfort. Bingley makes several exuberant if not entirely comprehensible toasts to the future and the past and the present and to the effervescent spectacle of life and to the capriciousness of fate and to the persistent challenge of human interaction and, last but most eloquently, to rugelach.
Henry is clearly confused by such irregular goings-on, but Meryton’s delight conveys something of the occasion’s importance and the amused benefactor obligingly raises his glass with each new salute.
“Would you believe she’s been in love with me all along?” John says to Bennet, his eyes trained on Bingley as she laughs at something Darcy says. “She was in love with me in April when she went to London and the only reason she didn’t come back was she thought I didn’t love her. She thought I thought she was just another donor.” The surprise of this is still evident in his voice.
“A gross miscalculation, to be sure, but now we know she’s not vain,” Bennet observes.
A few minutes later, he’s joined by Bingley, who, as if seeking approval, promises with unabashed earnestness never to hurt John. “I’m known to be flighty. I’m not, you understand, but that’s how I’m perceived, and anyone who has followed my exploits during the past few months could be forgiven for thinking I’m fickle and impulsive. But I was nursing a broken heart,” she says, as if that explains everything, and in a way it does. She sighs contentedly and reaches for Bennet’s arm. “Oh, I’m going to be like a sister to you. You’re going to love me almost as much as you love John.”
Bennet honestly and heartily expresses his delight in the prospect of their relationship and submits to another enthusiastic hug. Then he listens with bemused patience as Bingley lavishes praise on John’s head. Her judgment is clearly corrupted by affection, but her observations are spot-on and actually demonstrate an excellent understanding of his brother. Amused, Bennet doesn’t doubt for a moment that they’ll be happy together—they’re both too good-natured to be otherwise.
After Bingley rushes off to tackle John, who’s standing by himself near the fireplace, Meryton sits next to Bennet and gushes over the evening’s triumphs, which are not limited to John’s promising new relationship. Henry has agreed to underwrite the Lydon Bethle Honorary Drinking Fountain—outside the men’s room on the third floor—and Xavier called Art & Style “interesting.”
“But not in that bland way that indicates he couldn’t think of anything else to say and was only making the comment out of an obligation to be polite,” Meryton hastens to add, “although a grandchild of Henry’s feeling thus obligated to an employee of the Longbourn would be a triumph in and of itself. His tone, however, was far more invested than that and implied a genuine interest in the material.”
Although Bennet offers no encouragement, Meryton continues to parse Xavier’s level of enthusiasm, and he watches helplessly as Darcy talks to John and then Bingley and then Henry and then John again before finally taking her leave. She says good night to Bennet using the same polite tone that she does with Meryton, which strikes the former as a rather clear indication of her feelings. She even volunteers, for Meryton’s benefit, you understand, the information that she’ll be going to London for ten days to help her brother pack his things.
Bennet, his emotions in turmoil—to be so close and yet so far away from saying anything that matters—makes a hugely mundane comment about having a safe trip. Darcy nods, says thank you and looks at her phone. Then she’s gone and Bennet is left to rebuke himself for not being more clever. He’s not a Nobel laureate, to be sure, but certainly he can rise above benign travel banalities.
He’s still chastising himself ten minutes later when he slides into a town car next to Bingley, who insists on dropping him at his apartment before they head to John’s. That the international jet-setting heiress is content to forgo her three dozen rooms in Manhattan for John’s 3.5 in Queens strikes him as perhaps the single most endearing thing ever, and, despite his own misery, he s
ays good night with a curiously upbeat feeling in his heart. Sometimes things work out exactly the way they’re supposed to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
If a silver Rolls-Royce driven by a white-gloved chauffeur is an uncommon sight at the Longbourn, it’s nothing compared with a Birkin bag in black crocodile worn by an imposing society matron who shows no hesitation as she strides past the admissions desk. Guided by an assistant in practical brown pumps whose familiarity with the museum’s layout had been established prior to their arrival, the lady breezes by the courtyard, turns right at the café, marches down the hallway and waits in front of the elevator for her companion to press the button.
Everyone—the entire staff, even the security guards—is in awe of such purposefulness of motion and such ostentatiousness of wealth. Clearly, the woman is loaded. Only the filthy rich can’t be bothered to press their own elevator buttons.
Martin, the highest-ranking employee on the admissions desk, says they should do something but can’t think of anything particularly useful, so he pulls out his phone and googles how much a black crocodile Birkin costs. As he suspects, it’s the holy grail of luxury purses, and taking a screen shot, he immediately begins to compose a tweet.
Indifferent to the tumult her arrival has caused, Mrs. Catherine de Bourgh gets off on the third floor, walks down the long corridor and presents herself at the door of the development department with little fuss.
Although her entrance is somewhat matter-of-fact—no trumpets sounding in the distance, no chaise and four pounding up the drive—the inhabitants of the room stare as if the Queen of England has suddenly appeared on their threshold, their astonishment readily apparent to anyone who cares to look.
Lady Catherine does not care to look. She enters the room with an air more ungracious than her usual lack of graciousness, makes no other reply to Bennet’s greeting—he isn’t too startled to bid her hello—than a slight inclination of the head and sits in the rickety chair next to the door without saying a word. Bennet awkwardly summons his boss. “Mr. Meryton, have you ever met Mrs. Catherine de Bourgh…?
Meryton, all amazement and quivering excitement at having a guest of such high importance, receives her with the utmost composure. Silently, however, he’s screaming, Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art! Patron of the philharmonic! Sponsor of the Central Park Conservancy!
Lady Catherine makes no response and turns away from the executive director’s outstretched hand. Meryton is too overwhelmed by the honor of her presence to notice the slight.
After sitting for a moment in silence, Lady Catherine says very stiffly to Bennet, “I hope you are well, Mr. Bethle. That gentleman, I suppose, is your employer.”
Meryton preens happily at this acknowledgment not only of himself but of his status. Very concisely, Bennet answers that he is indeed.
“And that”—she tilts her head a fraction of an inch in John’s direction—“I suppose, is one of your brothers.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Meryton says, eagerly holding up his end of a conversation he erroneously believes is already in progress. “That’s my director of individual giving. My department associate is out to lunch, but you may have read about him in the papers as he recently foiled a dastardly plot to steal great sums of money from the Longbourn.”
“You have a very small café here,” Lady Catherine returns after a short silence.
“It’s nothing in comparison to the many fine eateries you have at the Met,” Mr. Meryton says, “but it’s much larger than the Queens Art Museum’s.”
“This office must be extremely inconvenient in the evening. Awful in the summer—the window is full west.”
Meryton assures her that no one ever works after dinner and then adds, “May I ask how your nephew Collin is?”
“Yes, very well. I saw him the night before last.”
Bennet watches the exchange, completely puzzled as to why the great patroness has suddenly decided to bestow her favor upon them; a glance at John reveals he’s equally baffled.
Meryton, with great civility, begs Mrs. de Bourgh to take some refreshment—in the moment, he can’t recall what they have in stock: maybe bottled water? Perhaps some Girl Scout cookies?—but she very resolutely, and not very politely, declines to accept anything. Rising to her feet, she says to Bennet, “Mr. Bethle, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of courtyard on the first floor. I’d be grateful if you’d accompany me there.”
“Go, go,” Meryton cries, “and give Mrs. de Bourgh a tour. I think she’ll like the fountain.”
Bennet obeys and, sliding his phone into his pocket, leads their noble guest out of the office. As they pass through the hall, Lady Catherine opens the doors to the janitor’s closet and staff kitchen, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent-looking rooms, walks on. When they get to the end of the corridor, Bennet sees not only that her assistant’s waiting for her, but that the thoughtful woman has held the elevator for her. They get onto the waiting car and ride down to the first floor. Then they proceed in silence along the marble walk that leads to the courtyard—Bennet’s determined to make no effort at conversation with a woman who’s being even more rude than usual.
How could I ever think she was like her niece? he wonders as he looks in her face.
When they reach the fountain, Lady Catherine begins in the following manner: “You have to know the reason for my visit, Mr. Bethle. Your conscience must tell you.”
Bennet stares at her with unaffected confusion. “You’re mistaken, ma’am. I have no clue why you’re here.”
“Mr. Bethle,” her ladyship replies, her tone now approaching open anger, “you must know I’m not a woman to be trifled with. You may choose to be disingenuous, but I’ll speak with the candor for which I’m famous. Two days ago, I heard a very alarming report. I was told that you were engaged to my niece, Ms. Darcy Fitzwilliam. Although I know this can’t possibly be true—I’d never insult my niece by believing it—I felt compelled to come out here immediately and tell you how strongly I disapprove.”
“If you know it’s not true,” Bennet says, his color rising, “then why bother coming?”
“To get your assurance it’s a lie.”
“Won’t your coming to my humble office to see me,” Bennet says coolly, “be taken as confirmation? Anyone from Page Six trying to verify the report, if there actually is such a report, need look no further than our Twitter feed to find it. Your presence in the museum won’t pass unnoticed by the staff. Martin at the front desk, for example”—he takes out his phone and pulls up the tweet that preceded her arrival on the third floor—“has already posted a photo of your handbag.”
“If!” Lady Catherine cries, without sparing even a glance at the screen. Her relationship with social media extends no farther than conceding its right to exist. “Are you actually pretending to know nothing about the rumor? Aren’t you the one who started it?”
“I neither started it, nor heard it.”
She nods. “And will you also confirm it’s not true?”
“No, I don’t think I will. Not having your reputation for candor, I see no reason why I should answer such an intrusive question.”
“Your response is unacceptable. Mr. Bethle, I insist on your answering me at once. Are you engaged to my niece?”
“You’ve already said it’s not possible.”
“It’s not. Unless she’s lost her mind. In a moment of weakness, she might have forgotten what she owes to herself and to her family. You could have used your wiles to take advantage of an infatuated young woman.”
It’s hard not to smile at the accusation of having wiles—wiles, as if he were an antebellum heroine in an overwrought drama—but Bennet manages to maintain his composure. “If I have, I’d be the last person to admit it.”
“Mr. Bethle, do you know who I am? I’m one of the most influential people in this city. I say the word and opera houses are built. In two days, I could cut off funding for your little collection so thorough
ly the only money you’ll be able to collect are coins from this fountain. Now tell me what I want to know. As Darcy’s almost nearest relative in the world, I’m entitled to know her plans.”
“But you’re not entitled to know mine.”
“Let me be clear: This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, will never take place. No, never. Darcy will marry my nephew Collin. What do you have to say to that?”
“Only this: If she’s already engaged to your nephew, then why would you believe she’s engaged to me?”
Lady Catherine hesitates for a moment and then replies, “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. I’m still sorting out the details, but it will never happen if a man like you—a social-climbing office boy with no breeding or money—is determined to prevent it.”
“I’m not determined to prevent it,” Bennet says calmly. “Considering your nephew’s inclinations, I think nature has taken a stronger stance on the matter than I could. And that being the case, why can’t Darcy be with me, if that’s what she wants?”
“Because honor, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Mr. Bethle, interest, for it’s not in your best interest to proceed with this madness. None of her friends or family will accept you if you disobey me in this. You’ll be snubbed and hated by everyone who knows her. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never be mentioned by any of us.”
“A terrible misfortune indeed,” Bennet replies with a fair amount of irony, for the idea of passing unacknowledged by the imperious and pedantic Lady Catherine de Bourgh seems more blessing than curse. “But I’m sure being with Darcy would offer compensations.”