He had behaved almost as badly when Mrs. Hurst played on the pianoforte, suggesting with unbecoming slyness that Elizabeth was so moved by the lively tune that she must wish to dance a reel. What if she had been incautious enough to agree? Considering his lack of courtesy at that first Meryton assembly, it seemed a calculated insult. Or had he already forgotten that insignificant event?
How could he love his friend, to the rejection of all others, and yet watch her so closely? How could he hate women and yet admire her? What did it mean, to “hate women”? Whatever he was, he hated women’s minds and natures, not their bodies. At least, not her body.
Just as she felt about him. He was odious, overbearing, arrogant. And beautiful. And amusing, an opponent worthy of her skill. Oh, he was far above her slight talents, and impervious to anything she could say to wound him, but at least she had someone to joust with, someone she could not defeat on the first try.
It would be bad enough if it was just a physical attraction that had sprung up, so quickly conceived and as quickly dispelled with the revelation of weak character or deficient wit. But this was dangerous. He was like a sleek, muscular tiger, something with claws and sharp teeth that must be left alone, while all the time one’s hand was reaching out, tempted to stroke the striped coat, only to be bitten off. He knew exactly the effect he had on her—on all women, apparently—and scorned them all. That was some comfort, at any rate, that he had as great a contempt for his friend’s snobbish, rude sisters as for her.
After his dismissal of her at the Meryton assembly as “not handsome enough to tempt me,” Elizabeth had been very glad to give him no more reason to find her lacking. When Sir William Lucas, hosting his own gathering, had tried to pair them for a dance, she had refused on principle. And apparently done herself some good, because the hateful man had not pressed.
Why, then, did she care that he notice her here at Netherfield? She should stay out of sight, keep quiet, instead of answering his acerbic witticisms with her own, as close to impertinence as she had ever come with anyone. She knew he liked it, knew he had never been spoken to in that way.
Elizabeth was certain now. They must leave this house, but only to gain reinforcements, waging the war for Mr. Bingley’s liberation, and Jane’s happiness, from their own camp. It could all work out very well. Mr. Bingley was announcing his intentions to set up his own establishment. He and Jane were a perfect match, in age, in temperament—anyone could see that. Even Mr. Darcy would be forced to recognize that the time had come to let his friend decide this matter for himself. It might not have to mean the end of their friendship, after all. Why should he not love a married man as well as a single one? Only he would have to share, that’s all.
She must help Jane in her struggle, should they face a whole legion of Mr. Darcys; she shuddered, suddenly in a cold sweat every bit as bad as Jane’s, at the image of a battalion of tall, fair, handsome, proud men, advancing in line across like soldiers on the field of battle, but instead of muskets leveled, ready to fire, they had their breeches open, and—
What was the matter with her? When had she ever thought in such lewd images? Never—but only because she had never before seen anything to inspire them. And there had never been anyone worth thinking lewdly about. She had never felt it, this reaction to a man’s face or voice, this strange tightness between her thighs, this wetness.
She would not let herself become as pathetic as Miss Bingley.
ONCE BACK AT home, Elizabeth tried a dozen times to tell Jane of what she had heard—and seen—but could not bring herself to do it. Jane was sweet and innocent and trusting. She would be too ready to forgive, to understand, and to hope, where hope was not, perhaps, her ally. No, someone else was better suited to hear Elizabeth’s concerns.
“You acted rightly,” Charlotte Lucas said with her unflappable serenity, “the only way you could have. Jane is, in some respects, the younger sister to you. You can comprehend complexity in a man’s character where she, with her untried, unworldly nature, would only be confused.”
“Can I?” Elizabeth said. “But suppose it to fall out as I wish. Suppose Mr. Bingley does love Jane, and they marry. How are they to live together with this unspoken transgression between them?”
“Oh!” Charlotte laughed and shook her head. “I forget our difference of age in our souls’ equal companionship. How should any marriage succeed? What man of the world comes to his bride unproven in the field of amour? What gentleman of twenty-three has committed no indiscretions? But he does not insult his wife by cataloging them for her.”
“But this!” Elizabeth said. “Surely this is worse.”
“How so?” Charlotte replied. “How is being loved by a handsome, wealthy friend, a gentleman of the highest standing, any worse than the usual run of such affairs?”
“Because,” Elizabeth said, listening to her answer as if to test for the flaw, “to commit a youthful indiscretion or two, with a woman, may be seen as the natural course of a gentleman’s maturation. But to do that with one of his own sex—”
Charlotte hushed her with a touch of gloved hand on her lips. “Lizzy,” she whispered. “Think. How is it different from what we share?”
Elizabeth felt herself blushing. “You swore,” she said, “as did I, never to speak of it out loud.”
“I am speaking of it now,” Charlotte said, her face looking somehow prettier and more dignified as she lost her habitual placid smile, “because you seem to have renounced it. Were all your sighs of pleasure, your protestations of devotion, merely the ploys of a fickle girl?”
“No!” Elizabeth said, more forcefully than intended. She glanced about, afraid that, behind a thick tree trunk, or around the edge of the field, hidden by the stand of corn, there lurked a listener, as she in the corridor that fateful night, but was reassured by the lonely vista, the solitude of the country lane they had chosen for their conversation. “Charlotte, you know my feelings. I would never pretend with you. I just don’t see that the innocent love between women is the same as men’s—you know I can’t say the word.”
“Sodomy?” Charlotte said. “No, in law you are correct. Men are prosecuted for loving one another, while we women are ignored. It is one of the very few times, perhaps the only one, where the law errs in our favor. But in spirit, Lizzy, in spirit. Use your wits and tell me—just how is what your amiable, comfortable Mr. Bingley and your clever, scornful Mr. Darcy do with each other so different from our intimacies, and unforgivable?”
“Unforgivable?” Elizabeth looked up from the ground in surprise. “I don’t think that.”
“You implied that Jane would not forgive it if she knew.”
“Not at all. I’m afraid she will forgive and accept too easily. I can forgive, but it is she who is wronged by it.”
“How wronged?” Charlotte said. “But it is for him to tell, if he chooses, although I would not recommend it. There is no reason they cannot have a happy marriage. It is common enough, I assure you, and has little effect on a gentleman’s eventual choice to marry or remain single.”
“If you say so,” Elizabeth said. “But you speak with such authority on a subject where it seems you can have no more direct knowledge than I.”
Charlotte shrugged. “One of the advantages of having brothers; I am given a window into the minds of young men, whether I wish it or not. Even my father contributes to my education. From everything he says, if all the sodomites in London were not to marry, the city would be a vast unpopulated desert, its business and trade dwindled to little more than the barter of a primitive tribe, the court unattended and the theaters boarded up, as bad as in the time of Noll Cromwell.”
“Stop,” Elizabeth said, choking on her laughter. “You’re shamming me. He can’t say such things. I don’t believe it.” Thinking of pompous, silly Sir William Lucas, with his endless and repetitive stories of his brief, glorious presentation at St. James’s, expounding to his wife and children on the natural acceptability of sodomy in London, she fel
t ready to expire with hilarity.
“I am not shamming,” Charlotte said. “Oh, he does not say it quite so openly, but I can put two and two together, and I read the newspapers. When he relays the tittle-tattle from his old associates in town, how this Lord So-and-So and that Mr. Such-and-Such are perpetually in each other’s company, and how they and their friends frequent this house or that, and all of them with wives and families, I do not see how Mr. Bingley will suffer any hardship.”
“It is Jane’s hardship I worry about, not his.”
“I still don’t see how it matters,” Charlotte said. “Once they marry, he and Jane will set up their own household.”
“Like Mr. Bingley’s married sister, Mrs. Hurst, and her husband?” Elizabeth said.
“Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that,” Charlotte said. “But most likely Mr. Darcy would go back to his own estate, or to town. He would resent the affront.”
“Yes, you’re right about that,” Elizabeth said. “In fact, it would probably be prudent if Mr. Bingley and Jane went abroad directly after the wedding. Somewhere very far away. Just to be on the safe side.”
It was only when Elizabeth returned home, flushed and languid with the afterglow of pleasure, and was roundly scolded by her mother for her “green gown,” the inevitable result of lying on damp grass, that she felt genuine fear. “If I had not seen you with that poor, plain Charlotte Lucas, I would suppose you were meeting some man, although who there could be other than that disagreeable, proud Mr. Whatever-His-Fine-Name who snubbed you at the assembly, I can’t imagine,” Mrs. Bennet rattled on, while Kitty and Lydia sniggered.
“The dangers of a particular friendship”—Mary had to utter her tuppence-worth of specious philosophy for the day—“are well known for men, but of equal if not greater peril for women. Man is the master in matrimony; should a woman demonstrate an independence of masculine rule, she renders herself unfit for the wifely station.”
“Oh, do shut up,” Lydia said. “You’re just being spiteful because you don’t have a particular friend of your own.”
“Thank you, Lydia,” Elizabeth said. “I think we’ve had quite enough of particular friends for one week.”
But privately she did not feel so brave. She and Charlotte were not so safe, nor so innocent, as she had thought. And if that sharp-eyed Mr. Darcy were ever to find out about it, she would be reduced to his level.
Perhaps it was time she and Charlotte began to think about renouncing the pleasures of girlhood. Charlotte was twenty-seven. There was little for her to look forward to in life, and Elizabeth did not like to abandon her friend or deprive her of the spinster’s only solace. But Elizabeth was not yet one-and-twenty; there was no reason to despair. Surely there were men in the world who liked women, who had fortune enough to marry where they chose, who had wit and humor and were not unpleasant to look at…She heard the growing list of requirements. Goodness! The odds against marriage for a woman in her situation were almost insurmountable, unless one were willing to compromise.
What did a little sodomy matter, where everything else was as desirable as one could wish? She would say nothing to Jane, and hope for the best.
Now, if only Elizabeth could find a suitor.
“MR. WICKHAM? I say, is that you, Mr. Wickham?”
George thought for a prolonged minute, continuing to walk down the dark street until he had placed the voice and determined it would do no harm to claim the acquaintance. Might even lead to some advantage. He turned around and allowed the other man to catch up, registering the red coat. “Mr. Denny! I’ll be damned. Sorry for my inattentiveness. I was miles away.”
Denny smiled at the beautiful face that confronted him. “Contemplating your many love affairs, I imagine,” he said.
George saw no reason to contradict the assumption. “What brings you to town, Denny?”
“Oh, business. Nothing of interest. I say, fancy meeting you like this!”
“Yes,” George said. “How’s military life treating you?” Ought to be just up your alley, he thought.
“Not bad at all,” Denny said. “The militia, you know. Never too long in one place. Not like the regulars. Soon as the natives tire of us, or we of them, it’s off to the next billet and no danger of being sent somewhere dangerous, like Spain.”
“Quite a noble martial sentiment,” George said with a gentle laugh. No need to antagonize the man until he saw what he had to offer.
“You know I’m not one of those dashing heroes,” Denny said, apparently not offended. “But I’d do my duty if asked and not complain.”
“Where are you stationed for the winter?”
“Hertfordshire. Small village, nobody of note.” Denny snapped his fingers. “I know—what made me think of you, helped me to recall your name just now—that gentleman whose estate you grew up on, Mr. Darcy—he’s there.”
“Darcy?” George felt that surefire aphrodisiac, the combination of fear and anger, surge through him at the name. “What’s he doing in Hertfordshire? He’s a Derbyshire man.”
“Staying with a friend,” Denny said with a wink and a nudge.
A master of subtlety, old Denny. “Anybody I know?” George asked.
“Don’t think so. Pretty little fellow named Charles Bingley. But things aren’t going so smooth between ’em. Had a few encounters with Darcy myself.” Denny preened in the self-effacing manner of a man grateful to have been granted, by chance, the favors of one far above his touch. “Lovely tall man. Very strong. You never mentioned that, Wick,” he added in an aggrieved tone.
George raised his eyebrows. “Sorry, but the pleasures of being plowed up the back field by Fitzwilliam Darcy have long faded for me.” Had he pushed too far? Hearing that name again so soon had put him off balance. “And since when do you need me to help you to sport?”
Denny chose to take it in a friendly spirit. “Ah, Wick, you were always the master. The rest of us were just the poor ’prentices. You know that.”
“Well, it’s been delightful, seeing you again, but I must be going,” George said.
“Oh, don’t leave it like this,” Denny said. “Let me stand you a drink at least, regale you with tales of the officers’ mess. We have some good times, I can tell you. Lots of pretty girls in Meryton. Not that I care overmuch for that, but admiration is a pleasant thing, wherever it comes from.” He studied the slim figure in front of him. “You know, you’d look damned smart in regimentals. If you’re seeking a position, you could do a lot worse. And a commission in the militia don’t cost anything, you know.”
There was the rub. George had endured weeks of torment, the last payment having run out weeks ago and uncertain where to turn next. Mrs. Younge’s charity would last only so long. The name was fictitious, of course, the woman being neither encumbered by a husband nor anywhere near what could be called, by any stretch of the imagination, youth. But even an overeager whore of middle years had her limits, and Jenny Younge was close to reaching hers. And then what? Making a decent living as a sharp was an entirely more demanding proposition in town than in the provinces; but life in the country was insupportable after a week. No sport, the palatable women kept close, the farm wives prematurely aged by hard work, about as appealing as the cattle they tended. And just as you were on the verge of getting inside one of the few tolerable girls, her father or brother was apt to turn up with a blunderbuss…
“Tell you what, Denny,” George said, “I think I’ll take that drink you were offering. Might be a good idea at that. Always wanted to be the one giving the orders.”
“If that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find it as a lowly ensign in a militia regiment,” Denny said. “But it has its compensations. Everyone loves a man in a red coat.”
“So they do,” George said. “I know a snug little tavern just a few streets over where a handsome officer and his friend can get a private room, no questions asked, and no danger of interference provided you have the wherewithal.”
“A lieutenant’
s pay isn’t much,” Denny said, “but I can stand the ready in a good cause. Lead on, Wick. What a lucky thing it was, running into you like this.”
Five
“GEORGE WICKHAM!” CHARLES said. “I don’t know how he has the gall to show his face within a hundred miles.”
“Oh,” Fitz said, “he has gall, all right. He’s a living, breathing, walking gallstone. I have no doubt he went to great pains to discover that you had leased Netherfield and that I was staying here, and determined to join this particular company of militia merely to spite me.”
“That’s absurd,” Charles said. “He doesn’t even know me, nor I him. Besides, you can leave any time, while he will be required to fulfill the terms of his commission.”
“I assure you,” Fitz said, “if anyone runs from this encounter, it will not be me.”
“You never told me,” Charles said, “the whole story of you and Wickham.”
“And I never will,” Fitz said. “And did we not agree never to mention his name?”
“But now that he’s here—”
“Now that he’s here, he will simply have to go away again,”
Fitz said. “If you insist on holding this damned ball, then there is one assembly he will not attend, one gathering he will not spoil with his loathsome presence.”
“Such vehemence,” Charles said. “Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.”
“Leave it alone,” Fitz said.
“First love,” Charles said, not heeding the advice. “A beautiful face, an enormous prick, and then—ah, the falseness of men.”
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