Darcy would return Monday morning to escort Charlotte and Maria to Longbourn.He would also speak to Mr.Bennet when he arrived.Elizabeth had promised to have a letter ready for her father for him to deliver.He did not want to admit it, but he was nervous.He had never asked a man permission to court his daughter before.The very nature of the task meant a man would usually only do such a thing once in his life; there would be no improving with practice.
Darcy shook off his anxiety and listened to his cousin ribbing him until they reached Mayfair, then he took to his study with a brandy, claiming a need to manage his correspondence.In truth, he stared at the empty fireplace and thought of Elizabeth.
“Lizzy!You have been very sly!”cried Jane.“Why did you not tell me Mr.Darcy was your beau?”
“She was in denial of it for some time herself,” Charlotte quipped.Elizabeth threw her a glare.Charlotte ignored it and happily popped a piece of fruit into her mouth.
Mrs.Gardiner had set out a light luncheon for them and the ladies sat around a small table on the stone terrace behind the house.The garden was not large, but Mrs.Gardiner had a green thumb and she and her gardener had worked tirelessly to make it a beautiful oasis.Maria was playing a game of hide and seek with the Gardiner children at the back of the garden, their laughter and shrieks of joy a pleasant backdrop to the ladies’ conversation.
“Has he spoken to you of his intentions?”asked Mrs.Gardiner.
Elizabeth flushed but knew she could not avoid answering.“Yes.He has asked to court me.”
Jane gasped and Mrs.Gardiner sat forward in her chair.“Has he truly?Oh, Lizzy!”
“You accepted his offer?”Jane asked, her brow crinkled in worry.
Elizabeth took her hand in hers.“Yes, I have.But not without sufficient questioning.”She smiled, then seeing her sister was not assuaged, added, “There is much we did not know about Mr.Darcy, and much we were misinformed of.”
She and Charlotte told them the story of Mr.Wickham and his great perfidy, and how Colonel Fitzwilliam opened Elizabeth’s eyes to her gullibility.
“I have never felt so stupid in my life,” lamented Elizabeth.
Jane placed a hand on her sister’s knee.“Do not take it all upon yourself.All of Meryton believed him.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.“That should have been a reason to doubt him, not trust him.Who shares such things with an entire town?With strangers!”
“I believe you have learned a valuable lesson, girls.A handsome face does not equate to a handsome nature,” said Mrs.Gardiner sagely.
“That is true.Eliza and I have spoken of this at length lately.”Charlotte smiled at her friend over her cup and Elizabeth resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her.
“I will admit to being relieved to hear you are no longer enamored of Mr.Wickham, for I have received news of him,” said Mrs.Gardiner.
“Oh?Why have you not said?”asked Jane.She had not thought Mr.Wickham could be so very bad and was feeling more than a little unsettled by the information she had heard.
“I have an old friend in Lambton, Mrs.Simpkins.After our last visit to Longbourn, I sent her a letter asking about Mr.Wickham’s claims.I confess I was shocked by her information.Apparently, he has left debts all over Derbyshire and Mr.Darcy has discharged them.He is also considered something of a scoundrel.She personally knows of two girls who have been left increasing by him, with no support whatsoever.”
Jane gasped and brought her hand to her mouth.“No!”
“Those poor girls,” said Charlotte, shaking her head.“What became of them?”
“What usually becomes of them,” said Elizabeth darkly.
“Actually, I was quite surprised on that count, for I assumed the same thing.Mrs.Simpkins said that Mr.Darcy provided the first girl—one of his tenants’ daughters—with a dowry and another tenant’s son married her.The young lad had been in love with her for years it seems, and she had been sweet on him until Mr.Wickham began whispering in her ear.”
“That makes it all so much worse,” said Elizabeth.“Mr.Wickham deliberately ruined her happiness for momentary pleasure.”She shook her head, again chastising herself for how stupidly she had behaved toward that scoundrel.
“And the other girl?”asked Jane, afraid of the answer.
“The other girl lost her babe in childbirth.She then trained with Pemberley’s cook and now has a position in the kitchen at a neighboring estate.”
Elizabeth sank back into her chair.Mr.Darcy was so good!So very kind and gentlemanly and generous.How could she ever have thought him cold and bad tempered?Cold men did not put themselves out to help the victims of their former friends.
“That paints Mr.Darcy in a very generous light,” said Charlotte.
“It certainly does.So I am pleased you accepted his offer of courtship, Lizzy.Such a man would make a wonderful husband.”
Elizabeth smiled nervously.He would be a wonderful husband, she knew that.But there was still some place inside her, some unexplainable, rebellious place that chafed at the idea of being a wife.Whether it was being a wife in general or Mr.Darcy’s in particular that unsettled her, she could not say.She had fought changing her opinion of him for so long, she wondered if she was still fighting her pride about changing her mind.Accepting Mr.Darcy meant admitting she had been horribly, blindly wrong about everything.Mr.Wickham, Darcy’s nature, her own dislike of him.Well, she thought, I did truly dislike him.But I also did not know him, so how true could the dislike be?
