“I am never blind to that sort of behaviour,” he said pointedly. He could think of many times when Miss Bingley had blatantly thrown herself at him.
The hint had no effect upon her. She did not even blush. “What I do not understand is how you can change your mind about Miss Bennet at such a time as this. You would let my brother have a share in their disgrace?”
“What do you mean by that?” he asked sharply.
“I know everything,” she cried triumphantly. “I heard what Miss Eliza said to you.”
“You mean you listened at the door.”
“And why not? With Charles behaving so foolishly, this matter concerns me and Louisa as much as anybody.”
“You could not have had any idea that it did before you began listening.”
“Anything to do with that family could have been a matter for concern. Besides, it was obvious that Miss Eliza had something to hide.”
“So you decided that you had the right to eavesdrop.”
“I had the right to know of anything to do with Jane Bennet’s unsuitability.”
“You were hoping to hear something that you could report back to him.”
“It was information he needed to know. I am astonished that you did not tell him yourself.”
“I did tell him. He knew everything, and that was his reason for leaving. He wanted to show Miss Bennet that her sister’s actions did not change his opinion of her.”
“Then he will only be despised by those who know better.”
“You have some very grim expectations. It is unfortunate that Miss Lydia has chosen to go to Gretna Green, but that is not going to disgrace the Bennets.”
“You need not try to cover up for Miss Eliza. I heard her say that she did not expect the marriage to take place.”
“Nonsense,” he said firmly. “There will be a marriage.”
“And a great deal of notoriety.”
“I do not think Lydia Bennet will inspire much notoriety, being quite unknown to society.”
“You are being very hopeful. I am astounded that you of all people would stake my brother’s reputation, and mine by association, on the misplaced idea that Miss Lydia’s actions will not bring ruin upon her family.”
“It was his choice. It was never properly mine, and I can no longer think it right to separate a couple as deeply attached as your brother and Miss Bennet.”
“There was a time when you considered it a service to him. You cannot really want him to do this. You seem to have fallen under a strange influence lately, but you understand the importance of connections better than anybody I know.”
“Perhaps I once did, but lately I have come to value other things.”
“Like feelings,” she said scornfully. “This is not like you, Mr. Darcy. Since when did you have such value for feelings that you would overlook reasonable objections?”
“I do not know exactly when,” he said, “but it has been coming on for some time, and without any undue influence. My thoughts and feelings are entirely my own.”
“You think love is more important than consequence?” She spat the words out.
“Your brother obviously does, and he has gone to act in the manner while best suits him. There is nothing more to be said on the subject, but I can offer you the consolation that the Bennets will not be disgraced. I intend to make certain of it. To you, I would recommend refraining from gossiping of this business if you are so concerned about how it will reflect upon yourself. Now, if you will excuse me, I am about to set off on a journey of my own.”
“Where are you going?” she cried.
He smiled. “To Gretna Green. With Miss Elizabeth.”
CHAPTER 12
As Mr. Darcy was taking his place in the carriage, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst came running out of the house.
“You must not let him leave,” Miss Bingley said to Georgiana.
“I cannot stop him.”
“Tell him that you are ill,” Mrs. Hurst suggested.
“But there is nothing wrong with me.” She gave a goodbye wave to the group in the carriage.
“Never mind that. There is something wrong with your brother. He is behaving irrationally.”
“I do not think so. My brother is never irrational.”
The carriage started to move.
“You do not know what is going on.”
“But I do. He is going to help a friend.”
“There is more to it than that. He is going to Gretna Green to find Miss Elizabeth’s sister who has eloped.”
“Yes, I know all about it.”
“Then how can you be so calm?” Miss Bingley shouted. “How can you stand here and let him go? Has everybody lost their minds? The Bennets are a dreadful family. Nobody should want to have anything to do with them, and here is everybody wanting to help. It is absurd.”
“It is friendship,” Georgiana said.
“My dear girl, you are a complete innocent. If you had any proper idea of things, you would be begging him to have nothing to do with them. You must call him back at once.”
“I trust that he knows what he is doing. Besides, I never interfere in my brother’s affairs.” Feeling the urge to be a little more assertive, she added, “Nor do I want to.”
“But you have to,” Mrs. Hurst cried. “We need him to go after our brother and make him come back.”
“And for your own sake, you should stop him from going with Miss Eliza,” Miss Bingley said. “You really should voice a strong objection to his association with her.”
“I could not do that,” Georgiana said boldly. “You see, I strongly approve of her. She is really very nice. As to stopping him, I do believe it is too late.” The carriage was gaining speed and rapidly moving away.
“You must get him back,” Miss Bingley cried in a desperate voice. “None of this was supposed to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she hastily said. “Just that they both should know better than to associate with such people.”
Georgiana looked at her suspiciously. “How do you know about the elopement anyway?” she asked. “Miss Bennet did not tell you what was in her letter.”
“She did,” Mrs. Hurst said. “After you left the room.”
Georgiana did not believe this for a moment. Although she was inexperienced in the world, it had not escaped her notice that Mr. Bingley’s sisters did not much like Miss Bennet, and that she felt the same about them. It was impossible that she would have confided in them.
It was also easy to understand why Mr. Bingley had been in such a hurry to leave. On the previous evening, he had made his feelings for the eldest Miss Bennet quite plain, and she had seen that his sisters did not approve. This desperate desire to stop him was further proof of their opinions and the extent to which they would go to achieve their ends. No wonder he had neglected to say goodbye to them. He must have been eager to get away without any interference.
Her thoughts were interrupted by hearing Miss Bingley say to her sister, “It would appear that everything is up to us now. We must go after Charles and stop him ourselves.”
Georgiana disliked the sound of this plan; however, she recognized that she was powerless to stop them. They were already walking back inside, each of them with determination in her step.
She followed and heard the two ladies giving orders to the servants as though they were their own. They demanded that Mr. Hurst be fetched, and that horses put to the carriage at once.
“That cannot be done,” Georgiana informed them with satisfaction. “There were only six carriage horses in the stables. Two were harnessed to the curricle, and you saw the other four just now, pulling Mr. Gardiner’s chaise. We shall have to send someone into Lambton to arrange post horses for you.”
“Then have it done at once. Send the stable boys. With all haste.”
“The stable boys have gone to bring our horses back.” Georgiana was beginning to form an idea of delaying the ladies for Mr. Bingley’s bene
fit.
“There must be somebody who can go,” Miss Bingley insisted. “This place is teeming with servants.”
“I do not know who,” Georgiana said with a deliberate lack of decisiveness.
“One of the garden boys,” Miss Bingley suggested impatiently.
“I do not know if the gardener can spare anybody.”
“Of course he can. The flowers can be tended to at any time.”
“There is a vegetable garden as well.”
Georgiana was quite prepared to embark upon a discussion of the work which kept the garden staff busy, but Miss Bingley jumped in before she could. “If he hurries, he will be back in no time. You need to be more assertive, Georgiana. That is the only way to run a household. And never mind what the gardener wants. The staff take their orders from you.” Then she turned to the maid and said, “Go on then. Send one of the garden boys for horses and tell him that time is of the essence.”
“And send somebody up to pack for us,” Mrs. Hurst added.
As they hurried away, Georgiana quietly said to the maid, “Give my apologies to the gardener, and ask him to send one of the boys, please. But tell him not to hurry or to get the best horses either. Slow and plodding is what we want. I have a desire to delay Mr. Bingley’s sisters as long as possible.”
“Right, miss,” the maid said, and she dawdled away to carry out her instructions, earning a nod of approval from Georgiana, who was in turn similarly acknowledged by Mrs. Annesley.
“I would not usually encourage you to treat your guests shabbily,” she said, “but I am rapidly comprehending that Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are up to no good.”
“I am wondering if they had any involvement in this business,” Georgiana said. “I may not know much of the world, according to Miss Bingley, but a few years at school taught me plenty about deceit. There were two girls in particular who were always scheming. Mr. Bingley’s sisters remind me of them. I have a strong feeling that they have done something to contrive the disgrace with which they are so obsessed. They were very eager for their brother and mine to repudiate the Bennets.”
“They were,” Mrs. Annesley agreed, “I would not put it past them to engage in some nefarious behaviour.”
“I wonder if they might have persuaded, or even paid, Mr. Wickham to run off with Miss Bennet’s sister. I would not put anything past him either.”
Mrs. Annesley had been warned about Mr. Wickham’s interest in Georgiana’s fortune, and given a general assessment of his character. On that basis, she could also believe him capable of engaging in a plot in return for personal gain. “I think we should do some snooping around,” she suggested. Let us go and help them with their packing.”
“Help the maids, I believe you mean,” Georgiana said.
The two of them put in an idler effort this time, but they were on the alert for anything of interest. While Miss Bingley was watching to see that the maid did things correctly, Georgiana purloined a letter which was lying upon a table. It would have been too obvious to pick up the crumpled sheet of paper that she saw at the back of the fireplace, but she planned to return for it later.
Her opportunity came when the packing was done and the two sisters went downstairs to see if Mr. Hurst had returned. Georgiana went back to collect the ball of paper, and she and Mrs. Annesley went along to her private sitting room to peruse her findings.
The first of these turned out to be a letter which was signed by Jane Bennet. Georgiana did not intentionally look at its contents, but she could not help noticing her own name. It was odd that somebody with whom she was not acquainted would have written something about her, so she glanced at the sentence.
“Your hopes for a match between your brother and Miss Darcy are quite understandable,” the lady had written. “Having heard that she is a sweet girl and that he greatly admires her, I expect that it will be a very happy match. I wish them well.”
“Look at this,” Georgiana said to Mrs. Annesley. “I never thought of Mr. Bingley, and I am sure that he never thought of me, but it would appear that Miss Bingley used the false claim of an attachment between us to put off Miss Bennet. How deceitful of her.”
“It was a heartless thing to do,” Mrs. Annesley agreed.
“Miss Bennet does seem very nice. Her acceptance of this false information was graciously done.”
Georgiana next smoothed out the crumpled sheet. It was incomprehensible at first. The paper was covered with random words, some of them at odd angles, and many of them written more than once. But then she noted several words which had appeared in the few sentences she had just read. Now she scanned the rest of the letter and came to the conclusion that all these words had been copied from it.
She pointed this out to Mrs. Annesley, who looked back and forth between the two sheets. “I believe that this was an attempt to copy Miss Bennet’s handwriting,” she said.
They looked at each other in dawning comprehension.
“Miss Elizabeth’s letter was really written by Miss Bingley and not by her sister,” Georgiana said. “This must mean that there was no elopement at all. It was all made up.”
“To make it look as though her family was about to be disgraced,” Mrs. Annesley said in a tone of disgust.
“That is what Miss Bingley meant when she said none of this was supposed to happen. She expected Mr. Bingley and my brother to turn their backs on Miss Elizabeth and her family, not try to help them.”
“She and her sister must have been horrified at how things turned out.”
Georgiana smiled. “It is rather amusing that they may have caused the very thing they wanted to prevent. I hope Mr. Bingley does propose to Miss Bennet.”
“That would be a fitting conclusion to their scheme,” Mrs. Annesley agreed.
“I think my brother might propose to Miss Elizabeth as well,” Georgiana confided. “I have an idea that Miss Bingley will not like that either.”
Neither of these things was startling to Miss Annesley, who had come to the same conclusion. “Then she will be well served for having given Miss Elizabeth and the Gardiners such a shock. Not to mention sending them and Mr. Darcy on a wild goose chase.”
“We should go after them,” Georgiana said. “They must be told that Miss Lydia is not on her way to Gretna Green.”
“We shall never catch them,” Mrs. Annesley observed. “They will be travelling at the fastest possible pace while we would be delayed by the need to get horses.”
“No, I suppose it is pointless,” Georgiana agreed. “We would only meet up with them on their way back.”
“We might do something for the Bennets, however,” Mrs. Annesley suggested. “When Mr. Bingley arrives talking of an elopement, they will be thrown into confusion and distress. We could send a letter to Miss Bennet explaining that it was all a hoax.”
“That would be helpful,” Georgiana said, happy to be of use to somebody.
She sat at her desk and wrote the letter, consulting with Mrs. Annesley as to the best way of explaining what they had discovered. She had no qualms about leaving her guests to amuse themselves until horses arrived to take them away. They were not deserving of any attention.
Once her letter was done, she folded up the other two and put them away in a drawer. “I shall save these to show my brother when he returns. I believe he will be very interested to know who it was that put him to so much trouble for nothing. Do you think we should say anything to Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst?”
Mrs. Annesley pondered this for a moment. “I am inclined to think not. They are two very determined ladies. I doubt anything we say will stop them from going after their brother. Best not to get into a confrontation, I think. We should leave it to Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley to deal with them.”
Georgiana was happy to take this advice. She had been bold enough for one day. “I just hope that Miss Elizabeth will come back here, so that we can tell her it was all a ruse. She will be relieved to know that.”
“She will indeed. The poor
girl. It was despicable of Miss Bingley to cause her to such pain.”
“Which she will continue to suffer until she knows that there was no elopement,” Georgiana observed. “I think we should go to Gretna Green. Miss Elizabeth will be quite distressed when they do not find her sister. And so will her aunt and uncle. We can spare them from an anxious return journey.”
“That would be a great service,” Mrs. Annesley agreed. “I think your brother would not object to our travelling for that purpose. As long as we take a compliment of servants to ensure your safety of course.”
“We must send somebody for more horses as quickly as possible,” Georgiana cried. “If I go and arrange that, perhaps you could start packing a few things for the journey. If Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst should happen to notice, we can tell them that we are going to Matlock to visit my aunt and uncle.”
CHAPTER 13
While Georgiana had been focused on her task, she had not heard the arrival of a carriage. It contained Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who swept into the house as though it belonged to her. Waving the servants aside, she walked directly into the morning room, where she was put out by finding neither her nephew nor her niece. She stared haughtily at the two woman who were sitting there as though they owned the place.
“Who might you be?” she asked in an imperious voice.
“I am Miss Bingley, and this is my sister, Mrs. Hurst. We are great friends of Mr. Darcy.”
“We have met before,” Mrs. Hurst said petulantly. “On several occasions. Do you not remember?”
Lady Catherine ignored this impertinence. “Where is my nephew?” she demanded.
“He has gone away,” Miss Bingley said.
“Gone away? When he knew that I was staying in the neighbourhood and might be visiting at any time? This cannot be.”
“My information is perfectly correct,” Miss Bingley insisted haughtily. “He left about an hour ago.”
“Where was he going?”
“To Gretna Green,” Mrs. Hurst supplied.
“Gretna Green?” Lady Catherine’s voice boomed with disapproval. In the hall, a maid quivered nervously. Georgiana, who was just coming down the stairs, startled at the sound and nearly began to quiver as well. Then she decided that could not be her aunt’s voice. It must be Miss Bingley’s, and sounding very much like.
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