For an instant, Darcy forgot where he was.
The room, the company, his earlier considerations, the noise of voices receded. There was only that expression – bright, candid, alive – and the unsettling awareness that it had been given freely, without calculation.
He had seen a smile like this, but it was never aimed at him.
Elizabeth did not linger. The smile passed as naturally as it had come, and she turned to Miss Mary, who was to replace her at the pianoforte. Yet its impression remained, vivid and inexplicable.
Darcy drew a slow breath.
The music continued, but Darcy heard it only dimly.
Chapter 7
Private Revisions
Sunday
Elizabeth had been awake for some time before the house stirred.
The light was already creeping through the curtains, pale and resolute, and she lay for several minutes without rising, her thoughts moving with purpose even if she did not care for it.
It had occurred to her – quietly, almost inconveniently – that she had been mistaken.
Not in fact, but in what she had chosen to make of it.
She had never, until Wickham spoke, thought Mr. Darcy unjust. Proud, certainly. Reserved to the point of rudeness, often. Disposed to think well of himself and ill of others. All this she had believed without hesitation. But not unjust. Not ungenerous in principle.
And yet she had accepted, with little resistance, a picture of him as capable of deliberate meanness.
Why?
The question admitted of no comfortable answer.
Wickham had been wrong – not once only, but repeatedly.
The first was not so bad. He thought Mr. Darcy would marry his cousin. When Mr. Darcy denied it most vehemently and was affronted, it showed that uniting the estates and thereby gaining another estate meant nothing to him. Mr. Wickham was certainly wrong about that. For one, it showed that he did not really know Mr. Darcy as much as he suggested. Then why insist on something like that when it reflected poorly on Mr. Darcy? Did he want her to think negatively about him – well, more so than she had admitted?
She sat up and reshaped her pillows with unusual force.
The misrepresentation of a gentle young lady was more troublesome. What motive could lead him to besmirch her? Nothing could motivate a man to say the things he said about her. And she never questioned it. That was what upset her the most. What would make a girl of fifteen or sixteen arrogant and cold? Even in Hertfordshire, such faults were rarely the invention of childhood. He either did not know her at all and just made it up, but even then, why negative things? Or he actually wanted to harm the girl in her eyes. But why?
Impatiently, she left her bed. She went to the window and opened it. She took two deep breaths but then closed it quickly; it was almost freezing outside, which she should have known if she had paid any attention to the ice flowers on the glass. She hurried to the fireplace and, with practised hands, relit the fire. She put more wood on and took the blanket from her bed. She sat in her armchair and made herself comfortable under the blanket.
Money.
Hehadreceived money. He did not deny it when Mr. Darcy brought it up. She could scarcely believe what she had heard after dinner. How she had believed him; how readily he had made her outraged on his behalf.
It was difficult to let her impressions go. There had been something in his manner – something open, something engaging – which still resisted condemnation. That such ease might be assumed without foundation was difficult to reconcile. Yet another possibility forced itself upon her.
Had he laughed at her eagerness to hear such things of Mr. Darcy? He told Mr. Darcy that he wanted to study the law. But then he chose not to. He never explained his reasons when her father asked him. So, no profession had been pursued just to end up in the militia. What did he do then for the interim years?
How foolishly she had surrendered to the pleasure of being charmed. She had been full of Wickham after that evening; she had even imagined dancing with him. She was satisfied with his smiles, his damning information. None of the improprieties had troubled her then. She had been content to allow it all to wash over her.
What he had given her was not information, but motive. He had supplied intention where she had not previously required one. She did not like the conclusion pressing upon her. She did not like it at all. It suggested not that she had been deceived but that she had beenwilling. Willing to believe ill, because it explained what she already disliked.
That was not an error she could attribute to youth or ignorance. It was an error of judgement, pure and simple. She recalled the stern look on Mr. Darcy’s face when she accused him of mistaking ease for insincerity when it came to Mr. Wickham. Heanswered without blinking, saying he had mistaken nothing. She felt he wanted her to take his words seriously.
She dressed with more gravity than usual, and when at last she took up her book, she read not a word of it.
