Even if that meant arguing with the selfish man whose proposal she refused.
“We have nothing to do but wait,” she said, looking round the room with an affected careless air, “but I doubt that you can explain yourself to my satisfaction, so we may sit in silence until our captors return.”
He rose and went to his greatcoat, picking it up in a swift motion and reaching into a pocket. Then, he hesitated and tossed the coat back down and turned back to look at her. He stared for a long moment and seemed to come to a decision.
“I watched your sister and Bingley at the ball at Netherfield, after Sir William Lucas hinted that the neighbourhood expected their marriage,” he said. “Her look and manners were open, but without any symptom of regard, and I was convinced that though she received Bingley’s attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.”
“You were wrong,” Elizabeth cried, standing and pointing at him. “You acted selfishly, and from pride and caprice! She is heartbroken that he left.”
“Then you are right, and I must have been in error.” Elizabeth dropped her hand. Mr Darcy admitted to making a mistake in judgment. “If I was misled by such an error to inflict pain on your sister,” he went on, “your…resentment of me, of what I did next to separate them, has not been unreasonable.”
She was struck by how he stumbled his words while considering her disliking him, and she wondered if she ought to refute it, even though she was still angry. He was more vulnerable than she realised.
“You were totally unsuspicious of Jane’s attachment?”
“The serenity of your sister’s air convinced me that her heart was not touched. I thought she had no affection for him, and would accept him only for any pecuniary advantage the match brought her and her family.”
That sounded more like Mr Darcy’s ill nature, and she was glad she had not told him that she did not resent him.
“Jane is all loveliness and goodness,” Elizabeth said, forcing calmness into her voice. “Her understanding is excellent, and she would never marry without affection.” She narrowed her eyes in disgust. “It was her having one uncle who is a country attorney and another in business in London that was your primary argument against the match.”
“No,” he cried, coming near. “I told you last night that, yes, her inferior connexions could not be desirable to a man of Bingley’s situation?—”
“Or yours, as you kindly told me—duringyour proposal.”
He flinched, and it gave her a satisfaction that she was not proud of. “Or mine,” he repeated quietly, “but I overcame that in my own case—little it mattered.” He stared at her beforecontinuing. “But in both instances, it was the behaviour of your youngest sisters and your parents that gave me greater pause.”
She remembered how her family had behaved at the ball at Netherfield and turned away.
“The situation of your mother’s family,” he went on, “was nothing compared to that total want of propriety so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your younger sisters, and occasionally by your father.”
Elizabeth sat on the bed again, feeling her cheeks heat in shame. The justice of Mr Darcy’s charge struck her too forcibly for denial. Her sisters were wild for anyone in scarlet or too pedantic to be pleasant, her mother was vulgar, her father sarcastic. She had even wondered at the ball if her family had made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening.
She covered her face with her hands and wished for all the world that Mr Darcy was anywhere else. He was right about her family, and it mortified her.
“I am sorry to pain you.” He sounded apologetic. “I should add,” he said hastily, “that you and your eldest sister have always conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of that censure.”
The compliment could not console her. She still refused to raise her eyes, but she could hear Mr Darcy rub his hand through his hair as he walked past her, back and forth, over and over.
Mr Darcy’s judgment was wrong, and he acted wrongly, but Jane’s disappointment had also been the work of her own complacent air and her nearest relations’ behaviour. Their improper conduct had influenced his interference as much as his concern that Jane did not love his friend.
“Although I pointed out to Bingley the certain evils of such a choice,” Mr Darcy said, “I do not know that it would have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by my assurance of your sister’s indifference.”
After a long stretch of silence he added, “I wanted to preserve him from an undesirable connexion, but more than that, I wanted to preserve him from an unhappy marriage.”
It struck Elizabeth that she must have captivated and subdued Mr Darcy’s heart for him to ask her to marry him. If he wanted his friend to be happy in his marriage, to be loved and respected, he undoubtedly wanted the same for himself.
He wanted a marriage of equal and ardent affections, and had thought he would find that with me.
“There is,” he said, coming near, “one part of my conduct on which I do not reflect with satisfaction.” He seemed about to sit next to her on the bed, but then changed his mind and stood before her. She was not ready to look into his eyes and stared instead at his shoes. “I concealed from Bingley your sister’s being in town this winter. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley, but her brother is ignorant of it. Perhaps this concealment was beneath me,” he added softly.
She finally looked at him, standing before her in this dirty, crowded room, still looking imposing and noble even though he was a captive. But she could not see any hauteur, any arrogance in his face. He was not gloating, satisfied in his success.
“I had thought you prideful and capricious,” she said, feeling ashamed.
“It was not my pride, or caprice, that caused your sister to suffer, but my concern for my friend’s happiness.”
While she disagreed with his conclusions, she had misjudged his reasons. When she only stared, he added, a little stiffly, “On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. I wounded your sister’s feelings, but it was unknowingly done.”
