Confessions & Correspondence: Mr. Bingley’s Journal

I do not know why I continue this habit of setting down my thoughts, as if ink might order what my own mind refuses to arrange. It is possible I keep this journal for the same reason a man in a fever counts the chimes of a clock—something steady, something measurable, while everything within him runs wild. Yet even as I write those words, I feel the absurdity of them. What have I to complain of? I am in London, surrounded by conveniences, with every indulgence within reach; my friends are near, my affairs are prosperous, and I ought to be the happiest fellow in England. That I am not is a proof, perhaps, that happiness is less connected to circumstance than to the temper of one’s heart—and mine is, at present, an unreasonable thing.

If I begin with my sisters, it is only because they have been the sharpest irritation of the day, and because it is easier to blame them than to acknowledge what I truly suffer. Caroline has been—how shall I say it kindly?—insupportable. She has always possessed a talent for being assured of her own judgment, but in London her confidence has grown to a height that seems to require constant proclamation. Every street is too narrow, every carriage too poorly appointed, every acquaintance either beneath her notice or in danger of being so. Her conversation is a succession of pronouncements delivered with a smile that dares you to contradict her. She cannot praise without a sting hidden in the compliment; she cannot advise without implying superiority; she cannot laugh without making you wonder at whose expense it is meant.

Louisa is no better, though her faults are of a different sort. She is languid, capricious, and perpetually fatigued by any circumstance that does not offer amusement without effort. Her principal occupation is to agree with Caroline when Caroline speaks, and to look bored when she does not. Mr. Hurst, meanwhile, remains perfectly consistent in his devotion to the table and the bottle, as if he has discovered the secret to peace by refusing to think at all. Perhaps he has. Perhaps that is the only sensible course.

And I—poor fool that I am—I sit among them and feel as though I have been transported to a foreign country where the language is my own but the meaning altered. I find myself longing for Hertfordshire with a kind of ridiculous, unmanly ache. I long for the easy breakfasts at Netherfield, for the fresh air, for the harmless gossip of the neighbourhood, for the sound of laughter that was not edged with malice, for mornings that did not begin with Caroline’s complaints and evenings that did not end with her schemes.

It is extraordinary that I should miss the country so much. I who have always prided myself on being adaptable, on being cheerful wherever I am, now feel myself pinched and restless in rooms far finer than any at Netherfield. London crowds me, though it is vast; it oppresses me, though it is lively. There are too many faces, too many engagements, too many opportunities for diversion that divert nothing at all. It is like drinking salt water—one swallows eagerly, and is only thirstier for it.

I suspect my sisters imagine they are doing me a kindness by keeping me perpetually employed. “You must not mope, Charles,” Caroline said to me this morning with an expression of great wisdom, as though she were instructing a child. “You must be seen. You must be in company. One loses one’s spirits in idleness.” I nearly laughed—what does she know of spirits? She is never idle because she is never at peace unless she is directing someone else’s conduct. She has a genius for occupation that is not labour and for labour that accomplishes nothing but her own sense of importance.

Darcy, at least, sees it. He said very little while Caroline spoke (as is his habit; he seems to reserve his words as though they were gold), but after we left the room he looked at me with that grave, assessing gaze of his and said, “You must learn to refuse.”

Refuse! As if it were so easy. Darcy can refuse without appearing unkind because his manner is naturally authoritative; people expect firmness from him, and even when they resent it, they cannot deny it suits him. But if I refuse, I become the amiable fellow turned obstinate, and Caroline would treat it as a personal affront and pursue the matter with twice the energy. Besides, there is another reason I permit myself to be swept along by their arrangements, and it is not one I like to admit even to this private page. Idleness is dangerous to me now. If I am not employed, my thoughts will turn where I do not wish them to go.

And yet, despite all the noise and movement of London, despite my best efforts to be amused, to be distracted, to be sensible—today, of all days, my mind has betrayed me in the most ridiculous manner.

I believe I saw Jane.

Write it plainly, Charles Bingley. Do not soften it with qualifications, for the truth is humiliating enough without evasion. I believe I saw her—Miss Bennet—Jane—in London.

It happened in the afternoon, when Caroline insisted upon calling at a milliner’s in Bond Street, and Louisa wanted to examine some lace that she does not need and will not wear. I waited as patiently as I could, though the shop was crowded and stifling, and the air thick with perfume and the rustle of silks. I stood near the window, half watching the street, half wishing myself elsewhere. A carriage passed—then another—pedestrians moved in constant flow, a living tide of faces and coats and bonnets. I was barely attending, my thoughts dull with boredom, when I glanced up and saw—

No. I cannot write it so simply. It was as if my heart took hold of my eyes and forced them to see what my reason denies. Across the street, a group of ladies had paused, and among them was one whose figure—whose very carriage—was so familiar, so perfectly formed in my memory, that I felt my breath stop. She turned slightly, and the light struck her face, and for one mad instant I would have sworn it was she. The shape of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the softness of her expression—even at that distance, even in that shifting crowd—my mind seized upon her as if it had been starving and she were food.

I moved without thinking. I stepped into the street, careless of everything but the desperate need to be nearer, to see, to know. A coachman cursed at me; someone jostled my shoulder; Caroline’s voice called sharply behind me, but it was all distant, like sound heard underwater. I pushed through two gentlemen and came to the place where I had last seen her—only to find, of course, that the group had moved on.

I stood there like an idiot, staring at strangers. I walked a little way, craning my neck, searching every bonnet and every profile, and all the while my rational mind was shouting at me that I was mad, that I was chasing a phantom, that even if Miss Bennet were in London (and why should she be?), I had no right—no right—to seek her out. My heart answered back with an argument more powerful than any logic: because she exists. Because I loved her. Because I still—

I will not write that word. Not yet. Not again. It sits on the page like a confession, like a vow I have broken.

When I could bear my own foolishness no longer, I returned to the shop. Caroline’s eyes were bright with displeasure; Louisa looked amused; the milliner looked scandalized. “Really, Charles,” Caroline said, “if you are determined to behave like a country gentleman let loose in town, you might at least choose a less public display.”

I muttered something about thinking I recognised an acquaintance. She laughed softly. “Recognised? Here? In London? You are excessively fanciful.” And then, with that pointed sweetness she uses when she wishes to wound, she added, “Unless, of course, your acquaintance was particularly… memorable.”

I felt myself blush like a boy. Darcy, who had been waiting near the doorway with that air of resigned patience he wears in Caroline’s presence, looked at me then—only a glance, but it was enough to make me feel both known and judged. He said nothing. He never says what might be kind when silence will do the work more efficiently.

All evening, the image has haunted me. And worse than the image is the doubt. Was it truly Jane? Or was it merely some poor lady who happens to resemble her, upon whom I have projected everything my heart refuses to surrender? If it was not Jane, what does it say of me that I could believe it? That I could step into the street like a man possessed because my mind conjured her out of a crowd? I must be going mad. Or rather, I am already mad, only I dress my madness in the respectable clothes of discretion and pretend it is reason.

How easy it would be to give in to it—how easy it would be to declare that I saw her and therefore must find her, must speak to her, must know whether she is well, whether she is happy, whether she ever thinks of me. How easy to persuade myself that it would be romantic, that it would be decisive, that it would end the torment of uncertainty.

But what right have I to intrude? What right have I to reopen a story I myself abandoned? I left–I allowed myself to be convinced—by Caroline, by Louisa, by my own cowardly willingness to believe them—that her affection was not real, that her sweetness was mere habit, that her gentleness concealed indifference. I told myself I was acting prudently, that I was sparing myself humiliation. In truth, I was sparing myself the risk of being hurt, and in doing so I hurt her instead. That is the part my sisters never mention. They speak as though Jane Bennet were an idea, a possibility, a convenience. They never speak of her as a person with a heart that could suffer.

Darcy does. Darcy spoke to me once, not long after our arrival in town, in that careful, reluctant way he has when he means to be honest but does not enjoy it. He did not say much—he rarely does—but he said enough to make me uneasy. His words about Jane’s affections were enough to bring doubts to my mind. He encouraged me to dismiss my feelings entirely.

Dismiss them entirely. As if feelings were servants to be sent away. I tried. I have tried every day since. Despite having  buried myself in dinners, in clubs, in theatre parties, in visits to relatives, in every sort of engagement that requires a smile and a laugh and nothing deeper, I have not met with success. I have allowed Caroline to arrange my hours until I scarcely recognise my own life. I have insisted to myself that time will do what sense cannot—that it will wear down affection, dull regret, soften memory.

And yet Jane—Jane does not dull. She remains vivid, stubbornly bright, like a candle that will not go out even when the room is full of smoke. Sometimes I am angry at her for it—angry at my own heart, really, but it is easier to place the blame elsewhere. Why must she be so good? Why must she be so gentle and so lovely that every other woman seems harsh by comparison? Why must she have looked at me with that quiet trust, as though I could not possibly fail her?

It is that trust that torments me most. If she had been proud, if she had been demanding, if she had given me even one moment of sharpness, I might have been able to persuade myself that I had escaped something troublesome. But she was never troublesome. She was only kind. And to flee kindness—what a miserable thing that makes of me.

I am ashamed to admit how much I depend upon Darcy’s opinion. A man of my age ought to be guided by his own judgment, not lean upon his friend’s. Yet I have always valued Darcy’s sense because it is so much firmer than mine. He sees what I overlook. He measures what I merely feel. When he approves, I am confident; when he doubts, I doubt myself. Perhaps that is why Caroline’s influence has been so dangerous: she knows I am pliable, and she presses upon my pliancy like a thumb upon wax.

Still, Darcy is not Caroline. Darcy may be reserved and sometimes severe, but he is not petty. His pride is real, yes, but it is the pride of principles, not the pride of display. I trust him. I trust him more than I trust myself.

And yet, even Darcy cannot give me what I want. He cannot tell me what Jane feels. He cannot assure me that her affection was genuine. He cannot go back in time and prevent my folly. He can only watch and advise, and even that he does sparingly.

If Jane loved me—if she ever truly loved me—I would return to her in an instant. There. I have written it at last, and the words look both desperate and absurd upon the page. But it is true. If I had certainty—if I had even the smallest proof that she cared, that she did not merely smile because smiling is her nature, that she did not merely accept my attentions because she accepts everyone’s kindly—then I would not hesitate. I would leave London tomorrow. I would endure Caroline’s fury, Louisa’s mockery, the astonishment of my friends. I would ride straight to Hertfordshire and beg her forgiveness on my knees if necessary.

But I have no certainty. Only memory and longing and this humiliating, persistent belief that what I felt could not have been one-sided, that no affection so deep could be entirely imagined. And then another voice—Caroline’s voice, always Caroline’s—whispers that I am ridiculous, that I have been duped by a pretty face and gentle manners, that I have made myself the hero of a foolish romance that exists only in my mind.

Perhaps she is right. Perhaps I am one of those men who require a little tragedy in order to feel important. Perhaps I am indulging myself in sorrow because sorrow makes me seem interesting to myself. How contemptible that is! And yet I cannot stop. I cannot simply shrug off the ache and become cheerful again by force of will. I have always prided myself on cheerfulness, and now it feels like a costume I cannot manage to put on without everyone seeing the seams.

Tonight, after dinner, Caroline spoke of a ball at which we are to appear next week. She listed the names of those who will be present—ladies of fortune, ladies of consequence, ladies who, she hinted, might be “very suitable.” Suitable. I smiled. I nodded. I said all the right things. And all the while, I saw only Jane’s face as she looked up at me at Netherfield, her eyes so clear, so trusting. I felt, in that moment, as though I had committed some irreparable wrong—not only to her, but to myself.

If I truly saw her today—if it was not a phantom—what then? Would Providence be so cruel as to place her in my path only to remind me of what I have lost? Or would it be a sign—an opportunity—an opening offered to a man who does not deserve one? My mind swings wildly between hope and despair, and I grow exhausted by my own inconsistency.

I hate myself for being weak. I pity myself for suffering. I despise myself for indulging the pity. It is a wretched circle, and I walk it endlessly like a prisoner tracing the same stones.

Darcy will say—if I confess any of this—that I must be rational. That I must either inquire properly or resign myself properly. He will not allow me to wallow. He will not soothe me with easy reassurances. Sometimes I think that is why I value him so much: because he refuses to treat my feelings as the whole of the matter. He insists upon honour, upon action, upon sense. I admire him for it. I resent him for it. I cling to him for it.

And yet, I dread his opinion too. What if he says I ought not to pursue Jane? What if he believes Caroline’s suspicions? And what if he thinks my attachment was more superficial than I believed? Darcy’s approval matters to me in a way I cannot fully explain. If he were to look at me with disappointment—real disappointment—I do not know that I could bear it. I would feel myself diminished in his eyes, and perhaps he would be right to diminish me.

I wish I were better–that I was steadier. I wish I were the sort of man who could love without doubt and act without trembling. Instead I am here, scratching at paper like a schoolboy, calling myself miserable as though misery were a badge.

And still—still—the thought returns: Jane. Jane in London. Jane somewhere among these endless streets, perhaps passing within yards of me without knowing it, perhaps laughing, perhaps suffering, perhaps indifferent. Jane, who may have put me from her mind entirely, while I cannot take one step without stumbling over her memory.

If I did not see her, then I have truly lost my reason. If I did see her, then I have lost my courage. Either way, I am lost.

I will attempt to sleep. Tomorrow will bring its own torments, and Caroline will certainly find fresh ways to make them more acute. I will smile. I will play the agreeable brother. I will pretend that London amuses me. And all the while I will carry this ache like a stone in my pocket—small enough that no one notices, heavy enough that I cannot forget it.

Heaven help me, I miss her.