He looked down at her in incredulously, doubting his senses; she met his gaze with a warm, open, and slightly apprehensive look. Having, in his most disordered imaginings, presumed to hope for no more than a slight thawing towards him, this sudden development was stunning, unbelievable. He stopped, momentarily robbed of the capacity for movement, and stared at her in disbelief; but he knew Elizabeth would never toy with him in this way, and, as the possibility of its being true made itself felt, he stammered out: “What can this…are you saying…?” He paused, watching uncertainly; then, as he became convinced that she did speak from her heart, that it was no misunderstanding, an irrepressible exultation seized him. “Elizabeth, do you really…am I truly authorised to speak? —can you truly feel a regard for me? God in Heaven…if only you knew! —for so long have I dreamt of winning some slight approbation, but I despaired of its ever coming to pass.”
Elizabeth looked down as he spoke, but made no move to step away from him, nor did she appear to wish him to stop. Her arms clasped round her middle, and she hugged them to her with a soft, gladsome little sigh; at this, Darcy’s heart overflowed, and in his joy he spoke in ways he never dared imagine he might: “My darling Elizabeth! —just speaking your name is perfection, and rapture beyond all hope! No—‘tis impossible to feel so much…this is beyond all understanding: it is not the stuff of mortals.” Awe-stricken, carried off into an elation of spirit he had never before experienced, with an almost reverential tone he told her: “You are an angel, sent to save me—truly, you must be: from grey and barren despair you have delivered me unto lush fields of unqualified felicity, and I owe you every thing: every benefit of life I ever hope to know.” His sense of deliverance was overwhelming, but at this point he became conscious of his display of emotion, and his feelings took an uneasy turn; like a child holding a prized and delicate new possession, he almost feared to move, that it all might shatter at an unwary touch. Saying that which he wished most urgently for her to hear, lest he somehow missed the chance, he continued: “You are the most perfect of women, and Heaven alone can know how much I adore you; there are no words to say how profoundly I love you.” Still she neither retreated nor retracted, and he stopped for a long moment, just to reassure himself that they were, in fact, together—now, and for the whole of their future lives.
He bent down to see her face; she was smiling winsomely, but would only meet his eye for the briefest moment. He extended his arm to her and said, “Will you?”
She now looked up at him fully, and her smile brightened until Darcy felt he could hardly bear its beauty. “Very gladly,” was her reply. As her hand settled into its place, he experienced a feeling of peace and wonder unlike any other he had ever known; they began to walk together, although he had no idea of what direction they took.
“Every thing I have done since Rosings,” he told her, most solemnly wanting to open his whole heart to her, “and even longer, I believe, has been to merit your good opinion—although I had no hope of ever earning it. It was your instruction at Hunsford that showed me how empty and insufficient was my understanding, how unseemly my manner. Since that time have I tried most diligently to correct my ways, and teach myself not to hope; how I have longed, with my every fibre, that I could take back the folly and arrogance of my manner towards you, to let you see that I was no longer what you had known; and now…my happiness is beyond comprehension! One thing above all else is evident: this blessing is beyond any virtue I possess—only your angelic temper and benevolence could be capable of forgiving me my transgressions, and to know it makes my love for you all the deeper. You are more perfect than any woman the poets ever dreamt of.”
At length, on the lady’s abiding with him through these fulsome speeches, and becoming assured thereby that she truly approved him from her heart (for only a lover can endure a lover’s rantings), he learnt to trust that this miracle was not going to disappear as suddenly as it had come, and he came back to himself enough to attempt rational conversation. Putting aside his extravagant language, although not, perhaps, completely subduing the high-fountaining feelings which had led to it, he guided them along the lane once more. Trying to think of a subject that might be broached more calmly, with embarrassment to neither, he quickly arrived at that providential affront which was his aunt’s visit to Longbourn.
“My aunt, you must know, was behind my being here to-day,” he told her. “I came expressly to apologise to you for her behaviour. After she finished so thoroughly insulting you, trespassing so horribly on your time and patience, she came to me in London, determined to complete the set by giving me a piece of her mind as well, and to ensure that my addresses would be delivered where they properly belonged—according to her apprehension.” With a smile and a shake of his head, he went on, “To that end, she retailed to me the whole of her conversation with you, most minutely, and all wrapt in a fine, high indignation. It was apparent that she believed such a relation would persuade me of what she deemed an offensive degree of assurance and impertinence on your side, and inform me of your appallingly wilful nature,” he laughed and smiled at her. “But, not knowing how dearly I cherished every least particular of your character, her plan was gravely flawed: it taught me to hope, as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that, had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly.”
Elizabeth coloured as she replied, “Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.”
“What did you say of me,” he protested, “that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.”
Elizabeth generously assured him that she felt her guilt over that evening’s proceedings just as fully as did he; by this did Darcy first learn that she believed that she had been at all in the wrong, took any of the blame on herself for the pain surrounding the memories of that evening. She charitably attempted to deflect an equal portion of the blame to herself, but Darcy’s sensibility on the point was unassuaged. He told her how much her chastisements had affected him: “Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; —though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.”
“I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head. “I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.”
This, Darcy knew too well: what he knew she would not say, was that his behaviour till then had been such that no one could have thought him capable of any sensibility, civility, or policy worthy of the name—he had certainly given her no reason to esteem him—and he told her so; but the lady was still pleased to forgive him, and say again how ashamed she had been of her own contributions to their exchange that evening.
But now he wished to hear of his letter, and what had been its effect. “Did it,” said he, “did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?”
“Will you think me too very contemptible,” she replied, “if I say that, at first, I had no wish to think it at all reliable?” She coloured again. “It required more than one reading before I was persuaded that some parts of it could not but be true, and many more before the whole appeared so to me. I was slow, perhaps, to relinquish my misconceptions, but I hope my reproaches were no less sincere than yours.”
“You were not the first to disbelieve, I assure you; but you were, I am certain, the quickest to correct your misplaced faith. What first convinced you?”
“What you had to say of Wickham and y
our sister: surely this could never be invention, and much of it coincided perfectly with my prior knowledge; then, where belief was once admitted, it was inevitable that I should come to allow to the truth of it all. But still, it was some time before I came to appreciate its full meaning—how far my former beliefs were mistaken. I fear I had allowed my thinking to be swayed against you almost entirely by the misrepresentations of Mr. Wickham.”
“I assure you, my dear Elizabeth—how I delight in that sound!—I know very well how credible are his lies; it has been my fate to have the three I have loved the most—my father, my sister, and now you most especially—all fall prey to his mendacity.”
“I fear, my dear…my dear Fitzwilliam,” she stammered, blushing most charmingly on the first time of saying it, “I fear my fault lay in being too willing to believe what he had to say for himself, and ignoring what was said by others, regarding his character.”
Hearing her call him so, Darcy would have forgiven her far worse than believing Mr. Wickham; so sweetly did his name sound on her lips that, by the time he was called on to reply, he had all but forgotten the sense of what she was saying.
“You must call me that again, soon and often,” was all he said, smiling into her eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As they went on with their walk, Darcy continued to apologise, as his original intention had yet to release him that he might enjoy his good fortune; he was still concerned with his letter, and felt the need to relieve his feelings further on the subject. Try though she would, Elizabeth could not convince him that his behaviour had not been as faulty, nor hers as blameless, as he seemed to believe, and that his liberal self-deprecations were unnecessary.
“I have been a selfish being all my life,” said he, “in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”
“Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”
“Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses.” His thoughts harkened back to that dreadful evening, and, indeed, their entire time in Kent, and he was pained to remember it. Elizabeth, too, had apologies to offer for the part she had played, most unintentionally, in his self-deception; but they could not dwell too long on these errors, in their first impatience to share all.
She mentioned Derbyshire: “I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at Pemberley,” she told him. “You blamed me for coming?”
Darcy was startled by the question. “No indeed,” he replied, “I felt nothing but surprise.”
“Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you,” said Elizabeth. “My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due.”
Again Darcy was surprised and confused by the idea that she could feel she bore any guilt in the matter, or that any degree of consideration at all could be beyond her due. “My object then,” he assured her, “was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.” On saying this last, he smiled at her again, and was rewarded with another of her lovely smiles in return.
“It was in pursuit of those wishes, I confess,” he went on, “that I sought to introduce you to my sister. She is unquestionably the best of my family, and I hoped that you might see, by the rather overblown esteem she holds for her elder brother, that at least one worthy individual could feel a regard for me. I may say you won her over completely; though in all truth she was already disposed in your favour from my mention of you, in my letters from Netherfield.”
Elizabeth, smiling to recall, said, “I was delighted with her; so were my aunt and uncle, although I do not recall her having had quite the beneficial effect you intended. Still, the afternoon was one whose memory I take a great deal of pleasure to recall.”
“She was very disappointed not to have had more time with you; so few of her acquaintance offer the sort of companionship best suited to her nature, and her two meetings with you had left a very strong impression of your merits.”
“And I was very sorry to go, as you know better than most,” she replied, embarrassment writ broadly on her features. She directly changed the topic. “But when did you leave Pemberley? Your arrival in London cannot have been much later than our arrival at Longbourn.”
“I left the day after yourselves, and arrived on the Saturday.”
“So soon as that?”
“I was convinced that there was no time to be lost; I had set my plan in motion before leaving Pemberley, but it was not fully fashioned until the Wednesday following, when I finally discovered Wickham’s hiding place.”
“How could you know what it would require?”
“I began planning it at the inn, as soon as I recovered from the first shock of hearing Wickham’s name connected with some one of your family; by the time I bid you adieu I knew how to find him; I had much of it arranged in my mind before reaching Pemberley.”
Elizabeth dropt her eyes, saying: “I had thought you repulsed by what I had related, and that your leaving had no other purpose than to distance yourself from the stain.”
Darcy was astounded: “But how could you ever imagine that?” he cried. “My own sister having very nearly done the same, and for the same man, how could I have been offended by your sister taking a similar step? I had no other thought than how best to spare you, as you had spared Georgiana. The two cases are nearly identical.”
Elizabeth thanked him, but she refused to be comforted; as the pain brought on by the recollection of her family’s near ruin was clear on her face; he quickly turned the conversation back to Derbyshire. “Well, then…when we met at Pemberley, confess: you were very loath to see me, were you not?”
“Not as you seem to suggest it, no—I feared to have you find me there.”
“But why?” he asked.
“I feared what you must have thought of me,” she said with the air of a governess correcting a wilfully obtuse pupil. “To have appeared at your doorstep—indeed, in your very hall—after what had passed between us; what would you not think?”
Darcy was quite candidly perplexed: “I had told you I loved you: how could you fear my opinion of you?”
Elizabeth fixed him with a stern eye. “Mr. Darcy, do you ask me to believe that, after having had your addresses spurned so bitterly, so unfairly, your regard for me remained undiminished?”
Darcy confusion only grew. “Of course; how else should I be here, now?” he pointed out. “Why should your well-merited refusal have lowered my esteem? Angry, I was, yes—at first—but anger is fleeting, and when it has passed, what is sound remains. And to realise that, even under the distress my behaviour must have occasioned, you would still speak the strict truth as it was known to you, with admirable forbearance and decorum, I may say, could only increase my esteem for your character.”
“You never stopped loving me?�
�� the lady asked, her manner much softened.
“Never,” he swore. “Even on that very first night, sitting alone at Rosings through the height of my most intemperate resentment, I realised that I had lost something precious and irreplaceable; I was certain that I should never feel whole again.”
Elizabeth offered no reply; she hastily looked down so he might not see her tears, but she stepped next to him and slipped her hand under his arm, and he was very glad to have it there; they continued for quite some little way along their walk without the need for speech.
Some while later, Darcy’s thoughts going back to Hunsford, he asked, “When did your own, very natural resentment at my proposal at Hunsford Parsonage begin to decline?”
“It was not immediate, I confess,” said Elizabeth. “It was much lessened by time and your letter; and surely it was done away entirely when I heard from my aunt what you had done for Lydia.”
“I have regretted that moment in my life, deeply and unrelentingly, since its occurrence,” said he. “Will you understand if I still feel the need to apologise for it, from time to time? I had persuaded myself that nothing but years of contrition could atone for it, and such firmly held beliefs are hard to let go.”
Elizabeth told him, with an indulgent, forgiving smile, “If you insist; but you will please remember that to hear your apology is to re-live the event, and I had rather not be reminded of my own part in it; so I beg you will restrict yourself to the absolute minimum number of apologies required for your own peace.” She smiled again, then went on, “And, if we are to speak of faults, how can I ever apologise enough for my reprehensible defence of Wickham?”
Darcy's Tale, Volume III_The Way Home Page 22
