“And we can have no future if he ruins your sister and disgraces your entire family. You would risk Jane and Kitty? I would still marry you, but such a scandal would hurt Georgianna as well. I will not put so many at risk if I have the means of preventing it. Lydia will not have a happy life with Wickham, but it will at least be a respectable one.”
“I cannot allow you to do this for me. Do you not see how it would create a burden upon us both?”
“I also do this for me, so that I may choose the wife I want and be happy.” Mr. Darcy paced a few steps and raked his fingers through his hair. “I do not know how to make you believe my feelings when you are so insistent upon denying them.” He walked back to her and continued, “I do not know how I can convince you that these are not fleeting emotions that will wither under a hot sun. I tried to deny my feelings in Hertfordshire, but could not forget you. I tried not to love you in Kent, and failed. When you rejected me, I tried even harder to move past you but I could not. I need you, Elizabeth Bennet, and I would do anything to have you be my wife.
“Wait,” in his anger he stopped and held up a hand. “I do not wish for you to have any possible way to misconstrue what I am saying, so let me clarify. I would not compromise you or in any way force you to marry me. I am not seeking to burden you with guilt so that you feel you must marry me in recompense. I would do anything I could to have you want to be my wife.”
Tears sprung to Elizabeth’s eyes, but she was unable to speak.
“What more can I say to you? What more can I do? Why will you not trust me to know my own mind? I can tell you these feelings are not the whim of a moment, but I cannot make you trust me. I can tell you I love you, but I cannot make you believe you are lovable, Elizabeth. Until you can do both, you are correct. We can have no future.”
Mr. Darcy stepped back and straightened his jacket. In posture and expression, he was once again the man she had met in Hertfordshire.
“It seems Wickham has found a way to turn you into a weapon against me after all. I am late to meet with your father and uncle, so must say my farewells. My plans to prevent Wickham from destroying you and your family will not change, regardless of how you choose to respond. Good day, Miss Elizabeth.”
Mr. Darcy turned and quickly walked away, leaving Elizabeth breathless and confused in his wake.
CHAPTER 41
When Elizabeth returned to the house, the gentlemen had already closed themselves off in Mr. Gardiner’s study. She joined the ladies in the parlor, surprised Lydia was not present.
“She is upstairs, feeling unwell. She seems to have taken your words to heart and has begun to regret her actions,” Jane informed her.
Elizabeth was not certain, but thought she noted censure on Jane’s face. Still, she would not regret opening Lydia’s eyes. She may have robbed her sister of a few happy weeks of ignorance once she married, but thought Lydia far better off not going into her marriage blind.
A marriage made possible by Mr. Darcy, who was even now writing the contracts with her father and uncle. Elizabeth’s stomach was knotted, but knew not how to find relief. Instead, she attempted to put Charlotte’s advice from the previous evening into action and began work embroidering a handkerchief. Perhaps if she could find Charlotte’s steady rhythm she would find the same comfort from the activity that Charlotte did.
How could Mr. Darcy not see that Wickham would forever be an obstacle between them? How could any affection survive after years of seeing what she had cost him? Elizabeth believed he loved her. The knowledge both thrilled and crushed her. Was he right? Could she not trust him because she thought herself unlovable?
Nonsense. Elizabeth knew very well that her father and Jane loved her as much as she loved them. She had long ago accepted she was her mother’s least favorite daughter, but that did not mean she thought herself unworthy of being loved by anyone.
Did it?
For as often of late had she discovered her beliefs to be incorrect, she owed it to herself and Mr. Darcy to consider his words.
Elizabeth forced herself to ignore her preconceptions and look honestly at her feelings. She did not really believe that her mother had loved her, despite what others had assured her. To be fair, she also had not understood her mother. The pictures people had painted of her cast such a different light on her mother’s life that Elizabeth knew she had to reevaluate all of her opinions.
Her mother wished her to marry Mr. Collins to save them all, but she had always spoken of Elizabeth’s own future first. For a woman terrified of her children becoming homeless, any husband would be better than none at all. Had Charlotte not spoken much the same? While Elizabeth could not agree with such a philosophy, she had understood why Charlotte would feel the way she had. Why could she not accept the same for her mother?
While her mother lived, Elizabeth had never seen fear as a motive behind her actions. If Elizabeth forced herself to reexamine her mother through that filter, she could begin to see some sense in that woman’s behavior and actions. Much as Elizabeth would like to claim she would never have behaved the same, she had to acknowledge that her mother had been correct on one point: Elizabeth had never experienced poverty. Elizabeth doubted her mother had truly known poverty either, but she had been far closer to it and would understand all the degradations involved better than Elizabeth could. In her mother’s place, with that experience, would Elizabeth act similarly toward her own daughter?
Elizabeth wanted to believe she would behave differently, but could acknowledge that she would still act to protect her child in ways her child may not appreciate or understand. Was that not love? Elizabeth had been so certain her mother did not care for her, but were her efforts to make Elizabeth more marriageable not the actions of one who cared deeply?
Elizabeth knew that the one person who could answer these questions would be forever silent on the subject. Her mother could have despised her and wished to marry her off to anyone to ensure the rest of the family’s survival. Her mother could also have cared deeply, despite not understanding Elizabeth, and wished to do all she could to provide the future she best imagined would serve her daughter’s needs, regardless of whether or not her daughter appreciated these efforts. Elizabeth felt honor bound to at least consider a more generous interpretation of her mother’s actions.
Her mother may have loved her. Nay, Elizabeth could admit she probably loved her. She could never have a definitive answer on the subject, but she would choose to trust others who were certain, and trust in a more compassionate view of her mother’s motivations.
Still, that did not mean she had thought herself unlovable by anyone.
If she were to be truly honest with herself, Elizabeth had to admit that when asked what she expected ten years from now, she was more likely to envision herself as a spinster aunt, caring for Jane’s children than to picture a future with a loving husband of her own. Dreaming of a man who would love her and finding such a man with whom she could entrust her future were very different things. Much as she claimed she would marry only for love, Elizabeth had never easily envisioned a future that contained it.
Not until recently, anyway.
After Kent, she had thought of what could have been. Such thoughts usually involved a different Mr. Darcy from the one she had known. When she met that imagined man become real at Pemberley, she had begun to envision a happier future for herself than any of her previous visions.
He loved her, but could she trust those feelings to last?
He had changed his behavior in ways she had never expected. He would never be easy in company, but he was willing to make the effort to converse with those he would have previously ignored. He had come to value the Gardiners, so his efforts were not superficial. She was not unaware of the effort these changes must have cost him.
He had done so while she felt completely unworthy of his efforts. She had misjudged him time and time again, yet he continued to love her. When viewed in that light, his feelings were miraculous. She could not deny they must be str
ong and of long duration. Whatever reservations she had about her value in consideration of his efforts, he considered her worthy.
She would trust him. Elizabeth took a shaky breath as she made this decision, for it was not one to be made lightly. She respected Mr. Darcy as a man of intelligence and discernment, so she would accept his judgment as to whether or not she was worth such troubles. If he was willing to act on her behalf, she would not fault him. Had she the power, she would help Mr. Darcy were he faced with a catastrophe – even if he would not appreciate her help.
Elizabeth had little experience trusting anyone with such power over herself, but she would try. Her independence was not simply part of her personality, it was a necessary skill for surviving life at Longbourn. Much as she loved her father, Elizabeth knew he could not be depended upon to see to important details. Her mother she had relied upon not at all. She and Jane had learned at an early age to take care of themselves.
Mr. Darcy needed to control everything around him. She knew he was a good man, but could she place all her trust in him?
Mr. Darcy had made changes for her, she would do the same for him. She would trust him. She could see no way that his love could survive such trials, but she had also been wrong in nearly every belief she had held regarding Mr. Darcy. Terrifying as it would be, Elizabeth would trust him to know his own mind. She would trust in his love and their ability to weather any storms a connection with Wickham would bring.
For storms there would be. Lydia’s marriage to Wickham was certain to be a miserable one and Elizabeth had no doubts she and Jane would often be applied to for additional funds. She would shield Mr. Darcy from Wickham as much as she could, but he would be a burden in their lives forever.
If Mr. Darcy believed he would be pained more to lose her than to be linked forever to Wickham, then she would trust him to know his own mind. If such were the case, then she could not allow Wickham to influence her to leave Mr. Darcy and inflict even greater pain upon him.
It all came back to Mr. Wickham. She wished she could go to Mr. Darcy and talk to him now, tell him of her newfound understanding, but he was still in the study. He sat there with her father and uncle, helping to draft the contract that would enrich Wickham at everyone else’s expense.
Elizabeth grew restless, then flinched as she stabbed her finger with the needle. Sewing was not the solution to her upset that she had hoped, and she threw her project to the side.
“I cannot believe that man will once again not only get away with his misdeeds, but be rewarded for them.” She rose and began to pace the room.
“I agree, Lizzy, it is not fair, but what choice have we?” Mrs. Gardiner asked.
“I do not know, but there must be some other way.”
“Lydia must marry, so we have no other option.”
“But he is such a man.”
“Yes, he is such a man, but there is nothing to be done about it.”
“Unless she married someone else,” Charlotte offered.
All eyes turned toward her.
“How could Lydia marry someone else when it is known that she ran off with Mr. Wickham?”
“Who else knows she ran off with Mr. Wickham?” Charlotte asked.
“Charlotte, good as you were in preventing the news from spreading, we cannot assume that no one knows of her disgrace,” Jane pointed out.
“True,” Elizabeth replied as she thought. “News of her elopement will have spread enough that she must marry, but who is to say she ran off with Mr. Wickham? Perhaps he deserted his post at the same time she ran off with someone else?”
“But her note to Kitty has been seen by Captain Higgins and who knows how many others.”
“As his regiment is unlikely to return to Meryton anytime soon, who is to dispute whatever version of events we put out? Let me see the note again,” Elizabeth requested and Charlotte left the room to fetch it. “As atrocious as Lydia’s handwriting is, could any of us say with certainty that she wrote Wickham and not some other name?”
“We cannot conceal that we have been searching for Mr. Wickham.”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth replied. “But just because we feared she had eloped with Mr. Wickham does not mean that we could not have been grateful to discover he was not the man she named.”
Charlotte returned and handed the letter to Elizabeth who took it and sat in a chair so the others could stand nearby and examine the contents with her.
“Look at her handwriting. I am not at all certain that she has written Wickham. If we had known her to have favored a Lieutenant Winters or Winthrop or Wilson we would naturally assume that was the name she had written. Kitty may have read it as Wickham knowing that he was not a man they should associate with. In light of the elopement, his name may have been assumed out of fear for the worst.”
“You weave a charming tale of hypotheticals, Lizzy, but those are not the names written,” Mrs. Gardiner pointed out, “And the truth is that we did discover her with Mr. Wickham.”
“Yes, after he lied to Lydia and used her in his scheme for revenge and reward. Such is not a happy basis for a marriage.”
“I agree with you, but she still needs to marry.” Mrs. Gardiner’s frustration became steadily more apparent.
“What if we had a Lieutenant Winters, or Winthrop, or Wilson who she could marry?” Elizabeth offered.
“Just how, pray tell, do you suppose you can produce such a man who would be willing to marry Lydia in the short time available to us?”
“Colonel Fitzwilliam knows many officers,” Elizabeth continued. “He may know of one with a similar enough name to meet our requirements, one who would be willing to marry Lydia for a sufficient settlement.” Elizabeth looked to the ladies around her, warming to her subject. “I would far rather see the funds go to someone else to save Lydia’s respectability than to see them wasted upon Mr. Wickham.”
“Would you be able to carry off such a deception?” Mrs. Gardiner asked, obviously not convinced. “I trust the discretion of everyone in this room, but can you trust Lydia and Kitty to keep the truth to themselves?”
“The only truth they would need to remember is that while Lieutenant Wickham attempted to prey upon Lydia, our Lieutenant is the one who rescued her from Wickham’s clutches when she discovered his true nature, and our Lieutenant is the one with whom she fell in love – for give her a man in a red coat who will save her from Wickham and I have no doubt she will love. So long as the timing is left out, the story is still truth.” Elizabeth stood to face the others.
“Mr. Darcy once told me that Mr. Wickham’s stories were so easily believed because they were truth. His deception came from leaving out important details that changed the narrative. Lydia is regretting her actions right now. So long as we convince Lydia that her future security depends upon leaving out parts of her history, I believe she can be trusted. Her new husband can keep her in line if she begins to stray. As for Kitty,” here Elizabeth hesitated. “I would rather not deceive her, but we must decide whether or not she can be depended upon. She could be just as surprised as the rest of us to learn that the note did not refer to Mr. Wickham.”
“Before we get too far, perhaps we should determine if an eligible replacement for Wickham can be found,” Charlotte observed. “Mrs. Gardiner, would you be willing to send an invitation to Colonel Fitzwilliam to join us for dinner?”
“I will do so, but I believe we should bring our proposal to the gentlemen in the study before we consult the colonel. Let me go and ask them to join us now.”
Much as Elizabeth did not wish to, she acknowledged the necessity of gaining the approval of the men in the other room. Their financial arrangements would need to change, so they should be included in the conversation before the plan moved any further.
Mrs. Gardiner returned shortly with three visibly annoyed men.
“What is this scheme of yours that we must hear?” asked Mr. Bennet. “We still have much work to finish, so be quick about it.”
; Charlotte gestured for Elizabeth to proceed. Elizabeth stepped forward and provided a clear synopsis of the alternative under consideration. As she spoke, she watched her father and uncle’s faces begin to register interest almost immediately. She had expected they would be willing to consider a plan that provided a better husband for Lydia. Mr. Darcy’s countenance she could not read so easily, but she feared he was not as receptive to the plan as she had hoped. He continued to appear irritated, but she continued nonetheless.
“And so,” she concluded, “to save Lydia from a most imprudent marriage, yet still maintain her respectability, we would like to apply to Colonel Fitzwilliam to see if he may know of a suitable substitute. You can likely save some money in a new arrangement, but even if the cost is the same, our proposal has far more benefit. Lydia would have a more reliable husband and be far less likely to be abandoned to become a dependent in one of our households later. Mr. Wickham, not being needed for a wedding, could be suitably punished for his crimes. Perhaps most important,” she continued, looking to Mr. Darcy, “he would not be a part of any of our lives going forward.”
She finished to absolute silence and an unreadable expression from Mr. Darcy. She had expected as much from him, but she had anticipated some type of response from her father and uncle.
After what seemed an eternity she asked them, “May we invite the colonel to dinner to discuss the feasibility of such a plan?”
The gentlemen looked to each other and nodded. “We will see to it,” Mr. Gardiner replied as the three left the room and returned to the study.
Elizabeth sat down, disappointed by their reaction. She had thought their plan to be an imminently preferable solution to the one that had seemed their only choice. She gnawed on her lip as she considered why they had not been more excited. Mr. Darcy especially should have been receptive to a solution that dealt with Wickham harshly.
Unless he thought the duplicity of such a scheme was beneath them all. With a sinking feeling, Elizabeth realized she had not considered that he may value his honor too much to resort to such falsehoods, no matter how much they had to gain. He desired to save her sister to prevent Wickham from causing harm to Elizabeth’s family, and so he would likely assist them in whatever course her father decided to take. Elizabeth feared he may no longer wish to be associated with the family once that task was completed.
Folly and Forgiveness: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Page 28