Page 5 of The Cheapside Runners
Gardiner gave him the same disconcerting stare long enough to make him fidget again. “In addition to being cynical, asI previously mentioned, my niece is rather stubborn. For the most part,her good opinion, once lost is lost forever.I suggest you return to your own affairs, which probably require your attention. She was fine an hour ago, and she will be fine an hour hence.”
“How can I make amends?”
“As I said, there is no need. Her temper is notentirelyimplacable, and she was not made for ill humour. She will have entirely forgotten you within the week, if not the hour.”
“All the same, I should like to try, if I am allowed. I owe her.”
Gardiner stared a bit more, and finally said, “Have you a shilling on you?”
In great confusion, Darcy reached into his vest to extract one and handed it over.
Gardiner took the coin with a smug look.
“I actually have two nieces with me—a sweet one and a cynical one. Fortunately, the sweet one did not hear anything, and the cynical one will not enlighten her.Thatniece bet me no first-circle gentleman could speak politely for the space of a dinner in Cheapside with an eligible lady. I do not like to lose, so I stacked the deck by bringing a man who might be more amenable, out of obligation if nothing else. As it turns out, she wins. This will cover the bet, and I believe we may consider our transaction complete. You need not trouble yourself further. I wish you a good evening, gentlemen.”
With that, Gardiner retreated to the house after a rather hasty leave taking, abandoning two discomfited men who had no choice but to return home and get on with serious discussion (and serious drinking).
~~~~~
The rest of the evening was consumed with the rather disagreeable tasks of telling his cousin how he came to know MrGardiner, and just how close their ward came to absolute ruin.
Once that subject had been beaten to death, including the obligatory fantasies of how they might have dispatched the villain personally had they caught him (despite the fact that either man could have dealt with him at their leisure any time in the previous decade), they moved on to how the intervening fortnight between Mr Gardiner’s gallant rescue and the disastrous dinner invitation.
That period had been a nightmare of reconciliation, conciliation, and contradiction between brother and sister. The young girl could not settle on whether she was distraught because she had lost the love of her life, and her brother just could not understand because he had no heart; or distraught because she had been so stupid and worthless as to ignore all of her training and education sufficiently to throw her life away on a mere steward’s boy (and a scoundrel to boot). She was in love with the charming rogue one minute and hoping him to the devil the next. She was at times perfectly aware that she was feeling two contradictory sources of distress simultaneously; and at other times she went through both sequentially. She vacillated between despondency and burning anger.
When she got tired of vilifying her own feelings and felt up to some good old-fashioned blame, she vacillated between chastising herself for her own stupidity and naiveté; and chastising her brother for failing to warn her about rogues, cads, and scoundrels—and, not to put too fine a point on it— hiring the worst companion in the history of companions. Truthfully, Darcy preferred the latter but received more of the former.
Darcy had his own contradictory thoughts as well. He vacillated between chastising himself over his own failure to properly vet Mrs Younge, his failure to properly warn his sister about how to be careful—and, not to put too fine a point on it—his utter failure to bring George Wickham to heel years earlier,leaving the job up to some tradesman who had never once laid eyes on the man.
After a certain amount of brandy, he even lamented his father for the spectacular lapse of judgement in leaving his daughter in the hands of two bachelors, a situation not much better than being raised by wolves. He even occasionally lamented his father’s complete inability to see the evil in his godson.
Mrs Annesley was just the sort of woman who seemed like she should be able to sort the matter out, given enough time. Darcy had her investigated more thoroughly than he ever had Mrs Younge and offered the position. He ruefully thought he could have saved himself a good deal of trouble by simply engaging Mr Gardiner to choose a companion in the first place, since that was his particular area of expertise.
The fortnight had eventually passed, but when it finally came time to sober up and pay his debt to Mr Gardiner, he managed to stuff that up spectacularly.
On the positive side, the cousins did manage to definitively prove they could drink expensive brandy and become maudlin with the best of them. Their valet and batman were less impressed.
The next month offered up more of the same, and Mrs Annesley finally told him he needed to leave his sister to her care for a bit, as his hovering was not helping matters.
As it turned out, Bingley had finally settled on an estate to lease, in Hertfordshire or Herefordshire, or at least somewhere in England that had at least an even chance of starting with ‘h.’
By Michaelmas, Darcy had resolved the communication difficulties and, was ready to help his friend learn to be a gentleman in the wilds of Hertfordshire.
Darcy occasionally had twinges of conscience after the incident in Cheapside about whether he was the best example ofa gentleman, but he could at least teach his friend how to run an estate.
3.A Country Assembly
“Do you think we will be safe here, Mr Darcy?” Miss Bingley asked as she took Darcy’s arm outside the assembly hall.
Darcy looked at the offending arm and, as had happened several times in the past couple of months, asked himself, ‘What would Gardiner do?’Hegently removed her arm and replied more softly than his annoyance at her presumption tempted him to.
“This is a country assembly, twenty miles from London, Miss Bingley. It will be indistinguishable from such a gathering in Lambton, or any other county outside the big cities for that matter. This society isdifferentfrom London, but not inferior.”
She tittered, which annoyed him, and then spoke, which annoyed him even more. “Oh, you are so droll, sir. I doubt you have ever attended any such thing.”
He had to ruefully admit she was correct, much to his chagrin. There was no way he would share that particular failing with his companion, but he was belatedly determined to be more sociable with his neighbours when he returned to Derbyshire. Perhaps, like Bingley, he could practise in Meryton.
His reflections of the past few months about his own conduct and mistakes had left him feeling less confident in his own character. Mr Gardiner’s gentle chastisement had its effect, though it would be presumptuous to assume it was the man’s intent. As he endured the vicissitudes of his sister’s recovery from the debacle in Ramsgate, he had also endured his own.
