Yay, I am on a role with updating my stories! FYI, this isn't a regular chapter, this is an interlude in which you get a chance to hear from another character's point of view. We started out with one in the prologue with Lady Anne, and we will periodically get these interludes. Sometimes they will relate fairly directly to the story as it now stands and other times they will mainly discuss another part of the story or answer questions about why things are like they are.
Interlude 1:
Miss Bingley: Losing Out
The night of the ball I knew I had lost Darcy. Perhaps I never had him, but I thought he would be mine, like a fish in a net who has not yet been lifted up out of the water but is nevertheless caught. But somehow, he had flipped out of my net and landed in Eliza's lap, even though she had done nothing and even now was not gathering him up in her skirt. Perhaps, eventually, Mr. Darcy would slip down off her lap and wriggle until he cast himself back into the waiting sea, or perhaps she would leave him flopping and gasping in her lap, never truly caught but fit for no one else. But I saw little chance of catching him while Eliza still had him, and he wished to be with her.
I previously suspected Darcy's attraction to Eliza when we attended a party at Lucas Lodge. I saw him standing near her and then even saw the two of them talking with Sir William. Darcy hardly ever wishes to talk with anyone he does not know well, but he seemed to be making an effort with her, although he looked uncomfortable and I imagined it was an awkward conversation.
When Darcy was left alone, I took the opportunity to check on him. Charles always wanted one of us close at hand for any social outings after what happened at the assembly. There was no dismay in his expression when I came up to him, just a little bemused smile and a soft look in his eyes.
We played a game we had played before, in which I was to give outlandish suggestions for what he was thinking. I did not play the game my best this time (that night when I was abed I thought of much more outlandish suggestions I might have made, "you were thinking about what it might be like to be a barnacle on Captain Cook's ship, sailing on all his great explorations but knowing nothing but your own tenuous existence" or "you were thinking about how you might drop the names famous astronomers, explorers, philosophers and the like, and convince this dullard crowd that these were actually the names of members of parliament: Copernicus could be our prime minister, Socrates his second"). I suppose I was irritated in seeing my quarry slip out of my grasp.
I said, "You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner—in such society . . ." and even as I fleshed this commentary out, I knew how haughty I sounded. I expected Darcy to call me on my lack of imagination, he is never shy about sharing what he thinks with me and does not carry if in doing so sometimes he tramples on my feelings.
However, to my horror, Darcy responded, "Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow." He then confessed that the object of his fancy was Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Scrabbling for a response I asked when I was to wish him joy. Rather than giving me a ridiculous response in which I might take heart that he was in jest, he gave a response which teased me for the rapidity of my thought but nevertheless declined to apprise me as to whether he might in fact have matrimonial intent. I teased that it was settled and he gave no hint as to what he was thinking as his face remained bland. I continued to, tease, hoping to inspire a reaction which would finally determine how he felt, but he gave nothing away. At the time, I thought I was dissuading him, but now I think he was already on a fixed track of thought about her which would lead to his heart.
Later, after dear Jane took ill and Eliza came to join her at Netherfield, Louisa asked me, "How do you feel about your chief rival coming to Netherfield? I cannot but think that the scheming Mrs. Bennet sent her hither, in the wish that while Jane is securing our brother (who would send her daughter out on horseback with the skies so black?), Eliza might do the same with Darcy."
I was not sure that Mrs. Bennet had the wherewithal to engage in such strategy, she seems so vacuous, but I was troubled that the man I had selected to be my husband might instead marry such a woman. I responded, "What is there to do? Charles has already invited her to stay and they will have to be in company soon."
"Perhaps we may harden his heart against her if we help him see how unsuitable Eliza would be as Mistress of Pemberley; a proper lady would never walk so far and get so muddy." So it was that we staged a conversation for his ear to try to dissuade him, but though I was able to get Darcy to admit that he would not want to have his sister make such a display, even when I carefully whispered to him, leaning closer than was strictly proper, hoping he might see just the barest hint of my décolletage, "I am afraid, Mr. Darcy, that this adventure has rather affected your admiration for her fine eyes."
However, Darcy struck a dagger deep in my heart when he insisted, with a faraway look in his eyes, eyes that did not seem to even see the bounty I had placed before him, which he could possess with matrimony until I had produced an heir or two, "Not at all, they were brightened by the exercise."
I saw how it was then and was silent, while Louisa still doggedly tried to sway his opinion of Eliza with another tact, attacking the professions of her relatives. Although she gained some moderate success when Darcy admitted that such connections lessened the chance of the Bennet sisters marrying well, I was not mollified. Time and time again I saw during Miss Eliza's stay that Mr. Darcy could not help but stare at her. I could not distract him by walking the room, but he was practically staring as Eliza took a turn with me, and dare I say that he was actually flirting when he said he could admire us both better from his seated position.
But the moment when I knew with absolute certainty that I had lost, was when Louisa begged him to dance with me and, instead, Darcy walked off to go talk to her. The way Eliza held herself, I could tell she was not at all pleased. But could he, would he?
The answer was a resounding no. I watched as Darcy walked the dark stripe of wood that formed a rectangle on the ballroom floor and stayed on that fixed path as much as he could (did anyone else notice, did anyone but me and Charles know him so well?). I watched as Darcy went through the door and then kept watching until he returned.
I watched as Darcy danced with Eliza, wishing it was me across from him. Wishing he wanted me.
I tried to tell myself that it did not matter. Certainly, his wealth would have made things easier for me and I could have done such great things with it (I had made great strides in bettering unfortunate women's circumstances by finding them new employment where they would be respectable, but it would be easier to place more women with ready cash and the prestige of such a marriage). But I told myself, I did not really care for Darcy, had just made a calculated choice in deciding upon him. Still, I felt like crying when I saw him smile at her.
I was too tired after the ball to entertain any discussion with Louisa about my predicament after the Bennets kept us up so long, but in the morning, I awoke with more determination to gain Darcy as my husband. While I might not have romantic love toward Darcy (although he was by far my best marital prospect) and I liked to pretend to be in love with him just so that I would not appear so mercenary to myself, I knew it was all a fantasy, just a fancy.
Yet I acknowledged to myself something that should have been evident long ago; I did love him in my own way. He was like a brother to me, a little brother that needed to be guided and helped. Eliza was not right for him; she would never understand him and she would only break his heart.
It was then that I determined, after Charles left, we would close up the house. If I could get Darcy to go back to London, all might not be lost. But as it turned out, all I did was delay the inevitable.
