The Darcys and the Bingleys

by Marsha Altman

  “And fight you? The man who spent the whole battle tonight unconscious on my fine floor?”

  “Yes! Wait, no . . . yes! And stop it with Pemberley this, Pemberley that. I’m sick of it!”

  Darcy was so drunk, his eyes so unfocused, his speech so uneven in tone, it was hard to tell if he was being serious. “Do not smudge the honour of Pemberley, Bingley.”

  “O’Bingley,” Maddox giggled. “I’m marrying Caroline O’Bingley.”

  “Okay, you shut up!” Bingley pointed in Maddox’s general direction because that was all the hand coordination he had. “This is between me and Darcy! Now you stop talking about Pemberley and how great it is!”

  “And why—why should I do that?”

  “’Cuz—I know things . . . about you. I could tell that story. You know, the one from college.” He turned to William. “He said he’d kill me if I ever told it. But we’re like Gaelic brothers or something, so you’ll defend me, right?”

  “How good is the story?”

  “Which one is it?” Darcy said. “Is it one from Cambridge?”

  “Yes. I mean, aye, yee, ’tis,” Bingley said, doing his best Irish accent and not succeeding very well.

  “Fine,” Darcy said, crossing his arms and attempting to keep his head up. “Is it the one where I almost duelled my fencing partner in the tavern?”

  “No.”

  “The one where I punched Wickham?”

  “Which time?”

  “Any one.”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “Um.” Darcy was clearly having as much trouble speaking as he was dredging up the memories. “The time I flunked my examinations?”

  “You flunked your examinations?” Maddox asked.

  “Hung over, bribed the headmaster, took ’em again,” Darcy explained. “There, Bingley.”

  “Not that story.”

  “Um, all right. How about that girl?”

  “Which one?”

  “The . . . I don’t know, pick one.”

  “It’s not, by the way.”

  “By God, put us out of the bloody suspense,” said William.

  “’Kay.” Bingley focused his attention on William Kincaid. “So, this one time, it was a moonlit night, and we were studying, um, that play—the one by the Bard.”

  “The Jew of Venice,” Maddox said.

  “Right. Wait, is that right? Darcy, is that right?”

  “The Merchant of Venice,” Darcy corrected.

  “Right. All right. So, we’re all studying, and we’re talking about Antonio and Bassanio, and Darcy turns to me and he says, he says, ‘Bingley, have you ever—’”

  Whatever Bingley meant to say was cut off by Darcy socking him in the face. Darcy had to reach over the table to do it, and Bingley went right overboard, his chair hitting the floor. “My eye! You bastard, my eye!”

  But he was laughing as he said it, and before long, they were all laughing and pulling Darcy upright, upon which he announced he needed to be sick. “I said I’d kill ’em. He’s dead, right?” Darcy said before trying to stand to run out of the room. He was not able to do so and would have gone right over had William Kincaid not caught him.

  “Frenchmen. Can’t hold down anything stronger than their fancy wines,” William said. As he was the most sober of the group, he grabbed a precious vase from the display case and helped Darcy expel the contents of his stomach into it, to which if anyone heard over their giggling, they made no comment. “O’Bingley, you okay?”

  “Someone get me up, or I’m going to be sick,” Bingley announced, and Maddox pulled him and his chair back into a proper position. He removed a hand from his eye, and there was no obvious injury other than some redness around it. “Okay, no more double malt. Single malt only.” He attempted to drink from an empty glass and didn’t seem to notice this discrepancy. “Seriously, Doctor,” he said, gripping his future brother-in-law’s shoulder very hard and almost leaning on him entirely, “I’m English—raised just outside London.”

  “Oh, no worries.”

  “You should be happy with your choice of wife,” William said. “The Gaels, we age well. Right, Bingley?”

  “I’m English, damn it! And I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise!” Then he thought the matter through. “Anyone I can fight. Uh, Doctor?”

  “What?” Maddox had almost gone into a drunken doze.

  “I could take you. I could take him, right, Darcy? He’s a pacifist!”

  Maddox seemed insulted. “Who said I was a pacifist?”

  “Do you know how to fight?” Darcy said calmly.

  “No.”

  “Well, then.” He looked at William. “Five pounds.”

  “What? Oh, to see them fight. Who are you betting on?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I just want to see them go at it. You in?”

  William Kincaid took a look at Bingley with his multiple head wounds and Dr. Maddox with his shy demeanour and thick glasses. “I would put five pounds in. Winner gets all ten.”

  “I will not fight Dr. Maddox!” Bingley announced.

  “Maybe if we get some other people in on it . . .” Darcy looked around, but of course no one would offer. “Fifteen pounds!”

  “Twenty!” William said. “C’mon, Irish!”

  “I’m not Irish!” Bingley said. “Darcy, back me up ’ere.”

  But Darcy’s response was to pass out face-first on the table.

  “Frenchmen. Could never stand up to good Scot!”

  “I thought he was your chief?” Maddox pointed out.

  “Did you say twenty pounds?” Bingley asked, and turned to Jane as she burst in the room. “Can I fight the doctor for twenty pounds, darling?”

  “Charles!” she screamed. “You’re drunk!”

  “No, I’m English!”

  “Darcy!” Elizabeth ran to her husband and picked his head up by his hair. That was enough to return him to consciousness. “How much have you drunk?”

  “A—oh, Lizzy,” he said, his voice nearly incomprehensible. “I lofe you.”

  Elizabeth released her grip on him, and his head dropped to the table again with a thud. “How much did he have?”

  Bingley giggled, and even Maddox could not hold back a smirk. “Have ’im sleep on ’is chest.”

  “Maybe I should just leave him here,” Elizabeth said.

  “You’re all drunk!” Jane said. “You, Doctor, while your betrothed stands vigil over your dying brother!”

  “Scottish tradition,” William said in a deep burr. “After’r battle.”

  “As a cultured woman, I consider myself respectful of other cultures,” Elizabeth said, “so I will hold my tongue on this one and put my husband to bed.”

  “And I the same,” said Jane.

  “I’m—I can still—” Bingley stuttered. “I can still sit up.”

  “I will be the judge of that,” his wife said very authoritatively. “Come, darling!”

  It was not meant to be merely a suggestion, and if there was to be opposition, Charles Bingley was too much in the cups to do it—or, more accurately, in the bottles.

  ***

  Dr. Maddox refused to be helped up or to bed. He was fortunate in that he, aside from the hardy William, was the only one who could stand and walk about, even if he occasionally had to lean on something to get where he was going. But he was a doctor demanding to see his patient, and this carried some amount of authority.

  Brian Maddox had been put on a mattress under guard in one of the available rooms, where under the doctor’s strict instructions, he was to be kept hydrated and clean but nothing else. When Dr. Maddox entered, Brian was awake but could barely lift his head up and had to wait for his brother to join him at his side. He made a quick inspection of the wounds and announced, “If you don’t develop an infection, you won’t die.”

  “Lucky me,” Brian said in barely a whisper. “Please, could you—”

  “No.”

  Brian turned his head and sighed. “I know, I deserve it.
”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve . . . been a fool. But I never thought . . .” He coughed uncomfortably. “He just said—”

  “I don’t care what he actually told you,” Maddox said. “The man threatened to violate my future wife, and you let him in!”

  “I didn’t—”

  “I will be generous and say you are not a fool—just very easily led and a bad gambler.”

  “I . . . will not deny it,” Brian said. “I am sorry.”

  “Sorry. Sorry?” the doctor said, his voice a bit slurred but lacking none of the intensity as he shook his brother, which elicited a cry of significant pain from the wounded man. “If anything . . . anything had happened to her—”

  “She . . . is . . . your fiancée I believe, brother, please—”

  “I don’t care!” But he did release his brother. “I would have—” He broke off. “I would have killed you.”

  There was a moment before Brian Maddox, obviously in great pain, could speak again, “You . . . really . . . love her.”

  “You doubted it?”

  “No . . . I just . . . have never seen you angry . . . before,” he wheezed. “Or throttle a patient.”

  Maddox took an uneasy step back and sat on the mattress beside his brother, taking off his glasses so he could wipe his eyes. He was, he had to admit, not in the best of senses, but that did not excuse his behaviour, however much his brother soundly deserved it. If a stitch had come loose, he doubted he had the coordination to repair it properly. He had so many emotions, stronger than the ones he was used to in the years of playing the caring but relatively removed doctor, and an entire bottle of whiskey prevented him from properly processing them all. There he stayed for an undetermined amount of time, his brother either asleep or in so much pain that it prevented conversation, until he was tapped on the shoulder.

  “No, no,” Maddox said. “I don’t need help. I’m quite well.” He didn’t want any servants bothering him, telling him when to go to bed and when to get up and how to dress and say and do all things proper. He wanted to sit and think, as much as he was capable of doing in his befuddled state.

  But the touch was not the touch of a servant’s. It was soft and gentle and snaked around the back of his neck. “Caroline.” He put on his glasses again so he could properly see that it was her, and his instincts were proven correct. “You shouldn’t—”

  “I shouldn’t what?”

  He realised he did not have a proper answer for her. He was so very tired and still a bit in the cups, and so he only leaned on her shoulder, which was improper but comfortable all the same, and for a while there was silence, except for Brian’s laboured breathing.

  “I should give him something,” he said, “so he can sleep.”

  “You are very forgiving.”

  He picked his head up and met her expression. “If you wish, I will not be.”

  “Nothing happened to me, Daniel.”

  “Something could have.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “Are you saying I should forgive him?”

  “He is hardly a villain. A bad gambler, an idiot, and a thief, yes, but like you, when he says he had no concept of Kincaid’s level of deceptions, I would believe him.”

  “You are being very kind.”

  “Well, he is to be my brother-in-law.”

  Maddox smiled and took her hand. “I love you.”

  “You should retire, dear.”

  “I should.” He stood up with great difficulty, having trouble finding his balance, and went to his equipment on the table, retrieving the green bottle and a spoon. “This does not mean I entirely forgive you for being an imbecile,” he said to his brother, who opened his eyes and swallowed what was offered to him. His duties finished, the good doctor drunkenly straightened his coat, looked around, and realised he had not the wits about him to see his way back to his room. Wordlessly, Caroline took his arm, and he did not object. The hallways were empty, as almost everyone else was long asleep or at least at the mercy of their wives berating them for all of the appropriate reasons.

  When they entered his room, he dismissed the waiting servant, saying he was quite capable of removing his bloodstained clothing, thank you very much. However, this clothing contained a lot of buttons and most of them he found rather vexing when actually attacked.

  “Here,” Caroline said, and helped him remove his overcoat.

  “I seem to recall . . . this is most inappropriate of a lady,” he mumbled.

  “Are you objecting?”

  He did not have a proper response. All he wanted to be was down to his underclothes and in bed, which happened very quickly. She kissed him on the cheek, and he turned and returned the favour, but not on the cheek.

  “If you don’t leave,” he said, “your brother may burst in with a shotgun.”

  “I think it has been established that all we have to do is clonk him on the head, and he will be incapacitated.”

  “Not that a concussion will endear me to him.” He pulled her closer to him. It was partially to make his point, partially to do the opposite. “I love you, but—I fear I am not in the most . . . inhibited of moods.”

  “Neither am I. But I do not have an excuse.”

  He giggled. “That is true.”

  They lay together on the mattress, side by side, looking up at the ceiling for some time before Maddox finally said, “If I am to be a gentleman again, I should perhaps act like one.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that would require you vacating my bedchambers at once.”

  “Yes.”

  Neither of them made a move for some time.

  Finally, he turned on his side to face her. “Caroline, my darling, two things could happen. Either it will be something very improper, or I will fall asleep. Neither I would object to, but we should probably make a decision.”

  “Even in love you are so logical?”

  “I am a scientist.”

  She giggled. It was so strange to hear Caroline Bingley giggle when not at someone else’s expense—though perhaps it was at his, but not in that way. “Daniel, I love you, but I think I must retire.”

  “Good,” he mumbled, “because I think I am too drunk to do the deed properly.”

  She snorted into the pillows. “That is what you get for trying to outdrink a Scot.”

  “And an Irishman.”

  “Are you implying something about my family?”

  He swatted her playfully, but that was all he managed as a response. She kissed him on the forehead, removed his glasses for him, and gathered up her somewhat tousled robes. By the time she reached the door, he was fast asleep.

  Chapter 17

  The Great Bingley Heist of 1785

  “Master Charles, you get back here!”

  Mrs. Anne’s call went entirely unheeded by the seven-year-old Charles Bingley Junior. In fact, his response was to put as much distance between himself and her as possible in the little time afforded to him. He climbed the old wooden steps of their house with greater ease than he knew she could and practically swung himself onto the second floor by grasping onto the worn railing. While this would give him some time, it did not give him very many places to hide. His own room was too obvious, and he would never invade the sanctity of his parent’s bedchamber, even if neither were at home. That left the storeroom (locked) and the rooms of his sisters, and he was still debating his escape plans when he heard the voice of his nurse and governess.

  “I see you!” she called indignantly from the bottom of the stairs. “Master Charles, you get down here right now!”

  He huffed and darted down the hallway. Having only moments to decide (as the Bingley family house, just outside of Town, was not very large and not filled with many places to hide), he did what he judged best, which was to burst unannounced into his sister’s room.

  “Charles!” Caroline Bingley of ten years said with indignation. She was sitting at her dressing table, combing her long hair. “W
hat are you doing?”

  He put his finger to his lips. “Shhhh!”

  “Charles Bingley Junior! Where did you go?”

  In the room, Caroline kept her silence until the noise outside the door died down, at which point she whispered, “You can’t just barge into a lady’s room!”

  “You’re not a lady! You’re a girl!”

  Caroline, only three years his senior, could not correct him easily. “Well, you can’t go into a girl’s room either!”

  “Says who?”

  “Says Mama!”

  He stuck his tongue out at her, only to be pushed forward by the banging on the door. “Miss Caroline! Is your brother in there?”

  “Hide me,” he whispered. “I’ll make it worthwhile.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “Do it, and I’ll tell you.”

  Caroline bit her lip as she decided, then called out, “No, he isn’t.”

  “Did he come past?”

  “No, Mrs. Anne.”

  “Remember, your lessons are at noon!”

  Charles mouthed a thank you and sighed when they heard no more from their governess.

  “I hate piano,” Caroline said.

  “Father says you shouldn’t say hate. You should say dislike. It’s not proper.”

  “Neither is hiding from Mrs. Anne!”

  “You hid me!”

  “Because you asked! Why would you do it anyway? She does not make you play the pianoforte until your fingers hurt.”

  “She wanted me to bathe—again.”

  She crinkled her nose. “You should bathe. You’re filthy.”

  “But I’m not!” And he bared his arms to prove it. “See? No mud, perfectly clean.”

  “But your hair is a mess.” She bid him to come over. “Here.” And despite his struggling, her superior strength held him as she scraped the brush across his hair. “Why can’t you ever make it look proper?”

  “Because I don’t spend hours—ow, Carol, that hurts!”

  “Because it’s a knot. Don’t be such a baby about it. Now, you owe me for lying to Mrs. Anne.”

  Free from her grip, at least temporarily, he reached proudly into his pocket and produced a metal object shaped a bit like a rod with many bumps and strange curves on one side beyond the handle.