Although he was well aware of the influence of theatrical effects and other subtle deceptions practiced on an audience by lighting and distance, Darcy found that he too was transfixed by the beauty of the figures on stage. The fearlessness, the speed and liberty with which these dancers moved and flew across space, somehow reminded him of Elizabeth Bennet. They too had mysterious, darkened eyes and slender necks. They moved their slender arms in fluid gestures, communicating a fragile strength that had been an intrinsic quality of hers. And then there was that same sense of reckless freedom - something that he had never encountered in a woman before.
All too soon the ballet was at an end. As the crowd cleared away, Darcy stood and pulled on his gloves. Somehow he wanted to be out of the box and the theatre before Richard’s ballerina arrived with her friend and shattered the illusion of ethereal loveliness that had so captivated him.
“You’re not leaving, Darce? Remember, I’ve made arrangements for you.”
“Don’t take it amiss, Richard. I’m just not in the mood this evening. But I’ll leave the carriage for you and find my own way home.”
Downstairs, Darcy stood almost alone on the darkened pavement, waiting to hail a hackney cab. It was fairly quiet: the theatre goers, flower sellers and pick-pockets having melted away. Just over the road a fruit seller laboriously packed up her wares for the night. Further along, a young buck and his blowsy female companion laughed as they passed momentarily through a pool of light cast by a street lamp and then moved off into the gloom. Darcy suddenly felt weary.
Slouched in the cab on his way home, he thought over the events of the evening. He had felt strangely soiled by his cousin’s arrangements and now wondered what had caused him to lose his taste for the ‘high-life’. He could not condemn Richard, who was only behaving as he had always done. It was he, Darcy, who had changed. Perhaps he had recently seen just a bit too much of the way in which women of little means and no protection were abused and exploited by men in society.
As a man, it certainly wasn’t convenient to be sensitized to female suffering in a society in which popular morality made little of a man keeping and abusing a lower-class mistress but roundly condemned a well-to-do individual for marrying out of his class for love. He sighed at his present uneasiness and wondered where his logic and all these inconvenient, shiny, new scruples would lead him.
Chapter 17
“It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to
fight on a battlefield”
W. B. Yeats
St James Park on a sunny afternoon was alive with the excited calls of children, the yapping of small dogs and the wheezy honk of the resident, adult pelicans that gathered in noisy clusters along the sides of the canal. It was not as leafy as the adjacent Green Park, but its largely open aspect offered fine views of the Queen’s Palace and Whitehall. A sweeping expanse of green lawn, ideal for children’s games, was broken only by the fine old elm and lime trees that lined the walkways and banks of a canal on whose deep, green waters exotic ducks and swans glided up and down.
On a whim, Darcy had sent his carriage on ahead and he and Richard had crossed Horse Guard Road on foot, entering the park via the stone pillars of Storey’s Gate. The heat, noise and dirt of the city were all beginning to wear on Darcy’s nerves and it had been his idea to take this long, afternoon stroll through the three adjacent royal parks, which together formed a leafy, green belt between the Mall and his home in Grosvenor Square.
The two men crossed the lawn and then strolled along the canal bank, keeping to the walkway and the dappled shade. Darcy was about to pass a bench on which a young couple with two small children were seated, when he eyed them a little more closely and realised with a start of surprise, that he was looking at Bingley and Jane Bennet. At the same moment, Bingley chanced to look up from the bag of bread crusts in his hand and met his gaze. Darcy watched in surprise as the colour rose in his friend’s face.
“Isn’t that your friend, Bingley?” asked Richard, giving voice to Darcy’s disbelief.
“Bingley,” exclaimed Darcy, immediately darting forward, his hand outstretched.
His friend’s response did not seem as spontaneous; in fact he seemed to rise reluctantly. But as he advanced to meet the two men, his expression gradually altered and in his greeting he sounded almost like his usual self.
“Darcy. Very good to see you. You won’t believe it, but I had intended to call at Grosvenor Square tomorrow. Will you be available then?”
“I will,” said Darcy, looking past Bingley to where Miss Bennet sat between the two children.
“Miss Bennet,” he said, leaving Bingley and Richard together and advancing towards the bench on which she sat. “What a pleasure it is to see you again. These two youngsters are family of yours?” he asked nodding in the direction of the small boy and his older sister.
Jane Bennet blushed rosily and stood to make her curtsey. “Mr. Darcy, may I introduce my cousin, Miss Rosalind Gardiner and her brother Peter?”
“A pleasure,” said Darcy, smiling more naturally and making a deep bow in their direction. The two children immediately jumped down from the bench and responded in kind.
“How are you enjoying London, Miss Bennet?”
“Very well. Of course I miss my family and Longbourn but I’m very happy here, sir. My aunt has just been safely delivered of another boy and so I am caring for the children until she is able to take up the reins again. But as you can see, they are very polite. No trouble at all,” she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard and smiling warmly at the two youngsters who sat squirming on the bench behind her.
“And your family back in Hertfordshire? They are all well?”
“Perhaps I should be asking you, sir,” she responded. “You left the area after me - some twelve days ago now, I believe.”
“I’m sure that Bingley has told you that everyone was in good health,” said Darcy. He hesitated, but in the end was unable to prevent himself from asking, “I suppose that I was wondering if there had been a successful conclusion to the Reverend Collins’ visit.”
“You are referring to his plan to marry one of us, I imagine,” said Jane Bennet, blushing delicately. “I can’t say that I have heard. As I remember, he was to be there for a se’nnight which means that he would have left about a week ago. My sister is a good correspondent and wrote just before he would have left, but she mentioned nothing about an engagement in her letter. Had she any news, I feel sure that she would have told me. Perhaps he waited until the last day of his visit to make his offer. Of course, he might also have reconsidered the matter entirely.”
Bingley and Richard now joined their company and the usual introductions between Miss Bennet and Darcy’s cousin were performed. A short silence fell during which Darcy looked up and saw, with shock, the look of infinite gentleness in Bingley’s eyes as he steadily regarded Miss Bennet. He really loves her, Darcy thought and immediately began to feel their presence as an encroachment on his friend’s time.
“Well, Miss Bennet, we will be taking our leave of you. I hope to see you tomorrow, Bingley,” said Darcy, swallowing a lump that had suddenly made its presence felt in his throat.
They were about a hundred yards down the path when Richard remarked, “What a stunning beauty Miss Bennet is, Darce. I can’t say that I have seen another to rival her in all the years that we have been on the town.”
“Yes. Indeed, the whole family is extremely handsome.”
“More so than Miss Bennet?”
“No. No, I believe that she would generally be considered to be the beauty of the family.”
“You sound as if your preference could lie with another sister?”
“Not at all. ‘Tis merely that I find Miss Bennet’s nature a little too calm: too polite and accommodating.”
“Those qualities would be considered virtues by most,” observed Richard, his eyebrows raised.
“That’s true
. However, I find that when my attention is engaged by a lady, it’s because I have been challenged in some way. Perhaps that is why I have been so difficult to please. I suppose that I primarily look for a passionate nature and most object to blandness: to apathy and the complacency that comes from never examining or questioning accepted norms and beliefs.”
Fitz looked curiously at him. “You surprise me, Darcy. Of all people, I would have considered you the most traditional, the most set in your way of doing things. You dress very conservatively and belong to just one club: the same one that your father belonged to before you. Also, I have only ever seen you associate with the same small, select group of friends that you made at school and university and yet you say that you prefer a woman who is prepared to step outside of the norm?”
“None of the things that you have said make me a follower, Fitz. I still think for myself. You do not take into account the fact that I am naturally reserved and do not welcome attention,” said Darcy, a little irritated that this matter had to be explained to someone who knew him so well.
“Very few of us have close friendships outside of the ton as I have with Bingley. That alone should tell you that I am willing to ignore convention. With regard to my other friends, I simply believe that there is more value in an established friendship. Take our current conversation: I would never dream of responding to the observations you have made about me with a mere acquaintance. I would consider them intrusive; whereas the longer the relationship between friends, the richer and more honest the insight one is offered and is prepared to offer.”
Fitz smiled in silent amusement at his cousin’s subtle rebuke. “No wonder you have never found a suitable lady, Darcy. Not only do the family demand that she have wealth and the right connections, but to meet your standards she must be a beauty and an original thinker. To add to that, she would have to be bold enough to breach your defences (which are considerable) because, unless she is, she will not be given the opportunity to demonstrate just how unique and worthy of consideration her thoughts are! No Darce, I see no help for it: this paragon does not exist and I predict that you will give up the hunt and be settling for a marriage of convenience with Cousin Anne by this time next year.”
Darcy felt that he could not argue with this observation. He felt a strong need to change the subject and as Richard was shortly to depart on a tour of duty, encouraged his cousin to embark on an in-depth discussion of the progress of the war on the continent.
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Richard and Darcy had imbibed a little too freely after dinner and in the small hours of the morning Darcy awoke with a raging thirst. Two glasses of water later and he found that he was wide awake. Abandoning any attempt to sleep, he drew a wingback chair nearer to the fireplace and stirring the coals, tossed a few small logs onto the banked-up fire. Yes, autumn was almost upon them and the warmth that had built up during the day had dissipated, leaving a definite nip in the air. It wouldn’t be long before the leaves were on the turn. He wished himself back at Pemberley sharing the best of the season with Georgie, instead of marking time on his own here in town.
An hour passed and still he sat there, not looking at the book on his knee but staring into space. Darcy was thinking of Richard’s words that afternoon and wondering whether there was an element of truth in what his cousin had said. Was he such a dull dog? Had he unknowingly narrowed the boundaries of his life, restricting himself to just a few friends and several well-established interests? Certainly he no longer looked on the world with the same passionate interest that he once had; with the excitement that Richard, who lived to serve his country, still seemed to have for both his career and his personal life.
Until now, Darcy had assumed that his disenchantment with life was a natural result of maturing: of becoming so familiar with all that the world had to offer, that nothing was as new and significant as it had once been. But now he compared himself with Richard and asked himself if this feeling of being half-alive could be changed? After all, he had felt his spirit stirring recently in Hertfordshire when, for brief periods, his senses had been heightened and the world had, once again, been a magical place. However, that was no doubt due to the effects of his infatuation with Elizabeth Bennet. He couldn’t fall under someone’s spell on a regular basis just to alleviate his disenchantment with life.
Was it possible to lose this feeling of constant disillusionment, to regain some of the wonder that he had known as a younger man? If not wonder, then a more mature equivalent: perhaps the enthusiasm for life that might come with living for a greater purpose - like Richard did. Would he do it and what would it require on his part? What would his purpose be?
He felt almost as if he were swimming, straining to reach land and all the while being held back by the undertow of his incomprehension. Perhaps he could find the answer by looking squarely at what he was now and what he had once been. Who then was this man, Fitzwilliam Darcy? What were his values? He felt a little foolish as he asked himself these questions. Surely this was something that should have been asked and answered long ago?
Before him was a wall of incomprehension, but Darcy was now quite determined to persevere, even when at first it seemed that no answer would be forthcoming. He didn’t get up to pace about as he would normally have done. Instead he forced himself to focus: sitting quietly, turning the idea over in his mind until slowly, painfully, something began to surface.
He was a Darcy. With every decision, his first consideration was how the matter at hand might affect his family and his position in society. Indeed, when he thought about it, his idea of himself as a person was inextricably linked to all he imagined the previous heads of the Darcy family to have been. Yet surely a man must act in a manner of his own choosing? To model himself after his forbears was to give up all self-determination - to become a mere tool in the hands of others.
At university, before he had taken on the burden of his inheritance, he could vividly remember being a passionate and idealistic debater on a variety of topics of social importance. Had he lost his original values of universal justice or were they still buried somewhere deep inside him? If so, why had he suppressed that idealistic self? Had the power attached to the Darcy name seduced him into abandoning who he was, to become this mere imitation of his forbears: this person who considered that wealth and position made him automatically superior to almost everyone around him?
As he asked these questions, Darcy began to see that he had been sleep-walking for years: keeping himself busy by filling his life with so many distractions that he had left no time to consider what he personally valued. Ironically, it had been Wickham and then Richard who had pointed out his unthinking obedience to the rules his ancestors had lain down. The point had taken a while to filter through, but he admitted now that since his father’s death, he had never really chosen his own path and, as the old saying has it: a man who postpones his decisions will, in the end, have his choices made for him by circumstance.
It seemed obvious now that the pride he had felt did not come from his personal abilities. It came from nothing more than belonging to an ancient and powerful family. In other words, he had no personal reason for pride. He felt humbled by that thought, especially when he considered the idealistic, young man he had once been. Yes, he had not lived up to his potential. This sour feeling that had underlain everything for so long was disenchantment with himself.
He saw now that doing his duty was not enough of a reason for living. He knew that responsibility for the well-being of his family was important to him, but he could remain responsible for them and still adhere to his own principles. What he longed for, what he needed was personal fulfilment: the freedom to shape his own goals. To do that, he must resist seeing himself as an instrument of history: merely one in a long line of heirs to the Darcy fortune, bound by tradition to follow slavishly an established way of life and never ever to put a foot out of line.
It was obvious that his approach to life had to change. If he was
ever to be happy, he must develop his own philosophy: his own reasons for living. Put simply, he had to learn which values he most cherished and what would make him happy and allow those to direct his actions. He had an idea of what his values were, but he accepted that he would constantly need to think and test his response to matters that arose in his daily life against his own deepest instincts. Following where his personal convictions led him would not be convenient or easy. He would incur the criticism of his peers – he was sure of that.
His thoughts slid back to the night of the ballet. There had been an example of following his personal values. Darcy now saw that when he had refused to join his cousin as he dallied with his opera dancer, he had already begun to feel the stirring of his natural morality. He had always viewed the callous way in which women were treated with some distaste and yet, until recently, had unthinkingly done as others did and indulged his senses - taking advantage of feminine weakness and their lowly position in society. He would do it no longer.
It appeared that in the future he would be following an unchartered course. He would be losing some of his old pleasures; but they had been guilty indulgences and nothing worth doing came without a cost. He knew that he would feel insecure initially without his old ‘Darcy’ frame of reference to fall back on, but surely - in honouring himself and his deepest convictions – the man in him could begin to live with passion again?
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“I know that we haven’t seen much of each other since our return to London, Bingley. But business has occupied me.”
Darcy’s voice faded away as he thought about Wickham and the reason that he had returned to town. The role that he had played in that affair was yet another instance in the recent past in which his instincts had risen up to guide him. There he had his used his wealth and connections to redress a wrong and, in so doing, had prevented Wickham from perpetrating further evil. He was only ashamed that he had not recognized his duty earlier.
The Golden Apples of the Sun Page 13