“Mr. Acworth!”
“You are shocked, Mrs. Darcy. You prefer not to believe me. You are all for romance in a circle of gold, not apprehending that a circle is a cage. But let me recall the experience of a not very reputable acquaintance of mine. He is a man of parts and some education, but without family, fortune or patronage. Circumstances have driven him into an irregular mode of life, driven him also to living by his wits. But never think that such a person does not admire the good, the beautiful, the true when he sees it. The contrasts that life have forced upon my friend have given him all the keener perception, the stronger admiration of the best and highest in every mode of existence, in art, in literature, in humanity. Particularly has he sought perfection enshrined in woman, in only one woman, believing that to find her would be to redeem him from the follies and despairs of a dissolute life.
“Some years ago he obtained employment at one of the theatres in town, and on a spring evening while he hung about the entrance after the play was over, he saw a young lady standing with her friends on the pavement waiting for their carriage to come up. There was a little delay before its arrival, long enough for him to observe her, to become entranced with her beauty and grace, ravished by her voice. Every word that she uttered fell upon his ears like a separate enchantment. Here at last was his dream, living, breathing, speaking. Once she turned her eyes upon him, but scarcely marked him. Why should she?
“The carriage appeared; she entered it with her friends, and was borne away out of his sight. Summoning a loiterer of the neighbourhood with whom he had some acquaintance, he commissioned the man to follow the carriage, ascertain where it deposited the lady and return to give him the particulars. Late that night the man came to his lodging with the information.
“From that time onwards my friend haunted the vicinity of the house which he believed the lady to inhabit, but he never so much as caught a glimpse of her. After some time, however, he got on speaking terms with a maidservant of the house, and this girl told him that the young lady did not live there, but occasionally came to stay with her relatives. In the hope of learning something further, he continued his acquaintance with the maid, beguiling her to talk of all that occurred in her master’s family. One day he heard that his lady had indeed returned, but only for a few hours and had set off again for another part of the country. She might, however, come again, the girl said. She had listened to talk at the dinner-table which gave her the idea.
“The weeks passed; he lived but to see her just once more. In the meantime he lost his employment at the theatre through inattention, for in the fevered state of his being he plunged into courses which might procure him forgetfulness. He drank, he gambled, he did worse. Mad though he was, he was not so lost to all reason as not to know it, and he tried every way to erase her image from his mind. Vain was the attempt. Nothing could cure him.
“The autumn came. Having lost hope, he had ceased for some time to frequent the fatal spot. But one day he did return thither, drawn by intolerable longing. He wandered about the street filled with a melancholy of foreboding. The maid saw him from a window and ran out to tell him that she had news. The young lady was expected in a few days. She was to be married to a rich gentleman and was coming to town to buy her wedding-clothes.
“My poor friend was thunderstruck. Oddly enough he had never foreseen this conclusion to the business. He went back to his lodging and, I am sorry to say, drank himself into a stupor. Coming to himself again, he was filled with the desire to behold her with his eyes for the second, if for the last time of all, by some sophistry endeavouring to persuade himself that if he did, it would be to find her less than the perfection he had deemed her, and that thus his desire would be assuaged.
“He did see her. She passed along the street while he watched her from the opposite pavement. She was all joy, all animation, more beautiful than ever. He knew as he followed her with his eyes that to his dying day no other woman would ever command his heart.
“Mrs. Darcy, my friend was perhaps more fortunate than he knew. Closer acquaintance with the lady might have revealed flaws in character. She might even have come to look less beautiful than a discreet distance made her. What do you say? You were angry with me for representing the tender passion as fickle and fleeting—only constant while pursuit lasts. I too have lost the woman I loved, but that will not deter me from consoling myself as well as I can, because at the risk of incurring your contempt I have to confess that I am willing to accept any consolation that is offered me. I do not believe in wearing the willow for a memory I should be happy to forget. At the same time,” his voice rose and became harsh and vehement, “never suppose that I shall know true happiness, or that I ever shall be able to forget.”
Elizabeth had been deeply stirred by his narrative. At one time she had been briefly tempted to think that he spoke of himself under the veil of an imaginary third person, such was the passion and rapidity of his utterance. But his subsequent phrases undeceived her. Yet what did he wish to prove? Was it merely that a happy love cannot last? One thing was clear in all this mystification. He had suffered much and was still suffering.
“I sincerely hope that hereafter you may know at least relative happiness again,” she said earnestly.
“I may know resignation. May I venture to think that you are sorry for me?”
“Indeed I am.”
“You were moved by my friend’s story, I think?”
“Yes, very much. But I cannot enter into his feelings. How could he hold in affection a being wholly unknown to him except by sight?”
“Affection and the passion of love are totally different sentiments. There are as many ways of loving as there are human beings.”
“Yes,” she returned, “that is perfectly true. The steadfast, rational way being one of them.”
“I do not deny it. My friend, I suppose you think, followed a will-o’-the-wisp of his own brain. In my own case disillusionment followed—but I must not trouble you with that.”
“I do feel every sympathy for you, Mr. Acworth,” she said quietly, beginning to feel acutely the discomfort of the subject.
“It is proper to express sympathy for another’s sorrow whether one feels it or not. But you are sincere. One would say that you had never experienced more than a trifling anxiety, yet you have a heart as well as an intelligence. You are sorry for my plight; nevertheless you distrust me, you withhold your friendship, you feel instinctively that I have no place among the denizens of Pemberley. The sincere cannot be blinded. You are not deceived, and though I would deceive anyone else, I would not you. If only I could lay bare my heart to you—this once—while we are alone.”
Looking around her Elizabeth saw that they had some distance to go before issuing from the wood. The conversation had reached that point of danger when a single sentence that ought not to be uttered might fall upon her ears. She endeavoured to believe that Mr. Acworth was not responsible for what he said, having worked himself up into a state of mind bordering on frenzy. He had begun quietly, he had spoken with feeling, but also with restraint. But at last all restraint had been flung away, passion had inflamed his countenance, as a hurried glance had taught her, and had vibrated in his voice. It was necessary to curb him before he lost all self-control, and as soon as he paused sufficiently for any interruption, she said immediately, “It is always unwise to say what we may afterwards regret.”
“You would regret it,” he returned impetuously. “That is what you mean.”
“Perhaps I should,” she said coldly, “although of course I cannot know what you wish to say.”
“You do, you do,” he cried.
“Mr. Acworth,” said Elizabeth, summoning all her courage and presence of mind, “let me speak plainly. You appear to wish to tell me, a comparative stranger, what should remain locked in your breast. You have already told me something. You have spoken equivocally, I admit, but in such a manner as t
o open up conjectures on a matter which concerns only yourself. Let me commiserate you for a misfortune which must evoke the sympathy of all people of right feeling. Do not go on to expose the past when it should remain buried in the grave. Your conscience—” she hesitated, remembering his derision of that faculty—“your conscience will tell you that you owe it to the dead.”
“Do you really think—” he began. Further speech was suspended, an odd choking sound burst from his throat. For one dreadful moment Elizabeth thought he was weeping. Alone in the wood with a man of such unpredictable behaviour, such ungovernable emotion, what should she do? She listened eagerly for the sound of a woodman’s axe, such as was often to be heard, or the least rustle of brushwood denoting human approach. But all around was silence. Mr. Acworth had stood still upon the path, and she, not at first perceiving it, had taken a few steps in advance of him. Now, on looking round, she saw him leaning against a tree, his face covered with his hands, shaken with uncontrollable laughter.
Her astonishment was so great that for a moment or two it took from her the power of connected thought, but at length she became sensible that it was the laughter of hysteria, not mirth, which convulsed him. A suspicion that he might be acting was instantly dispelled; he was plainly beyond self-mastery. She stood watching him in growing consternation, the while debating within herself what was best to be said or done until involuntarily she spoke his name. He seemed not to hear. The horrifying thought then struck her that he might be laughing at herself, and as his paroxysm showed no sign of abating, she said with some asperity, “I do not know what I have said to cause this outburst.”
“Incomparable,” he gasped. “Though you slay me, I must adore you. Oh, divinest creature, forgive me. You rob me of further speech.”
“Mr. Acworth, this is not the way to talk to me,” said Elizabeth calmly, though she trembled in every limb. “You are strangely forgetting yourself. Making all allowances as I am willing to do, there are bounds which should not be transgressed.”
Suddenly he uncovered his face and looked at her with the utmost gravity. His cheeks were flushed and wet with tears, but his mouth still twitched oddly. “Well,” he said, “what are you going to do, Mrs. Darcy? Are you going to denounce me?”
“I do not comprehend you,” Elizabeth answered, with all the dignity of which she was capable. “You lost control of yourself for a few moments. That may be granted. Shall we continue our walk?”
“You do not blame me?” he cried. “And why should you? Is the heart to be blamed for beating? I speak equivocally, do I? You mean that thus you choose to hear me. Now you shall hear the truth, come what may of it.”
He came towards her, and his aspect was so strange, his features so flushed, that Elizabeth shrank back and averted her eyes. For one instant she felt real fear, but with the necessity for it her spirit rose, and she looked up again with a firm gaze.
‘‘I cannot think you wish me to denounce you,” she said. Then turning upon the path, she added, “Let us in any case walk on.”
They went some way farther in a silence that for her was filled with intolerable suspense. What her companion thought and felt, what he would say if he did speak again, agitated her in spite of herself, and it required a strong effort to sustain the appearance of composure that was so necessary. The silence continued, and became at length so embarrassing that she had resolved to break it with a commonplace observation, when he suddenly addressed her.
“Mrs. Darcy, I beg that you will forget anything I may have said in a moment of madness to distress or offend you. I ought not to speak of myself. When I do, it rouses in me such feelings of misery that they get the better of me, and I behave in a violent and unbridled manner. Let me assure you that I meant no disrespect.”
“I trust not,” she answered dryly.
“I hardly remember what I have said,” he continued. “Sometimes I think that I must be going out of my mind. Can you imagine what it is to be haunted by the past without hope for the future? That is my condition. I implore you not to betray me.”
Elizabeth hesitated before giving an assurance to a man so volatile and so little to be depended on.
“You are goodness and charity itself,” he resumed, with increasing urgency of tone. “I know that I do not deserve that it should be extended to me, but I do entreat that what has lately passed between us should reach no other ears at all.”
She had to consider before she could reply. He was in effect asking her to keep the matter from her husband to whom she owed the most perfect candour. The consequences of such candour in the present instance could not be in any doubt. Acworth would be asked to quit Pemberley at once. She had no fear of an open scandal, for Darcy was discretion and resourcefulness itself and could, and did, always act with consideration towards even the people who least deserved it. But she could not resist Acworth’s plea. She was sensible of his hanging upon her decision in terror lest it should be adverse to him. Still distrusting him, and unwilling to show herself too compliant after the way he had behaved, she resorted to a question.
“Do I understand that you have no desire to remain at Pemberley?”
“To remain at Pemberley is to be on the rack. But although I ought for my own peace of mind to go away, there is nowhere I can go. I cannot explain, but I must ask you to believe that it is imperative for me to stay here, at least for some weeks longer.”
“I can only accept your statement without comprehending it,” she said. “This is an occasion when I would rather know too little than too much. I would wholly forget this conversation if I could, and for my part I am willing never to refer to it, if you do not.”
“Thank you a thousand times,” he cried. “You have lifted a load from my heart.”
Elizabeth was saved any further reply by the sound of a voice in the distance. To her ears it was at once distinguishable as coming from Darcy, and as he approached, though still invisible behind the barrier of trees about the winding of the path, he could be heard speaking to a companion in his customary deliberate accents. He was speaking at such length, to judge by the absence of reply, that only a matter of public concern could be the theme. Had Elizabeth felt any curiosity to know who his companion was, which she had not from the rapturous relief of being rescued from a most uncomfortable situation, it would soon have been satisfied.
Darcy at length ceased and the tones of a beloved and well-known voice were heard, now close at hand.
“Well, Darcy, the state of the country being what it is, I feel myself fortunate in not being plagued with a sense of responsibility for setting it right.”
“Papa!” cried Elizabeth. The next moment a turn in the path showed her husband and her father walking towards them.
Chapter 8
Mr. Bennet had arrived with his daughter Kitty not long after the return of Elizabeth’s carriage from the Parsonage. He had come, as he nearly always did, without previous warning, for he never wrote a letter if he could help it, and delighting to arrive unexpectedly, seldom set out on a journey unless the whim seized him. He was therefore not in the least put out at finding nobody to receive him but Mrs. Reynolds. The good woman informed him, with many expressions of concern, that her master and mistress were both out, though in different directions, and Miss Darcy had gone riding. She did not think her mistress would be long in coming home, for she had but gone as far as the village to call on the Miss Robinsons. Joseph had driven her to the Parsonage, but she had told him not to wait as she would be walking home through the woods.
After some light refreshment Kitty, quite knocked up by the journey, went to her room to rest; but Mr. Bennet, having changed his travelling clothes and taken a peep at his grandson in the nursery, found his way to the library and gave himself up to his favourite occupation of reading. There he was discovered by Darcy on his return a little later and given a warm welcome. On Mr. Bennet’s retailing the substance of Elizabeth’s mess
age, Darcy suggested that they should go and meet her. They set off directly and about a third of the way through the woods came upon her walking with Acworth.
Father and daughter exchanged an affectionate greeting, laconic on one side and lively on the other, and Mr. Acworth was made known to Mr. Bennet. Elizabeth then took her father’s arm and walked the rest of the way with him while Darcy and Acworth followed close behind. At first Elizabeth, listening with half an ear to her father and straining the other half to catch what might be said by her husband, heard only her father’s voice relating some circumstance of the journey. Presently Darcy made an observation about the trees in that part of the wood to which his companion mechanically replied. A somewhat one-sided conversation thus began, Darcy enumerating the many varieties of timber in the Park in a determination not to be silent, and Acworth making only the briefest rejoinders. Her father, on the other hand, was in an unusually talkative mood from the pleasure of being with her again, and she was soon obliged to give him all her attention.
“Well, Lizzie, my dear, I don’t need to ask how you are. You look as blooming as one of your roses.” Then lowering his voice, but not quite enough, he added, “That’s a charming young man you were walking with. Where did you find him?”
“Oh, hush, Papa, did not you hear? He is a Mr. Stephen Acworth, a brother of Lord Egbury.”
“Ah,” replied Mr. Bennet, “I could see he was not just one of your plain gentlemen.”
To lead away from the subject Elizabeth began enquiring for friends and acquaintances at her old home. “How are the Lucases?” she asked.
“In excellent health so far as I know,” said her father. “The last time I saw Sir William he sent his dutiful respects to you and enquired whether you were not a great success in Derbyshire society. ‘Tell her,’ said he, ‘that Derbyshire’s gain is Hertfordshire’s loss.’ As to the rest, Kitty can detail all the particulars of their concerns. I pay no attention to anything that goes on around me nowadays, and am cultivating a very promising deafness, for otherwise I should hear nothing but talk about the neighbours. And as we have Solomon’s word for it that there is nothing new under the sun, I prefer not to listen.”
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