Pride and Prescience: Or, a Truth Univesally Acknowledged Page 5

  “How is your friend Bingley?” Kendall’s low voice carried a belligerent tone; his face appeared flushed. Darcy would have suspected the man had imbibed too much claret, but he knew better. This show was merely the latest display of his congenial personality.

  He stared at Kendall’s fleshy fingers until they dropped their grasp. “I left him in good health,” he said finally.

  “I understand he’s newly married.”

  He did not bother answering, nor did a response appear expected.

  “Tell me,” Kendall continued, “has he learned to think for himself yet, or do you still make all his decisions for him?”

  Though tempted to walk away, Darcy forbore. The man obviously intended to speak his mind; to deprive him of the opportunity might provoke a scene right here in the earl’s dining room. Of all things, Darcy loathed scenes. “I offer him advice when asked.” He spoke in clipped tones.

  “And did he ask your advice about his sister’s forthcoming marriage?” Kendall snorted. “He probably thinks she made quite a catch in Frederick Parrish.”

  “I have not concerned myself in the matter.”

  “Too engrossed in your own affairs for a change? Well, tell little Caroline I rejoice in her nuptials. She and Parrish deserve each other.”

  As Kendall at last seemed satisfied, Darcy moved away, into the chair he’d sought near the earl. But he found himself unable to focus on the scientific discussion. Instead, he seethed in silence at Kendall’s unprovoked diatribe. What had been the man’s purpose?

  Darcy rarely had occasion to interact with Lawrence Kendall. Though they belonged to the same clubs and knew many of the same people, the difference in their ages and dispositions generally prevented their paths from intersecting. When they did encounter each other socially, as tonight, they had very little to say to one another—which was why this evening’s show of spleen on the older man’s part had left him baffled.

  His knowledge of Kendall came mostly from the gentleman’s association with the Bingley family. Charles Bingley’s late father had been in business with Kendall; together the two had built a fortune through trade. Near the end of the elder Bingley’s life, the relationship had soured. The two men dissolved their partnership, dividing the assets fairly, at least in the eyes of the Bingley family and their solicitors. Kendall, however, unjustly claimed that he had been cheated of his full share—this, after cheating Mr. Bingley through creative accounting for years.

  Kendall first came forward with the assertion of fraud shortly after the senior Mr. Bingley’s death, and renewed the claim last winter. That second time, Kendall had argued with Charles Bingley so long and so aggressively that Darcy’s friend had almost surrendered the assets in question despite his solicitors’ advice. Bingley, inclined to assume the best of everyone, began to believe that perhaps an error had indeed been made. Darcy also suspected Bingley’s wavering to have been motivated by a desire simply to end the unpleasant conflict. He had urged his friend to stand firm.

  That was the last he had heard on the subject, until now. It seemed Kendall yet harbored antagonism toward Bingley. And had broadened its scope to include him as well.

  Elizabeth, meanwhile, found herself confronted by the other Kendall of the party. Juliet seemed a pleasant enough young woman as the general conversation drifted among such weighty topics as Lady Edith Carrington’s recent presentation at court, and the addition of second flounces to hemlines this season. But no sooner did Miss Kendall learn that the new Mrs. Darcy was sister-in-law to Caroline Bingley, than she maneuvered to sit beside Elizabeth on the sofa for a private tête-à-tête.

  “I hear they are to be married Wednesday,” she said without preamble, apparently so focused in her own mind on Mr. Parrish’s plans that she presumed everyone around her to hold the same individual foremost in their thoughts. She smoothed her skirts, not looking at Elizabeth as she spoke. “It will be a very grand affair, I suppose?”

  Elizabeth resolved to say as little as possible on the subject. Even had she possessed the information Miss Kendall sought, she had no wish to inflict additional pain on Parrish’s former inamorata by feeding her details she thought she wanted to hear. “I’m afraid I have not been privy to their plans.” Across the room, Lady Chatfield began to pour tea, a distraction for which Elizabeth was grateful. She rose, stating her intention to head for the tea table.

  Miss Kendall, however, would not be dissuaded from her subject as she accompanied her. “The wedding will be the talk of the ton, I have no doubt.” Juliet accepted a steaming cup from the countess, added a lump of sugar, and stirred absently. “Miss Bingley will want the most lavish affair her brother can afford, and Freder—” She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Mr. Parrish—will acquiesce in every particular.” She added more sugar to her tea.

  Elizabeth injected a note of levity into her voice. “By the following week, something else will seize society’s attention.” She sipped from her own cup, seeking a moment’s reprieve behind its rim. The earl had indicated Miss Kendall suffered from melancholy in the wake of Parrish’s rejection, but Elizabeth thought her eyes seemed unnaturally bright for someone mired in sadness. She attempted to change the subject. “Have you any special plans for Christmas?”

  “We played together as girls, you know. Caroline Bingley and me. Dressed our dolls together. Rode horses together.” Miss Kendall added another lump of sugar and continued stirring. The silver demitasse spoon clattered against the delicate porcelain. “We haven’t spoken in years. Our fathers—well, never mind that. But this is a triumph for her, stealing Mr. Parrish from me. That woman set her cap for him and caught him before I knew what was happening.”

  Had Miss Bingley actively interfered with the courtship? Given her calculated efforts to discourage her brother’s attraction to Jane, Elizabeth couldn’t put it past her to have aggressively worked to turn the admiration of a wealthy and not-quite-betrothed bachelor toward herself—especially right after the announcement of Darcy’s engagement and the disappointed hopes it represented. If so, Mr. Parrish likely would have been a target regardless of which lady he’d been wooing. Surely Caroline hadn’t pursued him solely out of malice toward Miss Kendall?

  “That’s why she’s scheduled the wedding so soon—to spite me.” Juliet dissolved a fourth lump in the china cup. The more sweetener she added to her untasted tea, the more bitter her voice became. Her volume, however, remained low enough that only Elizabeth could hear. “She’s snickering at me right now, isn’t she? Congratulating herself on securing her own happiness and ruining mine all at once.” She expelled a short, unconvincing laugh that sounded more like a horse’s sneeze than an unaffected expression of mirth. “Well, tell her she failed. After they wed, I will see her unhappy.”

  Miss Kendall thrust her full teacup onto the table with enough force to topple it off its saucer. Brown rivulets streamed across Lady Chatfield’s snow-white tablecloth, rapidly soaking into the fabric and leaving behind a gloppy trail of half-dissolved sugar crystals.

  The expanding stain appeared to wrench Juliet from her fixation on Caroline Bingley. Horror spread across her face as quickly as the tea on the tablecloth, and she immediately stammered an apology to their hostess. The countess gently dismissed the accident and summoned a servant to replace the covering.

  Elizabeth hoped the disturbance might offer an opportunity for her to slip away from Miss Kendall and into another conversation, but the footman proved too efficient in performing his duty. When the mess had been whisked away, Juliet turned to Elizabeth once more. “I have been standing here realizing I owe you an apology as well,” she said, her manner again relaxed as it had been earlier in the evening. “I did not mean to monopolize your attention, nor to speak so warmly on a subject best left undiscussed.”

  “Think no more of it,” Elizabeth said. Though she referred to their conversation, privately she hoped Miss Kendall would also think no more about the forthcoming marriage. By whatever means Parrish’s sudden engagem
ent had come about, it had clearly left wounds that would take a long time to heal.

  As they walked home, Elizabeth relayed the conversation to Darcy. “Caroline Bingley has cultivated a fervent enemy,” she observed.

  “Miss Kendall will attract a new suitor before long.” He grasped her arm firmly as they passed over an icy spot on the pavement. “Or her dowry will, if she cannot. Once she has the attention of another gentleman, she will forget all about Miss Bingley.”

  “Let us hope so, before her injured vanity claims another victim. The lady is terribly hard on tablecloths.”

  Six

  “Happiness in a marriage is entirely a matter of chance . . . it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.”

  Charlotte Lucas to Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 6

  Caroline Bingley’s wedding indeed proved the talk of the ton, an event calculated in all respects to outdo the Bennet sisters’ nuptials. Her gown featured more yards of lace, more beads, more ribbon, than Elizabeth’s and Jane’s combined. Her veil was longer, her brides’ cake taller, her wedding breakfast a full twelve courses. The guest list included more “particular friends” than Mrs. Darcy thought it possible for one couple to have; in fact, Miss Bingley seemed to have invited any titled acquaintance whose card she’d ever received.

  Elizabeth considered the whole event an exercise in ostentation, from the exotic foreign flowers in Miss Bingley’s bouquet—she and Jane had chosen English roses—to the gaudy wedding ring the bride showed off to all. The solid gold band, engraved with a sunburst design, featured an enormous oval fire opal surrounded by six smaller diamonds. The main stone extended all the way to her first knuckle and perched in a setting so high that Elizabeth would have feared catching it on every piece of clothing she owned were the rock adorning her own hand. She much preferred the delicate engraved band Darcy had given her.

  Unlike Darcy, Mr. Parrish had chosen also to wear a wedding band. Elizabeth didn’t know whether the practice was common among American husbands, but Caroline made sure everyone in attendance was aware of this additional show of Parrish’s devotion. For his part, Mr. Parrish appeared to take the matrimonial spectacle in stride. According to Jane, his contribution to planning the event had been limited to selecting the wedding rings and asking Professor Randolph to stand up with him. The latter choice had caused Elizabeth mild surprise—she had not realized, while conversing with the professor at dinner, that he and Parrish had so intimate an acquaintance. Randolph appeared in high spirits, genuinely delighted by his friend’s marriage and choice of partner.

  It was with relief that she watched the bridal couple quit the Pulteney Hotel, which had hosted the enormous gathering. As the guests dispersed, the Darcys indulged in a much longer and more heartfelt leave-taking of Jane and Bingley. Elizabeth and her closest sister had previously found themselves divided for months-long periods while paying individual visits to friends and relations, but this separation, with each departing for her own new, permanent situation, felt somehow more final. She knew, however, that the two couples would often visit each other’s homes.

  She and Darcy spent their last London evening in Drury Lane enjoying a performance of The Rivals. It was an older comedy, but neither had seen it performed before, and Sheridan’s play provided a merrier conclusion to their London interlude than had Miss Bingley’s dramatic production. Now Elizabeth looked forward to collecting Georgiana from the Gardiners early the next morning and setting off for Pemberley at last. Christmas was less than a fortnight away; already, cold air nipped fingers and toes, while Yuletide sights and smells filled every shop.

  She gazed out the window as their carriage wended from the theatre back to their townhouse through crowded lanes still wet from evening rain. Falling temperatures had turned the damp air into fog, which cloaked the many pedestrians and coaches in eerie greyness.

  “Does London never sleep?” she asked. “This seems an extraordinary number of people filling the streets so late at night.”

  “Late? The hour is just past midnight.”

  “I think I prefer country hours.”

  “And here I thought I had married a woman of fashion.”

  She was grateful for her husband’s presence as the driver turned onto a darker, seedier road. Though the members of London’s social elite might believe they lived in their own little beau monde, in reality their world collided with the city’s less desirable districts and denizens at nearly every corner. Fashionable streets lay within blocks of shabbier neighborhoods, and theatregoers could not travel from a Mayfair mansion to Covent Garden or Drury Lane without entering squalid surroundings thick with sights of desperation, sounds of debauchery, and the smells of unwashed bodies and horse excrement.

  Fortunately, Elizabeth saw no children begging in the dim, flickering gaslight this evening. The little ones always tugged at her heart, and not a day of their London visit had passed without Darcy stopping the carriage at her behest to press coins into small, cold hands. No, tonight more sinister figures prowled the streets: unkempt wanderers, aggressive panhandlers, scarlet women, dark-clad rogues. Even as she watched, one dagger-wielding ruffian deprived another of his purse, while twenty paces away, a woman with painted lips called out offers that left little doubt of her moral character to a group of intoxicated dandies tumbling out of a gaming hell.

  She shuddered and reached forward to draw the curtain, preferring to complete the journey in isolated darkness rather than observe more such sights from the window. No sooner had she grasped the fabric, however, than an inconceivable sight stayed her hand.

  “That cannot be Caroline Bingley!” She gasped, staring at a woman walking unescorted along the dirty gutter. Unless the uneven light deceived her—surely it must!—the new Mrs. Parrish ambled toward them down the shadowed street. Despite the chilly mist, she wore no hat, no gloves, and no mantle or spencer over her short-sleeved muslin gown. Indeed, the sole accessory on her person was a bulging reticule that dangled from one arm. She strolled as if shopping on Bond Street in the broad light of day, oblivious to the peril around her.

  The woman’s face, bearing, and stride in all ways matched those of the former Miss Bingley. But whyever would Caroline Parrish be walking half-dressed down a menacing London street alone on her wedding night?

  “Good heavens, it is her.” Darcy rapped a signal to their driver. “Stay here,” he told Elizabeth as the coach slowed.

  The thief Elizabeth had seen earlier, a ragged youth of perhaps fifteen, spotted Caroline’s unguarded handbag. He darted toward her, snatching the reticule as he passed. But the strings of the overstuffed bag became wrapped around her wrist. The force of the swiping attempt spun her round, at last making her sensible of her surroundings. She cried out as she struggled with the criminal, but she did not let go of the reticule.

  Darcy leapt out of the still-moving carriage. “He has a knife!” Elizabeth warned, but her words proved unnecessary. The criminal, malice radiating from every line of his dirty, pockmarked face, already brandished the weapon in his bony hand. It glinted in the stuttering light.

  “Leave this lady alone.” Darcy, his back to Elizabeth, faced the ruffian. Her heart hammered so loudly in her ears that she scarcely heard his words. Nearby chatter died as people turned their attention to the evening’s latest entertainment.

  The young rogue ceased his struggle with Miss Bingley to take Darcy’s measure. Darcy made no move forward, but drew himself up to his full height, over a foot taller than his adversary. She could imagine the forbidding expression on her husband’s face—the piercing gaze, the impassive jaw. She had seen it before. But would it carry the same power on a dark, dangerous street that it did in a drawing room?

  It did, thank heaven. The would-be purse snatcher spat on the ground in an impotent display of resistance, then darted into the mist.

  Elizabeth released breath she hadn’t realized she held. Praise God the thief had been
so young—she doubted even Darcy could have subdued an older criminal with the force of his presence alone. As her husband whisked their friend into the carriage, the surrounding cacophony of begging and bawdiness resumed as if nothing had happened. Indeed, by the standards of these witnesses, nothing had.

  Their coachman quickly set the horses in motion. To Elizabeth it seemed they couldn’t move fast enough. Once the scene behind them melted into the fog, Darcy directed the driver to Mr. Parrish’s townhouse.

  The incident had shaken Caroline, but otherwise, as far as could be discerned inside the dark coach, had left her physically unharmed. She sat stiffly beside Elizabeth, clutching the reticule in her lap, and nodded in mute acceptance at Darcy’s offer of his cloak.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Parrish?” Darcy asked.

  She did not answer, but rather gazed straight ahead as if she hadn’t heard the question.

  “Mrs. Parrish?” Darcy echoed. She merely pulled the cloak farther round her shoulders.

  “Caroline?” Elizabeth tried. Though the two women had never been intimate enough to use their Christian names, she thought perhaps the new bride had not yet grown accustomed to being addressed by her married name.

  Mrs. Parrish at last responded. She turned toward Elizabeth and stared at her as if trying to remember something. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she said finally. Then she looked at the coach’s third passenger. “Mr. Darcy.”

  Elizabeth regarded her in shocked silence. Had it really taken her that long to realize who they were? The robbery attempt must have unsettled her more than was visible.

  Darcy leaned forward. “Mrs. Parrish, did that thief harm you?”