by Janet Aylmer
Nor had he ever thought that he should be told in such terms of the unwelcome nature of his offer, nor of the manner in which he had made it.
Certainly, he had no regrets about what he had said to Miss Bennet, but his affection for the lady was strong enough for Darcy to wish her to continue reading further into the letter. He picked up his pen again and, dipping it into the inkwell, went on,
I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten, and the effort which the formation, and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read.
Again he paused in thought, for her words came too readily to his mind,
“I might as well enquire why with so evident a design of offending me and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character. I have every reason in the world to think ill of you.”
Was that the character by which he wished to be known, which he displayed to the world? Darcy shied away from the thought, and wrote on.
You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention, your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice.
Two offences of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge.
The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity, and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham.
Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison.
But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance. I shall hope to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read.
If, in the explanation of them which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to your’s. I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must be obeyed and further apology would be absurd.
Again Darcy stopped the flow of his pen, and stabbed it into the ink with such force that he broke the end of the quill. By the time he was ready to continue with another, he had had too much time to recollect his unhappiness, and the pain he felt about what Miss Bennet had said last night.
How, for instance, had she known that he had influenced Bingley against returning to Hertfordshire and to Netherfield? He had confided in no-one about his part in that as far as he could recall, unless . . . He remembered suddenly his conversation with Fitzwilliam on the journey down to Rosings. It was just possible that his cousin had recounted Darcy’s care for his friend, and that Miss Elizabeth Bennet had realised that the lady concerned must have been her elder sister.
In any case, his reasons for separating Bingley from Miss Jane Bennet had been sound and well founded. So he continued writing.
I had not been long in Hertfordshire before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your eldest sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment.
I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you . . . ,
Darcy paused at this point, with happier memories of that evening, when at last Elizabeth Bennet had agreed to dance with him, the touch of her hand, the way she had turned across the dance until... He shook himself, and continued,
...I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided.
From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him.
Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.
If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error, to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable.
Darcy at this point rested his head on his hand, and was deep in thought for several minutes. If Fitzwilliam had told Miss Elizabeth of Darcy’s part in the matter, he could not risk discussing her with his cousin, since they knew each other too well for Darcy to be able fully to conceal his feelings from Fitzwilliam. As it was, his cousin had been curious as to why Darcy had been so keen to prolong his stay at Rosings, when he was normally only too glad to get away.
And if Miss Elizabeth Bennet was correct about her sister’s feelings, were there other occasions when his own judgement might have been at fault?
For a moment he hesitated. But Darcy was not accustomed to thinking himself in error, and his indignation and confidence reasserted themselves,
But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister’s countenance and air was such, as might have given the most acute observer, a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched.
That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain, but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it, I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason.
My objections to the marriage were not merely those, which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me.
But there were other causes of repugnance, causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly.
Here Darcy stopped again, for what he must now say was certainly most unlikely to commend his cause to Elizabeth Bennet. However, surely she must realise that such matters could not be overlooked?
The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father.
Darcy stopped writing, and looked unseeingly out of the window. Her words came back to him
“had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner . . .”
He shook his head as he continued—
Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister, than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both.
I will only say farther, that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened, which could have led me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning.
The part
which I acted, is now to be explained. His sisters’ uneasiness had been equally excited with my own, our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London.
We accordingly went and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend, the certain evils of such a choice. I describe, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister’s indifference.
He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much.
There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction, it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister’s being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley, but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence, is perhaps probable, but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger.
Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. It is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister’s feelings, it was unknowingly done, and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.
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 connection with my family. 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.
Darcy then went on to relate the whole unhappy story of his sister’s visit to Ramsgate the previous year, of the close attentions that had led her to believe herself in love, and of Wickham being rapidly despatched from the town when Darcy had learnt of his designs on Georgiana and her fortune.
This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham.
For a few minutes, Darcy rested back in his chair, uncertain how best to continue, for he knew not what false stories, what devious little compliments, Mr. Wickham had paid to Elizabeth Bennet. He recalled too well what Caroline Bingley had said about them both at the Netherfield ball.
Nor did he know what degree of affection Miss Bennet still had for Wickham, though Darcy feared that it might, from her impassioned speech last night, be considerable.
“You have reduced him to his present state of poverty, comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages, which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life, of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.”
Darcy sat for a long time in the chair without moving. At length, he roused himself, and took up his pen again.
I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he has imposed on you, but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at. Ignorant as you previously were of every thing concerning either, detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination.
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.
Darcy then considered by what other means he could convince Miss Bennet of the truth of what he wrote. He then recalled that she and his cousin Fitzwilliam had been on very good terms during the past days at Rosings, with his easy manners seeming often to commend themselves to her more readily than Darcy’s own attentions. That was an unhappy prospect, but at least he could put it to good use.
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.
Then he added, more painfully,
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.
It was, as he now looked at his watch, a long time since he had begun to write. There were so many other things that he could add, that he doubted whether life without her offered him any pleasure at all, that he had hoped to recreate the happiness that had existed between his own parents in his union with her, that he had more wealth and position than any other suitor would be likely to offer her?
But what was the use of writing any of that, after the sentiments that she had expressed the previous day? If he was to have a chance of passing the letter to Miss Bennet before luncheon, he must end it now, but how?
At last he wrote, as he felt,
I will only add, God bless you. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
With that, he sealed the envelope, and called his man to get his clothes quickly, or he feared that he might be too late.
A few minutes later, he left the house, and walked quickly towards the copse in the park where he had often encountered Miss Bennet during his stay at Rosings.
The weather had continued fine but, after half an hour walking back and forth, he feared that his efforts to see her might be in vain. If she does not come, he resolved, I must go to the parsonage to leave the letter for her there. He was about to do this when, turning back alongside the boundary of the park, he caught sight of her by the gate towards the turnpike.
As soon as she saw him, she halted, and went to turn away.
Before she could do so, he stepped forward, and put the letter into her hand, saying, “I have been walking in the grove for some time in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?” He paused only to take one last long look as she took the paper, and then quickly walked away.
On his return to the house, Darcy was joined by Fitzwilliam. They had agreed previously to go that day to bid farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Collins and their guests. On their arrival at the parsonage, Fitzwilliam decided to wait on discovering that Miss Bennet was not at home. Darcy, however, paid his respects to Mrs. Collins, made his excuses and returned immediately to Rosings.
The last evening there was tedious to both Darcy and his cousin. Fitzwilliam’s efforts to promote conversation crossed with Lady Catherine’s determination to extract a promise from Darcy to return for another stay within a few months.
Since she did not omit to mention that the prime purpose of her invitation was for Darcy to become better acquainted with his cousin Anne, it was not a suggestion to which he was likely to accede in his current state of mind.
Whatever Miss Bennet had said to him the previous day, she was incomparably more dear to him; and any thought of an alliance to his pale, dull, cousin was unthinkable.
Eventually, in the face of his aunt’s persistence, Darcy reverted to his customary silence, leaving Fitzwilliam to carry on some conversation with Lady Catherine as best he could, and take the credit for their stay in Kent having been nearly twice as long as they had originally planned.
It was with no pleasure that Darcy heard his aunt say that she would be making a visit to town i
n early June, and he had to speak with unaccustomed lack of certainty as to where he might be at that time.
Lady Catherine then advised him that she was also thinking of making one of her regular visits to Bath, in the hope of some benefit to Anne’s health from taking the waters. She suggested that Darcy might choose to meet them there. He had eventually to remember a pressing need to write a letter to his steward in Derbyshire about estate business, to escape her persistence about this plan.
The following morning, Darcy took breakfast with Lady Catherine, resisting her every attempt to engage him in any further conversation about his intentions for travelling during the next few months. Happily, she took his silence as indicating his melancholy at leaving Rosings and its occupants, and pressed her conversation on Fitzwilliam instead.
Two hours later, the two cousins had said farewell to their aunt and cousin, and were on the road to London.
Part Four
18
On their arrival in town, Georgiana greeted Darcy and Fitzwilliam.
After enquiring about Lady Catherine and the health of her cousin Anne, Georgiana was soon in conversation with Fitzwilliam about their plans to visit his elder brother in Essex, where a new addition to his family had recently arrived.
“Your sister is getting to be like all ladies—too happy to talk about babies and small children all day if you give them the chance!” said Fitzwilliam cheerfully. “It is just as well that I shall be able to escape to the park with my brother from time to time.”