Page 61 of Miss Gardiner
“Tell Bingley of Miss Bennet’s death,” instructed Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Darcy nodded and said clearly but in a low voice, “Charles, Jane died in June. Richard and I have spoken to the woman who was with Miss Bennet when she died, and her final words were to declare that she loved you still. Even as she died, Jane’s thoughts were of you.”
Now, Richard stood and shook his head. “Bingley, a young woman loved you and gave you her greatest treasures; but you cast her love aside without a care. How many men go through life never having the true love of a good woman?”
“What do you want?” Charles asked, staring at the letters that Colonel Fitzwilliam gathered and wrapped in the ribbon once again.
“Go back to London. Do not continue to Rosings Park,” Richard stated.
“What else?” Bingley asked.
“Stay away from the Bennets,” Darcy said. “You have devastated that family as badly as any family torn apart by George Wickham.”
Stung to be compared to George Wickham, Bingley nodded and rose from the table without another word. He returned to his carriage and directed the coachman to turn the horses back toward London.
Darcy settled the bill with the tavern keeper and joined Richard to eat the simple meal. Their hunger sated, they mounted their horses and remained silent for most of the trip back to Hunsford; passing through the village, they stopped at the parsonage and returned the package of letters to Miss Elizabeth. They reached Rosings Park and walked into the dining room for dinner without changing clothes.
“I have never been so insulted in my entire life!” Lady Catherine fussed from the head of the table. “You both smell of horses! Where have you been for the entire day that you arrive at my house without time to change before marching into my dining room in such attire?”
Her nephews provided no explanation and eventually Lady Catherine moved to another complaint; “And where is Mr Bingley? He was to arrive today in time for dinner. I cannot abide common men who have no sense of manners while pretending to be quality folk.”
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In his comfortable carriage, Charles Bingley’s mind was filled with memories of last fall and the afternoons he spent with Jane Bennet.
‘Jane loved me…she truly loved me,’he realized.‘As she died, she declared she still loved me.’
He sat up suddenly, remembering his thoughts from just this morning, wishing he could find a woman who loved him for himself and not his fortune. Realizing he had possessed the one thing he wanted and allowed others to persuade him to throw it away, Charles felt his heart break.
‘What have I done? I am bound for hell…I shall live in hell for the rest of my life.’
The valet remained silent, but he noticed that Mr Bingley’s face grew pale as the miles passed. When they reached Gravesend, the valet interrupted Bingley’s thoughts with a suggestion of spending the night in the riverside town.
“We shall reach London in the middle of the night with no place to stay if we stay on the road,” suggested the valet. “Mr Hurst closed his house and took Mrs Hurst and your sister to Bath for holiday.”
Charles smiled for moment; none of the servants spoke of ‘Miss Bingley’ unless addressing her directly. They acted as if pronouncing her name would invoke evil.
‘Do the members of the Bennet family whisper ‘that man’ when they refer to me?’he wondered suddenly.
But Bingley kept his thoughts to himself, nodded once to his valet, before saying, “Very sound reasoning. We shall stop in Gravesend for the night.”
Later that evening, Charles Bingley sat in the common room of the tavern, talking with the crews of several ships just recently returned from voyages around the world including India, Brazil, the new United States, and British Canada. He returned to London the next day with many regrets and a kernel of an idea.
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For three days, Charles Bingley spoke to acquaintances and attorneys about the different colonies and countries where British ships called at the ports. He investigated newspaper reports and visited the museums. Finally, he found men in trade to be the best source of information. After another three days of thought, Charles decided that he could best disappear from England in the American cities of New York or Philadelphia. Both cities were centres of manufacture in the new world, and he would return to the world of trade rather than dressing himself in the trappings of the gentry.
His bankers were reluctant at first to consider his request but introduced him to gentlemen with connexions to banks in Philadelphia and so Charles made all the necessary arrangements to move his wealth to America. He sold his coach and four, released the coachmen with an excellent reference, and his valet reluctantly; the man had no wish to emigrate to ‘the colonies’.
It took another week to book passage on a reliable ship sailing for Philadelphia and to settle all his accounts. In a final act, Charles arranged for his attorneys to release Caroline’s dowry into her control. His last day in England, the man sent a final letter to his brother-in-law Hurst but after that day, no one in England ever saw or heard from Charles Bingleyagain.
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In Bath, Geoffrey Hurst read the last letter from Charles privately in his dressing room and did not share the information with his wife; for a full day, he digested the news and then on the second day, he waited until Caroline left the rented house to visit with acquaintances and walk about the fashionable streets of Bath. Only after Miss Bingley was certain to remain absent for an hour or more did Geoffrey seek Louisa who was seated in the parlour with some sewing.
“My dear, we must speak of an uncomfortable matter while Caroline is absent,” Mr Hurst told his wife.
Louisa sighed and asked, “Has she done something else?”
