Mr Darcy’s words were stated flatly, with no hint of temper—or any other emotion, for that matter. Yet, had there been signs posted around his remark, they would all have declared ‘Stop Speaking!’ and ‘Keep Away!’ in angry red paint. With exclamation marks.
Of course, she knew she ought to drop the subject. It was stupid to provoke him, and none of her business besides. But an instant flare of frustration overruled good sense and polite conduct. She could very likely fall in love with him if she permitted herself, as unwise as that would be for a woman practically betrothed to another. Most probably, he would soon depart Netherfield, and she would not see him again. She would almost certainly never be alone with him again. Nothing in her life was her own, least of all him. But she would always wonder, and she refused to take the mystery into the rest of her life—not without a fight.
“Hesaysyou robbed him of a valuable living that was left to him in your father’s will but in such language as enabled you to dismiss his claim. Hesaysyou, his boyhood companion, ruined his every prospect—coldly, cruelly, and deliberately.”
“How can you be so certain he lies?” The question was spoken in the most arrogant, quelling of tones.
When she answered, her voice was quiet. “I was not, in the beginning. Your unkindness to me at the assembly in October made me ready to believe the worst of you.”
His face twisted, and she turned back towards the flames. Before he could say anything else, she continued. “Closer observation of both you and Mr Wickham has enabled me to draw certain conclusions. You are a responsible gentleman who cares for his friends. You worry about the condition of the estate you helped Mr Bingley find. You likewise worry about him marrying my sister should she not truly love him. You worry about me wandering around out of doors in the cold. I cannot imagine the man I have come to know ignoring his father’s final wishes. Neither has it escaped my notice that Mr Wickham told me, when still an utter stranger, all of his complaints, whilst you, who know me rather well by this point, remain silent regarding any of them. I suppose it is meant as judiciousness on your part, but I think you are wrong.Heis neither silent nor troubled by discretion.”
She heard his long sigh and did not know whether it was one of annoyance at her persistence or some other cause.
“He likely will not say overmuch while I remain in the area,” he said after a pause. “He dares not risk a true confrontation.”
He said nothing else for a long while, until Elizabeth decided it was all the answer he would give. She was startled when he again spoke.
“My father loved him like a son, and his father—the steward of Pemberley—like a brother.” Elizabeth turned to look at him, but he only placed one booted foot onto the fender, leaning an elbow on one knee. “His father was an excellent man. I looked upon him almost as an uncle. He cared deeply for Pemberley, and taught me much regarding its management. He died in an accident within a six-month of my father. His son, however, was not cut from the same cloth.”
Again, he lapsed into silence. There was something in his face, in his very posture, which radiated distress. It was as though he was hunched from a blow.
“I am sorry to have caused you the pain of reliving these experiences,” she said at little more than a whisper. “Forgive me for having asked it of you.”
He continued without acknowledging her apology. “In his will, in addition to a bequest of one thousand pounds, my father asked that a valuable living be made available to Wickham, wishing for him to take orders. I knew he ought not to go into the church—imagine him, giving sermons on piety and goodness and then gambling away every penny he has! And gaming is the least of his sins. Not that he would ever fulfil the duties himself. He would hire a curate at starvation wages to perform all the actual labour of the parish, and use every penny it produced in riotous living. While he was beloved of his parents and mine, he is capable only of loving himself. Others do not exist for him the way they do for you and me. From a very young age, I suffered his vicious ways. I vowed I would not continue to do so.”
“Did you not tell your father the truth about him?”
He shrugged. “When I was younger, yes, but Wickham was careful in his cruelty and clever in his victims. I do not possess his charm and charisma. It did not take me long to learn that if I were to do anything to interrupt the great friendship between him and my father, I would only look like a jealous prig, and eventually, someone or something I loved would be hurt. The only consequence he experienced for my openness was the delight of knowing I would endure yet another lecture or punishment for the sin of envy. After he poisoned my favourite dog, I learnt my lesson. I did not defy him again while my father lived.”
She gasped, and he shook his head. “I apologise. You did not wish to hear a recitation of his sins, only an accounting of my refusal to give him the living.”
“I would not blame you for declining to honour your father’s bequest. He certainly should never be a clergyman.”
“No, he should not, but refusing to give him the living was unnecessary. He did not want it. Within a month of his father’s death, he told me he would not take orders and how insufficient a support the interest on his thousand pounds was—as though he had not already spent or lost it all! He said he meant to study law. I did not believe him, but I was perfectly willing to pay him to renounce all claim on the preferment. This he did, for the additional sum of three thousand.”
“You paid him that much?” Elizabeth cried, shocked, reaching out, almost touching him before quickly drawing back.
“When the living became available a couple of years later, however, he expected me to give it to him.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he wanted it. In his mind, it was his, and any money paid to him was simply what he deserved.”
“It is unbelievable.”
“Not to him. Naturally, I told him he had been compensated for the living and the matter was closed. I reminded him that however he influenced my father, he could not do the same with the son. I told him to never approach me again.”
Mr Darcy held himself stiffly, not looking at her, his jaw as clenched as his fists, and appearing as though he wished to break something. Reflecting on what he had told her of Wickham’s manipulations, she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“Whom did he hurt?” she asked softly, her voice filled with sympathy.
Slowly, he turned to her, regrets a thousand fathoms deep in his dark eyes. “My sister.”
Elizabeth bit her tongue against the shock and outrage she wished to express, knowing it would not help. Instead, she reached over and took his clenched fist in her hands.
“It happened last summer,” he continued, his voice laden with sorrow. “There proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs Younge, my sister’s companion. Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of Wickham’s kindness to her as a child, was persuaded to believe herself in love and to consent to an elopement. She was then only fifteen, and easily influenced by the untrustworthy pair.”
She squeezed his cold fist, a worthless gesture that could not begin to convey her horror. But he took a deep breath, and, to her great surprise, turned his hand in hers so that he was clasping it.
