Mrs. Yates and her daughters had departed Longbourn just two minutes prior, in the company of Mr. Bingley when Darcy stopped in the small entry hall to inquire from Mrs. Hill of them on Elizabeth's behalf.
Mr. Bennet hearing his voice and learning Elizabeth's location went out to speak to his daughter. Darcy's sense of delicacy informed him that he ought leave father and daughter to each other's company without the continued presence of an outsider. So he made his parting, complete with a small smile shared with Elizabeth.
Darcy did not return straight away to Netherfield, as he was consumed by both anger and jealousy towards Bingley. Instead Darcy took a long meandering way round about the neighborhood, which led him to see many locales as yet unseen by him, including the modest village of Brown Willy, five miles to the south of Netherfield.
From that village he ended his wanderings, and as the sun set Darcy returned to his host's rented mansion.
However, in defiance of Darcy's delay, Bingley was yet to return. Darcy, with a certainty that would be confirmed a scant few hours later, supposed his friend was speaking with and entertaining the angelically beautiful sister of the woman he had departed this morning from Netherfield with the intention to marry.
Darcy from his conversation with Elizabeth had deduced that some chance prevented Bingley from discovering the courage to ask Elizabeth to marry him.
No excuse. No excuse could exist that would permit a man to abandon a woman he claimed to love when she was in distress. Darcy knew he would never do the like.
Darcy settled himself in Netherfield's sparse library, having ordered one of Bingley's best bottles of brandy. He poured himself a thick glass and sipped the rich and complex spirit as he irritably opened The Republic to make an effort to complete the last volume of the book, as he was nearly through with it.
To concentrate upon the Greek at such a time, was difficult. The words and strangely shaped letters swam in front of Darcy's eye, their meanings and the grammar eluding him. His mind was full of this morning's events, and did not wish to apply itself to any subject but replaying every conversation ad infinitum. Each time Darcy could not find a recollection of what a word meant, he swallowed another gulp of the alcohol.
He felt an ache in his stomach. Today had been both terrible, and terribly important. And he was angry at Bingley.
Images: Mrs. Yates, admitting that she had done very wrong to Mr. Bennet. Elizabeth squealing in pain, like a wounded animal with its foot caught in a vicious trap. Elizabeth letting him hold her as she cried.
With a force of will Darcy wrenched himself away from those thoughts every time they began to take him.
He had determined to read the Greek, and he would hold to this determination, no matter how unsettled he was. In the end Darcy won the struggle with his own mind, and made steady progress as Bingley, despite the dark hour, still returned not from where ever he had gone.
Darcy continued to drink, till while he was yet the master of himself, he was strongly under the influence of the strong beverage.
So thus it was that as Bingley rode up at last to the Netherfield estate, riding slowly with a lantern swinging from his hand to light the way, that Darcy by candlelight read how the souls of the dead would pass through a river of forgetfulness in which they would lose all memory of their previous lives before, on the other side, they would be reincarnated and placed into new human bodies:
Wherefore my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods.
Darcy closed the cover of the book, softly, and he put the leather bound volume to the side, after reading the last words on the last lines. And as he rose to speak to his friend, an anger that was not philosophical rose in him.
"Good god, man. Why did you not follow Elizabeth?"
These were Darcy's first words to Bingley, as soon as he had taken off his coat and asked after the readiness of supper from the housekeeper.
"What are you on about?" Bingley replied with a cheery, tipsy voice.
Darcy kept his jaw firmly set. "To the library. This is a conversation which requires privacy."
"Something does bother you." Bingley laughed as he followed him. "You do look an exceeding awful tall object at present — you only are supposed to look so in your own house."
Bingley sloppily whistled the tune to a popular bar song.
Darcy firmly shut the door on them, and exclaimed, "Jove! You planned to marry Elizabeth. What is wrong with you?"
"I have modified my intentions." Bingley replied seriously. He went to where Darcy left the bottle of brandy and his glass. He picked up another glass from the side board and poured himself an ample helping. "We ought celebrate. Both my escape from Miss Bennet — upon my honour, I swear we have suited not at all, and my meeting Jane. Jane is… an angel. A perfect, smiling angel. Not a prettier woman in all of England."
"Damn you, man. Miss Bennet. You, just the night before this, you told me Miss Bennet had attached youraffections."
"I said then that I thought I might be in love with her. You insisted I should be in love with her." Bingley swallowed back the glass of brandy and slammed it on the table. "Those vapourish inclinations towards Miss Bennet were of a certainly not the sort of emotion that would make me marry. A terrible notion, that whole plan. I could not cough the devilish words out my throat this morning, and then I saw Jane. Terrible glad I hadn't coughed them out then."
"You mean to say, that you shall not marry Elizabeth?"
"The deuce, man. Do not yell at me. I hate when you yell at me. You are so confident, and when you rant and rave like this…" Mr. Bingley poured himself another helping of the brandy. "I hate being shouted at."
"You hate being shouted at?"
The two glared at each other.
Darcy was a little unsteady on his own feet. "Your duty is to marry Elizabeth. She expects you to, and I will see her cared for."
"No, no. I won't. What I felt towards her… ah it is gone, like the snow after a warm rain. I now see Miss Bennet's true character, and I would never wish to marry a woman such as her."
"Her true character? What —"
"I asked you not to yell at me!"
"What." Darcy snarled the words, enunciating each one with terrible clarity. "What. Possibly. Have. You. Seen."
"She yelled at Jane!" Bingley spilled brandy on to the ugly rug on the floor. "Jane! The sweetest, and the kindest woman I have ever met, and she shouted at Jane — and at her own mother. Mrs. Yates is a sensible, friendly, and I dare say kind woman. They only wished to know Miss Bennet, and to be reunited as a family. Jane simply wanted to know her own sister, she was shouted at, with vicious, intemperate words."
"Mrs. Yates was shouted at. Not Miss Jane."
"Poor Jane, she pretends to be unhurt, but she sobbed the whole carriage ride back to their lodgings in Meryton. I watched her sob, and Mrs. Yates too the entire way. I rode beside their carriage, you know. They gallantly allowed me to escort them back to Meryton. That establishes the essential character of Miss Bennet: She makes other women cry."
Darcy stared gape eyed at his friend. He had a contradictory sensation, as though he had both never seen Bingley before, and as if this was exactly what he always expected from Bingley.
"Besides," Bingley added plaintively, slumping deep into a red velvet winged armchair, and taking another swallow of brandy. "I do so hate arguments and disputations. Miss Bennet likes them."
"A gentleman cannot simply drop a connection to a woman because he changes his mind. Once he gives her reasonable expectations, he must follow through. It would be wrong, dishonorable, and frankly monstrous to behave in any other way. I will not see Elizabeth's heart and her wellbeing trampled upon and dismissed in such a way."
"Don't be ridiculous. I very much doubt, now that I calmly think about it, that she even wants to marry me."
"You two have flirted constantly."
"We tossed words back and forth. Words. Words, just words. Have we spoken on anything of substance? No. We have not. You are closer by far to her than me."
Darcy could not argue with that, for he knew it to be true.
Bingley lifted his head and said firmly, "My heart, I cannot control my heart. My heart permits me to pursue none beside Miss Jane at this present moment."
"Damn you, Bingley, I never have been ashamed to be your friend before."
"Darcy, I shall not be browbeat upon this subject."
"You are throwing over a clever, beautiful, profound, honest, capable, and fine lady to pursue a pretty face raised by a Newcastle coal merchant."
"You speak in the manner of one who is in love with her yourself. Well go, I give you my blessing to pursue that harridan. May she shout at you, and accuse you of not being her sister, even though you have only sought her friendship."
Darcy felt that accusation like a slap. He was very much in love with Elizabeth himself. And she was heartbroken, or she would be the next day, when she learned that Bingley had abandoned her, at the moment she was facing the greatest distress of her life, and further that Bingley had abandoned her for her own sister.
He couldn't stay.
He didn't want to stay at Netherfield longer. Not whilst Bingley was proving to be such a man that he would abandon Elizabeth to unhappiness in such a callous way. Elizabeth who deserved every form of happiness, whose smallest finger was full of more worth than this Miss Jane that Bingley now howled towards.
"You are determined then upon this dishonourable course?" asked Darcy.
"I'll not take such insults. Not even from you. I act as an honourable gentleman, I've made no promise, and so I break no promise. I'll not take insult from you. You are my guest, no matter how much bigger and taller you are. I don't care that your uncle is an earl, I'll not be insulted by you in such a way. Jove, I will not. Apologize, or leave this damned estate."
"Then I will leave." The words tasted like charcoal ash in Darcy's mouth. "Tomorrow morning, you'll not need worry about seeing my face again."
"Good!" Bingley's eyes widened, as if he was surprised to hear himself shouting so. He grabbed the bottle again, but his hand was shaking, so he drank a swallow directly from the brandy. "Jove, it'll be a damned relief to stop being bothered by your preacher boy lectures about how to treat women. Have you ever even had a woman?"
Darcy ground his teeth.
How dare this dishonourable man. This creature was abandoning one of the finest women in England, a woman of wit, beauty, sense, and good taste. And now he insulted him.
There was a strange roaring in the back of Darcy's head.
Elizabeth's teary eyes this afternoon as they talked, and talked. She would sob when she realized the depths of Mr. Bingley's betrayal.
They both had drunk too much, and Darcy's head spun, and he felt barely able to stay on his feet. Some part of him suspected that he would see matters at least a little differently come the morning. He should go up to bed, and then think about matters later.
Darcy threw his hand to the side. "You disgust me. But I'll to bed and leave your estate at the earliest tomorrow."
Bingley stood waveringly with him. "Jave, ordering me to marry a woman? Like you were her father. She's crazy. You saw her shout. Shocked me, not the sort of character any decent man would want to marry. And you hear, Caroline says that she might not even be legitimate. And you want me to marry her? Damn you, Darcy. Not your deuced place. Not your, hic, place."
"You, sir." Darcy spat. "You, sir, are hardly a man."
"Just get out of my house soon as the light rises."