We held our exuberance in check. He would not be the first man to fall in love with a pretty girl for a fortnight before becoming aware of our situation, and unfortunately, he was not likely to be the last. Flirting and matrimony were two very different things, and there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.
What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr Darcy danced only once with Mrs Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening walking about the room, speaking occasionallyto one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again.
To add insult to injury, Mr Bingley tried his best, in a jovial and teasing manner that I quite enjoyed, to get the man to dance with someone-anyone-anyone at all. As fate would have it,someoneturned out to be me.
Mr Bingley said about Jane (quite jovially in my opinion), "Oh! She is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you."
The man looked at me coldly and turned back to his friend. "She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me."
With that, my mind firmly cemented three opinions.
The first was that Mr Bingley was the most amiable gentleman, and quite perfect for Jane, aside from his poor taste in friends and sisters.
The second was that I might well have to agree with my mother for the first time in my life. Mr Darcy was the most ill-tempered man in the world, and his prior reaction to Jane was probably typical. He was, unfortunately, still the handsomest and best-sounding man I had ever met, but that was worth about as much as Lydia’s being the tallest.
The third was that Jane was probably safe because the lunkhead was half-blind, three-quarters-stupid, and probably two-thirds deaf, since he either assumed I had not heard him or did not care.
I was half-tempted to sink his local reputation even further by telling my mother or Lady Lucas about the slight, but I heldmy tongue. Jane might make something with Mr Bingley, and there was no real reason to tempt fate. Injuring the reputation of his good friend seemed a poor way to recommend our family, and we had enough impediments without my adding fuel to the fire. I was embarrassed enough as it was. With the greatest confidence in the plan, I decided to ignore him until the end of time.
Since he planned to ignore all and sundry, chiefly myself, I judged my chances of never speaking to the dolt quite auspicious.
6.Perplexity- Darcy
By the time we took supper at Lucas Lodge, I will admit I was suffering from a great deal of perplexity.
Whether it was my own mind at fault or the situation is not for me to say, but I was certainly thrown into some unaccustomed turmoil. The confusing visit came near the end of a trying year, but perhaps I should start closer to the beginning.
My name is Fitzwilliam Darcy. My given name was my mother’s maiden name, as is the custom for the first-born Darcy sons. My parents were both dead, and the Darcy family consisted of only myself and my sister Georgiana, who was more than a decade my junior.
At my sister’s request, I removed her from school, engaged a companion with stellar references, and allowed her a summer holiday in Ramsgate.
Thither also went my childhood nemesis, George Wickham. He was my father’s godson in repayment of many years of service from his valued steward. Mr Wickham’s mother was profligate to about double her income, so the son was left without the means for advancement. My father took up the yoke, gifting him a gentleman’s education, and even allotting a valuable family living should he take orders.
Instead of being grateful, the scoundrel wasted four thousand pounds in a few years; then went to Ramsgate to try, and nearly succeed, in obtaining the dowry of my fifteen-year-old sister. He made a concerted effort to get her to elope, and even went so far as to forge letters from me that did not quite give permission but did not dissuade the connection either. The man was slippery like that.
When my sister discovered his scheme, he rounded up a group of ruffians and tried to hunt her down like an animal. He thought he could take what was not freely given, under themistaken belief that, not only would I allow him to live, but her other guardian, a colonel in the army, would be similarly forgiving. Since both of us would consider being the widow of George Wickham endlessly superior to being his wife, there is no doubt what the outcome would have been.
She managed to escape with the help of an unknown lady, so naturally I offended said lady on first sight when I stumbled upon my sister stranded at a coaching inn a few hours outside Ramsgate. I have no idea except blind panic why I accosted the lady, and I bitterly regretted it ever after. That five-minute period stood out as the most shameful of my life, and one that I could not redress since I could not possibly identify the woman unless my sister happened to bump into her on the street. Nearly all ladies look identical to my untrained eye in bonnets and cloaks. I knew she was tall and on the thin side, but I could not even speculate on her hair colour without asking my sister.
By the time I arrived in Meryton, I was still stinging, both from my shame at how I treated her rescuer and my sister’s rebukes, which were ongoing, bitter, and relentless. I suspected she found relief from the guilt of her own stupidity by blaming me, and since she made a valid point and the alternative was to crush her spirit, I was happy to accept it as my due. I had, after all, hired her companion and failed to warn her about scoundrels.
That was two significant failures, with the latter occurring over years, none of which was anybody’s fault but my own. That almost nobody in our society educated ladies of her age about rakes was not much of an excuse. The guilt over both my treatment of her rescuer, and my failure to protect my sister in the first place, weighed heavily on my shoulders; I wondered if I would ever recover.
Naturally, my cousin and I hunted down the rogue and as many of his compatriots as we could find. About half of themwere serving His Majesty chained to cannons in the army or navy, while the other half were doing their duty feeding His Majesty’s worms and fish.
An hour-long chastisement by my sister upon my departure to help my friend Bingley learn about estate management, followed by several hours (or days—hard to tell) in a coach with Bingley’s sister, followed by a mere two hours of rest; left me in no mood to attend a local assembly—but the alternative was worse, so attend I must.
I spent the night evading matchmaking mamas and aunts, grasping fathers and uncles, and the other usual assortment of jackals I encountered everywhere the Darcy Fortune went. Naturally, I had to spend the gathering listening to the ever-present whispers of ‘ten thousand a year and likely more’, that haunted me everywhere I went. The worst was, ‘he has already inherited’, which seemed to make a virtue of my father’s death. Some people whispered the tittle-tattle, while others bellowed it for the dogs and grooms to hear.
Bingley tried my patience by encouraging me to dance with a local lady, and he persevered in his chastisement long enough to force me to be more snappish than usual. It is his way, and I find him a good friend but occasionally so annoying I want to strangle him, even without considering his clingy sister.
He tried to push me toward the most ordinary young miss in the world, so I privately chastised him for his impertinence in the only language he understands. He seems like the most amiable man, but he is like a limpet when he gets the bit in his teeth. I assume that was because of years of enduring his sister’s nastiness, but that is neither here nor there.
I was only glad the young lady did not hear me, since she did not react in any way and anyone who heard such nonsense would either chastise me or leave in tears. She would at the very least sink my local reputation in retribution, and more likelywould have a father or brother take out her frustration on my hide. That again was something I would just have accepted as my due—I may well have preferred it.
Over the next fortnight, my mood improved. While I had the almost constant annoyance of Miss Bingley, I was accustomed to her and mostly ignored everything she said. Believe it or not, trading my sister’s rebukes for Miss Bingley’s fawning approbation was a slight improvement. If you knew Miss Bingley, that would give you a good idea of how relentlessly bitter my sister was, and trading her constant fawning approbation for my sister’s endless criticism was not as bad a bargain as you might think. It mattered not whether I deserved the approbation (I did not) or the criticism (I did). It was my lot in life for the moment and my duty to endure both.
My cousin and I thought removing myself as an easy target for my sister’s ire might help her heal enough to get on with her life. We could neither redress the past without finding her rescuer, nor change her memories. I hoped we both learnt something from the experience.We would see!
