When Darcy Met Bingley…

When We Were Young?

Twenty-six years ago today, when I was a sophomore in college, I went on a date. It was…meh. Not a disaster; I mean, we had ice cream, and we laughed a little, so that’s good, right?

But it wasn’t a miracle, you know? This was definitely not love at first date. There were awkward pauses in the conversation, I kept worrying about the spot on my chin, and I chose an ice cream flavor I really didn’t like. (I was trying to be adventurous by choosing something new instead of going for an old favorite. Mistake! Or was it?)

Perhaps just as important: I knew this guy sitting across from me really wanted to be with the girl who had just broken up with him after a three-year relationship. Also, confession: I was getting over a broken heart myself. Rebound date. One and done, yes?

No, of course not. One date led to another; those dates led to a cramped studio apartment and a meager but joint checking account; and then we found ourselves in a little church in my hometown on a sweltering day in July. Each day since brings a new wave of gratitude for this man, this love, this dear friend of mine — and for that awkward first date, too.

This is all a tangential prelude to my post for this month’s theme, “When They Were Young.” See, once I would have thought “young” meant childhood. Now, I think young means 19 or 20! When I saw this theme, I immediately thought of college life — of Darcy’s, and my own.

I’ve long wondered about Darcy and Bingley as young men — how they met and how they became friends.  The following excerpt from my book Seasons of Waiting is one attempt to tell that story. Though I tried to read up on college life in the Regency period, I’m sure my take is not quite accurate. There may be a hint of my own discomfort with the college party scene in this chapter! Also, I played with Darcy and Bingley’s ages, making them a little closer in age than they are in canon.

Hope you enjoy!

 “Not Our Fathers,” Seasons of Waiting

 

October 1805

His final year at Cambridge, thank God, and thus his final hours spent at the dreaded fête that opened every Michaelmas term. This particular gathering was not the college’s official welcome for its students; no, that had been dreadful enough with its pompous speeches and litany of scripture. Still, he would rather have been back in King’s College Chapel, staring up at the shimmering colored glass and the vaulted ceiling he sometimes supposed had been constructed by God himself.

Instead, he was in a stuffy, wood-paneled common room, the odor of tobacco, brandy, and sweat mingling in his nostrils and causing him to sway on his feet.

“Aha! I see you! Already buckling, are you? Come, be a man and have another!”

He tried not to wince as Wickham slapped him hard on the shoulder with one hand and shoved a drink into his face with the other. His first drink lay untouched on the table behind him. As soon as Wickham staggered away, Darcy put the second drink next to the first.

This was the party after the party, the ceremony that had more ceremonial importance than any official college affair. This was the fellow-commoners’ welcome for the fresh milk—those poor, stupid sods who had donned their gowns with the misguided notion that they were going to be happy here.

Then again, most of them would be happy here, so long as they drank themselves into a stupor and preferred punting, fishing, and riding to Greek and rhetoric. Truth was, there were days he preferred punting, fishing, and riding, and he could drink with the best of them. Yet he had only to think of his father—perhaps the only landowner in England who expected his son to attend Cambridge so he might actually learn something—and all pleasure in drinking and lounging evaporated.

George Darcy had not attended Cambridge. He had not even attended Oxford. No, he had spent his university years saving first himself (he had nearly died of smallpox) and then Pemberley, which had been so badly ravaged by the disease, not to mention declining wool prices and his own father’s poor management, that the old and prominent Darcy family had almost lost everything. Over the next two decades, he restored Pemberley to its former glory and married the wealthy daughter of an earl. George Darcy had travelled from the brink of death and to the height of the ton.

This phoenix-like ascension had transformed him into a man guided by two philosophies: live life to its fullest and never waste an opportunity. These beliefs should have been complementary, and indeed, for George Darcy, they fit together seamlessly. Yet when it came to Cambridge, his philosophies were often in direct opposition to each other. To the older Darcy, Cambridge was an institution that connoted the finest scholars and the best of human achievement, but in the younger Darcy’s experience, it represented an oil-and-water collection of celibate scholars and wealthy, rowdy boys. He had found no easy way to be both the pleasure-seeking undergraduate his fellows urged him to be and the diligent intellectual his father hoped he would become.

In fact, Darcy was neither sociable nor scholarly enough to fill either of these roles. Oh, he enjoyed a good chat with one or two friends at the pub, and he devoured the books suggested by his dons. But he rarely took pleasure in the esoteric details of scholarship, and he loathed parties like this one. Lecture hall or common room, both were too small for him. He wanted purpose.

“And the wench proclaimed mine the biggest instrument she’d ever known!” sang a young man with such gusto that he swung his arms wide, nearly jabbing Darcy in the chin.

Ducking just in time, he pushed his way past a group of fresh milk, who had puddled together to watch the older fellow-commoners try to outdo each other with the lewdness of their songs. When he found a quieter corner, he reached for his pocket watch, only to remember he had not worn it. Had he stayed long enough? He had been seen by Dunkirk, Baron Everett, well known to be the leader of the group Darcy had privately named the Louts. Though he put little stock in their worth—after all, Wickham was a prized member of this group, and would likely have been leader himself, had he been of a higher station—Darcy knew well enough how much power they wielded, both at Cambridge and beyond it.

He had also conversed briefly with Churchill, Viscount Holyoke, who presided over the Prats. They prided themselves on their ancestry, connections, and wealth. Darcy might have found a home with this group, had he wanted; even without a title, his family name was old enough, and he had more money than most of the Prats’ members. But even he—in whom pride had taken root at a very young age—found their arrogance revolting. They treated everyone from the porters to the fellow-commoners who were outside their circle with such disdain that Darcy avoided them assiduously.

Yes, he had spent more than enough time subjecting himself to the Louts, Prats, and fresh milk. He could safely escape to his chambers and…what? Read? Loneliness gnawed at him, even as he inched toward the door.

He knew how the others kept their loneliness at bay. Though the porters had enough sense to employee female servants too old to be of much interest to the fellow commoners, there were always one or two pretty young chambermaids who found their way into the college residences, sometimes naive enough to believe the students really were the gentlemen they claimed to be, but more often than not fully aware of how their beauty might earn them a more lucrative income than their labor. Even at this late hour, these sort could be found sweeping the stairwell or polishing a fire grate with a come-hither smile that somehow made them appear fresh in spite of the dirtiness around them.

If Darcy was uneasy mixing with his fellow-commoners, he was in absolute dread of these maids. There was an especially pretty one who always made eyes at him, but she looked so much like Sarah, a chambermaid at Pemberley, that he never could bring himself to do anything except nod when he passed her in the corridor. There were other options, of course: not too far from the college stood a house of courtesans (Wickham had laughed at that word: “Oh, just call them the whores they are, Darcy!”), but his one experience there had inspired in him such a sickening mixture of desire, pity, and shame that he had never returned.

“And just where do you suppose you are going, Darcy?”

He felt someone grab his arm and pull him back from the doorway. As he turned, he took a deep breath—both to steady himself and to take in one last whiff of relatively fresh air.  He knew, as soon as he came face to face with Walter Dunkirk, Baron Everett, he would be unable to avoid the nasty odors wafting from the baron’s mouth.

“We have hardly had a word with you!” cried Dunkirk, and Darcy closed his eyes, as if that might stop him from breathing. Yes, tonight’s festivities had somehow worsened the abhorrent stench. He felt a moment’s pity for the woman who would one day marry this man; surely no fortune or ancestry could be worth enduring that smell in the marriage bed!

“Oh, but Darcy finds our conversation too uncivilized, isn’t that right, Darce?” said Wickham, throwing an arm about the baron’s shoulders and laughing heartily.

Wickham’s nose was just as good as Darcy’s—perhaps better, for he smelled a good connection despite the bad stench.

“Ah, I know Darcy has a song in him!” said Dunkirk. “Come, sing something for the fresh milk. They want to hear from Derbyshire’s finest.”

Darcy took a moment to examine the seven newcomers who had gathered round. How young they all looked! He could not believe he had ever been this eager, this green.

“Darcy does not sing, so much as preach,” sneered Wickham.

He should have ignored the comment, but Wickham knew how to nettle him, particularly as of late. The last time they had traveled home together, he had tried to make his boyhood friend realize that George Darcy would never hand over the living at Kympton to a debaucher and a drunk. Wickham had been so angry that he had not spoken to him for the rest of the journey, and then, to make matters worse, had wheedled his way into George Darcy’s good graces by telling him lies about his accomplishments at Cambridge. Wickham had been daring Darcy to contradict him, and Darcy almost had—but his father had appeared so proud and so happy that Darcy’s subtle hints had made no impression at all.

“Do you see, Fitzwilliam?” his father had said, giving Wickham a paternal pat on the back. “We Darcys can do a great deal of good with our fortune, if only we put our minds to it.”

It had not helped that both George Wickham, Sr. and Georgiana had been present. Darcy could still remember how his ten-year-old sister’s eyes had shone as she listened to Wickham’s stories. Georgi thought of him as another brother—a funnier, more approachable brother, at that.

“Well, Darcy?” asked Wickham now. “Will you give these young ones a sermon?”

“And rob you of some much-needed practice?” Darcy retorted, lips twisting.

“Now, now, no more sniping, my fine young bucks!” Dunkirk turned to the newcomers with a conspiratorial whisper. “Darcy and Wickham are not friends so much as brothers.”

“Oh no, Darcy would never allow himself to sink so low as to be called my brother.” Wickham smiled, but there was little amusement to be found on his countenance.

The loneliness that had haunted him earlier returned in full force now. They had been like brothers once. As children, they had roamed the grounds of Pemberley together, shared the same tutors, learned to hunt, ride, and fish side by side. When George Darcy had announced that he would be sending Wickham, as well as his own son, to Cambridge, no one had been happier than Darcy. Yet they had seemed to drift from each other almost immediately upon entering King’s. Perhaps Darcy had not been as good a brother as he could have been; Wickham had often complained, in that first year when they were the fresh milk, that Darcy was not introducing him to the right people.

“You attend almost none of the gatherings!” Wickham had griped. “How am I to get ahead if you do not help me?”

“You could try opening a book for once,” had been Darcy’s reply. It had been easier to say than, I dread these parties where I cannot breathe or hear myself think. That would have been admitting weakness, and Wickham would have pounced, calling out Darcy’s selfishness and needling him until he gave in.

So Wickham had found his own way, and of course it had been with the Louts. The Prats would never have admitted to their number the son of a steward.

“But we are all brothers of the bacchanal!” declared Dunkirk, throwing one arm around Wickham and the other around Darcy. “Where is your drink, man? Wickham will pour you another cupful of something.”

Darcy met Wickham’s eyes and felt the unexpected sting of pity. After all Wickham had done to befriend the baron, he was still a lackey. Darcy, on the other hand, had a pedigree and fortune that led the aristocracy to seek him out, even when he would much rather have disappeared completely from view.

“I will see if I can find some more wine,” said Wickham to Dunkirk with an admirable attempt to keep the sullenness from his voice.

“Thank you, but you need not bother, my friend,” said Darcy. “I only drink holy wine before sermons.”

He had spoken lightly, and with a note of self-deprecation. His words had been meant as a humorous peace offering, but Wickham had not laughed. Indeed, he looked as if he might drop his own drink and hit him squarely across the jaw.

Perhaps he would have, too, had another’s laughter not caught his attention. He and Darcy both turned to look at the fresh milk who had been tailing Dunkirk. Until now, they had been only spectators, and rather quiet ones, too, considering their setting. All around them, students sang, wrestled, drank, and debated, but the Louts and their neophytes had become strangely subdued. (Darcy did not know whether to be proud or ashamed that he possessed this ability to repress even the rowdiest of people.)

But one young man had thrown his head back and produced the most genuine and joyful laughter Darcy had heard all evening. Oh, there had been cynical chuckles and loud, drunken guffaws. Everywhere around them, men worked hard at being entertained. But this particular fresh milk—he even looked the part with his golden hair, fair skin, and bright smile—was truly diverted.

“You suppose Darcy is amusing, do you?” Wickham snarled, turning on the young man with a rapidity that caused all the fresh milk to take a hurried step back.

Darcy sighed. Wickham could not punch him for fear of offending Dunkirk, for the baron was, in essence, not unlike the Prats; he might have liked to cavort with Wickham, but he would never allow him to forget his place. Wickham, however, could take out his anger on the truly lowly—for during the Michaelmas term, at least, the fresh milk represented the lowest rung of College society, no matter who their parents were.

“You do realize that this is Fitzwilliam Darcy, son and heir to the largest landowner in Derbyshire, grandson to the Earl of Matlock?” Wickham railed, placing his face only inches from the face of the laughing young man. He was not laughing now; his eyes were wide with distress, and he looked to his fellow fresh milk for guidance. The six others took yet another step back.

Laughing (not genuinely, not joyfully), the baron said to Darcy, “This should be entertaining, eh?”

“Darcy is not,” continued Wickham, jabbing a finger into the young man’s chest, “to be laughed at by the likes of you!”

When Wickham raised his arm to strike the fresh milk, Darcy grabbed him by the elbow. “George,” he said gently. “That’s enough now.”

Wickham met his gaze, and even in the dark, smoky room, Darcy could see the hatred flare in his former friend’s eyes. Wickham could not act on that hatred, not here, not now; he could only drop his arm, paste a sickly smile on his face, and say, “Of course. But they ought to know that only some of us are allowed to laugh at you.”  Then he threw a disdainful glance at the young man. “Know your place, fresh milk.”

The baron clapped Wickham on the back. “I have a wager on with Cartwright that you will start at least two more brawls tonight. You know what this means, eh?”

“More brandy!” the pair of them cried together, and Wickham hurried off in the direction of the casks while the baron grabbed hold of one of the third years, urging him to resume the singing of lewd songs that Darcy, in his not-to-be-laughed-at way, had interrupted.

He used this opportunity to escape. Though he forced himself to walk at a leisurely pace, chin held high, Darcy could not help but feel as if he were slinking off like a criminal—a true testament to the upside down nature of this place, as if those who preferred quiet were the troublemakers.

He had reached the stairwell to his chambers when he heard someone call his name. With great reluctance, he turned to see the fresh milk who had dared to laugh, standing just outside the door of the common room.

“Excuse me, Darcy—Mr. Darcy, sir,” he said, taking one hesitant step forward. Then, after a pause, he bounded forward, reminding Darcy of the golden pups old John took such joy raising in the stables of Pemberley.

“I wanted to apologize, if I may,” he said, looking up at Darcy, who said nothing.

The young man proceeded to introduce himself (“Charles Bingley, at your service!”) before adding, somewhat haltingly, “I thought you were joking. When I laughed, it was because I thought you were joking.”

“I was.”

There it was again, that genuine, joyful laugh, and Darcy could not help but smile.

Bingley said, “Well, I have learned my lesson, and will only laugh in out-of-the-way places.”

“What a fine education Cambridge has offered you already,” replied Darcy, turning to go with a renewed heaviness of heart.

“Er, I am not certain if that was sarcasm or another joke,” said Bingley.

Darcy glanced back. “How old are you, Bingley? Eighteen?”

“Seventeen, sir.”

“For God’s sake, do not call me sir. I am only four years your senior.”

“Yes, but Dunkirk…that is, Baron Everett—I suppose I ought not call him Dunkirk yet—said…”

“And do not listen to Dunkirk, either.”

Suddenly exhausted, Darcy sank down onto the bottom step. Bingley goggled down at him.

“Sit, Bingley.”

He really was like old John’s pups—so eager, yet so well trained. Darcy would not have been surprised if Bingley had started panting.

“You can do better than Dunkirk and…” He almost said Wickham. But no, he would not tarnish that name. It was one thing to insult Dunkirk in front of others, but Wickham—well, he was Darcy’s responsibility, and not to be dragged through the mud, no matter how much he deserved it. “You can do better than those louts.”

“Oh, I am not so sure, sir, I mean, Mr. Darcy.”

“Darcy, just Darcy. Where are you from, Bingley?”

“Scarborough. Do you know it?”

“No. And your family?”

Bingley sighed. “Er, well, you would be unlikely to know of them. My father—he never was at Cambridge.” He paused, and then added in a rush, “He was not at Oxford either—or anywhere else, you see.”

Yes, he did see—even in the near darkness of the stairwell, he saw. No rays of light were required to recognize the signs: the accent, the mannerisms, the openness, that eagerness to please. Whether his father had been in coal, shipping, or manufacturing, it mattered not. What did matter: Bingley’s money came from trade.

“Why,” Darcy had once asked his parents, “do so many people look down on those who make their fortunes through trade?”

“These tradesmen do not understand the importance of tradition,” Anne Darcy had responded with a wave of her long, pale hand. She had been reclining on a sofa, her skeletal frame wrapped in a fine silk shawl. For one brief moment, George Darcy had looked as if he might disagree with his wife, but then she had started coughing, and her husband had gone to ring the bell so that she might have something soothing to drink.

Bingley was now peering at him in the darkness, and Darcy knew somehow that he might tell this young man to do anything, and he would listen.

“My father did not attend university either.”

Bingley gaped. “Indeed? But I thought—”

“This means, of course,” continued Darcy, ignoring Bingley’s implicit inquiry, “that he expects a great deal from me here. I assume your father is no different.”

“Well, in fact, my father is dead.”

Darcy felt himself flush. “Oh, I am sorry.”

“You could not have known. He passed last year. It was his dream, though, my attending Cambridge—and here I am.”

Restraining the sudden urge to put a hand on Bingley’s shoulder, Darcy said, “Yes, here you are.”

“The only difficulty is…well, I do not think he knew, my father, just what it would be like.”

“No.”

“And I have no idea how to behave. You saw me!” Bingley’s voice rose in pitch. “I made a complete ass of myself in there.”

“Oh, that is one of the unwritten requirements of receiving your degree. You are well on your way now.”

Bingley laughed.

“In any case,” said Darcy, rising and brushing the dust from his breeches, “I would advise staying away from the Louts—from Dunkirk, that is. They will not teach you anything useful—certainly nothing you need to know if you wish to become a true gentleman.”

His parting advice bestowed, Darcy turned and began ascending the steps.

“If you do not mind me saying so,” said Bingley, jumping to his feet and following him, “that is easier said than done, at least in my case. I know very few people here. Pritchard—he is another of the fresh milk—has tried to introduce me, but some of the fellow commoners will not even acknowledge my presence.”

Darcy sighed. “Tell me you did not attempt to speak with Churchill.”

“He and his compatriots have been the worst of the lot!”

“Yes, you will not get far with the Prats, at least not without some time and guidance.”

“The Prats?” Bingley laughed. “Is that what they call themselves?”

“No, that is what I call them.”

“And you called Dunkirk and his friends the Louts?” Bingley smiled. “The Prats and the Louts. I approve the names! But then what group do you belong to?”

Darcy stopped climbing the stairs. “My own.”

“I suppose…” Bingley paused and looked up at him. “No doubt your father is particular about your friends. I suppose he would not like you spending too much time with the Louts.”

“No.”

“Is it because of Wickham? I heard Dunkirk say he was the son of your father’s steward. Dunkirk said it was what made Wickham such a good steward to him here at King’s.”

Darcy felt a knot of anger. “It has nothing to do with Wickham’s father. Indeed, if George were more like his father…” Darcy shook his head. “Never mind. Listen, Bingley. Make your own way and try not to concern yourself so much with all their nonsense.” He waved a hand in the direction of the common room. “We worry far too much about who our fathers are—and not nearly enough about who we are.”

“That is wise counsel, Darcy.”

“Yes.” One corner of his lips twisted upward. “It comes from my father.”

Bingley laughed and said, “I suppose you are not returning to the fete.”

“No. Two hours is enough for me.”

“I suppose I ought to return,” Bingley said, sighing and looking back down the stairs.

“You do a great deal of supposing, Bingley.”

“Yes, well, it is easier than actually deciding, you see. Truth be told, I do not want to go back—but I really ought to if I am to make my way, do you not agree?”

“No.” Darcy paused, then smiled. “Come on, there is a pub not far from here. The food is greasy, but the wine is decent, and anything will do at midnight.”

Bingley nearly tripped down the stairs in his rush to lead the way. “Allow me to buy you a drink! That is, do serious men like you drink? I did not see you drink a drop in there,” he added, pointing to the common room door as they passed it.

“Yes, we serious men drink far too much.”

“And what are your views on pretty faces?” Bingley asked, his laughter echoing in the main entrance of the residence hall.

“Lovely to observe, not so lovely when they start asking for money.”

They stepped into the night, its biting wind invigorating after all that smoke and stale air.

“I wish I had your self assurance, Darcy.”

Darcy cast Bingley a surprised glance. Did he truly seem self assured to others? It was a descriptor he never would have given himself, and yet next to this young pup, he supposed it fit.

“Well then, Charles Bingley, we will trade: I will help you make your way around this place, and you will teach me how to laugh.”

“To laugh?” Bingley followed his words with a demonstration.

“Yes, just like that,” said Darcy, his lips twitching.

“Agreed!” said Bingley, sticking out his hand.

They shook, and Darcy wondered if his young friend would ever realize how badly he had been swindled in this deal of theirs. To give a man social standing was nothing; to teach a man to laugh—that was a real gift.

Thanks for reading!