Page 23 of A Mismatched Compromise

“Has he?” Matlock asked mildly.

“Yes. The circumstances were somewhat…irregular.” Darcy looked at his cup. “He held a ball at Netherfield, the country house he has leased. A young woman was in the library alone — although she had reason to be there. Good reasons, in fact, reasons that had nothing to do with Bingley. Bingley came to be there as well, through a misdirection. He entered rather suddenly, and…well, he collided with her, and she fell, somewhat stunned, to the floor. He attempted to help her, and then her youngest sister came upon them — she has four sisters in total — and made a scene, and before she could be stopped, the servants and half the guests had come into the room and saw them on the floor together, alone in a dark room. Bingley felt there was nothing to do about it but propose.”

As he stumbled to a halt, Darcy looked away, feeling himself redden. It was not, he had to concede, the most orderly synopsis of events he had ever constructed, but his uncle received this remarkable summary with no visible reaction. “I see,” he said, as though such events as Darcy had described were simply a matter of course. “And the young woman?”

“Is now engaged to Bingley. Though she does not want the marriage, and neither does he. Bingley proposed out of a sense of honour and she accepted, also out of reasons that were entirely honourable.”

“Entirely, I am sure,” the earl agreed. “But also against her wishes.”

“Exactly,” Darcy nodded.

The earl was quiet for a moment, holding his cup loosely in his hands. “This young woman,” he said. “Who is she?”

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy said. “Her father has a small estate, Longbourn, in Hertfordshire. The family has five daughters, no sons, and the estate is entailed away.” He paused. “Her mother is…” He stopped, trying to find a description that would be both accurate and not uncharitable.

“You need not describe her mother,” his uncle said. “I would imagine that most mothers of five daughters and no sons would not be altogether unpleased by such an engagement.”

“You would not be incorrect in this case,” Darcy said. “She was rather more pleased than the circumstances warranted.”

“And Miss Elizabeth? You say she is not pleased?”

Darcy spoke carefully. “She is a woman of great practical sense and equal composure. She handled a situation that would have undone many young ladies with…remarkable steadiness.” He glanced at his uncle. “She did not want the engagement. Of that, I am quite confident. However, she accepted because she knew that refusing would have hurt her sisters, and that was a cost she was not willing to incur.”

His uncle made a small sound that might have been acknowledgement.

“I have been looking into the events leading to the engagement,” Darcy said, conscious that he had perhaps dwelt overlong on Miss Elizabeth when the subject was Bingley. “There were some circumstances I believe were not accidental, and I have been investigating.”

“Investigating, you say?” the earl murmured curiously.

“I believe the events were set in motion, though somewhat unwittingly, by a third party. If I can prove that, showing that neither went to the library for any licentious reason, it may be possible to dissolve the engagement without dishonour to Bingley or Miss Elizabeth. In the meantime, we have developed a plan for allowing public interest in the engagement to wane.” He outlined the plan for the visit to Pemberley, which would accomplish the removal of the principals from Meryton, the invitation to the Bennets and the temptation of the well-stocked library to induce Mr Bennet to accept, and the hope that the absence of all the principals might starve gossip by giving it nothing to feed upon.

“And Bingley approves of your suggestion?”

“Rather more enthusiastically than I expected. I thought perhaps that he might feel awkward being in the presence of his fiancée for so long. But…” Darcy hesitated, unsure of how to express this part of the tangle. “Before the events that led to the necessity of his engagement to Miss Elizabeth, Bingley had been much in the company of her elder sister Jane, with whom he…”

“You make me feel very old,” the earl remarked. “Of course there is a sister Jane.”

Darcy did not speak.

“Tell me of Mr Bennet. He agreed to this plan?”

Darcy nodded. “He accepted in a letter which spoke only of the library, and not at all about his daughters. I found it rather surprising, considering the circumstances.”

“Ah,” said the earl. “That is somewhat perplexing, I am sure.”

There was a pause. Across the room, Lionel was attempting to explain to Fitzwilliam his utterly uninformed opinion regarding what the next series of troop movements should entail, while the colonel’s expression shifted between hilarity and annoyance.

“You are doing a great deal,” the earl observed, “for a friend.”

“Bingley is a close friend,” Darcy said. “Moreover, he needs help.”

“Clearly.” There was another pause, one that stretched long enough to be deliberate. “I notice you have spoken a great deal about Miss Elizabeth Bennet, considering that Bingley is your primary concern.”

Darcy opened his mouth, and his uncle inclined his head. It was not done in a manner that appeared intended to silence Darcy, but it did make him think longer about what he intended to say.

“You need not think of that,” he said after a moment. “She is engaged to Bingley.”

“For the moment,” his uncle agreed. “Although you have expressed that you have a plan to bring an honourable end to that engagement.”