by Riana Everly
With respect to that other, more weighty, accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connexion with my family. Although my supposed treatment of this man was the lesser part of your complaints against me, they comprise the larger part of the insult to my character, for in this case I am absolutely certain I have done no wrong.
“Done no wrong?” Lizzy snorted in exasperation. “He dares claim he has done no wrong? He, who openly admits his blindness? We shall see, Mr. Darcy, we shall see. But,” she reckoned, “at least he fully admits his error in regard to my poor sister.”
Of what he has particularly accused me, I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity.
Over the next page and more, Mr. Darcy proceeded to explain his whole history with Mr. Wickham, from the time they were both very young children to the present.
Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates; and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his god-son, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge. My father was not only fond of this young man’s society, whose manners were always engaging; he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it.
But, Mr. Darcy wrote in his letter, Wickham had not proven himself to be suitable for the church, being of a more dissolute nature than one wants in a clergyman, and when first Darcy’s father, and then shortly, Wickham’s, died, the young Mr. Wickham pronounced himself resolved against taking orders. In addition to his legacy of a thousand pounds from the late Mr. Darcy, Wickham had requested of his former playmate a sum of three thousand pounds in lieu of the living offered to him; this, he claimed, would enable him instead to study the law.
All connexion between us seemed now dissolved…. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others, as in his reproaches to myself.
Lizzy read those preceding words several times, berating herself again and again for her quick readiness to accept what Mr. Wickham had told her. “Even when I began to doubt him, I did not doubt enough to ask Mr. Darcy for his side of the tale. I was so willing to believe the lies against a man I disliked that I was wilfully blind to the truth. In this way, I am no better than Mr. Darcy himself, with respect to his hand in detaching my sister from Mr. Bingley. Oh, I have been as unseeing as he, but without his excuses.”
The tears she had been holding back now flowed freely, threatening to mar the letter as surely as the stream into which she had thought to throw it upon its receipt. Holding the pages away from her wet face, she mopped the betraying tears with her handkerchief, and only when confident of controlling their fall a while longer, did she return to the missive.
Last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being. Having said this much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy.
Oh, how she had been mistaken! The tears did fall, and freely, but now not at her own poor judgement, or at Mr. Darcy’s high-handedness, but at the heartbreak and near-ruin of an innocent child. Mr. Darcy had written of the planned elopement of his sister—only fifteen years of age at the time—with none other than Mr. Wickham! The scoundrel had schemed with Mrs. Younge, a woman previously known to him, and now Miss Georgiana Darcy’s companion, and in the course of a vacation at Ramsgate the previous summer, he had come upon the girl—accidentally, so he had said—and proceeded to woo her and convince her that she was in love with him!
It was merely by chance that Mr. Darcy had decided to come to Ramsgate himself mere days before the intended elopement which Georgiana had confessed to him, a most beloved brother.
You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure, but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham’s chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed.
Now Lizzy’s tears were for herself. To think of the girl—barely more than a child—heartbroken, embarrassed, grist for every scandal mill Society might have in its stores, that was cause enough for the most severe of anguish. The cad had as much as told her that she was worth no more than her dowry, and that revenge against her brother was of greater import to him than was her young and tender heart. No wonder Mr. Darcy was so concerned about his friend Bingley. Having, by the merest glance of good luck, saved his sister from a heartless fortune-hunter, he must see them everywhere. Coupled with the narrative and explanation he had given above, it was no wonder he had perceived Jane, and worse, their mother, to be less polished country versions of the same.
This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night. But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of every thing here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and still more as one of the executors of my father’s will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning.
I have one final statement to add. Whilst I might have difficulties in ascertaining the emotions of others, as we have worked together, I have become most aware of my own. To that end, I must tell you that I love you, and shall treasure the memory of our brief acquaintance all the days of my life. God bless you.
She folded the now-tear-stained letter most carefully and placed it into her reticule, between the pages of her book to protect it. She had thought before that she had misunderstood Mr. Darcy. How much more so, now, did she ponder on this topic, and she wandered the laneways and trails in the park for many hours until, at last overcome by fatigue and hunger, and finally feeling enough in control of her expressions to face her friends, did she return to the parsonage.
Chapter Eleven
Journey
The next two weeks of the stay at Hunsford passed both remarkably swiftly and excruciatingly slowly. The day after handing her his letter, Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam had stopped by to pay a parting call before returning to London, but Elizabeth missed their visit. She was sorry not to have had one last conversation with Richard, but felt most relieved at not having to endure Mr. Darcy’s company. What could she have said to him? The words were too fresh, the accusations against her family and even her character too acute.
Oh, he had not directly cast aspersions upon her, or upon Jane. But his comments about her mother—brash, loud and without refinement—about her intemperate family—these she meditated upon and came to the uncomfortable realisation that they cast no positive re
flection upon herself. Worse, his confessions about his dealing with Mr. Wickham had thrown her into great self-doubt. She knew now that even when she had been most positively disposed towards Mr. Darcy and had begun questioning the purpose behind Mr. Wickham’s cruel slander of his old childhood friend, she had not quite believed the stories to be untrue. She had questioned neither Mr. Wickham’s motivations in telling such tales, designed only to injure, nor the impropriety of disclosing such intimate, personal information to such a recently formed acquaintance.
“How despicably have I acted!” she had groaned in the privacy of her room that first night. “What hubris I have shown! I, who have prided myself on my discernment, who have valued myself on my abilities, who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity, in useless or blameable distrust!” No amount of pacing could dispel the shame she felt creeping its rosy way across her cheeks. “Oh, poor, awful me! How humiliating is this discovery!” She thought back to how her every interaction with Mr. Darcy had been coloured by that first awful night when he pronounced her merely tolerable, and how quick she had been to accept Mr. Wickham’s cruel words, which she accepted blindly because they confirmed her dislike of the man who had wounded her pride. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of their acquaintance, she had courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. “Till this moment,” she moaned, “I never knew myself.”
Yet these were not thoughts she could share with the author of her discovery, not yet. She must stew over them, come better to know herself. To meet with him now would bring her no solace, only the deepest humiliation. And later… she knew well there would be no later. She had spurned the man she had reluctantly grown to like, and who had confessed his love. He was proud, indeed, and would not renew his addresses, not after the manner in which she had abused him.
Consequently, as much as her sense of justice demanded she offer an apology, she was even more relieved at not being required to offer it quite yet. Mr. Darcy had taken the risk of writing her a letter; perhaps, once she had made peace with her embarrassment, she might take an equal risk and reply.
But for now, there were the necessary visits to Rosings, to condole with Lady Catherine on the loss of such fine young men from their company, trips into the village to procure small gifts and tokens for family members who would no doubt be expecting such, and, of course, packing, and (after Lady Catherine’s censorious lecture on the correct way to go about it) repacking of trunks.
“Maria,” Elizabeth had consoled the young girl after her third attempt to carry out Lady Catherine’s instructions, “do not take her words so much to heart. She will not know how you have packed your trunks, and indeed, I do believe she has never so much as placed a handkerchief in one herself. She merely orders her maid around, and most likely arrives at her destinations with a trunk full of hopelessly creased frocks, which her poor maid must then seek to repair. Pack as you were wont to before!”
But Maria, terrified of disobeying her ladyship in any manner whatsoever, refused to take Lizzy’s advice and proceeded to attempt, for a fourth time, to do exactly as she had been instructed, much to the detriment of her garments.
At last they arrived at their final evening in Hunsford, which necessitated a last dinner with Lady Catherine and Anne de Bourgh at Rosings. The meal was everything Lizzy had expected, and if there was no pleasure in it, this was nothing of a surprise. It was only at tea in the aftermath of the long and drawn-out meal, after Lady Catherine had tried, to no avail, to convince Elizabeth to remain some extra few weeks, that Anne managed to remove herself from her companion’s stern company for a few moments to speak some words with her.
“I have hardly seen you these last weeks, Elizabeth,” she said, holding a delicate plate of sweets in one frail hand. She stared at the pastries as if she were uncertain what, exactly one should do with them; certainly it seemed she had no intention of eating them and only took them as an appeasement to her mother. “After Richard and Will left, when we had no further cause to visit the folly, I had hoped to invite you to my suite for tea. But I had only been allowed out before because Mother thought Will was courting me and using Richard as a chaperon.” She laughed quietly in her sad, brittle manner. “She will never understand that we have no intention to marry until such time as one of us weds somebody else.”
Not knowing what to say in response to that, Elizabeth merely nodded and waited for Anne to continue. The young woman clearly had something to impart to her.
After a moment spent staring at the plate before her, Anne did indeed speak further. “My cousins left so suddenly. They had, at first, intended on leaving some weeks past, but Will kept delaying their departure. Mother, of course, believed it was because of me, but Richard and I knew better.” She looked up at Elizabeth, her eyes full of meaning. “And then, without warning, they were gone. In the course of a day, less even, Will changed his plans from remaining at least another two weeks to packing and calling for the carriage immediately.” She toyed with her sweets. “What happened, Elizabeth? I have never seen him so upset as after that last evening.”
Elizabeth felt her face flush, and she found herself unable to meet Anne’s eyes, which saw so much more than Elizabeth wished to show. So this is what it feels like, she suddenly realised. “We… we had a disagreement, over some matters relating to our earlier acquaintance. That is all I am at liberty to say.”
Anne’s eyes bored into her own with an intensity that left Elizabeth wondering if the other woman were able to read her mind. “I have seen Will confused, angry, frustrated, ill-at-ease, and as silent and unmoving as those awful statues in the upstairs drawing room. But I have never seen him so despondent. When he finds matters too difficult to take, he usually withdraws behind his stern facade, but upon my word, Lizzy, the night before he left, I thought he might be about to break into tears. Will you tell me what happened? I will never marry him, but he is my cousin and in that regard I do love him dearly.”
Breathing deeply and blinking back unexpected tears of her own, Elizabeth replied, “It is not my story to tell, for it pertains to others who are not here to defend themselves. But we were both wrong, and we parted on unhappy terms because of it. I am sorry to have caused your cousin distress; I am certain he is rueful of the distress he caused me. But I doubt we shall ever meet again. When you next see him, please tell him I deeply regret any pain I caused him. I do not expect his forgiveness, but I have forgiven him.”
Shaking her head with small, almost unnoticeable motions that nonetheless left the young woman’s ear bobs swinging slightly, Anne sighed. “I shall do as you ask. But one thing I must let you know: Will does not resign easily from a challenge. Perhaps this is a positive aspect of his unusual character, for he does not always recognise when a situation is hopeless, and in refusing to acknowledge defeat, he often succeeds where all others might fail. Should he act thus, should he attempt to speak with you once more, please—for my sake—be kind. He is not an easy person to know, but he is the best of men.”
Kindness. That was all she had now to offer. Perhaps one day it would be enough. “Yes,” Lizzy whispered. “I have come to know that.”
Any further discussion was thereupon ended by the imperious tones of Lady Catherine, demanding to know what her daughter and Miss Bennet were talking about. Lizzy was reminded so forcefully of those same words, uttered some weeks before, as she, the colonel and Mr. Darcy sat at the pianoforte. She glanced to the side room, where the instrument sat, silent and gleaming in the abundant light of too many candles, and let the flood of memories overtake her, saying only the necessary niceties for the benefit of her hostess, and desperately wishing to be gone.
∞∞∞
The morrow dawned cloudy and damp, but with the hustle and ado of loading the trunks onto the chaise sent for them, along with the fuss of readying for the departure, the weather was forgotten.
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“Have you had enough for breakfast, Lizzy?”
“Maria, you have forgotten your green pelisse. And where is your bonnet with the mauve flowers?”
“Cousin Elizabeth, I am certain you will relate to ALL your relatives how well we get along here in Hunsford, how fine our position, how great the condescension of Her Ladyship.”
“Don’t forget this basket of food for the carriage, and be sure to offer ale to the driver and manservant when you stop to change horses.”
At last, with final farewells, stiff curtseys and—where appropriate—loving hugs dispensed with, they were off. Maria chatted aimlessly for a while: How grand their visit had been, how marvellous Rosings, how lovely the countryside. Elizabeth listened for some time until the girl grew tired of recounting every visit to the manor house and every detail of Charlotte’s home and drifted into silence.
Maria’s chatter about her sister Charlotte’s happy situation left Lizzy thinking less sanguinely about her own sister’s. As desperate as she was to see Jane, to hug her and hear all about her time in London, how could she look upon her without her face revealing every painful thought that had passed through her mind these last two weeks? Could she gaze with any equanimity at that beautiful and serene face whilst knowing that her placid and unruffled nature was the exact cause of her current distress? Should Lizzy tell Jane about the circumstances behind Mr. Bingley’s unfortunate removal from Netherfield? No, surely not! For even had he remained, there was no certainty that an engagement would have ensued! Nor would it do to cast aspersions upon Mr. Bingley’s admittedly weak nature. Would a man who was truly in love have been so easily convinced to leave the object of his affections? Or, perhaps, was Bingley merely infatuated, as Mr. Darcy suggested he had been so often in the past? No, she decided at last, there was no possible manner in which she could mention Mr. Bingley and his departure from Meryton without adding to Jane’s low spirits and renewing her heartbreak.