by michael sand
Darcy’s face grew pale, and the next moment, apprehension turned to certainty as the name of Wickham was pronounced. The entire history soon appeared — the chance meeting on the strand, the rapturous greetings, Wickham all debonair and modish on the driving seat of his phaeton. Mrs Younge graciously condescending to consider Wickham in the light of a family friend, and to invite him to take tea with them. “There could be no violation of propriety, as they had met at the house of Mr Darcy.” The walks along the Promenade; Mrs Younge not a great walker, and being obliged to sit down, but not wishing to discommode the others — they must walk on. Wickham’s frank, manly regrets about his past life. “I have been too liberal, too open, too unguarded. Not careful enough to avoid those small informalities which people are so quick to call improper.” He had owned up to all his failings, and Georgiana thought there could be nothing seriously amiss with a man so ready to express himself contrite — and with such captivating softness.
Mr Wickham’s deepest regret was for the sad divide that had formed between himself and Darcy — without doubt, chiefly his own fault. He feared the prejudice was now insurmountable. Georgiana had felt that she must do something to heal the breech. They had often discussed the matter. She had urged that they go to him together, — she should be his advocate with her brother; but his spirits were too far sunk to admit the possibility. Mr Darcy had so strong and unforgiving a prejudice against him as could never be overcome. Their recent interview in town had confirmed this view. Mr Darcy was offended by his mode of life, and would not consent to hear any promise of emendation. Hope was ended in that quarter; — how could Wickham expect otherwise?
But another way out of the difficulty existed. Wickham’s heart almost failed him, but he could not withstand his feelings — they would not be denied; she must allow him to tell her that the childhood affection he had always cherished for her had flowered into something deeper. He knew he was being too bold — wished he could restrain his feelings — but he was sustained in his daring by the remembered vision of their childhood at Pemberley. If they were married, might not that idyllic time when all three had been friends be restored? It would require the greatest daring. Permission would never be granted — of that there could be no hope. People would separate them; she would be sent away, banished his company; they would not be allowed to marry. The tyrannic authority of guardians must prevail — unless they undertook to circumvent it. There was only one possibility: they must elope to Scotland. At Gretna Green, they might marry in accordance with Scottish law. Afterwards, he was sure, all would be forgiven, all reconciled; and George, Georgy, and Harry would be again as they once were.
That the secrecy of this conduct must imply its impropriety, had crossed Georgiana’s mind; but nevertheless, she had given her trembling assent. — It had seemed the only way. They were to leave that very night. But she had been so unhappy. She wanted only to serve the two men she loved best in the world, and dreaded hurting one of them by seeming not to trust him. And now, fate had intervened; farther secrecy was impossible, and every thing would surely turn out well. Surely, her dearest brother would see that George Wickham might be forgiven, accepted, loved?
Darcy had put his arm round his sister’s shoulder, and made her sit beside him on the sopha. What would their beloved father have said, if he were alive at that moment? He prayed that he might evoke his father’s benevolent spirit. “Georgiana, my dear, I am speaking to you now not as a child, but as a woman grown. Love is not founded in caprice; it is founded in nature, on honourable views, on virtue, on similarity of tastes and sympathy of souls. Love is not selfish, and true love never urges the path of interest. No man who truly loved a woman would ask her to act in a way she knew her family would disapprove. He should not wish to place her in such a position. Any man who was a man would go directly to her relations, even if he knew himself disliked — especially if he knew himself distrusted. He would speak honestly, and welcome the opportunity to shew himself honourable. At such a moment, he must be listened to. And if a man could not behave in that way, there must be a doubt of his disinterest — a doubt fatal to any chance of felicity. Marriage is not a state to be entered into with doubtful feelings. It must be undertaken only with the greatest trust. Any thing else would be a violation of all that was just, rational, religious.”
Georgiana’s face was invisible to him, but from her stilled sobs, it was evident that she was listening. He knew his sister sensible; she had principle, understanding, delicacy of mind; she would recognize reason, even under the distorting influence of emotion. If his words made any effect, it would only be because they echoed her own doubts.
“It pains my heart to distress you, but I know more serious things to Mr Wickham’s discredit than he has yet confessed to you. He has been profligate in more than money. But — ”, seeing her tear-stained face turned towards him in an appeal he had not the heart to withstand — “if Mr Wickham applies to discuss this matter with me, I promise to listen to what he has to say, and give him the fairest opportunity to prove his wish to amend.” Darcy doubted that the application would be made, but he could promise no less.
“Oh! yes! That is all I ask. Brother, how can I thank you?”
Georgiana sat up and dried her eyes, and Darcy suggested that she write Mr Wickham then and there, asking him to call; but it appeared that she did not know his direction. No matter, he said: as that evening was the very one proposed for their elopement, Wickham must appear at some time. Till then, Georgiana should lie down while her maid bathed her eyes: she would not have Mr Wickham see them looking so red.
When she was gone, Darcy rang the bell, and directed that Mrs Younge should attend him in the morning-room. But — “Mrs Younge was gone out,” the footman informed him. Stifling his indignation (no leave having been asked), — Very well, he replied; he was to be told immediately she returned.
An hour later, the lady companion entered the room. “You wished to see me, Mr Darcy?” she said, endeavouring to compose herself by patting her hair and smoothing the sleeves of her jacket.
Darcy regarded her with great indignation. “She had left the house without permission. Would she care to tell him where she had gone and whom she had met?” Mrs Younge making no immediate reply, he took a paper from his pocket, and handed it to her, — a year’s wages in lieu of notice. Mrs Younge appeared to colour. “May I ask,” she said, with an injudiciousness born of anger, “why, with so little explanation, I am dismissed from my position? Do I not deserve to be informed of the cause for which — ”
“Deception is unavailing,” Darcy interrupted her. “Georgiana has told me every thing. Her meeting Mr Wickham was pre-arranged between the two of you, was not it? (And, as she opened her mouth to protest) — How otherwise did he know my sister was come to Ramsgate?”
Darcy pulled the bell. His ring was answered so rapidly, that the footman could not have been standing far off. John was to give Mrs Younge every assistance in packing; and the coachman was to hold himself in readiness to take her where ever she might wish to go. From the look of satisfaction on John’s face as he held the door open for the dismissed governess, Darcy perceived that Mrs Younge was not a favourite with the servants.
Brother and sister sat up late that evening. For Georgiana’s sake, Darcy maintained the pretence of expecting Wickham to the last; but Mrs Younge had surely delivered a warning, and he must know that the game was up. He would never chance an interview now. Darcy could hardly wish it otherwise, even when he saw Georgiana weeping. “You were right,” she said, between sobs. “I was a fool to believe that he loved me.” Darcy knew how much better it was that his sister should spend some hours crying now, than that Wickham should give her cause to cry all her life; but he felt for her with all his heart. “You have nothing to reproach yourself with, my dearest,” he said. “The reproach (in a grimmer accent) lies with those who would deceive youth, and make it the object of their designs.”
They had returned to Pemberley the next
day. From there, Darcy had written to his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. The letter ended, “I am in hopes that Georgiana will recover her complacency of mind before long. However painful her sensations, she has too much proper feeling, and too much proper pride, to indulge herself long in regrets over such a loss. My own pride has had a blow, in comprehending how thoroughly I was deceived by Mrs Younge. (You gave me a warning there, which I was too obstinate to heed.) She flattered my importance, and I unhappily allowed it. Poor Georgiana has had to suffer for my ill-judging: I was as much misled by Mrs Younge as she was by Wickham, and deserve the greater blame. Good fortune alone has saved us both from the most bitter of self-recrimination, and I hope that Georgiana’s pain will be of short duration. For that reason, I have decided — if you concur — not to pursue the miscreants. They deserve exposure; but this would require placing our private affairs before the world; and I do not wish Georgiana’s composure to be further disturbed. As things are, I believe too little cannot be said on the topic. Pray let me know if you approve my decision.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam wrote to express his agreement; and there the matter lay, and might have lain for ever, had not Wickham — by succeeding with Miss Lydia Bennet, where he had failed with Miss Georgiana Darcy — obliged Mr Darcy to reconsider his decision.
Chapter Three
Mr Darcy folded up his father’s letter, and locked it away in its drawer, then went to stand at one of the windows, which looked out over the park; till the sight of Miss Bingley, Mrs Hurst, and some other ladies, emerging from the house, and beginning to stroll on the gravel paths below, caused him to step back. How Caroline Bingley would triumph when she heard the news! — He had not failed to observe her malice towards Miss Bennet during her visit the previous day. — How all the Miss Bingleys and Mrs Hursts would triumph! He could imagine their malicious quips and droll comments, the pretence of pity that masked contempt. They were jealous: jealous that Miss Bennet, in her simplicity, outshone their contrivance. Her manner was not that of the fashionable world — and all the better for it.
He felt a stab as he remembered her words that morning — the last she might ever speak to him. “I am responsible — I am to blame. I, who knew what Wickham was. — Had I but explained some part of it! Wretched, wretched mistake!” He burned with shame that she should blame herself, when it was he who was responsible for the ruin Wickham had brought upon her family. The wretched mistake had been his own, and wretchedly would he pay for it. For one instant, (self would intrude), Darcy could not help feeling sensible of a gratification. She no longer thought him the callous monster who had dispossessed an innocent man of his claim to independence; could acknowledge that in that particular, at least, her accusations had been unjust. And there was farther gratification in knowing that Wickham was no object to her. With that knowledge, a hidden dread was done away, and a long-protracted anxiety appeased; it was something saved from the wreckage. But this could not make him forget his anger against himself. Let Wickham be what he was, his own behaviour was a source of disgust: blinded by vanity; puffed about with pride; and so ill-judging that he had chosen to conceal the errors of others rather than expose his own.
However, there was no purpose to be served in dwelling on guilt; the point was to remedy the evil. At that moment, Darcy’s despair turned to resolution: whatever of amendment lay within his powers must be performed! Again he heard Elizabeth Bennet’s voice, cracked with misery. — “I know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on, how even discovered? I have not the smallest hope.” But something could be done! — he could do something. He was the one person in the world who might hold a clue to where Wickham was hidden — and who would know how to work on Wickham once discovered! Feckless Lydia Bennet might have been, but she should not fall sacrifice to the profligacy of a man more feckless than herself!
His knew his quest would cost him some mortification of spirit; he must encounter baseness, might be obliged to stoop to base manoeuvres himself; but he would not allow that to stop him. In the cause of an expiation so just and rational, he would stand on no dignity, would sacrifice even that pride which he had been at pains so long to maintain. He would achieve this end, though it encompassed the destruction of all his hopes: Miss Bennet’s views of him might never change, but even if they did, an alliance between them would be henceforth impossible, for to have Wickham as a brother-in-law was a degradation he could not bear.
Now that his resolve was taken, Darcy was impatient to be gone. But he knew that his departure must give rise to speculation, and to avoid éclat, decided to keep his intention secret from all the household except only two.
Darcy rang the bell, and inquired whether his sister was gone out with the other ladies. The servant thought not; he believed Miss Georgiana was to be found in the schoolroom. Ascending to the schoolroom, Darcy hesitated at the door, through which he could hear the sounds of a pianoforte. Then, entering noiselessly, he took a chair by the wall. The constraint which often made Georgiana shrink in public fell away at the pianoforte, and she seemed to expand, finding in music a power that allowed her to shed much of her accustomary diffidence. While Darcy had inherited some of the best features of two parents, both uncommonly handsome, his sister had only the benefit of a countenance which shewed good sense and good humour, and the unassuming benevolence that had so characterized their father. However, Darcy was convinced — and with more than a mere brother’s prejudice — that the sweetness of that countenance would afford more lasting pleasure to any circle Georgiana might come to dwell among than that of the most famous beauties.
His burst of applause as she finished, caused Georgiana to look up with a start, but she received his approbation with a flush of pleasure. The book on the music desk contained a piece Elizabeth Bennet had played the day before. Darcy recalled her asking his sister to play another, and Georgiana’s embarrassed replies — she had not practiced sufficiently, would not mar Miss Bennet’s elegant display by a stumbling performance of her own. Feeling again his sister’s painful shyness, he was surprised when Georgiana now said, “I mean to play this for Miss Bennet this evening. It was silly of me to be so afraid yesterday.”
Darcy felt pleasure at the regard Georgiana had come to hold for Elizabeth Bennet, and at the way the wish of winning Miss Bennet’s respect had made her resolve to overcome her reserve. Then blighting consciousness came to disperse all such pleasurable feelings. “Miss Bennet will not be able to dine with us,” followed in tones of deep mortification. “Their party are obliged to leave Derbyshire today. Miss Bennet wished me to apologize, for the unfortunate affair deprives her of the pleasure of seeing you again.”
“Have you and Miss Bennet quarrelled?” Georgiana cried, jumping up from the bench. “Has something divided you?”
It was a vehemence to startle. That Georgiana, generally so restrained by awe of him, should speak with such directness and penetration! “No, no! — Nothing of the sort. Miss Bennet had a letter this morning informing her of some exigency which requires her presence at home.”
Darcy wished that he could confide in her, but it was not in his power. He had given Miss Bennet his promise; her family’s shame must be kept dark as long possible; and to reveal the true circumstance, he would have to speak a name which must give Georgiana pain. He had long wondered what ill effects she had suffered — might still be suffering — from the revelation of Wickham’s dishonourable motives. If Georgiana could have had Miss Bennet for a sister, she might have received a comfort and sympathy which not even the most loving of brothers could afford. But there was no use wishing for what could not be. At that moment, Darcy felt all the awkwardness of being able neither to confide the cause of Miss Bennet’s hasty departure today, nor to explain the reason why he must take an equally hasty departure tomorrow. He could only say that urgent business was calling him away. “He had received a communication from town that morning. He did not know how long he might be gone.” In his absence, Georgiana must
perform the duties of hostess; the comfort of their guests would now be her concern. “There is nothing for you to be frightened of (seeing her look of alarm). They are none of them strangers.”
“Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst frighten me! They always look as though they know something to my discredit.”
Georgiana could not have named two persons her brother felt less well-disposed towards at that moment; but Georgiana had obligations to society, which she must learn to perform. He understood her feelings, however: each in their different way suffered from the same shyness; and therefore —
“Some of a host’s duties, you might justly find difficult,” he said, “and I shall ask Bingley to act as my deputy in those regards. Bingley does not frighten you, I feel sure. No-one could be frightened of Bingley!”
At one time, Darcy had entertained favourite thoughts concerning his sister and his friend; but he had long since abandoned the wish to influence either of the parties. That Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst continued their hopes in this direction, he knew; and from her next, it seemed that Georgiana, too, had caught the scent. “I should like Mr Bingley better,” she said, “if he were not always so complying towards his sisters. But they do with him just as they wish.” Darcy was obliged to turn away to hide his smile. His eye fell on an easel, and he went to take a closer look at a portrait that stood propped against it. Georgiana had not that accomplishment in drawing she had in music, but she had achieved something beyond her usual level in this assay. Perhaps the subject had inspired her.
“This is the best thing you have ever done,” Darcy said. Indeed, it was a most speaking likeness. Georgiana had caught Elizabeth Bennet in a characteristic pose, with her head to one side and her brow raised, as though about to launch one of her shafts of wit. “If you have no objection, I shall take it to town with me, and have it framed.”
His sister flushed with pleasure. She should like that, of all things.