The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy (13 page)

It was Mr. Bennet who greeted Mr. Darcy as he stepped out of his carriage. His father-in-law was sitting on a chair in the sun. “Mr. Darcy.”

“Mr. Bennet. I apologize for being late.”

“I doubt Lizzy will be any less eager to see you.”

“Yes, well, I doubt I will be the main attraction today,” Darcy said as Mr. Bingley got out of the carriage.

“Mr. Bennet.”

“Mr. Bingley!” Mr. Bennet stood up a bit straighter. “So my wayward son has arrived.”

“How are you, Mr. Bennet?”

The old man shook Mr. Bingley's hand as firmly as he could. “Busy frustrating Mr. Collins every day. Your wife is…frankly, I don't know where she is. But at least one of the children will shriek loudly enough to get her attention when they see you, which I'm sure will be soon enough—”

“
Papa!
” Eliza Bingley came running out the front doors, her embroidery cloth and ribbons still in hand.

Bingley picked up his younger daughter. “You've grown tall! You look more like your mother every day.” He kissed her cheeks. “Speaking of—”

The quiet did not last long. Edmund was quick to follow, and then Charles, and finally Georgiana, until he was almost toppled over by all of his children. “I cannot carry you all! Edmund, there's no reason to be pulling on my coat, I don't—” He stopped when he saw his wife, emerging tentatively into the sunlight. “Mrs. Bingley.”

She curtsied. “Mr. Bingley.”

He pulled her into his arms. “Jane,” he whispered, his eyes tearing. “My beautiful Jane.”

“I missed you,” she said. “Don't ever go away again.”

“I will do my very best,” was his reply.

Fortunately, only the Darcy family was currently in residence, with everyone else in London or at Netherfield. So Mr. Bingley had to endure only so many reunions with everyone present before he could excuse himself to get something from his carriage. He took Jane with him.

“I have a surprise,” he said. “Well, several, but this one I think will adequately distract the children for a little while.”

“Now, why ever would you—Oh, my God.” Jane covered her mouth as Bingley uncovered the cage. “Is that thing alive?”

“Of course he is. And he's tame. Well, relatively, for a monkey.” He opened the little door and put out his arm, and the monkey instantly went up to his shoulder. “And he's not dirty or diseased. We bathed him at the Maddox house. My sister would be glad to complain to you about it.”

“Charles, you can't be
serious.
”

He turned to the simian on his shoulder. “Monkey, what do you think? Am I being serious?” It squeaked in response. “Monkey, shake.” The monkey held out its tiny arm. “He just wants to shake your hand.”

Jane looked at her husband, and then at the monkey, and then at her husband again. He did seem to be serious. She held out her fingertips and let the monkey grab them. “He has such tiny hands.”

“He likes you. Monkey, do you like Jane?” Bingley said. The monkey howled. “Well, you had better like her, because if you don't get on her good side, you don't get to stay with us.”

“Charles—”

He held the monkey in his arms. “Look at him. The children will adore him.”

“He's a wild animal.”

“He's not
that
wild. Are you, Monkey?” he said. In response, the monkey squeaked and grabbed his nose. “Ow, ow, that's enough. I told you not to do that!”

Jane broke into laughter, perhaps at the sight of a small monkey trying to capture her husband's nose. “We'll
try
it.”

“A trial basis. I understand.” He kissed her. “Thank you. Oh, and you might want to cover your ears.”

It was good advice. The children collectively screamed in excitement upon seeing the animal perched on Bingley's shoulder, and it screamed right back at them. It took him a full minute to shush eight children.

“Is that a monkey?”

“What's its name?”

“Can I stroke it?”

“Can we keep it?”

“Does it have to live in a zoo?”

“Can I hold it?”

“Does it bite?”

“Children,” he said calmly, with as much authority as Charles Bingley could muster, “this is Monkey. Yes, that is his name. Not very original, but you will remember it. He doesn't bite unless you hurt him, so as with any pet or person, you must treat him with respect. That means no tossing him or tugging him or pulling on his tail.You can hold him
one at a time.
Georgiana?” He dealt with the crowd of boos. “She's the oldest.”

“Not by much!” said Geoffrey.

Georgiana smiled triumphantly as she took the monkey into her arms. One by one, they all met Monkey, though Cassandra and Sarah were frightened of him, and Edmund was too proud to admit that he was, but passed him off rather quickly. Perhaps the most excited person was the last person in line, Mr. Bennet. “Now here is something I never thought I would see,” he said as the monkey climbed up onto his bald spot and sat down.

“If he gets upset, just let him run up a tree or something, and I'll come get him down,” he told Elizabeth before disappearing with Jane. Darcy mysteriously did not offer to help with monkey wrangling and vanished into the library as quickly as he could.

Jane and Charles found a spot far away from the house, where they could see Oakham Mount, a place where they had regularly walked during their engagement. The view had not changed, but they were not interested in the view.

“I missed you,” he said between kisses. “I'm sorry I'm a little hairy—and burned. And freckled.”

“You're perfect,” she said.

They sat together on a large stump, looking out at the wild and content to just sit together with Bingley's arm around his wife's shoulder. “I would regale you with stories, but to be honest, I am utterly exhausted.” He chuckled. “What happened while I was gone?”

“Lady Kincaid had a son. His name is Robert.”

“It went well?”

“I think so. Mr. Darcy seemed pleased at his sister's good health. Lizzy was ecstatic, of course. They stood as godparents.”

“Was Grégoire there?”

“He did not come in time. He should be here in a month or two, maybe. It is not set.” She looked up at him. “My mother had a stroke.”

“I'm so sorry—”

“It was minor. Papa said he didn't notice it for a few days.”

“Can anything be done?”

“No, aside from not saying anything when she says something strange.”

He put his other arm around her. “I'm sorry I wasn't here.”

“It was only a few weeks ago.”

He kissed her on her forehead. “I'm still sorry.”

“We always assumed she would outlive him. Do you suppose it would be better if—”

He hushed her. “We don't know the future. All we know is your parents are both alive and relatively well. For now, that is enough.”

CHAPTER 9

MR. BENNET, NOT KNOWN to be a stingy man with his family (which had almost proved to be his ruin with his youngest daughter), spared no expense. And anyone with even the slightest connection to the family was invited. Though Hertfordshire was no Derbyshire, by its own standards this was a grand celebration. Mr. Bennet did not host a ball (“My daughters are well settled, thank you very much”). Instead, it was a daytime celebration, mainly to accommodate his seventeen grandchildren, four nieces and nephews, and four great-nieces.

Aside from planning the menu and the accommodations, Mr. Bennet had one unpleasant duty. At Mrs. Philips's insistence, he sat in a gathering with her and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner about Mrs. Bennet, whose condition remained unchanged. She was still given to periods of confusion, but was hardly an invalid.

“I see no cause for concern,” he said to his sister-in-law.“If anyone says anything of note, it will hardly be heard over the screaming army of children to descend upon us.”

“I do not want my sister exposed to public denunciation.”

“Then perhaps you should have lodged a complaint between now and when my first daughter came out a month ago,” Mr. Bennet said, to which the Gardiners could not help smiling. “Mrs. Philips, my wife has not complained about her wits for almost six weeks now—and I have been counting. I can hardly lock her away
for such a crime. Nor am I remotely willing to do so,” he said. “If anything, she is to be commended.”

The widow Mrs. Philips was overruled by the Gardiners, who agreed with Mr. Bennet, and then by the man in charge, and she silenced herself.

“There is, however, cause for more general concern,” Mrs. Gardiner said, and her husband nodded.

“I am at the moment too happy and foolish to fathom it,” he replied. “If this is to be her twilight, then I have decided to enjoy her now and wallow in misery later. Putting off important business has always been my proficiency.”

In early August, the mass descended on Hertfordshire. Already the Darcys and the Bingleys were in residence, and everyone delighted in comparing notes about the differing accounts of Mr. Bingley's travels that he gave, depending on his level of intoxication at the time. He showered his children and relatives with odd gifts. Indian goods had been available in Town for years. But it was quite another thing to get an Indian trinket as a gift from a traveler who could say where he had gotten it, how long he had bargained for it, and whose heritage had been more insulted by the end of the bargaining before an actual price was affixed. “I verbally slighted many shopkeepers' mothers,” he said. “And I am a dolt with the hair of a demon.”

“That was already known,” Darcy said, and was already looking out the window innocently when Bingley turned his head.

Another amusement was the fact that Mrs. Bennet could never seem to grasp the presence of Monkey, and was surprised every time she saw him. “My goodness, there's a wild animal in this house!” Such repeated proclamations did not put her on either side—those who despised the monkey (Darcy) and those who loved him (everyone else). Darcy had found an ally with the arrival of the Bradleys and the Wickhams in Isabella Wickham's cat. Fortunately,
Monkey was a better climber and took refuge on the nearest person's head whenever the gray tabby entered the room.

It was on a shooting expedition with Mr. Townsend at Netherfield that Bingley said, “What happened to young Mr. Wickham?”

“The same thing that will happen to Geoffrey soon enough,” Darcy replied.

“May I say it?”

“Yes, he does look like his father,” Darcy said. “Even more every day, it seems.”