Lessons of Advantage

by michael sand

  “Even so,” Darcy said, “I cannot acquit myself of culpability. It was my decision not to expose the man; it was owing to me that his character was not known. If I had put society on its guard, this elopement could not have taken place. And I have an additional motive. My friend Bingley entertains a regard for the eldest Miss Bennet. If the Bennet family suffers disgrace, it will be impossible for him to marry her.”

  The Colonel remained doubtful. From all he had collected, Mr Bingley fell in love every other month. (In truth, Colonel Fitzwilliam did not think so highly of Bingley as did his cousin. Gentleman-like enough, to be sure, but altogether too pliant and yielding for the Colonel’s taste.)

  “That may have been true at one time,” Darcy replied. “But Bingley has remained most constantly attached to Miss Jane Bennet, a thoroughly estimable young lady, despite their having been separated these eight months.”

  “I am glad to hear he is so constant. I recall that when we met in April, you had just been obliged to rescue him from — ”

  The Colonel broke off in confusion. “Is it possible Miss Jane Bennet was the person you meant? If so, I am afraid that I have inadvertently — But (taking a deep breath) I had better confess every thing at once. A day or two before we departed Rosings last April, I encountered Miss Elizabeth Bennet walking in the park. Mr Bingley’s name was mentioned, as a friend of yours, and she said that you seemed to concern yourself a great deal about his welfare. I agreed; and as an example of your care, I instanced what you had told me of having disentangled him from an unsuitable attachment. — I did not realize it was her sister you meant! I remember now, Miss Bennet grew pale — complained of headache — was obliged to return to the house. I must have been giving her exquisite pain; and, I fear, giving rise to the greatest resentment towards you, as well. I hope you may be able to forgive me.”

  Mr Darcy was feeling all the vexation of a merited shame. After a time, he exerted himself to speak in something like his natural tone, —

  “Miss Bennet’s resentment was entirely justified,” he said. “I acted unpardonably in interfering in Bingley’s affairs — and in her sister’s. I do not think she has forgiven me.”

  “But surely, when Miss Bennet learns of the signal service you have done her family, gratitude alone — ”

  “I hope she never does learn of it! I do not act in order to be thanked. To right a wrong in the expectation of reward, — a wrong of one’s own commission, — would be base indeed.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam admired his cousin’s nice sense of honour, but hoped that he would not prove too honourable for happiness. “I shall visit the War Office today,” he said, rising with energy, eager to make whatever amends lay in his power. “Send your man of business round tomorrow, and I shall give him the necessary directions. I suggest that you nominate some trustworthy person to hold the commission, however, and provide it to Wickham only as proxy. Commissions may be sold as well as bought.”

  Soon after the Colonel’s departure, Darcy went to spy out the land in Cheapside. His position was somewhat delicate, for though he wanted to see Mr Gardiner, he wished to avoid seeing Mr Bennet, whom he believed still residing with his brother. Inquiry in Gracechurch-street eliciting the intelligence that Mr Bennet and Mr Gardiner were gone out, he went away, resolving to call again on each successive day till Mr Bennet should have quitted town.

  It came on to rain in the afternoon, a chill, lashing rain, that made Darcy grateful to have a fire lit in the library for all that it was August — nothing of summer appearing but in the green trees, which the wind was stripping of their leaves, and in the length of the day. Darcy preferred the country to town; but he spent part of each season in London, more from a conviction that a gentleman must take some part in the rational life of the capital than from any great anticipation of pleasure. Nor did he greatly care for Fitzwilliam House, whose arrangements possessed too much of the overcharged magnificence of former ages, and displayed an admiration for French tastes which Darcy considered excessive: the French, in his opinion, being a race always willing to sacrifice comfort for the sake of a cold and glittering elegance. It had been the townhouse of the Fitzwilliams till it had come to the senior Mr Darcy as part of Lady Anne’s dowry.

  The marriage of Mr Henry Percival Darcy and Lady Anne Fitzwilliam had been widely celebrated in its day — and generally considered a greater honour for the groom than the bride; for where the pages of the Baronetage were liberally bestrewn with Fitzwilliams, the Darcys, though of ancient stock, were not ennobled. There were those, however, who thought the advantage to have lain all on the wife’s side — the haughtiness for which the Fitzwilliams were equally known, being sensibly diminished in Lady Anne Darcy, and transformed into some thing more nearly amiable through her husband’s warm nature and unfailing sweetness of temper.

  Darcy had been meditating very often of late on certain elements of comportment which appeared to have passed down to him from his Fitzwilliam ancestors: an over-great formality, a too chilly pride, a dignity too often stood upon; a manner that verged on the overbearing, and a sense of importance, in thinking well of his own family’s worth, which gained over much strength from thinking meanly of every one else’s. This was not his father’s mode of conduct, but he had frequently beheld it in members of his mother’s family; and though he held these relations in less esteem than he did his own respectable parents, he was obliged to admit that he saw their conduct reflected in his own. The only failing he could ascribe to his parents, was that they had allowed these faults to go unchecked in him; had not taught him to correct his temper, either from indulgence or the belief that he would eventually correct himself. Small wonder, then, that to a discerning mind, — a mind nice in its judgement, — the pride which he had thought under such good regulation should appear as arrogance, and the conviction of the rightness of all his opinions as conceit!

  Darcy rose and walked to where a picture, newly arrived from the framers, rested against the wainscot. Miss Elizabeth Bennet smiled archly at him from the canvas; but something in her eyes looked to be calmly taking him in and reserving judgement. “Others may idolatrize,” they seemed to say, “but I see feet of clay.”

  It astonished him now to think how little he had esteemed her beauty when first they met. At the assembly at Meryton, he had scarcely looked at her — or had looked without seeing. If he had thought of her face at all that evening, it would have been only to see its blemishes; to judge it insipid, hardly even pretty — without a single good feature — her cheeks too plump, almost puddingy, and her eyes like raisins in the pudding. “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me!” — What insufferable arrogance! — and blindness even worse!

  The occasion on which he had first regarded Miss Bennet with any degree of observation had been the day she came to Netherfield to nurse her sister. She had looked wind-blown after her walk from Longbourn, her face flushed from the exercise — but what brilliancy there had been in her glance, and what self-possession in her carriage! Even the mud on her gown had seemed to become her. And when she had joined them in the evening, how simple yet elegant she had appeared, her figure enchanting with its lightness and grace. Every feature seemed to please without overpowering, particularly her eyes: bright, expressive, and alive with intelligence.

  His memory of that evening was of the most intense. It had been the occasion of the first of their passages — not of arms, but of wit. He had been taking his friend Bingley to task for carelessly describing the generality of young women as ‘accomplished’, and pronouncing pompously on the accomplishments which a truly accomplished woman — “of whom he knew scarcely half a dozen” — would have to possess truly to deserve the epithet; and she had pricked his conceit with a word. — “I wonder at your knowing any.” All their encounters had ended thus, with her deftly parrying his ponderous lunges. His attacks, however, had been blunted by a powerful feeling which fought on her side, whereas she had been free of all such restraint. That had been
the moment when he had perceived Miss Elizabeth Bennet for the first time — had understood that there was a Miss Elizabeth Bennet to be perceived. The same moment had planted a valuable seed of doubt concerning the inviolable solidity of all his opinions, which was to flower later in his wondering how he had come to be forming this ideal of the accomplished woman — knowledgeable in all arts, conversant in all modern languages — this woman of substantial information and wide reading. Perhaps it had sprung from the wish to guard himself against the susceptibility which often led men of first-rate abilities to make foolish marriages.

  He thought of some of the accomplished women he had known. — Of Miss Anne de Bourgh, his cousin, who had passed the greater part of her life confined in her father’s library, and could express herself — when she could be got to speak at all — knowledgeably on many subjects. But though Darcy admired her mind, he could not admire her person. Miss Sophia Osborne of Osborne Hall, in his own county of Derbyshire, suffered from no such disadvantage. Miss Osborne, sufficiently well-looking to be considered locally as ‘a fine girl’, was notable for the seriousness of her principles. She had read extensively about the rural poor, and had set out — often with Darcy in tow — to address the problem in her own country. Miss Osborne did a great deal of good and made many improvements; but having a strong conviction of the correctness of all her views, she was inclined to be peremptory about how those improvements should be effected, and to domineer over her subjects, albeit for their own good. Her cottagers might not agree with all her dictates, — as when Miss Osborne chose to improve their lot by closing down the taverns, for she was adamantly opposed to the drinking of beer. The poor would never rise to respectability as long as they would drink. Therefore, they should cease to do so.

  Darcy wondered how he should have liked marriage with Miss Sophia Osborne. Would he be happy sitting across the table from a treatise on improving the land, or walking round his woods with a mine of information about rural poverty? Till lately, it had never occurred to him to question the justice of his opinion as to the universal advantage of firmness of character; or to see that, like other qualities of mind, it should have its proportions and limits; to see that accomplishment, in man or woman, might have as much to do with temper as information, and that a playful disposition might be as valuable for happiness as an informed understanding.

  He saw that he had been deficient in judgement, vain of his understanding, — and vain enough to think no deficiency possible in either. He had always striven to avoid “the weaknesses which expose a strong understanding to ridicule”, but he had never considered the need to avoid that inflexibility of opinion which exposes a strong understanding to self-deception. He had made it his object that his feelings should not be “puffed about with every attempt to move them”, without perceiving the danger of insensibility: that never to be moved might prove a worse fate than being moved too easily. With all the manifold advantages of his position, he had never benefited from exchange with an independent mind, capable of forming its own judgements, without being overpowered by his; capable, too, of opposing his views when they were in error. Opposition — indeed, disagreement of any sort — he had experienced but little. The young women he encountered were too aware of his greatness, his wealth, his eligibility, to do other than agree with any thing he might choose to say. Miss Elizabeth Bennet was the first to find it possible to give a decided negative to his confident statements on all subjects. He could see her still, seated at the pianoforte in the great drawing-room at Rosings, speaking across him to his cousin the Colonel, and coolly picking apart his paltry excuses for his aloofness in public. — “He had not known any body at the assembly at Meryton (referring to their first meeting). — He could not converse easily with people he was unacquainted with.” “And I ,” she had retorted with well-deserved mockery, producing a dissonant chord out of the keys, “should play a vast deal better than I do — if I made a greater effort!” He could not say when he had first become enamoured of Elizabeth Bennet, but it was at that moment at Rosings that he had known himself in love.

  Not that his feelings had deserved the name. What he had then called love, seemed now the most selfish of emotions, void of all proper feeling. He was bitterly ashamed of the shallowness of his views. In what ill-conceived attitude of mind had he then proposed to Miss Bennet! —To be believing that he was gratifying her wish and fulfilling her expectation, when every word he spoke was an offence, every thought coloured by insufferable conceit and deluded vanity; when his manner of speaking and thinking were filled alike with a condescension to disgust. She had rejected him — naturally! — as any woman of spirit would. And what a revolution her words had caused, what a complete reversal of all his opinions of himself! “You could not have addressed me in any possible way that would have induced me to accept you.” —

  At first, the mortification which had followed her rejection, had not allowed him to accept its justice. He had been too angry, and for a time after he left the rectory at Hunsford, he had been sure that he hated Elizabeth Bennet. She had believed Wickham’s lies — had believed him capable of the most infamous behaviour! The thought that Wickham might have gained Miss Bennet’s undeserved regard, had then been a cause of exquisite pain; and the wish to undeceive her had not been the least of the motives urging him to write to her.

  But gradually the selfishness of angry feelings had given way. Though mistaken about Wickham, she had been right in her condemnation of himself. — “If you had behaved in a more gentleman-like manner — ” He should never forget her rebuke, so well-deserved; had only to invoke the words, to resolve anew that he should never deserve them again! She had shewn him that the qualities he so much prized might be perverted into chill formality and cold pride. He had always believed that every disposition had a tendency to some particular evil; he now saw, that in fostering an ideal of behaviour which was to be cool and unmoved, his own evil had been to elevate sense to the exclusion of sensibility. He should henceforth strive to find a balance between the two. How fortunate it had been, after all, that his attraction had proved too strong to resist! Ill-judged though his proposal had been, it had begun the breaking through of those barriers he had so relentlessly erected against proper feeling. Once he had acknowledged the justice of her reproofs, his anger had taken a proper direction — against himself. It was not too late to correct those faults of temper. He had resolved to do so, and to behave in such a way that, should his actions ever come to the notice of Elizabeth Bennet, she should see that her reproofs had been attended to.

  It had been the most painful epoch of his life, but he would not on any account have escaped the experience. The humbling recollections which were always intruding on his mind, had been lessons of advantage. He had been made aware of his fallibility, and of the way in which strengths, if indulged to excess, might turn into evils. And yet, though downcast, he knew himself more vitally constituted now than in times he had formerly considered happy. Elizabeth Bennet might never be his wife, but she would remain in his mind for ever, the figure which lent perspective to all views.

  Chapter Nine

  “Lizzy? Are you there?”

  Elizabeth Bennet, gazing out her bedroom window with a book held unregarded in her hands, looked up to see her aunt standing in the doorway.

  “I beg your pardon, my dear. I knocked, but you seemed not to hear. I am come to say goodbye.”

  Elizabeth jumped up and embraced Mrs Gardiner with a smile, which almost gave way to tears as she said, “Are you going? I shall miss you, dear Aunt, but I am not so selfish as to be wishing you to stay. The children must be wanting their home, and you must want Mr Gardiner. I would not keep any one in this house of sorrow, who could happily transfer to some other.”

  “I own that I do wish to be gone, Lizzy, for the children’s sake. For myself, I would happily stay and lend you and Jane what comfort I can. But though their nurses try to keep them amused, the children know there is something amiss in the house,
and it touches them.”

  “Yes, (with a heavy sigh,) my mother’s presence can be felt every where. Though she is not to be seen, her door is always opening, and the maids running in and out. I know that I should be doing more — poor Jane takes all care upon herself — but I have not the patience I ought.”

  “You must not be hard on yourself, Lizzy. Mrs Bennet has always been of a nervous disposition. We who know her, can forgive her that. And if Jane takes on the chief burden, it is because she does it more easily. It is often so; the foibles of a parent weigh less heavily on one child than on another. You may do less than Jane to help your mother, but more to help your father. And he will need your help. He will be here shortly — that is what I am come to tell you.”

  “Have they given up the search then?” cried Elizabeth. “What says my uncle?”

  Mrs Gardiner took a letter from her ridicule. “I shall leave this with you to read. Your father and Mr Gardiner have been searching the main hotels, thinking that Lydia and Wickham might put up at one till they could find other lodging — but without success. And Mr Gardiner wrote to Colonel Forster to inquire whether his officers knew of any friends Wickham might have in London. However, no-one had any intelligence to offer. Even Denny, Wickham’s intimate, disclaimed any certain knowledge, but thought that Wickham kept up with none of his acquaintance in town. Since then, your father and uncle have been to seek the truants at some of the humbler establishments. Mr Gardiner thinks, upon consideration, that Wickham might not have funds enough to stay in one of the larger hotels; but here, too, they have had no luck. — You know, in London, there is no end of accommodation, and it must be a work of some time to search them all. Mr Gardiner finally urged your father to come home and preserve himself, and has promised to pursue their inquiries on his own.”