She almost wished it had been Darcy, for she knew herself able to weather the pain of such a betrayal with greater fortitude than her kind and trusting sister Jane.
She found her way back to Boots, silently cursing herself for ever undertaking such an odyssey. Benightedness might have been a blessing just then, for she would have been happy all the days of her life to be blissfully nescient of Bingley’s philandering.
Her father could be, if not condoned, at least forgiven if he sought affection from a more agreeable woman than her mother. But, Bingley! Bingley’s devotion to her sister had always been unquestioned. There was no sweeter, more beautiful and good wife than Jane. Jane, who bore Bingley four children in five years. He could certainly not claim denial of affection.
From a stump, she attempted to draw herself upon Boots but fell back impotently. Still gripping the saddle, she leaned against the horse and rested her forehead against the sun-warmed leather. Had she not been so sickened, she might have found her abrupt alteration from a wife scorned to an indignant sister-in-law amusing. Truly, she wished she could have had the time to enjoy a little diversion at her own foolishness.
It took her the better part of an hour to find her way home. Upon her arrival, she espied Blackjack, lathered and steaming, being unsaddled. It told her that evidently Darcy had ridden in only moments before. The only groom about was the still parentally-unenlightened John Christie. When she handed Boots’ reins to him, he looked at her curiously.
Her face, as always, betrayed her. Hence, when she entered the house she took the precaution of surveying her countenance in a pier glass. Yes, she appeared quite out of sorts. Time to practise severely limited, she settled what she believed was a more inscrutable expression upon her countenance by furrowing her brow (this, however, did not affect placidity as she intentioned, but rather a possible intestinal disorder) and headed for the stairs.
Stopping in the passageway, she stood very still and listened to see if she could hear Darcy downstairs. She might hoodwink the servants by her charade, but not her husband. The time it had taken her to return from her little espionage excursion could have been better utilised than only conjuring expletive epithets to hurl at Bingley. Instead, she should have taken time for sober reflection upon whether to tell Darcy what she had seen. For did she, it would be difficult to explain just how she came about her information.
Her hand found the banister. She took a step thither when she first heard the ominous sound of Darcy’s boots behind her.
“Lizzy.”
Cautiously, she turned. Only to be confronted with the seriously conflicted counte-nance of her husband. Indeed, his mien was so sombre, she knew its gravity could mean only one of two things. Either a servant had unknowingly exposed the true nature of Lady Catherine’s visit, or someone had died. It was with some self-reproach that she realised she was more willing to deal with someone’s demise.
As he escorted her to his library, she frantically began to formulate a speech. Her position for not telling him was to be thus: she was protecting her husband from knowledge of Lady Catherine’s diatribe so he would not be upset about his aunt’s cruelty to her. Thus, she would present herself as both unjustly persecuted and selfless. Certainly, he could not fault her for that.
They seated themselves in quite proper opposition. After several minutes of an uncomfortably silent stand-off, he spoke.
“I followed you today.”
She sat open-mouthed, speech having deserted her. He waited for a moment and when she said nothing, continued.
“It is an egregiously deceitful thing to do, but I have been quite anxious on your behalf. You have been quite out of sorts.”
Yes, she most definitely had. Her cheeks reddened in shame, for if he thought it designing to follow her, her own suspicions were exposed as undeniably duplicitous. When she did not speak nor look at him still, he walked over to her, knelt on one knee, and took her hands in his.
“My stealth did not serve me, Lizzy, for I have no idea what brought you to that croft or why you stayed and looked upon it so long. It was a pretty prospect, but not all that beguiling. I am confounded. Pray, will you tell me?”
She closed her eyes and lowered her face to his hands yet holding hers. When she could bear to gaze upon him, she tenderly brushed his cheek with the back of her fingers. He gathered those fingers in his and kissed them.
Unquestionably, she knew herself a mistrustful wretch. And a coward as well because all she could say was but one thing.
“I love you so very much.”
He cupped her face in his hands, wiping away her tears with his thumbs. In a moment, she began again, with no bravery and little resolve.
“I have gone to watch that house every day for a week, because I was told you had intimate association with the woman who lived there.” Staring at her knees, she finished, “And had a child with her. A son.”
It was likely that she visibly cringed. He sat back, literally upon his heels. She, however, kept her eyes shut tight, unable to bear witness to his expression. A pause allowed him to overcome his obvious astonishment.
Finally, he said, “You believed that of me?”
“No,” she said.
She knew that a lie, but at that moment she desperately wanted to think she had not.
“I told myself I only travelled there to prove you innocent, but…” honesty began to overcome denial.
“Have I given reason for you to doubt me? Have I done you some hurt unknowingly? Pray, tell me I have not,” said he.
She came perilously close to telling him his unreasonable anger at her over Wickham’s ignominious visit hurt her deeply. But she knew, though true, it was not relevant to their particular conversation. Hence, she desperately delved about her memory for some long buried misdeed of his that she could recount to justify herself. But she found none.
She acknowledged, “You have never given me reason to doubt you.”
It was with substantial relief upon her part that he reacted with an empathetic embrace. She allowed herself his consolation, for she had the unhappy notion that she might not have it after she told him just how her faith in him had become so fragile. He remained silent and she knew he was awaiting her explanation, thus she abandoned the possibility that they could sit as they were, eventually consigning the entire incident to oblivion. Gathering herself together, she sat back and began at the beginning.
“I did not tell you that Lydia was with us in Hunsford when we stayed with Charlotte. I know you do not wish to be reminded of Wickham.” (She would lay culpability at her husband’s feet anywhere she could at that moment.) “It was there that Lydia told us that she was full-witting of Wickham’s faithlessness.”
At the mere mention of Wickham’s name, she could see Darcy stiffen. That disquiet granted her a little credibility of position as an injured party.
“That he is a lecherous scoundrel is of no surprise. But Lydia also told us, in defence of her own husband’s infidelity, that all men were faithless and in proof of that announced that Papa…” here her voice faltered and she studied her knees again.
She swallowed, and then went on, “…harbours a mistress. Or mistresses, I know not which,” which was digressing, so she got back to the point. “The intelligence of this infidelity having come from our own mother’s lips!”
She looked up at Darcy and saw conflict in his eyes as clearly as had it been written upon a page. There, looking back at her, was a contest of sympathy and indignation. Sympathy upon behalf of her learning such an abhorrent thing about her father and the demand for an explanation of just how that condemned him. There might have been no condemnation, of course, without his aunt’s visit.
“Lady Catherine came here week last, not seeking you, but to speak to me.”
He waited.
Unable to repeat her other insults, Elizabeth said, “She was the one who told me she knew you fathered a child by this woman because I could not…”
“What!” he excla
imed, causing her to give a start. “You listened to an accusation by Lady Catherine! Lizzy, I thought you of all people could not be drawn into a plot she devised.”
Actually, Elizabeth still wanted to believe she could not have, either. However, her manipulation at Lady Catherine’s hands was undeniable.
Softly, she said, “It seemed reasonable at the time.”
His voice did not mimic hers. Indeed, he spoke angrily.
“Why did you not tell me of Lady Catherine’s lies unless you thought them possible? You did think it possible, for you spent—what, an entire week—seeking to find it true!”
“There is no excuse, of course, but I have endeavoured to explain…if you do not understand, I can say no more other than I was wrong. Wrong to listen to Lady Catherine. Wrong to mistrust you. Wrong to believe that if my own father does not honour his wife, it thereupon questions all men. I was wrong. W-R-O-N-G. Wrong.”
With each successive “wrong” her voice escalated from the bowels of penitence until it reached the summit of rather impressive martyrdom. She had folded her arms and her face mirrored a myriad of emotions. Fortunately, the most salient was regret.
“Lizzy, you must promise me now. No more secrets. Ever.”
She nodded her head emphatically, happy that he was going to let the matter drop. In all the relieved magnanimity of one who has survived calamity, she told him, “Undoubtedly, had our positions been reversed, had you listened to such a ridiculous accusation of me at the hands of your aunt…well, I can only admit that it is unlikely that you would have ever heard the end of it from me. I hope you are more generous.” A tentative smile from Elizabeth coaxed his.
“I am always more generous than you,” he said.
And with his tease came a liberal sigh of relief from Elizabeth. In the embrace that followed, she truly wanted no secrets betwixt them, agonising whether to tell him what she had seen of Bingley. But she had no such doubts about his cousin.
There could be no good come of telling Darcy that Fitzwilliam had professed his love.
In light of their newly declared candidness, Darcy managed to persuade Elizabeth to give him a compleat relating of all that was said to her by both Lydia and Wickham.
She told him, “Wickham said he knew that you were ‘priggish’ in matters pertaining to love. In your defence, I considered disabusing him of such a notion, I but could not think of a way to say it that would not have been scandalous.”
It was with a bit of a laugh that Darcy heard himself described as a prude by Wickham. The subject was not furthered conversationally.
Having a little time to think about it, though, Darcy came to the conclusion he must attempt to explain himself to Elizabeth. He had vigorously avoided ever revealing such specifics because it demanded he speak to her of his life previous to their love. So abhorrent was that recollection to them both that he did not want to think of it, much less speak of it to her.
Undoubtedly Wickham believed him a stiff-rumped prig. And, if compared to the standard set by Wickham’s morals, he admitted he most likely was. Feminine conquests, however, were not something he needed for a better conceit of himself. Brash although it might sound, he knew himself quite unsusceptible to the allurements of other women.
Once he had fallen in love with Elizabeth, passion and settled affection were united. He needed nothing else. His exceedingly warm constitution was the only reason he had ever had other dalliances at all. He renounced the notion of a mistress because he sought neither company nor affection. It was his body that made demands of him, not his heart. And because he had accepted the favours of women for whom he cared nothing, his privacy had been forever breached. He had abhorred such carnal need, and despised himself yet for surrendering to it.
The first true contentment in his life had been with the exchange of his and Elizabeth’s love. His trust was charged only to her. To assure her that he was not disposed to indulge in trysts simply because he was content with her was a prodigious understatement. Contentment was too passive a noun, for his love for her was not complaisant. She needed to know he had no interest in other women. He would not do as other men. He had no need. He had her. But he did not have the words.
Hence, he abandoned all hope of telling her what he wanted. Instead, he whispered but one thing in her ear that night.
“I want nothing more from this life than to lie here next to you, Lizzy.”
It was not the clarification of the shadings of his soul he might have liked to offer, but it was the essence.
Even without that endearment, Elizabeth would have happily repaid her husband every debt of doubt. And Darcy decided that if he were to expect her to be totally forthcoming to him, he must be thus to her. One day he would find the words he must to tell her the entire story of Abigail, John, and Wickham.
There had been little time to wrestle with the decision to tell Darcy about seeing Bingley and little more to fret for Jane.
The thirty miles betwixt Pemberley and Kirkland were usually traversed twice a week, once by Jane, once by Elizabeth. The seven days preceding Elizabeth’s last visit to her croft were spent upon horseback, hence she was long overdue for a visit with her sister. Wanting more time to weigh the matter and gather a perspective, still Elizabeth did not go.
Two days later, Jane came to Pemberley alone. Seeing her arrive without her children gave Elizabeth a sense of foreboding that was not to be unsatisfied.
The pleasant weather brought them outside to take tea and sweet biscuits; both remarked it a fine day. Admiration of the cloudless sky and slight breeze was cursory. In want of not thinking, and particularly not speaking about Bingley, Elizabeth at last shared with Jane the tale of Wickham’s infamous visit and unceremonious retreat (any port in the conversational storm). After Elizabeth told Jane about Wickham’s advances, Jane was properly aghast. Thereupon, Jane did the unlikely. She suggested the use of violence upon him.
“Lizzy, did you not smite him? I should have thought you would have.”
Elizabeth thought she should have throttled him too, and full curious as to how Jane might exact this comeuppance, inquired just that.
“With what should I have smote him, Jane?”
Without hesitation, Jane answered, “A fireplace poker.”
Not telling her that had, indeed, been under serious consideration and might have been employed had it not been out of reach, she said, “I shan’t have opportunity to smite Wickham with anything, for Darcy influenced Wickham of his disaffection for me.”
Having winnowed from Elizabeth a truer accounting of the long past bandit incident, Jane had since worried incessantly about safety, suggesting to her upon this occasion, “If not to use upon Wickham, Lizzy, perhaps you should carry a poker in the coach with you as I now do.”
Elizabeth thought about it for a moment, thereupon opined, “I fancy a poker is easier to wield than a gun.”
Sitting in the sun, it seemed a contradiction for two refined ladies to be discussing the merits of weaponry and upon whom to use them. When Elizabeth pointed that out, they both had a hearty laugh. Had Elizabeth been so inclined, from thence she might have embarked upon the telling of Lady Catherine’s visit.
She knew, however, the examination of that topic would cause more evasion than conversation, and in silence, searched her mind for another. Jane, however, had one quite all her own.
“Pray, Lizzy,” she said in her hesitant, soft voice, “there is something of which I must speak to you.”
Jane stood and paced about before she spoke. That foreshadowing bade Elizabeth’s attention. Jane sat before she continued, resting folded hands upon her knees, almost in supplication. At this, the premonition of ill-tidings Elizabeth had attempted to quash since her sister’s arrival reared its ugly head.
“Lizzy,” Jane started again, “I must tell you something in the severest of confidence.”
Jane looked up at her sister then, and not at all certain she wanted to hear what Jane was going to say, Elizabeth no
dded her head once in irresolute encouragement. Without additional exposition, Jane made a rather firm announcement.
“Charles has begotten a child of another woman.”
This divulgement originating from Jane rather than herself, begat of Elizabeth a conflict of emotions. The utmost was undoubtedly the relief that she would not have to keep that secret, but it was closely seconded by astonishment that her sister rendered it not a secret at all. She feared for her countenance only a moment, for she was certain astonishment quite overwhelmed the subtlety of relief upon her face. Jane did not suspect she already knew.
“You are astonished to learn this I know, for your strong protest at Lydia’s tales when we were gone to Charlotte’s told me you find such indiscretions difficult to accept as true.”
Elizabeth knew her mouth was slightly agape, closed it, looked away, and then returned her gaze to Jane. Jane reached out and placed her hand upon Elizabeth’s, and gave it a comforting pat.
Elizabeth thought, “Jane is reassuring me? ’Tis I who should be offering her comfort.”
“The baby is but a half-year old,” Jane continued. “The…mother is consumptive and is not expected to live out the year.”
Even more earnestly, she explained why she was confiding then, “Lizzy, I cannot bear to think of a child of Charles’s to be handed to strangers. I want to have the baby with us, but Charles does not know I know of it. It might grieve him to know that I do. I could not bear that.”
Elizabeth stifled a highly inappropriate snort of a laugh. Not that she thought anything at all humorous. But the incongruity of Jane’s concern for Bingley’s feelings, and that she weathered his betrayal with such restraint, assaulted Elizabeth’s every notion of the verity of love. Elizabeth swept rationale and solicitude of Bingley aside.
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