A Gentleman's Rescue: How Bingley Met Darcy Pt 1

Summary: This story is told from a teenaged Bingley's point of view. It involves the publication of a scandalous claim about Bingley's father and how he acquired his wealth. The story gives insight into how the Bingley family became wealthy, and how Bingley's friendship with Darcy began. Happy reading!

~ A Gentleman’s Rescue: How Bingley Met Darcy ~
A Short Story by Brandon Dragan

“Son, the horse matters not at all.”

“I do not grasp your meaning.”

“It is the man who sits atop the horse,” the father spoke gently. “For he might traverse a million miles in a thousand years, and still—no matter his animal’s breeding, pace, or endurance—never outrun his own character.”

“But do men never change for the better?”

“Aye, my boy, aye,” the man said as he leaned forward, removing his pipe from his lips with his right hand and patting his son’s knee with his left. “A man may change with the ebb of time, or a man may change in a single moment, but only if his mind is open to knowledge and his heart open to hope. If he is closed off to either, he is bound to remain as he has always been.”

The young man’s shoulders slumped as he leaned back in his chair. He was seventeen by just two weeks, tall and all limbs and sinew. His eyes were the color of the sky in summer, yet at that moment they were misty and troubled—which must have vexed his father who, like nearly all who knew him, was much more accustomed to the boy’s genuine and effortless amiability, his ea-gerness to take delight in the world around him, and his guileless smile.

As Charles Bingley chewed the inside of his lip and ran fingers through his sandy curls, he watched his father puff his pipe and marvelled to himself at how people could act with such cruelty to a man possessed of such excellence. Then, he took some solace in the reckoning that his own suffering on behalf of his father was but enhanced due to the quality of the man’s character, and therefore, any slights which might be endured on account of his family’s being a member of the nouveau riche were further proof that the transgressions of envy, spitefulness, and poor breeding were not confined by class.

His mind being, to some extent, set at ease by these thoughts, the younger Bingley let out a sigh and managed a half smile. “Might I have a glass of brandy?”

“Of course, my boy,” the father replied, his eyes full of warmth. He took his son’s hand in his and added: “For you are always with me and all I have is yours.”


* * *
Surely enough, the following morning, the story had hit the presses. Eoin Walters, whose enormous estate in Northumberland had been passed down by generations since the days of Rich-ard III, had publicly accused Frederick Bingley of fraudulently securing title to a vast acreage in the Dominion of Canada. In truth, the Ontario property which had been the primary source of the elder Mr. Bingley’s spectacular rise from the steps of the debtor’s prison to the parlours of the empire’s highest society in a matter of a decade had been the subject of quiet rumour for years.
However, as Frederick assured his children a thousand times over—despite his stubborn reluctance to discuss the subject in any manner of detail—that nothing untoward had taken place in his acquisition of the land which had underpinned his rapid ascension.

“Jealousy!” he would tell his children that very morning. “Nothing more than envy!”

“And what, pray, does Mr. Eoin Walters have to envy us about?” Caroline demanded through her sniffles, her slender fingers knotted around a kerchief. At but fifteen, her features were still childlike—lower lip protruding and brow furrowed in misery as she struggled, entirely without success, to keep closed a floodgate of tears—and she was yet to fill out her uncommon height with ladylike form. Certainly, over the next year or so, she would blossom into a moderately handsome girl—the extent to which her attractiveness would be improved by the enormous dowry she possessed was another point entirely. But at present, every limb was too long, too thin, and too angular.

“Look about you,” the father said, holding an open palm toward the room around them. At that moment, the father and his three children were seated in the breakfast room of their home in Grosvenor Street, which he had purchased eight months earlier. The spread before them included bread, butter, marmalade, cold ham—which the elder Mr. Bingley greatly enjoyed with the first meal of the day—eggs, porridge, and even chocolate, all laid out in silver. Two footmen stood silent, ready to pour tea or coffee at a moment’s notice, and the family ate from porcelain dishes imported directly from China.

“I built this life. Mr. Walters can make no such claim.”

“He did not have to,” Caroline retorted. “His family is not twelve years separated from destitution.”

“And you blame me?” Frederick answered with a chortle. “You blame me for the fact that I was born on his estate to parents who tended his pigs?”

Caroline barely suppressed a gag. “Please, do not remind me!”

“As if I had the choice of circumstances into which I would be born any more than Mr. Walters had?”

“Father—” Charles began, only to be abruptly cut short by his younger sister.

“You do not understand,” she moaned. “It is difficult enough having no name, no estate, and no familial connections with which to make impressions in the Ton, but having scandal hanging over my head makes my life… insufferable!” With that, she let her silverware clatter onto the plate in front of her and pouted most ardently.

After a moment’s silence, Frederick let out a sigh and said: “What say you, Charles?”

The young Bingley shrugged, and his eyes fell to his lap for a moment. “Father, I have not a single doubt that these reports are untrue, but if you will not address them, I fear they can only serve as fodder for further rumours and escalating inuendo. And while I do not share the… magni-tude of Caroline’s feelings, I do share her concern that should the record not be set straight, so much of your toil and labour remain at risk of being undone.”

“Louisa?” the father asked, turning his attention toward his eldest child. “This report affects your prospects, perhaps, most directly. Will Mr. Hathcock’s attentions dwindle in light of this pre-posterous claptrap?”

The young lady’s eyes were resolute, and her lips slightly curled in pompous confidence. “Mr. Hathcock is a man of upstanding character,” she declared. “Far be it from him to be dissuaded by such a glaringly Banbury story as this.”

“Fine then,” Frederick answered, lowering his eyes and shifting his gaze between each of his children. “I shall not condescend to make an answer to such folly. I am not some costermonger, selling baubles on street corners.”

“But father, certainly you can—” was all Caroline managed.

“There are two things that speak loudest in this world,” Frederick interrupted, raising his voice for the first time. “The first is money; the second is character. Mr. Walters may have the for-mer, but he is devoid of the latter. And by the end of my life, children, it is my endeavor and most sincere desire that you might venerate me as a man who had both.”

“Of course, Papa,” Louisa answered.

“If men like Eoin Walters have the time on their hands to coddle a dudgeon then so be it, but I am possessed of no such luxury.”

“I do not understand your meaning, Papa,” Caroline sulked. “You may indeed have charac-ter but if you do not defend yourself against the slander of those with money, you will find your character besmirched and your accounts empty—and then what will become of us?”

The father snickered under his breath and folded his napkin once more and placed it on the table. “We will go back to what we were before we had money, my daughter.”

Caroline visibly gagged. “And what was that?—nay do not remind me.”

“Happy,” Frederick answered. “We were poor, and we were happy.”

“Poor,” Caroline muttered with disdain.

“And the pigs,” Louisa chimed in, her gaze cast askance toward the windows overlooking the alley where a stableboy passed, leading a horse behind him.

“Yes, daughter, the pigs,” Frederick answered, leaning forward and putting his left forearm on the table in front of him. “And may I remind you, that two cousins of mine and four uncles on your mother’s side—may she rest in peace—are still raising pigs to the man. Your brother some-how managed to convince me to allow him to spend a fortnight with them learning to ply the trade last year, if you recall. And if I am not mistaken, he even took part in culling the herd, or whatever a group of swine is called.”

“A drove?” the younger Bingley chimed in.

“There you have it: a drove of pigs,” Frederick sat back in his chair. “Your brother helped cull the drove. So should we be reduced to once more to poverty, at least we shall not starve.”

At this, Caroline grimaced.

“While that particular part was, albeit, not so pleasant, as one indeed can imagine, I quite enjoy country living,” the younger Bingley started.

“No one asked your opinion,” Caroline barked.

“My point is, my dear children,” Frederick continued. “The men who have had money and titles running in their families for centuries have the time to sit around and bicker and point fingers and hold grudges. But I, being possessed of no title and no guarantees of any sort, must remain industrious if I am to remain among the Ton. You would still wish it that after the new year we oc-cupy the house in Grosvenor Street, would you not?”

The two girls perked up at this. “Of course, Papa.”

“Then I must be off—to earn it,” he replied, standing from the table and bidding them all good day.

The three siblings sat in an unusual silence for more than a brief moment. The heavy quie-tude was only broken by a single word which escaped Louisa, somewhere between a sigh and a whisper: “Fraud.”

After another minute’s time, Caroline added: “Such an ugly word.”

The young Bingley answered: “It cannot be. We all know that our father is not capable of such a thing.”

“We know that he is now incapable of such a deed,” Louisa replied. “But really—what do we know about his former self?”

“We know that he fought during the American War when he was still very young,” Bingley recalled.

“And that he was thereafter stationed in Canada,” added Louisa.

“Where he worked as a timberman from the end of his commission,” her brother continued.

“He was industrious enough to save and purchase a swath of land from an Inuit chieftain.”

“From that land he began exporting lumber, bought more land, and invested in other suc-cessful business ventures.”

“Then he came back to England and married our mother, whom he had known since child-hood,” Louisa recollected.

“And here we are,” Bingley finished. “Aside from mother, of course.”

“Then that is all,” Louisa concluded, forcing a smile across her lips. “Where, pray, is the scandal?”

“It matters not what the truth is,” Caroline finally joined in. “For we are still to be pariahs in the eyes of our peers if he will not clear his name. In fact, his silence will only serve to confirm the rumours. And on a day, no less, when we shall be thrust into the public eye, only to face jeers and whispers and innuendo and what other tortures I cannot fathom.”

“A night at the Theatre Royal is hardly being thrust into the public eye,” retorted Bingley. “Unless of course you intend to make your debut on the stage,” he added, causing a chuckle be-tween him and his older sister.

“It is not a laughing matter,” Caroline declared through freshly arrived tears. “For he will be there, and if by this evening our father has not fully vindicated himself, he will undoubtedly turn his attentions elsewhere, and then the strongest of bonds between us will be shattered beyond rem-edy.”

“Pardon, but of who are we speaking?” Bingley asked, glancing at Louisa who seemed to be in on the secret already. “I did not realize my youngest sister was so closely attached to—ah!” his eyes lit up. “I had no idea you were so smitten with Mr. Richards!”

“What?” Caroline demanded, her mien turning toward indignation.

“Roger?” Bingley replied. “You danced with him at the—”

“Mr. Roger,” Caroline pronounced slowly and one syllable at a time. “Richards?”

“I dare say, he may not be the most handsome chap—”

“Ro-ger Ri-chards,” the gait of her words increased in tandem with her vexation. “That ba-con faced... with the goiter and the… the droopy eye?”
Louisa covered her mouth with her hand.

“He is a nice fellow from a good family,” Bingley remarked.

“You are quite mistaken, brother,” Louisa chimed in before Caroline truly lost her temper. “I believe our dear sister has become quite taken with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

“Mr. Darcy?” Bingley challenged.

Caroline forced her words through clenched teeth: “We are to be married.”

“Sister, you have not yet been introduced,” Bingley pronounced with a chortle, looking toward Louisa as if he might find good sense there.
“We may not have had a formal introduction,” she began.

“We have not had any introduction,” her brother answered.

She pursed her lips and glared at him, though he cast another playful glance toward their elder sister, which was again met with merely polite recognition, before continuing on undaunted: “When the fates have ordained two hearts to be thus intertwined, no trifling protocol could dare keep them asunder.”

This time, Bingley looked to Louisa, raising his eyebrows and leaning forward as if to pray for help. In response, she lowered her eyes toward her plate and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a napkin. It appeared that for the time being, the task of dampening their younger sis-ter’s more imaginative and potentially perilous reveries had fallen upon him alone. He thought that a rationale exposition must cut through the tumult of her sensibilities and awaken her to the veracity of her position and Mr. Darcy’s. Yes, certainly a calm invitation to reason would soothe the com-motion of her mind.

“You see, an introduction is more than mere protocol, as you would have it,” he began. “Rather, it serves the interest of propriety. A young lady must have protection against making an unbecoming acquaintance. And for the gentleman—well, first of course, it allows for the preserva-tion of rank—”

“Oh!” Caroline cried, slamming her napkin on her plate, the clattering of which caused Bingley a small startle, and leaving the table—causing her brother to instinctively rise from his seat, whilst the word “insufferable” was muttered under her breath as she quit the room.

“Brother,” Louisa said with a smile. “You know we have seen Mr. Darcy from afar many times.”

“I concede, we have,” he replied, taking his seat once again. “And yet, as we must all be aware, that is quite a different thing from being introduced.”

“Our dear sister has taken quite a shine to him.”

“And no doubt the ten thousand a year he stands to inherit.”

“Brother,” Louisa chided. “Do not be unkind. Caroline is nearly sixteen and fancies herself in love. This dreadful rumour is, to her mind, the end of her hopes and dreams. We must be gentle with her.”

“Of course,” Bingley answered, eyes cast toward his hands. “But I remind you she is not yet sixteen, which is quite young. And on top of it, she was only presented at court because of your engagement to—” He quit when he saw Louisa’s expression contort. “My apologies, dear sister,” he said kindly.

“It is quite all right,” she answered, dabbing now at her eyes with her kerchief.

“Mr. Coombes was the best of men,” Bingley consoled. “And gone far, far too soon.”

Louisa forced a smile. “I agree,” she said softly. “But grief is an unavoidable consequence of living… and Mr. Hathcock is a fine man, himself.”
“Yes,” her brother agreed. “He is a most agreeable gentleman.”

Louisa sniffled a time or two and then rose suddenly, which again caused Bingley to stand. “If you will excuse me, brother,” she said. He nodded and bowed slightly as she went.

When she was out of sight, he plopped down in the chair in precisely the manner of a man of seventeen who was easily exhausted by gossip and rumours and silly younger sisters who fan-cied themselves already yoked to wealthy gentlemen to whom they had not yet been introduced.
“Wilshere,” he called to the footman. “Would you have Jensen make apple pudding for this evening? Be sure to tell him it was I who asked.”

“Of course, sir,” Wilshere answered.

The young Bingley drew in a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly through pursed lips. As much as he wished not to dwell on the subject, the business with Mr. Eoin Walters could indeed have a drastic impact on his family’s reputation, and that evening at the opera would provide the occasion for the family to gauge how much stock their peers had put into such reports.

“And Wilshere,” he began while standing to his feet. “Have my horse readied. I believe some time out of doors would do me much good this morning.”

“Fine, sir,” the footman replied while the young master quit the room.


* * *
The sun shone brilliantly through a scattering of woolly clouds, the undersides of which were smeared with lavenders and azures as if Abraham Pether had erected a scaffold the size of the Tower of Babel and plied his trade on the sky itself. A dusting of snow—and not more than a dust-ing—blanketed the tree limbs and rooftops in all directions and the air left Bingley’s mouth in a plume of smoke. He rode a Cleveland Bay with a small white star just above its elbow down Grosvenor Street in the direction of Hyde Park at a leisurely pace.

That evening would see the debut of We Fly by Night, a play by George Colman the Younger at Covent Garden which had not been yet ravaged by the fire which would, mere months before the Treaty of Dardanelles was concluded between Britain and France, consume not only Handel’s organ but also the lives of more than a dozen Londoners and many more taken to hospi-tal, as described in the words of John Feltham, “most miserably mangled and burnt.” Bingley was, naturally, unaware of the theater’s eventual fate. His mind was at that moment consumed with the tenuous position into which his family had been thrust by the likes of men with power and fortune enough that whatever modest gains the Bingleys might make would not put them out in the least. Whilst it was certainly true that he was accustomed to the finest of everything the axis of empire had to offer, Bingley was sure that he would have been equally contented with a modest country house and a coven of steadfast friends. Thus, as his walk penetrated the deep interior of the park, far more forcefully than he feared the loss of his own status in society, he dreaded the prospect of his father’s being the subject of ridicule by men far more deserving of it themselves.

Just then, the young man was roused from the recesses of his introspection by the sudden and startling shriek of a woman. Bingley looked up to see a fair-headed child of eight or ten knelt down in the middle of the path. Beyond her was the child’s governess, shouting and flailing her arms. Behind him and over his right shoulder was instantly heard a violent beating of hooves. Without so much as thinking, he flung his own horse into the path of the oncoming equine and up-on impact was himself flung to the ground. At that moment, the girl looked up and, eyes full of panic, made the effort to scream but no sound left her. The loose horse had been, by its collision with the mounted Bingley, diverted into the brush just long enough to avert catastrophe before cor-recting course and continuing unbridled down the lane. Bingley and the girl locked eyes from the ground, both breathless, though for reasons altogether different.

A moment before her discomposed governess reached her, the girl asked: “Are you all right, sir?”

He smiled meekly, doing his best to assure her of what he was not yet convinced: “I am quite fine, I assure you.”

“You saved me, sir,” she answered, her eyes bright with gratitude. “I must have your name.”

“Bingley,” he replied with a slight grimace.

“Come now, come now!” the governess castigated, gathering the child, and unceremoniously lifting her by the underarms. “Look at you—all covered in filth and could have nearly been killed! What wrath you would endure should your father or your brother behold you in such a state!”
Bingley watched from the dirt as the girl was whipped around and forced off in the same direction to which the loose horse escaped.

Yet, over her shoulder, the child called: “I thank you, Mr. Bingley—I thank you!” He waved and lowered his head instinctually, and in a moment’s time she was gone. After another moment he propped himself up to a seated position and took account of himself—nothing broken. His horse, who was perfectly unhurt, watched the man with curiosity as he eventually rose to his feet and dusted himself off. Though Bingley would wake the following morning with mild bruises and aches, the truth was that had he been much more than seventeen, he would have most assuredly suffered more than the momentary deprivation of his wind.

* * *
The Bingleys arrived at Covent Garden that evening in their town coach, which was no older than eight months from the date of its manufacture. The ride had not been long, though it had been tense. Louisa was uncharacteristically sullen, though the young Bingley had hardly noticed. He was, himself, grappling with something of a bout with melancholy. Caroline, for her part, was a cottage pie of nervous excitement at the thought of meeting with Mr. Darcy and saturnine churlish-ness at the fact that her father sat silent across from her, yet to address in any public manner the very public accusations against him. There, Frederick Bingley sat, his gaze directed out the window at the city as it passed, his mind elsewhere altogether.

He would never be accused of being an enthusiastic theatre patron, yet he had made it a habit to attend regularly during the several years since he had begun to amass his fortune. For the elder Bingley, the theatre was a means to an end—an apparatus by which old faces might become accustomed to new ones over time. Ultimately, Frederick took very little pleasure in the screeching of a soprano or the morbid pageantry of Don Giovanni. What diversion, if any, was to be cultivat-ed there, came at the opportunity to forge new connections in the upper echelons of society. And more than these connections, even, was the notion of his—of their—acceptance among such con-nections. Thus, it would have been a shock to his children that his thoughts were not preoccupied during that short journey, with what whispers were at that moment making their pernicious journey around the Ton, but rather, that his mind was much more agreeably engaged.

When they arrived, the footman opened the door and Louisa emerged first, her chin held high, and her lips pursed in her best impression of dignified nonchalance. The eldest sister was fol-lowed by Caroline, Frederick, and finally Charles. The young Bingleys glanced about eagerly, but not too eagerly as might make them appear anxious. They were however, observing—or perhaps imagining—disapproving stares from every direction. The Bingley patriarch merely tapped a fine layer of snow from his shoes with his cane as he stepped onto the carpeted stairway toward the entrance. His children followed behind him, the inner monologues of all three echoing the memory-seared instructions of their governess to keep their heads aloft and their shoulders back as they went.

Once inside, and to their most pleasant surprise, the opening act of the night progressed quite uneventfully. There were no sneers, no condescending critiques, no rotten fruit thrown in their direction. In fact, the siblings found themselves much relieved to sit in a room that seemingly hummed with anticipation of the performance, rather than any furor to confirm the ruination of a family. It was certain they had not met with several of their more regular theatre companions, but after all, it was a bitterly cold night and a good number of acquaintances had recently been affected by a variety of maladies from trifling coughs to ailments of a more grievous nature. Still, their spir-its were buoyed by the seemingly typical greetings and genteel interactions they experienced among those friends with whom they did meet. Caroline was particularly encouraged by this, and her mood was heartened quite cheerfully on the observation of the father and son taking their places in the Darcy box.

Louisa had, with some sanguine expectancy, hoped to meet with Mr. Hathcock, as his family were regularly in attendance at most premieres. On this occasion, however, she observed only his mother and father in their typical places. Though she would not at that moment have con-fessed it, her suitor’s absence did cause her more vexation than it might have on a more typical evening. This evening, however, Mr. Hathcock’s company, his cavalier smile and his whispers in her ear which too often made the blood run to her cheeks, would have assured her that his affections toward her remained unchanged, and therefore that her life remained intact.

After the performance, it was the family’s custom to linger. This tradition had begun with their father’s wishes to be seen by as many of the wealthy and powerful as possible on a single night. It had more recently become a thoroughly anticipated opportunity for the Bingley children to mingle with friends and hope for introductions to strangers. Caroline, particularly, hoped that this evening’s loitering might finally provide an introduction to the young man who had for months consumed her imagination and—as she would put it—her heart.

Once the curtain fell and the applause died to a murmur and much of the audience had relo-cated out into the foyer, the Bingleys followed suit. The elder Bingley did not seem to notice that no one went out of their way to converse with him. The younger Bingley did not seem to notice either, as he had been greeted from several rows behind by his acquaintance, James Garfield. Once the young Mr. Garfield had caught up to him in the aisle, the two talked of everything and nothing, prattling away about the Garfields’ upcoming holiday to Naples, Bingley’s effervescent desire to see the city, and naturally, as two teenaged boys would, the exotic allure of Italian ladies.

In the lobby, the crowd mulled about—many wisely choosing to remain indoors while they awaited the arrival of their carriages. Thus, there was something of an impasse which resulted in bumped shoulders and “pardon me’s,” and polite nods of acknowledgement. Frederick had finally been pulled into a conversation, albeit a slightly one-sided one. Mr. Rupert Edwards, who was physically quite sprightly for eighty-two, had through his thick spectacles, recognized the elder Bingley from their social club, and begun to speak in a steady stream of incoherence, only pausing ever so briefly to suck enough air into his lungs to continue on. The topics covered by the elderly gentleman in rapid succession ranged from the hatching of turtle eggs on the shores near his home in Ramsgate, to the Emperor Napoleon’s favorite meals and the unfortunate passing of his own late wife and back again. Frederick Bingley struggled to get a word in—either to initiate a subject change or simply to achieve a measure of clarification—but remained genteel and treated Mr. Ed-wards with the utmost respect.

There was, at one moment, a group of five or six people, all perhaps ten or so years the Bingley father’s younger, who at one point drew all their heads together suddenly and then in unison shot a glance in the family’s direction. Once it was clear that they had been noticed by the objects of their interest, the party quickly diverted their eyes either toward the ceiling or the floor, though it was obvious to at least Charles and Louisa that their conversation continued on, quieter, yet unabashed. When suddenly, something of a piercing commotion arose down the hall in the op-posite direction. Charles craned his neck to observe at a better angle and was immediately horrified to behold his sister, Caroline, standing at a distance of perhaps forty feet from him, but only four feet from the younger Mr. Darcy. A small crowd had converged around the handsome young aris-tocrat—as it often did—and the youngest Bingley sister could be viewed tossing her head back in an exaggerated and excruciatingly overt attempt to draw his attention upon her.

“Oh, dear,” Charles muttered, taking his eldest sister’s elbow and directing her attention toward the impending debacle.

At once, the pair of elder siblings made their way through the crowd, both of them straining to ascertain how the object of Caroline’s attention might react to her glaring faux pas—whether he looked upon her in haughty amusement or, even worse, outright disdain. Worse yet, they feared, he would come to know her name and realize her connection to the scandal swirling about in the ether over their heads. The nearer they approached, the more it became apparent that their younger sister paid no attention to the content of the conversation, but rather, that she was fiercely determined on-ly to find that every pronouncement from the young Darcy’s mouth was the most humorous utter-ance ever to emerge from human lips. Though they could not yet discern the topic of the conversa-tion of the group, the young Bingley and his older sister were positive that Caroline’s response was far out of character—and volume—for the nature of the dialogue.

“Darcy,” one young man was heard to say. “Will your father take you on holiday to Rome again next month?”

“Undoubtedly,” the young Darcy answered, a small smirk creeping across his lips. “Do you mean to ask him for permission to stow away in his trunks?”

The young man, and those amongst him possessed with more appropriate decorum, looked back and forth and managed smiles and chuckles between them. That is, until their attention was drawn back by Caroline’s abrupt and boisterous cackle.

“Oh, Mr. Dar-cy,” she exclaimed. “You are ever so clever!”

Darcy looked askance and his brow narrowed. “Why, thank you. And pray, may I–” he began before being halted by Caroline’s next pronouncement.

“In his trunks, no less!”

The group of young patricians now smirked and spoke to their neighbors in whispers with mouths obscured by gloved hands. Bingley had inadvertently left Louisa behind in his haste to draw nearer to his younger sister, hoping to divert her away without further incident or embar-rassment.

He was but an arm’s length away when she roared: “And where, pray, would your father keep his breeches?”

To the young Bingley, the mere seconds between the utterance of that ridiculous phrase, followed instantly by another bellow of aggrandized laughter from his sister’s diaphragm, and his reaching her, seemed like half a lifetime. If he had thought the performance that evening was dread-fully prolonged, he felt in that briefest of moments as if he could have sat through it three times more and still not closed the distance between them. Had he been queried later that week—or later that night, even—upon how many thoughts had rushed through his mind in that urgent passing of but a few beats of the heart, he likely would have answered that he could not recall. The truth was, however, that a crashing sea of ideas battered his mind in that short interval between the utmost chaos and any attempt at curbing whatever injury might yet occur on account of Caroline’s thoughtless escapade. During those brief seconds, he could not help but ponder how materially the credit of his young and senseless sister would be damaged by such impropriety of conduct. Then, in the midst of the quiet sneers and vain smirks, he reached her at last.

“Pardon,” he panted, taking her by the forearm with a firm hand.

Then, as if there was nothing left which could mortify him, she tore herself away from his grasp theatrically, her long arms flailing about over her head, and then she glared at him as if he had somehow breached decorum. Though, at most only ten observers had witnessed this act of re-calcitrance, Bingley felt a thousand pairs of eyes boring deep beyond his well-trained manner and deep into his innermost vulnerabilities. Over the pulsing of blood in his ears, he thought he heard a lady’s voice remark: “Obstinate, headstrong girl.” It was all too much.

“A thousand apologies,” he muttered to the onlookers, his throat seemingly closing after the words left it. Then, turning to Caroline he nearly begged: “Sister, please.”

“Thank goodness we have found a brother,” a redhaired gentleman announced in a tenor laced with scorn. “I thought for a moment we might have a slighted suitor ready to sport his canvas on account of Darcy, here!”

A surge of laughter burst forth and Bingley felt sick as a cushion.

“Good news, Darcy!” a pockmarked and buttery young man exclaimed. “This tempting armful may still be yours!”

At this, the small gathering erupted again, and through his distress Bingley keenly observed a haughty smile curl on Darcy’s lips as he glanced about the group. The young Bingley felt the colour rising hot in his face and wanted nothing more than to toss Caroline over his shoulder and leave the place—and perhaps England—at a gallop, when just then, and to his utter disbelief, his plight worsened considerably more:
“Mr. Hathcock?”

With Caroline on his left, Bingley’s head now spun to see Louisa on his right.

“What are you doing here?” she queried with an uncharacteristic and genuine naivety.

Immediately, Bingley realized that standing silently next to Mr. Darcy the entire time was Louisa’s suitor, Mr. Hathcock. In the din of his attempt to rescue Caroline, and his family entirely, he had failed to see the man his sister had hoped to marry right in their midst. Mr. Hathcock looked briefly to Louis, then to Bingley. His dark eyes flickered in the candlelight, and it was at first diffi-cult at first to distinguish whether they revealed contrition or conceit. It was the next subtle altera-tion in his expression which, to Bingley’s dismay, revealed not the least bit of shame. Instead, Mr. Hathcock briefly bit the tip of his tongue and then looked toward Darcy, who looked back at him, hoping perhaps for some remark which would elucidate the fog of confusion which had now descended yet again.

“Will you be so kind as to introduce us?” Darcy asked with a chuckle.

Mr. Hathcock smiled broadly, that winsome smile which had allowed Louisa to begin to hope of a future during a night of the soul where daybreak once seemed impossible. She smiled back, guileless and sanguine, utterly unaware of the drastic change in fortune which would mo-mentarily overtake her. Her suitor leaned in and titled his head toward her.

“Have I made your acquaintance?” Hathcock inquired, his tone so curt and lacking in civili-ty that there should have been no mistaking his intention.

Louisa’s laugh, however, was an amalgam of surprise, nerves, and an artless confidence that he was playing some sort of game. “Mr. Hathcock, it is I—” With that, the breath caught in her chest and the realization dawned on her that all was not as she had hoped. For an ever so brief in-stant, a hint of penitence crossed his face as he witnessed the betrayal in her eyes. However, it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived, and he straightened up and looked back to Darcy. Hathcock shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and pursed his lips. Darcy turned away without so much as a bow.

“Mr. Hathcock,” Caroline now interjected, further illuminating her own naivete. “Have you gone mad? It is Louisa,” she called as he took the slightest of bows and turned off to follow Darcy. The rest of the onlookers cast their final disparaging glares before they, too, were off down the hall and melded back into what crowd remained.

“I am utterly befogged,” Caroline declared. “Are you not confused?” she asked, with far more cheer than was appropriate. She then turned toward her sister for the first time. What she ob-served when her eyes fell upon Louisa would stay with Caroline for the rest of her life. White as a sheet, Louisa’s lips were mashed shut and yet quivering; a veritable river of tears racing down her cheeks in an uninterrupted stream. “Oh, Louisa,” Caroline groaned, as the meaning of that final spectacle finally dawned upon her.

Their brother, who had been frozen between them, looked to his eldest sister as well. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, which to his surprise caused her to recoil. She looked at him, her eyes suddenly wide and full of fear. “Let us find Papa,” was all she said as she turned back in the direction from which they had come.

The four Bingleys rode back to the house in Grosvenor Street in silence—the children in bewildered grief and the father in blissful ignorance. He was only happy to have finally escaped the endless ruminations of old Mr. Edwards. (continued . . .)