Jane the Authoress

by Jane Lark

  Arrogance! Conceit! Disdain! Selfish! Could she have used any more vulgar and repulsive words?

  Jane laughed aloud, pleased with the diatribe she had recorded on the paper.

  “You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.” He was the greatest of fools. “Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”

  Damn! Damn it all to hell. The bloody devil. Darcy turned and walked from the room, the heat of his shame, embarrassment and disgust—both at his own stupidity and at Wickham’s false nature—hard at his back. Jane sensed all of his emotion, even though the scene was old. The intensity of his anger skipped through her nerves, along with a deep-seated frustration over Lizzy’s unjust accusations.

  Lizzy’s blood was equally humming with anger. In the original scene, Lizzy’s rage had been solely over the ill-treatment of her sister, his initial dismissal of her and her judgement against his prideful nature. Now, the cause of her temper had a far greater justice.

  Jane turned the pages.

  Chapter 21

  The hour hand on the clock must have past midnight, yet Jane had no interest in the hour, she was enchained to the paper before her by the words and emotions flowing through her hand.

  Darcy hurried back to Rosings, on a tide of just rage. He could not bear to be humiliated. And to be maligned by Wickham! He could not let Wickham’s words take hold and root. They would be spread by her family throughout the neighbourhood around Netherfield. It would not be born.

  Let her think what she might in regard to her sister, he would not deny or regret what he had done there. From appearances Miss Jane Bennet had been aloof, she had shown no affection for Bingley, beyond her mother’s desire for his income.

  But for Wickham to be believed and Darcy cast as the villain. That, Darcy would not stand.

  Jane smiled as she turned the page of her manuscript, pleased with how the story was flooding over within her, like it spilled from the lip of a jug into the heart of a fountain. She knew what would come next and how it would spin a coil of jeopardy that would then run through the whole novel. She dipped the tip of the quill in the small ink bottle, then wiped it carefully.

  Her smile widened when the quill touched the paper once more and she began adding lines in the margins of the page.

  Darcy would not have Lizzy treat the two charges against him in equal measure. He was guilty of the first, but innocent of the second.

  Darcy wrote in anger. “Two offences of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first-mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr Bingley from your sister—and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr Wickham—Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be depravity, to which the separation of the two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed respecting…” Jane crossed out words in the sentence she read and amended them to “each” “circumstance.”

  “I shall hope to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and” the words ‘my motive’ Jane changed to “their motives” “has been read…” She continued reading, her gaze scanning through the words of Darcy’s impatient and intolerant explanation of his separating Lizzy’s sister from Bingley, then she came to the point where his tone must change and turn on to the accusation of Wickham’s poverty at his hand.

  “With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connections with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity…”

  Righteousness burning in his chest, Darcy turned the pages of his letter, just as Jane turned the fresh pages she added to her manuscript in the telling of the truth about the charming Mr Wickham. The false nature of his face, his manner, and his words. He was no gentleman, and Lizzy should not mistake him as one.

  Jane thought of the portrait of the unknown man as the words flowed on.

  Wickham deserved no respect. He was a despicable man. A thief who had hidden within Darcy’s home. A wicked sinful deceiver, for whom Darcy had not one ounce of like or regard.

  To try to steal away his sister as a matter of revenge, when she had been but fifteen. It had been cruel, calculated definitely, and vindictive certainly.

  Perhaps that was why Darcy felt forced to declare his innocence, because he could not stand to face anymore of Wickham’s vindictiveness when Wickham had no reason to be so cruel and selfish. Darcy had given Wickham hundreds of pounds in place of the respectable living Wickham had rejected. Wickham had wasted it at card tables.

  “This madam, is the faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr Wickham.”

  In the previous draft of First Impressions, Darcy’s letter had spurred even greater anger in Lizzy over his unrepentant admission of his involvement in the separation of Bingley and her sister. It was not until he helped Lydia that Lizzy’s views changed. But now…

  Jane crossed out line after line. Lizzy would not feel anger alone, she would be plagued by doubt, and her emotions would swing from one to the other. Could it be true? That was the feeling that would hang in the air about Lizzy. She had made such firm judgements. She had believed wholeheartedly in Wickham’s words, and easily set aside anything Darcy said.

  Why? Because Wickham was capable of performance…

  Because Wickham had an ease among strangers that Darcy did not.

  Guilt made Lizzy blush. Her fingers touched her cheeks. She was so glad Mr Darcy was not there to see. Ought she to feel guilt?

  Yet if Darcy’s tale was true, and she already had good cause to believe it, from her conversations with Colonel Fitzwilliam and Miss Bingley, Lizzy should not merely feel embarrassment—but horror—that she had been such a poor judge of human nature.

  She had been deceived by a pleasant voice and a handsome face—Wickham had spoken so openly to her from the start. Darcy had remained silent… Who did that make the more honourable gentleman?

  Oh, she had been an idiot.

  Jane’s quill touched the paper. “This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!”

  Lizzy put Darcy’s letter away, denying the truth within it. She could not face it. She would not face what it meant. The lies she had been told—the lies she had believed.

  Yet in a moment she could not stand it, she had to read the words again. One or other of the men lied. There was no doubt of that; their accounts from the moment of old Mr Darcy’s death differed entirely.

  Lizzy’s mind sought any moment in which Mr Wickham might have shown integrity or a benevolence that might contradict Mr Darcy’s accusations in his letter, but all she could remember was Wickham’s aura of charm.

  It had been a thin screen, a cloak, hiding the man beneath—who, Darcy claimed, had lived a life of vice and idleness.

  And such a claim—that Wickham had tried to steal away Darcy’s sister.

  Lizzy could not bear to read the words. She had been so foolish to listen to Wickham. Now she heard him speak again, within her thoughts, relating the truth as he accounted it, she realised how wrong it was of Wickham to have spoken so openly to a stranger. To draw such a cruel picture of Mr Darcy.

  When she had asked Mr Darcy to respond to any word against
him, he had been the gentleman and not spoken, when he had been so mortally wronged.

  The moment of their meeting in the street echoed in Jane’s mind and then translated into Lizzy’s. The heightened colour in Darcy’s cheeks, and paleness of Wickham’s. He must have faced his worst horror. Yet it was Darcy who had first touched the brim of his hat.

  Darcy was the honourable man.

  Oh, dear Lord, did that not give his pride some justice?

  Could Lizzy crawl beneath the stone paved floor, or allow the ground to swallow her whole?“How desperately I have acted! I, who have prided myself on my discernment!” Perhaps she was the prideful one. Perhaps all Mr Darcy had been guilty of was a prejudice against the poor behaviour of her family.

  Or perhaps she had been the one who bore as much prejudice as pride.

  Mr Darcy would not leave Lizzy’s mind. He was with her every moment.

  As she was with him…

  When Darcy rode out of the gates of Rosings in his carriage, it was with a heart made of lead. Elizabeth Bennet’s words circulated through his head, over and over. Such cruel accusations. Such vicious beliefs.

  Yet some of her words were true.

  He had professed her unequal to him.

  He had refused to dance with her on the first night of their meeting—and now he knew she had heard.

  He had separated her sister from Bingley—when she had believed her sister in love—and now broken-hearted.

  Darcy breathed out as the carriage turned out of the gates and he escaped further judgement. He must recover from his feelings. They had been misguided. How could he have imagined that a woman of such spirit as Miss Elizabeth Bennet might have any sense of affection for him? He was not a vibrant man. He did not have the skills to charm women, not as Wickham did. His nature was awkward in comparison; reticent and reserved. Those emotions held him back.

  Damn. Was he a prideful and arrogant man, as Miss Bennet had accused?

  The question seemed to echo about the carriage, in the silence between himself and Fitzwilliam.

  Damn Elizabeth Bennet for holding up a mirror to him and showing him the man she saw.

  Why could he not have the nature and likeability of his cousin?

  Lizzy lived out the rest of her visit at the parsonage with forbearance, longing to be home so that she might speak with her sister. She dared not write any word of what Darcy had told her in a letter that would travel through the mail.

  Each day she read and reread Darcy’s letter until she knew it almost by heart.

  Jane turned a couple more pages.

  Lizzy travelled to London from Rosings with Charlotte’s sister Maria, to Lizzy’s aunt and uncle there, to meet with Jane. Lizzy could not wait to share what she had been told about Wickham, but Maria’s and her aunt’s constant presence meant there was no moment to speak, and so when they travelled back to Meryton Lizzy did so with a very heavy heart. Her initial guilt and embarrassment had now become a weight of confusion and frustration.

  Lydia led the welcome party which greeted them as they arrived on the coach.

  The tip of the quill began to scratch across the paper as Jane wrote more lines above the words already there. “Wickham is safe.” Lydia cried as she announced his separation from Miss King.

  “And Mary King is safe!” added Lizzy, thinking of the true colours of the man beneath his scarlet coat.

  Jane Bennet’s sweet nature that could never judge anyone ill, feared both Miss King and Wickham may suffer the pain of a broken attachment.

  Lydia put paid to that notion swiftly. “I am sure there is not on his…”

  No one, not even Lizzy, thought to question Lydia’s knowledge. Lizzy was too caught up in her self-pity for her gullibility, and regret over her insults towards Mr Darcy, and shock—Darcy had proposed to her. Her of all women. A man of such wealth and pride… He had said he loved her…

  The shame of the structure of her reply was a constant weight within her, and now she met her family again, she saw them through his eyes. Lydia was embarrassingly coarse. Certainly he would not choose, with any common-sense, to tie himself to any connection with a girl as vocal and crude as Lydia.

  Then his lack of a common-sense only proved the first half of his declaration true—he had thought himself in love with her…

  Colour heated Lizzy’s skin. She could not tolerate the memory of that conversation in the parlour of the parsonage.

  How badly had she behaved?

  He had professed love; she had professed hatred.

  When Lizzy rode home in the carriage, squeezed in with Lydia and her other sisters, there was a constant mention of Wickham’s name. Yet Lizzy still thought nothing of it. Lydia always discussed the officers, previously it had been Mr Denny on Lydia’s lips. Lizzy shut her ears to Wickham’s name, and looked out of the window. She wished to know nothing of him. Yet there was one element of news that caught Lizzy’s attention. The regiment were to move on within days. She hoped then to have no occasion on which to see Wickham until they did.

  While Lizzy struggled to gain her bearings in the topsy-turvy world she had discovered, Darcy would stand firm and resilient. He carried on his life with a determined air that fought to clear his mind of Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Yet she was always there, he could not forget the intensity of his emotions, nor the intensity of her hatred.

  Chapter 22

  The sheets of paper spoke the words upon them quietly back to Jane as she turned them over. The full jeopardy developed through Darcy and Wickham would not reappear until later in her story.

  Jane turned a few pages back. There was Lizzy’s sister to be told. Just as Jane would tell Cassandra. Lizzy had been bursting with the news—and Jane had not written it.

  Lizzy would wish to tell her sister about this addition to Darcy’s inexplicable proposal, and the things he had written in his letter about Wickham. But she had not told her sister about his cruel interference when it came to Mr Bingley and she would not. She would not distress her.

  Jane Bennet, believer in a world full of goodness, could only think that there must have been some misunderstanding—neither man would lie in her view.

  Yet Lizzy did not see everything through a shade of rose, she looked through clear glass.

  At Longbourn, life returned to normal, except that Darcy was in Lizzy’s thoughts now as much as she was in his. Everywhere she went she was reminded of him, and particularly in Meryton when she recalled the moment of his seeing Wickham.

  Beyond Meryton she could not abide the memories of how she had taunted him about holding grudges.

  The thought of her words brought the heat of a blush to her cheeks each time they were recalled. He must hate her in return now, surely.

  Yet the more she thought of Darcy the more she became convinced of his innocence and Wickham’s lies. And she had not been saved from Wickham’s company; in the last week the regiment stayed in Meryton he was at Longbourn more than ever. He called often and was frequently invited to dine—as a favourite of her family. He sat there with his hearty laugh, easy smiles and quick, lively conversation, charming them all with his lies, even her father.

  The man was false.

  Yet the cold, austere Mr Darcy—true, stalwart and loyal. Throughout Darcy’s stay at Netherfield he had remained silent about the truth, out of respect for his sister.

  Lizzy was no longer certain of anything. On no, there was one thing she was very certain of—how mortally embarrassed she was by her actions the day of Darcy’s proposal.

  Darcy was as angry with the choice of his words and his loss of temper as Lizzy. Yet he had always thought what held at the heart of his nature was honour—not pride. Pride was a horrible word. It bit at him daily when he listened to himself speak and watched others respond, or caught an image of himself in a mirror. He could see it. He could see his appearance and hear his words, he was neither blind nor deaf.

  How could he have thought himself even liked when that was the man Elizabeth Benn
et had seen?

  Darcy’s emotions held in Jane’s heart as she continued writing Lizzy’s part, knowing that Darcy and Lizzy would reunite at Pemberley and then Lizzy would see how much her cutting diatribe had transformed Darcy’s view of himself.

  He hoped that she had read and listened to his words on Wickham and no longer believed whatever charge that man had made. He could not stand to come second to Wickham in her estimations, that would not be tolerated—and there he was, sounding like a prideful man again.

  Lizzy’s words had challenged all he thought he knew about himself; it resulted in many bitter, painful hours of self-judgement.

  Darcy’s story about Wickham made Lizzy challenge all she thought she had known. She had been so sure of her judgements previously, so certain that if a man behaved in one way, he was one thing, good or bad… Now she looked at everyone in the street and had no idea what secrets they hid behind their smiles and acknowledgements.

  Jane found the pages where Lydia was to join a friend and travel with the regiment to Brighton. She crossed out all the references to Denny. She had already written a scene into the story where Lizzy expressed her doubt about the idea, and it needed no adjustment.

  There was a moment to add, though, before Lydia left. Wickham must dine at Longbourn on the last night, and Lizzy must free her mind, to some degree, of its frustration over her misconceptions.

  Jane’s quill tip scratched out the words in a quick flow. Wickham unwittingly opened the conversation, asking Lizzy how she had spent her time at Hunsford, as he tried to reclaim the ill-judged intimate style of conversation they had previously shared.

  Jane smiled as a sense of revenge took hold of her fingers. Lizzy’s desire for revenge may be more acceptable to publishers when her target was the villain. An intensity of the emotion clasped in Jane’s chest and held her breath in her lungs as she wrote on. Lizzy related that Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy had spent three weeks there, then pointedly asked Wickham if he knew the former.