“He was at the Parsonage when I arrived there. Miss Sophia says that he goes there every day.”
“Was he present when you and Miss Robinson exchanged shots?”
“Yes, unfortunately. I do not know that his being there made it any worse, however. He was perfectly discreet and did his best to pour oil on troubled waters.”
“So that was how he came to walk home with you?”
“I would much rather have walked home by myself, but Miss Sophia made such an outcry against it, and after that in spite of all I could say, he seemed to think it was his duty to escort me.”
Darcy said nothing, and Elizabeth feeling the silence to be uncomfortable, continued, “He is evidently still very unhappy.”
“Unquestionably,” he replied, “but the source of his unhappiness is in some doubt.”
“What do you mean?” she exclaimed, amazed that he should have for once formed the same conclusion as herself. It is a strange sort of unhappiness,” she said almost without a pause, “a kind of restlessness. He told me this afternoon that he did not think he could support being here much longer.”
Darcy kept moving about the room, constrained by some idea which he was uncertain whether to impart. Elizabeth, perceiving this, forbore to question him directly and waited for him to speak.
“Did he imply dislike of the place, or anything amiss on our side, or what?”
“He said—or seemed to say—that the spectacle of a happiness so enviable as ours was more than he could endure.”
“That was hardly generous or delicate. Neither was it deserved. Real happiness is not for display and should offend no one.”
“It made me rather uncomfortable, I must own,” said Elizabeth. “Perhaps I have erred in being too high-spirited—too talkative.”
“I have seen nothing of it,” said Darcy smiling. “It is probably nearer the truth to say that our guest was making a bid for pity as a means of attracting attention to himself—the attention of a pretty woman.”
Elizabeth laughed and looked aside. “You have reached one decision about him evidently,” she said.
“One or two perhaps. I am convinced that there is more to know than he cares to divulge. It is apparent to me that he is the son of his father—more thoroughly than I like. But whatever I may suspect remains suspicion.”
“What do you suspect?” she asked, taking his hand. “I believe you have something on your mind. You are hiding it—you cannot deceive me, for there is a look in your eyes that betrays you. If I wished to conceal anything from you, I could do it much better, you know.”
“Indeed,” he replied, endeavouring to preserve his gravity, “I am sorry to hear it. What do you suppose I am hiding from you?”
“Something relating to Mr. Acworth,” she answered boldly. “You have discovered something to his discredit.”
“Many things. There is very little about him that I do like.”
“How tiresome you are, my love. You know I don’t mean that. You have discovered something tangible to arouse suspicion.”
“Any suspicions I may harbour are based on observation. And where, may I ask, are your eyes, Elizabeth?”
“I can see perfectly, but like yourself cannot always account for what I see. And after all I have seen very little of him, and then chiefly at breakfast and dinner when everyone is engaged in the business of eating.”
“A most desirable state of affairs. Continue in the same by all means.”
“How can I when you have provoked my curiosity? You are a most unreasonable creature, Fitz. You seem to forget that I am a woman.”
“I do not think so,” he replied, enfolding her. “That is the last thing I should ever do.”
“Now you are throwing dust in my eyes.”
“No, my dearest, it would be impossible. They are far too wide-awake for that. The only object they do not survey is yourself, except briefly, and perhaps not quite truly, in your mirror. You will never know how you look to me, to me especially—or to others. The best part of you is banished from your own vision, for it is in self-forgetfulness, in speaking, in listening, in looking upon a rose, upon your child that you are most beautiful.”
“You speak as a poet would,” she said softly, touched and also very much pleased. After a short but complacent silence, she asked archly, “Fitz, do I talk like a book?”
“Sometimes you do,” he said startled.
“Alas, how dreadful!”
“Not at all. It was one of your most endearing charms.”
“Was, indeed!”
“It is less extraordinary in a married woman who learns to converse with her husband and his friends on equal terms. But when you were still Elizabeth Bennet, very young, very pretty, inclined to be saucy, the polished fluency with which you at times expressed yourself was extremely diverting. But who, pray, has been telling you that you talk like a book?”
Elizabeth, enraged with herself for falling into her own trap, decided that it was best to reply without hesitation, “Mr. Acworth,” adding immediately, “but it is only fair to say that he apologised when he saw I was displeased.”
“Was this today, when he was walking with you in the wood?”
“Yes. One had to talk about something, you know, and I may have sounded formal and high-flown.”
“Elizabeth, be frank with me. Is this the first time you have had to complain of his behaviour?”
“Indeed it is,” she said, determined to finish with the subject once and for all lest what she had promised to be silent about should be dragged out of her. “I have never—there has never been any previous opportunity for him to be familiar. I will not deny,” she continued in perfect sincerity, “that he interests me in a sense. His gifts alone render him interesting.”
Darcy was silent, his brow contracted with anxious thought.
“Is it impossible to end the arrangement between you?” she asked, but said no more, remembering Acworth’s statement that he had nowhere to go.
“I cannot very well depart from an agreement once entered into unless very good reason arises,” he replied. “Before quitting London I wrote to Lord Egbury, acquainting him with the particulars of our interview, and I feel therefore as much bound to him in the matter as to Acworth. It is certain that Acworth will never become rector of Pemberley, but unless he behaves in such a way as to warrant extreme measures there can be no occasion for dismissing him before the time stipulated between us expires.”
“It is not so much what he does, as what he is, that makes him undesirable.”
“You are perfectly right. I have in fact had considerably more opportunity of observing him than yourself, and there has been much in what I have seen and heard that displeases me. When he is in the company of other men, especially when he has drunk a glass or two, his tongue is apt to run away with him and he will betray an acquaintance with a sort of life that he ought not to have. His knowledge of the world extends downwards rather than in his proper sphere, and I cannot find that he has any respectable friends. He speaks of seclusion from the great world, and yet knows too much of the lower ranks of society. He consorts with professional actors and musicians. He is a vain man, and his indiscretion matches his vanity, for to attract attention to himself he will tell a story that discloses inadvertently what he should be ashamed to relate. Now you know all that is weighing on my mind.”
He smiled so frankly, with such full assurance of whole and undivided mutual understanding that Elizabeth had to force back the words of a confidence that at this moment came easily and naturally to her lips. It was almost an agony not to speak, and feeling that in reality she owed Acworth nothing, and that he deserved less, she bitterly repented having pledged herself to silence on his account. But she had pledged herself, and could not in honour break her promise.
“Do not tell me any more,” she exclaimed impetuously. “It is
better to know too little than too much.” Remembering that she had used the same words to Acworth only an hour or two before, she coloured and looked down. “While he remains here,” she said more quietly, “I must continue to behave to him as I have done hitherto. Any alteration in manner would not do. I cannot altogether avoid him.”
“No,” he agreed. “Fortunately he appears anxious to avoid our society. He doubtless finds the Miss Robinsons very much more congenial. From what I hear they make quite a pet of him.”
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the dinner hour. It was a premonitory announcement, for Elizabeth kept her timepiece expressly ten minutes fast. But it was high time to be downstairs. They quitted the room together.
Chapter 9
When Mortimer first began to be a regular visitor at Pemberley House in the course of riding over for the Sunday duty, he was so shy of the ladies that he neither presented himself nor stayed more than was absolutely necessary for the prosecution of Darcy’s purpose, being impelled only by the desire to oblige his friend and not by any form of self-gratification. But as he grew familiar with the ways of the great house and got on easier terms with Mrs. Darcy, it came to attract him so much that he would invent excuses for calling at odd times, and if Darcy were not at home would cheerfully spend an hour or more chatting with his wife and sister. It was not long before he imagined himself to be violently in love with Georgiana, and then he was drawn chiefly by the desire of securing her hand. Gradually his hope of that dwindled, but his constancy as a caller abated not at all, for he discovered that he could not stay away.
On Acworth’s arrival he had assumed that his services in the parish would be no longer required. Darcy’s request, made within a week, that he would continue them for the present surprised though gratified him, despite his hatred of preaching. He supposed that Acworth’s health was not up to any exertion as yet, for after the first Sunday he was left to support the whole business alone, since it appeared that Acworth’s first appearance in a surplice was not to be repeated. But although he affected to groan under the burden among his Clopwell acquaintance, he was really delighted to feel that he was still of use to the Darcys and was regarded by them as a tried and trusty friend from whom a favour was no longer a debt.
He was not the sort of young man to enquire what it was in particular that drew him to Pemberley so irresistibly. It was enough that with all its state there was no other house where he was so well entertained, where youth, beauty and gaiety reigned with such invincible charms. To be at Pemberley was to be happy. Riding home under the stars after an evening spent there, he would turn over in his mind all that had passed during his visit and contrast the animation of the scene he had lately quitted with the solitude and dullness of the house to which he was returning. Dark throughout, save for one solitary candle burning in the hall, and in melancholy silence, it received him, and thus he went to bed.
That there could be any charm of the picturesque in the ancient abode of the Mortimers did not occur to him. It was all neglect within, a wilderness without, not much worse than he ever remembered it, but none the less a reproach to its owners past and present. He wished to improve it, but did not know how to begin where so much was needed to be done and so much money must be spent. What he did know was that since he had been frequenting Pemberley his eyes had been opened, his ideas changed and his desires extended beyond anything he had ever before conceived for man’s happiness and comfort.
One evening, as he wandered round the lake in front of the house, it struck him that for all the hospitality he had received from the Darcys he ought to make some return. Reflection upon the state of everything, the worn furniture and threadbare carpets, the clumsy and dilatory service of the few ancient servants bequeathed by his father made him seriously doubt the propriety of attempting to entertain them to dinner. He might succeed tolerably well with the gentleman of the Pemberley party, but how could he venture to ask the ladies! Yet that was precisely what he most desired to do, and the longer he dallied with the idea, the more it attracted him, great as were the obstacles in the way of execution, and not the least his own inexperience in the sort of hospitality he contemplated. In his perplexity the image of Mrs. Darcy floated before his eyes, all wisdom, kindness and beauty. He resolved to lay the matter before her to the last and most embarrassing detail, and be guided by her implicitly.
The next morning he took the road to Pemberley at an early hour when he might be tolerably sure of finding her at home. As he rode his horse up the steepest part of the carriage-road through the park he overtook Acworth strolling along in the same direction, and dismounted to walk beside him. Acworth looked so thoroughly out of sorts, so pale and depressed that Mortimer was really concerned to see it, and told him so.
“You don’t look at all the thing, Acworth. Your health does not improve much, I fear. Do you still sleep badly?”
“I hardly closed my eyes last night,” Acworth replied. “They have the habit here of retiring early—half after eleven at latest—and I have been used to very different hours, so that when I go to my room my brain is still too active for rest. The cocks are beginning to crow before sleep comes. I detest the country. For me London has charms superior to any place on earth.”
“I went to Bath several times with my brother when he was alive, and I once stayed in London, but I never got much pleasure out of the town. I had rather be at home in Derbyshire where I can keep my money in my pocket.”
“You are a wise man,” said Acworth banteringly. “Speaking of money, can you lend me any?”
“How much do you require?” asked Mortimer, after some hesitation.
“I require a great deal, a much larger sum than you would be willing to part with.”
“I dare say I can let you have fifty pound.”
“Think no more about it, Mortimer. I was only joking. Fifty pounds would be the fiftieth part of the sum I need for my purpose.”
“Why don’t you apply to Darcy? He is not only rich, but very liberal, so I have always heard.”
“Darcy! Never! He is the last man I should ask a favour of. It would be intolerable to be beholden to him.”
“You do not like him?” exclaimed Mortimer, struck by the acrimony of his tone.
“I dislike him very much,” answered Acworth more calmly. “And I have not the least doubt that he returns the sentiment.”
Mortimer began warmly defending Darcy in the mistaken belief that Acworth could be reasoned into a better opinion of him. The latter bore with his praise of his friend for some moments in silence and with an unmoved countenance. Suddenly he raised a clenched fist and shook it in a paroxysm of fury.
“You do not, cannot, and never will comprehend what I hate in that man. He represents all that is directed against such as myself. Every adventitious superiority is found in him—wealth, rank, a handsome person—so that you all pay court to him. But the real superiority—of mind and talent—that you ignore and slight.”
“I am sure I meant no offence,” said Mortimer in surprise, for he could not believe that Acworth meant what he said. “After all a man cannot help being what he is. And I can tell you this much—Darcy does his duty by his tenants and servants as few men of his station do.”
“Oh, for God’s sake say no more,” shouted Acworth, his face distorted by rage. “If he treats his servants well it is only that they may be the more willing slaves. What would he be without his money? It is that alone which enables him to cut a figure, to pick and choose among the best this earth has to offer. If he desires to take a wife, what woman will not be tempted by the jewels, the finery he can give her, and by the consequence which the being mistress of Pemberley confers? What but his wealth sets him upon his pinnacle from which he can look down upon everyone else? I tell you that I despise him for the inferior being he would appear were he denuded of his grandeur. I hold myself infinitely better than he is by natural endowment, in heart, in br
ain incomparably more gifted.”
He ceased for want of breath. Mortimer had heard him, first with amazement, then with growing resentment. Despite his modest opinion of himself, he had a kind of hardihood, and he now said quietly but with decision, “I do not agree with you at all about Darcy, for I know him to be otherwise. If you dislike him so much as you say, why don’t you quit Pemberley?”
“I cannot properly explain,” Acworth returned in a lower voice and in halting accents. “It is too long, too difficult to relate why. I do not stay here by my own choice, but until I obtain money from a source at present closed to me I am extremely embarrassed and my movements are correspondingly restricted. I will not deny also that to be at Pemberley has its compensations. In short, I have exaggerated as usual. It is a malady of the nerves from which I suffer that I imagine any fancied contempt, slight, or ridicule into the grossest of its kind. Pray do not repeat anything I have said just now. I would not for the world have a misleading impression get about.”
“I should not dream of it,” said Mortimer with serious candour.
“Do not let me delay you any longer,” Acworth said after a few moments. “You intend calling at the house, no doubt. I am not returning there at present.”
Mortimer demurred politely, but on Acworth’s again urging him to go forward, he mounted his horse and rode on. His relief at being rid of this strange companion was very great, and he straightway put him out of his mind which he now addressed to the purpose of his errand.
On reaching the house he was informed that Mrs. Darcy was in the garden and that the gentlemen had taken their rods down to the river. The circumstance, so favourable to a private interview with the lady, could not have better answered his wishes. Alas, he hastened to the garden only to find Mrs. Darcy accompanied by Miss Darcy and another young lady wholly unknown to him. Salutations in proper form followed, and having been introduced to the lately arrived Miss Catherine Bennet, Mortimer stationed himself beside Mrs. Darcy, and seizing the first opportunity which occurred, asked in a low voice whether he might have a private word with her.
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