A/N: We're in the home stretch. Maybe 5 chapters left, and I will freely admit this part is getting pretty fluffy. I suppose you can just suffer along.

Wade

Nobody had any complaints about breakfast at Rosings, and in fact, they found Mr. Gardiner and Lady Catherine quite unaccountably, in a detailed discussion about the sausage they were eating, including its provenance, aging, spice mix, where the hogs were raised and other factors that made the rest of the residents of the table mostly ignore them. It appeared that, in Gardiner, Lady Catherine had met her match, since he did not allow a single detail to go unchallenged.

Elizabeth and Darcy were obviously sitting next to each other much closer than propriety allowed, but Lady Catherine had made the practical decision that she either let them have their fun or they would eat like starving wolves and escape to the outdoors, which would be… bad?

Jane and the colonel were sitting beside the happy couple, speaking very happily about traveling and staying home. The lady was perfectly aware that she was getting the colonel's standard flirtatious speech that Elizabeth had received a few weeks earlier almost verbatim; but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since he was getting just about the same from her.

Opposite the declared couple, and the maybe-slightly-possibly-proto-couple who may or may not have the barest beginnings of something-not-to-be-named-or-even-thought-about, sat Georgiana and Anne, deep in discussion about London fashions. Georgiana was skeptical of Anne's assertion that she just wanted to live a quiet life, and moreover thought that Anne probably had not the slightest idea how she would want to live once the weight of the future of Rosings was lifted from her shoulders. It was one thing to disdain all pleasure and improvement when you knew nothing about them in real life, and quite another thing to disdain all pleasure and improvement over the objections of a noisy and persistent cousin. Georgiana also thought she could well be an expert on having the weight of future generations suddenly disappear from your conscious, as it had for her a few weeks earlier.

Finally, taking a break from the discussion of sausage making, Lady Catherine cleared her throat for attention.

"I have written to Simon de Bourgh to invite him here. I gave hints that we had family business to discuss, but nothing beyond that. I asked him to make plans to attend me three months hence for an extended stay, as I would like Darcy safely married, so my nephews and brother to attend. He will not read too much into it, as we have done something similar before."

Anne said, "I am looking forward to renewing our acquaintance, Mama, and I do so hope my cousins can pry themselves away from their…" but then decided she was being both presumptive and impertinent, traits she believed were inherited.

Elizabeth said, "I believe I will be able to spare William by then. In fact, I intend to take advantage of the fixed schedule to force a short engagement, and I will be anxious to spend more time with Mrs. Collins."

Anne asked, "How short? Nothing unseemly, I hope?"

Darcy had wondered that himself, since he and Elizabeth had not had a private moment to talk about it. Of course, like most men he thought the wedding to be the exclusive province of the bride, so assumed that his duty consisted of getting a new suit from his tailor and showing up on time, mostly sober.

Elizabeth blithely said, "My father's permission will take about a half‑hour of teasing followed by rapid capitulation. We can call the banns on Sunday and marry in three weeks or a month without raising any eyebrows – aside from Mrs. Bennet's of course."

Everyone agreed to the suitability of the plan, and Anne and Georgiana started speaking across the table to Elizabeth and Jane about wedding items, which left Darcy with the unpalatable choice of listening to wedding details or having to exist in the world out of sight of Elizabeth. Lace won in that instance, but there were no guarantees it would in the future.

The butler entered the room and whispered to Lady Catherine for a moment, which caused the other talk to die down.

She nodded to Greaves to continue.

"A Mr. Bingley has kindly asked if he might be allowed to address all assembled here."

Surprised, Jane asked, "Is that all?"

With the typical butler's flat face, he said, "I omitted the numerous and lengthy apologies for the sake of brevity, Miss Bennet", which left her laughing along with everyone else.

Lady Catherine looked at Jane for the decision, so she responded, "I have no objection to hearing him out", then she turned to Darcy and asked, "I presume you wish to keep your friendship?"

"I do. I am the last man in the world with a right to criticize him for inconstancy."

Jane just smiled in acceptance. "Please show him in, Mr. Greaves."

Everyone sat patiently, and a moment later, Bingley came in looking as contrite as if Greaves had taken him to task for the past half-hour (an unlikely scenario).

He bowed to everyone in the table. "Lady Catherine… I most profusely apologize for interrupting your breakfast, but I have some things I should like to say to everyone here, with your permission of course. I could not work out a more polite way to achieve it. I will be quick about it."

He was obviously quite nervous, as the whole speech had come out so fast that he sounded like a chattering magpie.

Lady Catherine asked, "Did you come from London, Mr. Bingley?"

"Yes, my lady."

"You must have left at the crack of dawn. You will be hungry. Take a plate and eat."

He looked confused at the request, as if he could not quite work out how to get to the sideboard.

With a surprisingly gentle reproach, the lady added surprisingly gently, "Go on, sir. We have all day, and I will not have a starving man trying to make sense."

While it was a bit of subtle and unexpected humor from Lady Catherine, it seemed too out of character for anybody to laugh at. Anne took pity on the man and asked Georgiana an inane question about the fashions in London this season, thus giving him a moment to shake his head a bit and go to the sideboard as directed.

As the two young cousins conspired to fill the air with mindless chatter, Lady Catherine returned to her discussion of sausage, and as far as Jane could tell, they seemed to be working out some sort of exchange of fifty pounds of Gardiner's best for the same amount from Rosings. Discussing business with a tradesman at the breakfast table at Rosings showed her conclusively that it was probably time to call in the de Bourgh heir, since Lady Catherine seemed to be going mad.

Jane was slightly ambivalent about Bingley's presence. The hurt she had been feeling as recently as a month prior had reduced itself from a crushing sense of gloom to something closer to minor annoyance. She had never until that moment felt that he could be an indifferent acquaintance, but the possibility seemed closer to her feelings than she had given herself credit for. She optimistically thought that perhaps she was over him entirely.

Bingley ate quickly, but even at that, he found Lady Catherine's advice helpful as the food did seem to calm him down and help him collect his thoughts.

When Bingley finished, everyone else had finished as well, so Lady Catherine suggested they meet in the drawing room in a quarter hour.

Once everyone was seated, she said, "Better, Mr. Bingley?"

"Yes, my lady."

"You may proceed."

Bingley took a deep breath. "I have several things to say, starting with you, Miss Bennet. I offer my profound and sincere apologies. I treated you infamously last winter, and I offer no excuses. I cannot mitigate whatever heartache and discomfort you felt, nor do I particularly expect forgiveness. I just thought that if I want to be a gentleman, I should start trying to act like one and take responsibility for my own lack of resolve."

Jane found that she was not entirely indifferent to the man yet, but the sharp edge of her anger from the previous day had been worn off, and she was in fact feeling… perhaps… pragmatic?

"Mr. Bingley, I will offer forgiveness. Whether you deserve it or not is irrelevant, as forgiveness is as much for the forgiver as the transgressor. I am no longer willing to carry the burden of anger or despondency, and years hence, I suspect we may both feel it was all for the best."

Bingley looked somewhat hangdog. "I thank you. I find it unlikely I will ever feel it was for the best, but I will try to believe it."

"Is not faith a key element of life, Mr. Bingley. Would we not be living a miserable existence without some kind of faith that the world is not entirely capricious?"

Bingley looked unconvinced, then surprised when someone else intervened.

Anne said, "Take the word of someone who has suffered considerably more than any of you in this room beside my mother. Faith in the future is the only thing that can pull you from melancholy. If you believe things will get worse, they generally do."

"I thank you for the advice, Miss de Bourgh. I will do my best to live by it."

Gardiner said, "You are young, Mr. Bingley. Young people frequently make stupid mistakes. I cannot count the number I made at your age. Much as I love them, I will admit that even my nieces are not without fault in this matter. You have time, and if you learn from your mistakes, all will be well."

Jane said, "Mr. Bingley – all this is good advice. Having faith in a better outcome is necessary but insufficient. If you want to become a gentleman, you have other things to do. My pardon comes with some advice."

"Go on."

"How many of your tenants have buildings that need repair? Are any of them sick or in need of assistance? Have you balanced and verified your steward's ledgers? Are there any disputes your steward could not solve? Did your sister discharge servants without reference, notice or adequate pay? Were your bills in Meryton paid on time? Need I continue?"

He sheepishly shook his head.

"If you would become a gentleman, then start acting like one. Take your model from Fitzwilliam. We all agree his manners are sometimes atrocious, but he hardly ever shirks his duty, and when he does, he rectifies the matter as soon as he can no matter how difficult."

Bingley said, "That is good advice, Miss Bennet, and I will do my best to follow it", then for a moment, he looked as if he might say more, but refrained in the end.

She graciously replied, "We all make mistakes, sir."

Bingley turned towards the obvious couple. "That brings me to my second apology. Darcy, I apologize for putting you in the unenviable position of making all my decisions for me. You tried to teach me at Cambridge, and at Netherfield; but in the end, I deferred to you on almost everything – including things you had no business expressing strong opinions on. It is entirely my fault you built up that habit, and so I offer an apology for it."

"We both have our share or the blame, Bingley. I accept your apology and offer mine for officious interference."

Elizabeth said, "We could go on all day, but I believe you have resolved the bulk of the problem. I suggest we leave that particular problem to settle. Someday, Mr. Bingley, you will need more advice. At the very least, you will probably need a repeat of the things my intended already told you once but you did not listen to, or if you wish to truly be a landed gentleman, there are quite a number of other things you would have learned from your father if you had a history. Can we just assume that the two of you can work that out in the proper way?"

Bingley smiled in almost his old jovial manner. "Intended! That is wonderful. I would have hoped for that outcome but have to admit that when we left Netherfield you seemed to hate the sight of each other."

Elizabeth laughed. "You were half-right", but then she looked at Darcy that was about half a step away from dragging him away from the table for a private consultation, but then resumed, "If you want to become a true gentleman, Mr. Bingley, need I state the obvious?"

"I assume you mean my sister", he said with a sigh.

Elizabeth leaned forward intently. "Yes – you need to make a decision. You are not her father, but you have been placed in the position of acting like one. You need to either get her under control, or better yet, simply release her from your household and let her shift for herself. She needs to grow up."

Bingley said, "Setting her up in her own establishment would ruin her reputation. She would be as much as on the shelf."

Much to his surprise, Jane just snorted and cackled a bit. Everyone stared at her, so she answered.

"She made her own bed, and it is not the least bit blameless or helpless. If her reputation is in danger, it is her own doing. You just let her push you around until it became a habit. She is a woman with an attractive body, a thoroughly unattractive personality, and a big dowry. If she would quit reaching for that which she will never have, she could find a match in months. She is just greedy, and has been grasping for Pemberley for years, thinking she would put up with Fitzwilliam to get it. She needs to understand her own insignificance."

Elizabeth said, "She is a grown woman, so she should take responsibility for herself, but both of you …", and she started at both Bingley and Darcy, "… allowed her to abuse Jane and I nearly constantly at Netherfield. You both either agreed with her or ignored her. I can assure you that such behavior will not be allowed in my home in future. One lifetime of it is quite enough. I suggest you adopt the same attitude, sir."

Jane said, "You should look at Longbourn for what your life will be like in a few years, Mr. Bingley. You and your sister are perfect analogues of our parents. Our mother has some slight justification for her matchmaking as the entail does put us in some danger of genteel poverty – but not very much since she had made no attempt to economize. Worse yet, she is a woman out for what she wants and willing to connive to get it. I rode to Netherfield on horseback in the rain at her insistence. She has been throwing us at any man with an income for seven years, all for her own comfort, not ours. She even tried to force Lizzy to accept Mr. Collins. My father, on the other hand, has the education and experience to make a genteel household, but just does not trouble himself. With the combination of grasping and indolent, you and your sister are our parents twenty years ago. If you want to see your future, look no farther than Longbourn."

Bingley looked thoughtful. "I thank you for the advice, and I will take some action. I suspect after yesterday, Caroline will be desperate to get away from me anyway, so the problem will probably solve itself."

Elizabeth said, "If it does, it does – but that does not absolve you of working on your own character."

"No, Miss Elizabeth… it does not. I thank you for your advice."

Jane found that she actually liked this humble man just a bit. She obviously did not like him enough to take up with him ever again, but he was a man who at least had some potential.

Bingley said, "Well, I do not want to take up your whole day. I just wanted to say one more thing. If you are going to Hertfordshire, I would like to put Netherfield at your disposal. You may consider the house as your own during your courtship or engagement. I will not disturb you."

Jane said, "No, that will not do."

Everyone looked at her in surprise, so she quickly clarified. "It is your leased estate, Mr. Bingley. It is your responsibility. It can survive without you, as it did for the two years it sat empty before you came, but I feel if you give up on your very first challenge, it will be all too easy to just give up and return to a life of idleness. You must return and finish what you started. Your reception cannot possibly be any frostier than Fitzwilliam's will be, and you can see he is running into the flames, not out."

"I would not want to impose on you. I could not entertain without a hostess anyway."

Lady Catherine said, "I will be there. In fact, it seems convenient. I am not completely unversed in estate management or acting as mistress of an estate, Mr. Bingley. Darcy will be fighting his own battles at Longbourn, but I have no qualms about advising you."

If that offer was intended to calm him it had the opposite effect. Bingley stuttered and stared a bit, but the impasse was broken by Gardiner.

"What say you, Bingley. Shall we see what you are made of?"

Bingley finally nodded in agreement, afraid of saying anything inappropriate as the thought about what he would have to face. He had to admit that he had left Netherfield thinking Darcy was the last man in the world Miss Elizabeth would ever be prevailed on to marry. He had somehow turned it around, apparently through copious consumption of humble pie, so if he could do it, why not?

"I and happily accept your gracious offer, Lady Catherine."