I remain your friend, even if you despise dancing,
L
Chapter Six
L’s letter had arrived yesterday evening, and Darcy sat alone at the breakfast table on Saturday morning, reading it for a third time. Bingley had left to spend the day with friends, and Darcy would visit Georgiana this afternoon. In the meantime, he passed over his friend’s letter, considering the care she showed her disheartened sister.
L loved this other woman deeply, and with a loyalty and constancy he admired. She generously forsook her own amusement, her own desires, to be a companion to a girl who fled a family annoyed with her for being jilted. For all her light-hearted asides, L was a compassionate woman.
He wanted to be that manner of brother and friend. As Darcy set down the letter and took a sip of cold coffee, he had to accept that he had not been the supporter that Georgiana or Bingley deserved.
He had been deceived in the character of the companion he had hired for Georgiana and had almost lost her to a scheming man bent on revenge. Darcy’s chest hurt with simmering rage every time he thought of Wickham trying to elope with his fifteen-year-old sister. He was grateful nothing worse had happened than Georgiana being cruelly disappointed.
Darcy reread the part of L’s letter describing her fondness for her sister. Was he as considerate of Georgiana as L was of her sister? He tried to do better by Georgiana now by spending more time with her, by carefully assessing her new companion, by encouraging her often and trying to build up her confidence.
Have I been as good a friend as I have been trying to be a good brother?
He pushed aside his plate and ran a hand over his jaw. Darcy had always thought of himself as steadfast, trustworthy. He would do whatever a friend asked of him, but in Bingley’s case, he had not acted as he should have. Elizabeth had muttered that she thought him selfish. Perhaps he was when compared to someone as kind as L—but was he truly selfish?
He had separated Bingley and Miss Bennet for all the admitted reasons, but his wishes for a future alliance between Georgiana and Bingley had also preoccupied him. And his attachment to Elizabeth had troubled him because the inappropriate behaviour of her family had made him reluctant to act on his feelings.
And so he had acted poorly by Jane Bennet, who was outside his circle, and poorly by Bingley, one of his dearest friends. His conduct was disgraceful, and he felt anew all the regret and shame attending to it.
Darcy rose, snatching up L’s letter, and strode into his library to his writing desk. Being alone with his thoughts no longer appealed to him, and he sat to write to a friend.
Saturday, February 8, 9 o’clock in the morning
My dear friend,
Such affectionate behaviour toward a beloved sister is to be commended. You are a generous woman to show her such care and concern. You could not know it, but your letter caused me to consider how good a friend I am—and I am found wanting. I have spent the evening and morning since receiving your letterin reflection, and now realise that as a child, I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. I am an only son, and was for years an only child, and I now know that I have been selfish and overbearing my entire life.
I recently learnt I injured a woman because she did not display the temper I typically see from a lady who wants to captivate a man. Because she was pleasant to everyone, because she was not fawning over my friend, I assumed she had no feelings for him. I am often the recipient of such officious attention. You will laugh at me, I suspect, to complain about women courting my favour and acting slavishly toward me when other men might boast of it. I am sick of civility and deference, of women parroting my interests without sharing them, of women who stand at my elbow while I write a letter and compliment my handwriting and offer to mend my pen.
Still, that was not a reason to misjudge a respectable woman and convince my friend she had no love for him. I have hopes that my interference is not irreparable, but my error has made me reflective. My character and view of the world need amending.
I expect that they will reconcile, and then another friend will be added to the number of those leaving their bachelor days behind and settling into matrimony. I enjoy not having my peace disturbed, I need my moments of quiet reflection, but I admit to often wishing I was not so often alone. As reluctant as I was to subscribe to this service, I do want a marriage of equal affections. But if I am the sort of person who could act as I did toward my friend, am I a person deserving of being loved by a worthy woman? No one can answer that but myself, and soon my typical confidence will return and answer a resounding ‘yes.’ But in this moment, I can admit—to you—that sometimessolitude is intolerable and I crave a confidant, and I wonder if I will find one.
You will accuse me of being dull if I talk only of introspection, and you will not want to write again if I speak so much of my failings. I will answer your question about dancing, and at great risk to our friendship because I sense your fondness for it. I like the exercise on its own and can admit that I am good at it. However, it is a compliment I never pay if I can help it. There are too many expectations attending to a simple dance, too many mothers watching and young ladies’ hopes rising. It is rare that I ask a lady to dance. Your next question would naturally be, would I ask you to dance if I saw you sitting down in a ballroom? I hope by this point in our correspondence you know the answer.
I would write more, but my cousin is here now and has been glaring at me this quarter hour, impatient for my attention. Perhaps he has not been as fortunate as me in finding a cheerful and charming correspondent.
And you would always be welcome in my book room.
Yours sincerely,
F
“What did you want to tell me that could not wait?” Darcy asked as he sanded his paper.
Fitzwilliam peered over his shoulder, and Darcy shifted to hide his letter and folded it quickly. His cousin huffed and returned to his chair. “Why won’t you let me see what you wrote to your tolerably pretty lady?”
“Because I used four-syllable words, and I would not wish for you to strain your intellect by trying to sound them out.” His cousin made a rude gesture with his hand but said nothing. “Are you going to let me read your letters in return? Did you write to every woman who had money to marry on?”
“Oh yes,” he drawled. “I have a dozen new lady friends between the ages of twenty and thirty, each with at least ten thousand pounds.”
“How do you keep them all straight?”
“I have a little chart in a notebook.”
