by Beth Poppet
He rose suddenly. And then sat again. He worried the brim of his hat in hand, rose again, paced, and at length, he put to her in a gruff query, “Miss Bennet, are you much acquainted with George Wickham?”
She had long known there to be ill will between them though she remained woefully ignorant of the particulars. Bursting with curiosity as to how he was acquainted with the gentleman, she did not reproach him for such a sudden and inexplicable question but rather answered in the hopes of baiting him to offer more information. “More than a little. I had the pleasure of spending many an evening with him after Jane married and our friends from Netherfield quit the county.” This was uttered with a decidedly meaningful look. “He had no obstacle in delighting everyone he spoke to. No sudden, conceited airs or undue pride to stand in the way of charming conversation and pleasant manners.”
Mr Darcy’s frown deepened. “Oh, yes. I’m certain he is more charming still than any snake in Eden.” He paced the length of the room again, turning on his heel to face her for the next question. “And are you and he…? Miss Bennet,” he declared with some indignation, “am I indeed forced to congratulate you on your engagement to him?”
Shocked by both the subject of his query, and the impassioned manner with which it was uttered, Elizabeth said, “I cannot imagine a man such as yourself being forced to do anything against your will, let alone offer congratulations you do not sincerely feel.”
“Miss Bennet,” he continued darkly, “you may put off my aunt with your evasive replies, but I insist you answer my question.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she combated, taking offense at his insistence, “but whether I am engaged or unattached cannot possibly be your concern. For one who hardly dares to acknowledge an acquaintance with me whenever it does not suit, how can I answer such an intrusive and personal question?”
“I assure you, I do not ask out of idle curiosity.” There was a fire in his eyes, and his breath come out in heavy spurts, as if he’d ridden hard all morning before calling on her.
Elizabeth could not bring herself to feel sympathy.
“That is well enough for you to say so, but as you have given me no reason to confide in you as a friend, I have no incentive to believe it.”
Mr Darcy expelled sharply, incredulous that she should speak so. “This is all the reply I am to receive? Your prejudiced evaluation of my behaviour is all that is to determine whether the truth will be spoken, or a falsehood perpetuated?”
“As your question pertains to my personal affairs, I think it perfectly just that I should base my confidences in whomever I believe close enough to merit it. If a lie is perpetuated because gossips have spread rumours based on naught but hearsay, the blame can hardly be placed on my shoulders.”
“Except that you have a perfect opportunity now to put these rumours to rest if they are indeed untrue. Have I caused some offence that you should answer me thus?”
Rather than answer, she met his query with one of her own. “Do you deny that your behaviour changed after the Netherfield Ball?”
“I do not, nor have I any wish to. Mr Wickham and I have had dealings the likes of which are entirely inappropriate to divulge in this setting, but they are of a nature so abhorrent that the very sight of him makes my unsociable nature rendered intolerable beyond recovery. If you had truly begun to prefer the company of Mr Wickham I could not subject myself to the pretence of friendship with him, even to gratify you.”
“If the charges against Wickham are as serious as you say, would not the honourable thing be to warn me of his evils rather than leaving us all at the mercy of his devices?” she challenged.
At this he hesitated. He made a great study of the corner of Mrs Collins’s sitting room carpet before replying in a tone almost apologetic, “You seemed… most contented while you danced in the arms of Mr Wickham. I did not think my cautions would be appreciated at such a time.”
“Even less appreciated, you suppose, than now when I am suspected of being engaged to him?” she returned, uncertain whether the whole exchange thus far was laughable or some dreadful tragedy. Receiving no immediate reply, she went on. “Besides, you exaggerate. I was hardly in his arms, Mr Darcy.” She barely suppressed the desire to roll her eyes. “Did it never occur to you that perhaps I appear just as happy while dancing with any man who can follow the steps tolerably enough and willingly engages himself to stand up with me?”
“Not so much as I had observed before,” was his surly reply. “You were excessively pleased to be the recipient of that particular gentleman’s attentions.”
“Is it only natural for me to be excessively pleased when excessively pleasing manners are before me.”
Such pronouncements only darkened his mood further. “Whatever Mr Wickham says, however pleasant his manners, and favourable a portrait he paints of himself, he is altogether a scoundrel of the blackest kind. I cannot tell you more at present, but my dislike of Mr Wickham is founded on a matter most grievous and irreparable.”
“These are serious accusations indeed,” Elizabeth admitted. “But do you expect me to take your word for it that Mr Wickham is a villain? Would you have me spurn his friendship and avoid his company because you have told me… almost nothing? Can a man be so thoroughly branded unsuitable company with such vague and unverifiable accusations?”
“I expect you only to have sense enough to take my warnings with a modicum of trust. Forgive me if I overestimated your discretion,” he said coldly. “It was foolish of me to do so, considering your sisters’ utter fascination with a man in uniform. I might have known you to be just as susceptible to the same.”
“Ah, I see insulting me and all my connexions are to be the order of the day. I wonder that you would trouble yourself to come here at all, knowing how lowly and foolish my relations are. One might suspect that you are merely jealous of a man who has such impeccable manners and seek to belittle him in other’s estimation as you raise yourself.”
“You think so low of me?” he said, his expression pained. “That mere jealousy could drive me to create fables with the intent of besmirching a man’s good name? For me to stoop to such low devices, you must imagine me to harbour a great and unshakeable affection for you,” he scoffed, unsettled by how close to the mark she struck.
“I assure you,” Elizabeth said hotly, “I imagined nothing of the kind. If your behaviour of late has been an attempt to win my affections, you could not have been more covert, nor failed more completely.”
“Believe me, Miss Bennet, though I might have been in danger of forgetting the degradation of some of your relations, the disparity of our stations in life, and even my own natural inclinations, your reply to me now has cured me entirely of any special regard I may have felt towards you at one time.”
The colour rose to her cheeks as she responded. “Then I have spared us both; you from the humiliation of harbouring an unwilling affection for me, and I from the disagreeable task of having to reject you in a ladylike manner. It should come as no surprise to you that I am not wooed by gentlemen who disparage my family and confess a fleeting consideration for me in the same breath, and I cannot think of any woman of sincere feeling who would be.”
He nodded grimly, having heard quite enough of her objections to him without receiving a satisfactory answer to his original concerns. “Well, as you have certainly saved us both an even more unpleasant interview, I should thank you for the pains you have taken to set me straight and leave you now before further distress be thrust upon you by cautions which were kindly meant.” He bowed abruptly and turned to the door.
“Mr Darcy!” Elizabeth called after him, and he hesitated. “On several occasions, Mr Wickham has spoken of being wronged by a gentleman who was in a position to have aided him in his profession. Was it you he meant?”
A weary sigh made the shoulders of Mr Darcy dip momentarily. “He claims to have been cheated of his inheritance, does he?” He nearly growled the next words. “Such a character would make me the
villain and have everyone adore and pity him. This is not to be borne.”
“If Mr Wickham has indeed done you wrong,” she said in a softer tone, “I can say with perfect sincerity I will take no delight in hearing of it, though I do wonder what I am do to with such knowledge.” Mr Darcy still had not gone, and so she finished her thought. “What difference am I to make in the matter if the truth cannot be known regardless?”
Still facing the door, he glanced over his shoulder, though he would not meet her eyes. “It is in your power to assure me he has not tampered with your affections, at least.”
“My affections?” she echoed. “No, I… I thought him most agreeable to converse with, and if there is any virtue to be had in claiming the excellence of a worthy dance partner… But no,” she amended, “you are in earnest and I will try to be as well.
“I have had no offer from Mr Wickham, and though I cannot tell you how fond I really am of him, hardly knowing myself, neither will I disregard what you’ve cautioned me in confidence. I will assume it was kindly meant as you have said and will take care.”
There was a slight nod of his head to acknowledge her.
“But tell me one last thing, Mr Darcy. Was it truly the possibility of my connexion to Mr Wickham that made you treat me with such coldness these past meetings?”
It was then he did turn to face her and answered, “You are very fond of your sister, I know. It is a trait which, though admirable, brings you to Rosings a great deal already. Were you to form a connexion with Mr Wickham… to be much in his company would be insupportable. I could not repress my strong feelings on the matter, and I hope I have not disturbed you.”
“I am not disturbed, though I am unsettled. Know that you have begun something which will not be forgotten until the matter is known in full.”
“I will defend myself by and by, but not here while our tempers are high, and reason eludes us,” he decided. “You will have an answer to satisfy all your concerns regarding Mr Wickham, I promise you that. But as it is not wholly my secret, I am not at liberty to divulge…” He grew silent for a brief moment, warring within himself. “Perhaps, if there is ever a time when you are more intimately connected with… but there.” His posture stiffened, and the mask of stoicism returned. “I have said too much already. I must leave you now lest I continue to make a worse fool of myself than at the start. Give my compliments to Mr Collins and your sisters. Good day.”
With those words, he was gone, leaving Elizabeth with her solitude, and two unopened letters from home.
Too discomfited by far to return to her reading right away, Elizabeth waited several long minutes before collecting her shawl, hat, and gloves, and heading out of doors with the letters in hand. She would go to her secret bench in the grove to read her letters, and practically dared Mr Darcy to encroach upon her now.
In a stroke of luck for them both, he was not there. Elizabeth sat on her favourite bench and attempting to banish all thoughts of what had just transpired between her and Mr Darcy, she tore into the first letter.
The letters were written within weeks of each other, but Lydia’s had been misdirected due to very clumsy handwriting, causing them to arrive together. Hers was a long list of complaints. She declared that it was too bad that Lizzy had all the fun, being able to see Jane, and dine at a grand house every evening, and never write a word of the gowns Lady Catherine and her daughter wore, nor how they set their hair, or how many servants she counted at Rosings on her visit. Lydia insisted that were she to be invited to Rosing’s Park so often, she would not forget to write her sisters about all the splendid things she’d seen there, beginning with the cut and colour of Miss Anne de Bourgh’s springtime wardrobe.
Elizabeth sighed when she reached the passage in which Lydia complained of Wickham’s inconstancy—“for I have been his favourite since you left us, you know,”—and how he was practically engaged to a freckled little red-headed thing named Mary King with a recently acquired inheritance of ten thousand pounds. Elizabeth wondered that the news which was so late in arriving to her would not be known already by Lady Catherine and her nephew, but she supposed it required an informant in town or at least someone intimately connected to a person of interest in Meryton.
Kitty’s was also full of complaints, and she too had a line in reference to Mr Wickham, though Denny and Carter were among the named as she mourned the loss of all their dear militia men who had removed to Brighton. She wrote of the grave injustice of Lady Forster’s invitation for Lydia to come along with her as her personal companion to the seaside, though Kitty was her friend first, and Lydia had wheedled her way unfairly into the invitation while Kitty was laid up with a cold. Their father had profusely forbidden it upon the first, but as Mama and Lydia pestered him day and night until he “wearied of his very life,” as Kitty so delicately put it, he had no choice but to let Lydia go as well as supply her with the funds to purchase three new gowns and a whole host of trimmings besides. There were blots on the paper; tell-tale signs that Kitty had been crying as she composed the letter, and for an overwhelming moment Elizabeth felt as if she might belatedly join her in weeping.
The whole of her reading had taken up more than an hour, despite the letters’ lack of real substance and length, and Elizabeth was surprised at how late in the day it now was, according to the sun’s position in the patch of sky just visible beyond the wild trees. It had taken her far too long to really read them as despite all attempts she could not focus on the words before her, dwelling almost solely on the conversation that had previously taken place between Mr Darcy and herself.
That Wickham was in pursuit of an heiress to a fortune was by no means remarkable or worrisome. For a man in his position, many would consider it prudent rather than mercenary. And Elizabeth decided she was not so very fond of him that she felt any keen disappointment in the news. That Mr Darcy now accused him of some mysterious wrong gave her pause. Not because Wickham had shown even the slightest sign of guilt, but for the vehement way the stern and unyielding Mr Darcy had behaved to her in the telling of it, so different from the strained way he had accustomed himself to addressing her of late.
Some of his more passionate expressions flit through her mind. The way he fumbled and stuttered for words regarding her possible affections for Mr Wickham, and an unfinished thought, hinting at whom she might someday be connected with. She could no longer declare with any confidence to Jane that Mr Darcy had not been in love with her before. Though with abundant clarity he had made it known to her that he was no longer.
Elizabeth tried to blame him for such inconstance, or scoff at such remonstrances, but found herself regretting her own harsh rebuttals and sharp replies instead. She could not imagine what wrong was in Mr Wickham’s power to inflict on a gentleman of such means as Mr Darcy, but if it affected him so deeply, it could hardly be a matter of mere monetary loss.
With a heavy heart, Elizabeth rose from the bench, her limbs protesting the movement after having been idle so long. She swung her arms back and forth in an effort to alleviate some of the aches, and as she turned to head back up the lane, she was startled by the sight of Mr Darcy standing there, hand thrust towards her, a letter within.
“I suspected I might find you here,” he uttered gruffly. “Please forgive yet another intrusion, but would you do me the honour of reading this letter?”
She took it and wished to say something in return; a kind or encouraging word to undo some of the sting she had let him part with before. No sooner had she decided she must say something to him and end the dreadful silence than he had turned back towards Rosings and was out of earshot for any genteel sort of call.
Chapter Thirteen
“Poor Miss Darcy!” Jane cried when the contents of Mr Darcy’s letter was known to her through Elizabeth’s telling of it. “Poor Mister Darcy! Is it quite certain? There was not some dreadful misunderstanding?”
“No, Jane,” Lizzy despaired of her sister’s persistence upon everyone’s innocence be
ing maintained. “There could not possibly be any confusion. Miss Darcy confessed the whole of the sorry matter to her brother just as soon as he prevented the elopement. Had he not chosen to surprise her with his visit that day… Well, let us say a very different sort of reputation would be circulated about Miss Darcy over the one that is currently established. Miss Darcy herself could have no reason to make the matter seem more scandalous than it was at the time, and despite the suspicions I voiced to him in person, I cannot believe Mr Darcy would invent such a tale for any reason, base or noble.”
“And there is no mistake in the letter?” Jane pressed. “No misunderstanding of intention or events on your part?”
“You may read for yourself; it is all here in his letter, Jane. There are names and particulars of all those involved; both location and dates, the likes of which are not easily fabricated. Mr Wickham himself gave vague complaints regarding a neglect to aid him, which I can now assume was an attempt to vilify Mr Darcy’s retribution regarding his sister’s entrapment. A retribution which was more than fair, considering the circumstances.”
“Yes, Lizzy, but why should Mr Darcy chuse to tell you of all this? Does he wish for you to make it known to our relations and friends?” She said this most anxiously, struggling to stomach the thought that a man might lose his reputation through means of her own, however deserved the fall in respectability.
Lizzy did her utmost to assuage her fears. “I do not think he intended me to take up the mantle of informant. He has given me no indication of such. That fact must speak further to his intention only to caution me against Wickham, as to concoct such amazing fables out of spite could not profit him at all if the matter must still be kept secret.”
“What did he say to you before he gave you the letter?” Jane asked, puzzled. “What could have prompted such a recounting of events in the first place?” Not knowing how to begin, Elizabeth sought to form her answer, and Jane took advantage of the silence to ask one more question. “Has Mr Darcy proposed to you, Lizzy?”
