Bingley's ball had continued dancing for many hours after Darcy had retreated to his room the previous night.
As a result, "breakfast" the morning following was an event occurring a little before noon.
It was not really breakfast, in Darcy's opinion, if it was not begun before ten in the morning.
As he had already eaten following his relatively early rise, Darcy did not attend the start of the meal. He instead busied himself with his own preparations for leaving Netherfield.
However, once he had finished giving orders to his valet and the butler, he descended to inform Bingley of his plan to leave the next morning. When he entered the breakfast room, he found all the other denizens of Netherfield Hall splayed out over their meal, bags under their eyes.
But Bingley had a broad grin when he stood to greet Darcy. "Deuced fellow! Deuced fine fellow — look at him. Look at Darcy, fresh as a daisy! — where'd you go? I said you could go hug yourself if you didn't want to dance, but never expected you would."
"I apologize, I… became indisposed. I also must inform you that I have determined that the time has come for me to return to London. I—" Darcy shrugged. He had not spared sufficient thought to invent an excuse he felt would be proper to give to Bingley, and he would not lie and say that there was an important matter of business. "I came because I wished to avoid society for a time after Georgiana's elopement, but it is necessary for me to move on at last."
"Ah." Bingley furrowed his brows as he studied Darcy. He picked up his cup of coffee and took a swallow. "Are you certain — I thought you… well that you liked the neighborhood." And he flashed Darcy a knowing smile that made it clear that Bingley had noticed his infatuation with Elizabeth.
Had everyone seen it?
It didn't matter.
Darcy would not be surprised if it became common knowledge amongst the whole of the neighborhood — and following that all the ton that he had been refused by a girl of no dowry, no connections, and no consequence.
He could not care.
The Darcy name would survive or die whether or not he was known as an object of derision and mockery. Did the Darcy name even matter? What importance did it really hold?
"Darcy. You must come round with me to say your partings to everyone."
"No. I am determined that I shall leave tomorrow morning. I spoke with everyone I wished to last night."
"Oh." Bingley's voice was smaller. "You did."
In a flash Darcy realized that Bingley thought he'd decided he would not pursue Elizabeth because her birth and connections were insufficient. That he cared too much about fortune and consequence. Bingley never would imagine that it would be Elizabeth who refused the match.
Darcy thought… he thought Elizabeth had been right to refuse him when he hardly knew himself.
But he did not care.
Nothing mattered deep down.
"I did," Darcy said firmly. "I thank you deeply for the time you allowed me to spend as your guest. I value that kindness, and your friendship, enormously, and I look forward to the next time we shall spend together."
"Eh, eh. About that." Bingley's irrepressible grin returned, and he rubbed his hands together. "I haven't yet asked her, but there is a decided chance that I'll ask you to return to Hertfordshire in a not too long time to attend at a particular and happy event."
"Uh," Darcy blinked, "to what do you refer?"
From the way that Miss Bingley's face paled, and how Mrs. Hurst grimaced, it was clear that Darcy's mystification was not universal.
"No! No! You don't mean to!" Miss Bingley exclaimed, slamming her fork into the plate with a clatter. "You can't do that to me."
"Now whatever," Bingley said suavely, "do you think I mean to do to you?"
"Marry Jane Bennet!"
"Ah, well." Bingley grinned. "That is what I mean to do. But it is not to you."
"You can't; you shouldn't." Miss Bingley hurriedly said, "Think of your family. And think of their family, you cannot possibly stand Mrs. Bennet—"
"A good-natured woman, with a good heart."
"Or how wild the younger girls are—"
"Fine lasses."
"And you'd be expected to help provide for them and see them married — and there are so many of them."
"It would be my pleasure to do anything which made my wife happier."
"Charles!"
"Caroline!" Bingley tried to imitate his sister's angry tone of voice, but he was clearly too happy with himself to succeed at the task.
"You know in your heart that you ought not marry Jane Bennet. All you shall do is please her mother."
"And myself, Caro, and myself."
"You won't be pleased for long. Jane is a sweet enough girl, but she would make a terrible wife for a man in your position — Mr. Darcy, is it not right that it would be an extremely unfortunate entanglement? Tell Charles that he cannot possibly marry Miss Bennet."
Darcy sat up straighter at this appeal to his judgement. "Unless Bingley is already married, or one of a set of extremely rare circumstances apply due to consanguinity, it is possible."
"You know what I mean — it would ruin his position in society." Miss Bingley growled at Darcy with frustration that he had not seen from the woman before. "He listens to you, Mr. Darcy. Charles trusts your judgement, and you must guide him correctly."
This was not what he had expected when he had come up to the breakfast room to announce that he was leaving. He'd noticed, of course, that Bingley had some tenderness for Miss Bennet, but he had not seen before now that matters had passed beyond Bingley's ordinary tendency to find himself flirting with and standing next to the prettiest girl in every room he entered.
Though the public judgement was of course incorrect, and Elizabeth was the prettiest of the Bennet sisters — Darcy's judgement was particularly unbiased upon this matter this morning, as he had just been refused by her the night before.
"I had not realized," Darcy said, "that you had determined to embark upon such a serious decision. Have you given it proper thought and consideration? While Caroline speaks in hyperbole when she says that your social position would be ruined by the connections Jane Bennet would bring you, it would be harmed, though only modestly. And there is no dowry to sweeten the matter."
Bingley sniffed. "Do not care — what is that nonsense worth next to the happiness which marriage to an excellent woman will bring, and to the woman who you love and who loves you?"
Why hadn't he been able to simply tell Elizabeth that nothing mattered more to him than marriage to her?
She had been right to leave when he could not answer that question in the affirmative.
Yet… His father's ghost stood in the corner, sneering at him. Telling him that he was a disgrace to the Darcy name, and only the stupid luck that he'd asked the one worthless girl in the world who would refuse him had protected the shades of Pemberley from pollution.
And for the first time in his life… no, for the first time since his father died… Darcy felt a sullen angry resentment towards his memory throbbing in his guts.
At last Darcy said to Bingley, "If you know what you are about, and if you are convinced that she is the woman who you love, and who you wish to have as the companion of your future life, I must wish you happiness, and hope that you have better luck… I mean good luck when you ask for her hand."
"Don't be absurd," Miss Bingley exclaimed. "Darcy, I expected you to at least preach sense! Your own sister proves how awful a degrading marriage can be."
"There can be no comparison between the two situations, most importantly my sister was barely older than a child, and under my guardianship. Your brother is a full-grown man, competent to make his own decisions."
Miss Bingley turned to her brother again. "You've been taken in! She is a fortune hunter serving the mercenary whims of her mother, and she cares nothing for you. She would probably prefer that you do not ask her to marry her."
"I am sure that Jane loves me." Bingley's tone though was less certain than at any point before. "She must love me."
"She does not, but due to pressure from her family, she will have no choice but to accept your proposal." Miss Bingley had a sort of desperate look to her eyes, like a fox rushing towards the last covert in which it might hide from the hounds. "If you truly care about Miss Bennet, and wish what is best for her, you will not ask her to marry you."
"But… she loves me. I think she does."
"You are not sure. Charles, you are charming, you are friendly, and you have an easy and impressionable manner about you. Miss Bennet of course is always willing to speak to you, but that does not mean that she would be happy to be tied to you, forever, with no chance of escape. This is what a woman fears above everything else, being tied to a man she does not want to be married to, but unable to escape."
"Tosh! Tosh." Mr. Hurst rose and grunted. "This is not what I've heard women blather on about fearing before now. As for me, I would not have married a penniless girl even if she'd a face twice as pretty as Miss Bennet's, but she is a deuced pretty creature. Bingley, you have far more money than I. What does it matter whether she loves you or not? What is important is that she say yes."
"But do you think she loves me?" Bingley asked his brother-in-law, looking at Hurst with a desperate intensity. "Does she?"
"Deuced if I know." His wife elbowed him, and he snapped at her, "What?"
Mrs. Hurst pulled him down so she could whisper fiercely into her husband's ear, and after she had done so, Mr. Hurst straightened up again, holding a hand against his ear and shaking his head. "By God, by God — woman, need you speak so loudly? — Jane likely does not love you, because she is too poor for your sisters to be happy with the marriage." At a further glare from his wife, Mr. Hurst amended his statement to, "I mean she definitely does not love you, since it would annoy Louisa if she did."
"Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" Bingley moaned and shook himself. "You don't think Jane loves me? What shall I do? — but I thought. Surely, she must love me because I love her so much. Darcy! You must tell me, does Jane love me? Speak my fate."
"Make your own decision. Use your own judgement."
"Oh. Oh. Oh." Bingley pressed his hands against his face, and shook himself. "But Darcy, what is your judgement: Does she love me? You always observe people so closely, and so well."
Darcy then recalled another consideration; Jane was Elizabeth's favorite sister. They probably were similar in this matter. "If she does not want to marry you, she'll refuse you and you can return home to cry." He then added, with some bitterness that he believed he had not concealed from his voice, "She might refuse you even if she does want to marry you, for some reason that makes feminine sense."
"But does she love me? What is your judgement? I must know."
"I cannot tell you. I cannot read her mind."
"But tell me your best guess. Please, Darcy, please, I beg you. I'll go to my knees if I must. Tell me what you believe."
"Good God, man. Stand back up." Love did not make Bingley more rational. It had not made Darcy more rational. He was beginning to consider it as rather being more in the nature of a curse than anything else. Darcy raised his hand, and said, "Permit me a minute to think, and I'll tell you what I think about Miss Bennet's feelings towards you."
Bingley stood back up, and he tightly paced around the room, breathing a little fast.
Darcy frowned and blocked him from his mind. On what occasions had he seen of Miss Bennet and Bingley together? There were many. They spent a great deal of time together, but that did not mean that the woman loved him.
Elizabeth had refused him because she thought it was in his interest for her to do so. He thus owed her family something, despite the paucity of their connections. At the same time, his loyalty to his friend demanded that he give Bingley the best advice he might.
And… and if Bingley married Miss Bennet, he'd be thrown again and again into Elizabeth's company, or forced to avoid one of his dearest friends.
Darcy flinched inwardly at that realization. It would be better by far for him if Bingley did not marry Jane Bennet.
He could not allow that fact, nor any other, to influence what he said.
But it was so hard to see how Jane behaved, because his mind had always been upon Elizabeth.
"I can say nothing with any confidence," Darcy said at last. "I have not observed the two of you together closely. But my recollection of her behavior suggests that I never saw any sign of great feeling or deep affection in her behavior. Yet… I do not know."
"Oh, what am I to do?" Bingley moaned. "I am cursed to unhappiness if I do not ask her, but if her mother forces her to marry me, then she shall be cursed to unhappiness. I ought not ask, because it would be selfish of me — but what if she does love me? Then I would be evil to disappoint her."
Bingley's irresolution was well known to Darcy. It was a defect in a mostly fine character. There was no surprise that this defect did not resolve itself only because the question was of paramount importance.
Darcy rose from his seat and put his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Bingley, I do not know — but… if you are so uncertain, I do not think you should ask her. A man ought to know his heart." He saw in his mind's eye Elizabeth looking at him during the dance the previous night. "Any woman truly in love will behave in such a way that the target of her affections will know about his favored status, unless she actively hides her feelings — but I'll say no more. I have a few matters to manage so everything will be in order when I leave the estate tomorrow morning and return to London."
Bingley groaned, and he slumped his head. He sat back down in his seat, and then shoved the plate of food in front of him right off the table so that it shattered and spilled butter, bread and broken shards all over the floor. "I will go with you. There is nothing here for me."
He could not repent of what he had said, but as Darcy looked at his glum friend, he began to think that he'd made a mistake in the advice he gave him.