“Anything that disturbed my thoughts and feelings brought on the illness, but it was not where my home was, but my family’s embarrassing behaviour and their dictatorial manner and unkindness toward me that were the tax.”
“Wherever you are, you deserve to be contented—especially at home—but you have had several distressing heart episodes since you married me. I cannot imagine you are healthy, let alone happier at Netherfield’s lodge when you had a paroxysm of heart pain the day after you married me and made your home here.”
He seemed determined to believe she was still soon to die, and it angered her. It brought to mind all the reasons she had to be angry with Darcy. “I had thought that I was happy with you, but this is nothome, is it?”
He looked perplexed, and she continued. “My aunt Gardiner has written to me.” Darcy’s expression brightened, and he looked at her expectantly. “She is from Derbyshire. She spent nearly twelve years in a village called Lambton.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Darcy paled before her eyes. He was near enough for her to watch his pupils dilate, and she could see he breathed faster. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said quietly, “You have much to resent. My conduct toward you excites my own anxiety—it has for some time—and I know it requires solicitous explanation.”
“Yes, it does!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I know why you did not tell me before Georgiana died, but why not after?” Her voice rose; she could not be calm and cool. “Why not after we had a sincere friendship? You let me believe that you were living on a small legacy, that you were a steward to a wealthy landowner.Youare the estate owner!” Darcy flinched. “Did you think I could not be a suitable wife to a man of your wealth and rank?”
“Good God! No!” He shifted his feet, looking tense. “I am not the sort of man to value mistaken pride, or foolish arrogance, over the woman I—I never thought you are not good enough to be mistress of my home.”
“You just hoped I would die before I learnt that you earn a few thousand a year rather than a few hundred!”
“Never!” Darcy looked positively horror-struck, and she supposedthat was unfair of her to say, but she was too wounded to care for his feelings now.
“You told me to ask you no questions—and now I understand why—but I am going to ask you one: Why did you never tell me that you are a wealthy, well-connected gentleman with an estate in Derbyshire?” She leant back in her seat, clutched her hands together in her lap, and stared at him to await his answer.
“It was ill-judged not to tell you sooner. I cannot honestly say that I ought to have told you when we agreed to marry, but once I... once we...” He resumed pacing. “I am exceedingly sorry.”
“I can see that, Mr Darcy, but I did not demand an apology. I asked for an explanation.”
He ran his hands over his face. “Even before you knew me well, you said that I was a good man because of the way I cared for Georgiana. You can scarcely comprehend what that meant to me. I hated myself for what I thought about her unborn child, and yet you saw some good in me. You admired me not for my wealth, or my noble connexions, or my property, but for my own sake.”
This was true, but his reasoning was incomprehensible to her. “You could not have thought I would like you less for possessing those things.”
Darcy sighed and gave her a beseeching look. “Women have pursued me for those reasons since I reached my majority. Some men in my situation would expect it, and readily accept it. Those same men might even enjoy it. However, for years, I have been sick of officious attention, of blind deference, and of all the arts that ladies condescend to employ for captivation.”
“That only explains why you would admire a woman who is unlike them, not why you would keep the truth from me.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I delighted in talking with a woman who would argue with me about poetry and prose rather than suffering the attentions of a woman who complimented the beauties of my house because she wanted to be its mistress. I was made happy by listening to you play because you found pleasure in the music, not because you wanted to impress me with your accomplishments.” Heshook his head and gave a sad laugh. “You never even asked me for pin money.”
“You wouldneverhave told me? Even if we never went to your home, you would not have told me the truth? We would have gone to the Lakes, waiting for me to die, and?—”
“At first, I thought it did not matter because you are fatally ill and there was no practical reason to tell you.” Darcy lowered his head, shifting his shoulders forward. “I felt more ashamed as every day passed, but I was afraid you could be so angry to learn what I had kept from you that...that you would die hating me.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “And how angry do you think I am now to learn the truth not from you but from my aunt? I can comprehend how the lie was necessary in the beginning, that it was an established habit from when you first came to Meryton, but you should have told me after Georgiana died.”
Darcy covered his face with his hands again and sighed. “I think that I let the deception continue because I had been only feeling anger and guilt and shame for so long that at first I could not think of your feelings as I ought to have done. But ever since I knew that I—” Darcy broke off and fixed her with a poignant stare. “My silence was all due to my own fears. It was never an imputation against you or your merits. I have felt such pangs of conscience—you deserve better—and I had resolved to tell you all before we went to the Lakes, even if you did hate me for keeping silent.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly. She could never hate Darcy, but he still said nothing about what manner of life he wanted with her now that she would not die. She could pardon his silence—she was not resentful or petty—but how much could that matter if they were not to live together?
When she opened her eyes, Darcy was looking at her with a woeful countenance, but seemed unable to speak. “You are fortunate that I am rational enough to consider your feelings and forgive you. Tell me, what is the name of your home? My aunt wrote of it, but I have forgotten.”
He smiled softly and a light sparked briefly in his eyes. “Pemberley.”
“And what is your income? A few thousand a year?”
“I have no power of breaking the force of the shock of the news if you are expecting me to say two thousand.” He blew out a breath. “I have riches enough, with only common management, to make the longest life comfortable.”
“You have been evasive enough, also.”
Darcy’s cheeks pinked. “Ten thousand a year without debt or drawback.”
Elizabeth’s stomach clenched. She had married a man worthtenthousand pounds a year, and she had offered him fifty pounds to marry her for a few months. That was what Georgiana meant when she said he had ten thousand pounds. He had a fine house, ten thousand a year, noble connexions, and had married a woman without family, connexions, or fortune under the assumption that she was fatally ill. She felt a little light-headed.
