Bingley looked at the letter his aunt's butler had handed to him.
It was addressed to 'Mr. Charles Bingley" at his address in London. Someone there, likely his housekeeper, had forwarded it to his aunt's address, here in Scarborough. But somewhere on its passage here the letter had been dropped, likely in a mud puddle judging by the brown water stain, and may even have been stepped on from the looks of it. The letters 'Scar' had been washed out as had been the return address. Postal workers along the way had done their best to get the letter to him, working their way through the alphabet: 'try Attleborough' then 'try Loughborough' and so on, through Marlborough, Middlesbrough, and Peterborough, until the letter finally arrived at Scarborough.
Bingley cracked the wax seal and looked first at the signature – it was from Darcy – and then at the date – three and a half months ago. The letter was hard to read, water had seeped through the paper, making the ink run, and blotting out words. Bingley smiled to himself, Darcy was always complaining about he blotted his letters. It took awhile, but Bingley puzzled out the first few paragraphs, his eyes getting wider as he did.
Darcy was to marry Elizabeth Bennet but she had jilted Darcy at the altar and he didn't say why. Bingley put down the letter, he felt like Darcy had left him dangling over a precipice. What had happened?
Caroline let out a thunderous squawk startling Bingley from his musing. He and their aunt, and several servants, ran into the dining room, where Caroline had the newspapers from London, the ones she had been mining for gossip, scattered over the table. She was trembling and so upset she could not speak clearly; she was gasping 'no' over and over again. When Bingley asked her "'what was wrong?" she just stabbed her finger at a notice on one page. While his aunt ushered the servants out, he read the notice out loud:
'Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Bennet, of Longbourn, Hertfordshire, are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pemberley, Derbyshire.'
When Caroline recovered full use of her voice (oh how Bingley wished she had been struck dumb permanently) she screeched that "how could he, after helping us save you from that fortune hunter, Jane Bennet" here she jabbed at Bingley, like it was his fault somehow, "how could he marry that chit, that jade, Eliza Bennet? What arts and allurements did she use on him?"
Bingley was confident that if Caroline had known what arts and allurements would have worked on Darcy, she would have used them a long time ago.
Caroline threw a fit. She started screaming she was going to kill that Eliza Bennet if it was the last thing she ever did. She cast a crazed look around and spotted the tureen sitting on the sideboard but Bingley managed to grab her before she could smash it. She struggled in his arms, she threw her head back into his face, giving him a fat lip, and he almost hit her in reaction. Their aunt took care of that for him, slapping Caroline twice. He pushed Caroline down into a chair and when she protested, he grabbed her ear, hard, and told her to shut up; the way she acting, she was going to end up in Bedlam. Their aunt forced Caroline to take a dose of laudanum and before she passed out, got her up to her bedroom.
Bingley went back to his study. He was shaken, perhaps Caroline was truly mad, her obsession with Darcy such that she really should be in Bedlam. He had heard that there were places, run by Quakers, that took care of people like that in a more humane way.
He looked at the letter from Darcy lying on his desk. He had not told Caroline; indeed, he had not had a chance to tell her that Miss Elizabeth had jilted Darcy. If he told her, that would rekindle the torch she carried for Darcy, she would continue on with her hopeless quest to become Mrs. Darcy. Hopeless because Darcy would never marry her, even if she engineered some sort of compromise. On the other hand, if he did not tell her, well there was a man here in Scarborough, a mill owner, who had admired Caroline when she had first come out, whom was not yet married – perhaps she would be amenable to making such a match if she thought Darcy was married. And, if after she married another, she discovered Darcy was not in fact married, well, he'd jump off that bridge then.
Bingley thought of those newspapers of hers. In them there was bound to be news of Darcy being jilted. That would have made a big splash in the ton. He rang his aunt's butler and instructed him to get rid of the newspapers (the butler delegated this task to a footman who sold them for three shillings to the same tradesman who had sold them to Caroline; the footman pocketed the shillings and no one was the wiser).
Bingley picked up the letter, started reading, and was thunderstruck for the second time. Darcy confessed to being wrong about Jane Bennet, and to having conspired with Bingley's sisters to keep Miss Bennet's presence in London from him. Reading that, Bingley thought his sister was lucky to be lying comatose in her bed, as it spared her from his wrath. For the time being, that is. And his friend, to think that 'disguise of every sort is his abhorrence'. There would be words for him as well, and good for Miss Elizabeth for jilting him, the cad.
Bingley finished reading the letter and was thunderstruck for the third time. He was starting to feel as if the fates were prosecuting him. Darcy wrote that Miss Bennet promised 'to greet him with an open and honest display of affection' if he went back to Longbourn. A wave of despair rippled through Bingley. That was three and a half months ago. Given his continued and prolonged absence from Longbourn, Miss Bennet must have concluded by now that he didn't return her affection. He buried his head in his hands. Oh, Jane – would you still accept me if I come crawling back to you now?
After a quarter hour of bitter reflection on 'what might have been' Bingley picked up his newspaper; he hoped that reading news of the world would perhaps cleanse his mind of the news he had received this day. He hoped in vain. As an owner of mills making canvas for the Royal Navy and serge for soldiers' uniforms, he paid close attention to all matters military and so he ended up reading that certain article, the same one Darcy had read, that announced the end of Wickham and the punishment of Lydia Bennet. He reached the same conclusion as Darcy had: the Bennet sisters were ruined.
Bingley poured himself a large brandy and threw it down his throat. It burned but not enough to burn away the thought that it was too late now for him to go to Longbourn. He poured himself another drink; and after that another; and then another; and then he lost count. With the single-minded determination of the drunk, with each drink he told himself it was too late.
But the next morning, really early afternoon, when finally he roused, choked down the headache powder provided by his valet, and drank down three cups of coffee blacker than Caroline's heart; he realized that his bout of inebriation had not concluded anything.
The question was still before him: was it really too late for him to go to Longbourn?
