The Beginning of Hope

Part 12

The Netherfield parlour was deserted when Darcy came to it the morning of the Egerton dinner. He had hoped it would be, for he could search all the better without an audience. Throwing open the door, he strode into the room, barely pausing to glance around him in case his quarry might have been moved. But, no. There was his writing case, his pen, his ink-well, precisely where he had left them. Letting out a sigh of relief, he snatched up his case and opened it, flipping past correspondence and blank sheets of paper in search of the one letter that ought to have ended up in the fire long before now.

His brow furrowed. He ought to have taken it with him the instant he had finished writing it. Had he not a fire in his room? He might have disposed of it there just as easily, and out of sight of Caroline Bingley. Instead, he had left it here, content in the knowledge that he would retrieve it in time. Time had passed, of course, and the letter had lain forgotten until he bolted awake in the early hours of the morning, suddenly recalling its existence and realising he must destroy it now, lest Caroline's eye fall upon it another time and realise that he had never intended on sending the letter to Georgiana at all.

Where are you? he addressed the wayward scrap, rifling through his papers with increasing agitation. Here was a note from his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and here, an update from his groundskeeper informing him of the necessary repairs lately made in certain corners of his estate. Here, even, was the last letter he had received from his sister, but where was his reply?

"Darcy! I thought I heard you. What are you doing ferreting about in here?"

Darcy scarcely looked up at the sound of Bingley's voice, nor did he cease his search when his friend crossed the room to join him.

"Come and have breakfast. It's wretched cold in here, and you shan't persuade me you have any paperwork so urgent that it must be attended to at precisely this moment."

When Darcy did not immediately leave off his occupation, Bingley tried again, his voice shifting into a register that could only be described as plaintive.

"Do come, Darcy. Mr Hurst is still sleeping, so I shall have only my sisters for company, and if it is possible to bear one plaguing me, the two together is unbearable." He chuckled. "They shall leave off their campaign if you are there, and we might all manage to eat our meal in peace. We shall talk only of happy things, like this evening's visit to Trenholme. I say, what is the matter?"

Darcy had grown more desperate in his searching, resorting in upending the entire writing case on the table, and sifting through his papers there, seeing no sign of the letter he sought.

"I have lost something," he muttered, distractedly.

"I can see that! Well, let me help. You know I have always been praised on my observation. Let us turn our wits to deduction. Where did you last have this - what is it?"

"A letter." Darcy's words came through clenched teeth. He loved his friend dearly but was not sure he could stomach Bingley making a game of his concern. A sinking feeling settled in his stomach and grew worse with every moment that his letter was not found.

"Oh, well, in that case, I shall put your mind at ease!" Charles clapped him warmly on the back. "I have dispatched it!"

Darcy's blood ran cold and he could not quite bring himself to look at his friend. Bingley was oblivious to his discomfort, rocking back on his heels and shivering a little at the cold air in the parlour.

"You needn't thank me, 'twas but a small favour and the least I could do. I had letters of my own to send, you see, and Caroline mentioned that you had been distracted from sending your last to Georgiana by the arrival of our guests - my guests. Well, I felt a little guilty about that, for I know how large Pemberley is and how poor Georgie must be rattling around in it without you for company. I thought I should send the letter right away, as I was occupied in doing the same, and you were not here to ask..." He paused, seeming to notice Darcy's displeasure for the very first time. "Did I do the wrong thing? I thought it finished. You had certainly signed it." He straightened, perceiving and addressing any accusation of wrong-doing before Darcy could make it. "That is, I did not read it, but I glanced at the bottom to see it ended and recalled you composing it with Caroline just the other day, so I knew it had not been a long letter. Besides!" He chuckled. "The sooner it is sent, the sooner Georgiana shall join us here. And won't that be far better than leaving her alone and friendless in Pemberley? No, you shall not persuade me that she could be happier there when you are here. What fun we shall have, with your sister as well as mine under this not-inconsiderable roof. Now, come and have breakfast and leave off this mess, you can put it all to rights later. I'm hungry."

Bingley took his leave as if he had not a care in the world, and Darcy was left to stare after him, the full horror of his friend's intervention still only just beginning to settle around him. The letter was sent - the letter he had penned with never any intention of it being received or read by his sister. He had had no chance to alter it, nor to warn her of its coming. She would not know it was written in jest, in an attempt to distract Caroline Bingley from some course of annoyance. She would receive it as fact and no doubt act upon it with all haste, as he had urged her to.

Of all the foolish, idiotic...!

But he could not finish the thought. There was but one idiot in all this and it was not his friend, who had sought to do a good deed and in doing so, perhaps, brought the very worst to pass.

Darcy's mind whirled, throwing up solution after solution he rejected without pause. He could not write again: the letter would arrive too late. He could not ride out ahead of it, nor meet his sister en-route: there was too great a chance they would pass one another on the road. No, it was done. He would wait to receive her reply and act then. With any luck, she would write for clarification to confirm that his request for her to come was squared away with Bingley himself, and Darcy would be afforded an escape. If she came...

If she comes, I shall just have to work twice as hard to keep Wickham from ruining things, he thought, his jaw set in a sharp, tight line. Again.

"Darcy, are you coming?" Bingley's voice floated in from the corridor and Darcy realised he could delay no longer without drawing suspicion. He could not explain to his friend without betraying Georgiana's secret, and he could no more claim to wish his sister to remain separated from him than he could confess that he had intentionally sought to deceive Caroline Bingley by penning a letter he never once intended to send.

"Coming." His voice sounded strangled even to his ears and he swallowed hard past the lump that was already forming in his throat.

Georgiana was not here yet. There was every chance she would not come, even if she received his note. All is not lost yet. I will not fret until I must.

With one last reproachful glare at his writing case, as if it had been that and not his own foolish actions that had betrayed him, he stalked out of the room to join the rest of his friends at breakfast, forcing his mind back to the present, and leaving the future to worry about itself.