Elizabeth’s composure, which she had maintained with effort, gave way just enough to admit a greater honesty. “I do not wish to conceal it,” she said quietly. “I would only speak of it with some care.”
Her sisters waited. Jane wore her patience easily, and Mary less so, but both allowed her the space to speak in her own time.
Elizabeth drew a long breath. “I was so wrong about him,” she said. “There is much that you do not know. That you could not know, because I did not tell you. I believed him proud, and disagreeable, and unjust. I was wrong. Mr Darcy has shown me a different character. One which I did not at first understand, but which I cannot now mistake.”
Elizabeth continued more steadily. “You do not know what he has done for us. It was Mr Darcy who first alerted me to the danger presented by Mr Wickham, and he shared a great secret with me to do so — a secret which I will not tell you even now. And more than this, when we had done our utmost to work against Mr Wickham and found it would not serve, it was Mr Darcy to whom I turned. I asked him for help, and he did so, though he did not have the slightest obligation. It is due to Mr Darcy that Mr Wickham can no longer prey on the people of Meryton. He has been attentive without presumption and considerate in ways that I did not expect. He has shown a regard for others which I had no reason to suppose him capable of. I have seen enough to convince me that my former judgement was not merely severe, but unjust.”
Jane pressed her hand. “I am very glad to hear you say so,” she said. Mary nodded earnestly.
“It is not only that.”
They waited, though now with visible impatience.
“I have come to admire him beyond any man I have ever known,” Elizabeth said. “I love him.”
Mary’s eyes were wide. “How tremendously romantic.” From a soul as serious as Mary, it was not entirely clear whether this was a recommendation or a concern for her, but Elizabeth chose to believe it was the former.
“It is,” Jane agreed softly. “I would not have believed it.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly. “Nor would I, until very lately.”
Jane hesitated. “And you believe—”
“That he feels it also?” Elizabeth said. “Yes. I do not say that he has declared it in so many words. But I cannot doubt the direction of his attentions, nor mistake the regard he has shown me. If I have understood him rightly, he will not be indifferent to what has passed.”
“And when he learns of this?” Jane asked.
Elizabeth’s expression did not waver. “He will come,” she said. There was no uncertainty in the answer.
If Elizabeth knew anything, she knew that. Though they had not said the words, Darcy loved her.Hewas not a Mr Collins, to be cowed into compliance by his aunt. Lady Catherine had only delayed their marriage, not prevented it.
It must not be long. Darcy had his own carriage; he was his own master. Likely not even a full day would pass before they were reunited.
Chapter 22
Even under the best of circumstances, visitors to Rosings Park seldom regretted their departure. With Darcy out of spirits and Lady Catherine at once triumphant and impatient to secure his engagement to Anne, circumstances were very little short of their worst.
It did not seem to have occurred to his aunt that having succeeded in proving the weakness of one potential wife would hardly incline Darcy to immediately seek another, but perhaps this was not surprising. Lady Catherine had spent many years carefully ignoring her daughter’s disinterest in a marriage of cousins. Why not ignore Darcy’s inclinations as well?
In any case, Lady Catherine was troubled with no such reflections, and her manner, more self-satisfied than ever, showed it. The return to London brought general satisfaction. Colonel Fitzwilliam departed for his regiment with as much relief as if he were escaping battle, not going toward it.Though Georgiana had borne the trial of her aunt’s judgement with full credit, she was obviously much relieved to be free of it. Even the servants seemed relieved to resume their routines. Darcy alone found no relief in the change.
He had once imagined that distance might correct the disorder of his thoughts, or at least reduce what had passed to something bearable. Instead, he found that absence had sharpened everything. What had seemed capable of explanation while he remained near Rosings, exposed daily to his aunt’s interference and the immediate confusion of Elizabeth’s departure, now returned to him stripped of all circumstance but the essential facts. Elizabeth, gone without a word. Elizabeth, having given him up when she was told that the advantage of his connections would not be hers upon their marriage, and having taken his aunt’s money to do it.
He would have called it impossible if it were not true.
Darcy resumed his ordinary occupations because he must, not because they held him. Correspondence was brought to him and answered in due course, and business papers were laid before him and considered with sufficient attention to fulfil his responsibilities. Accounts were reviewed, decisions were made, directions were given. To any external observer, nothing in his conduct might have seemed materially altered. Yet each task demanded a steadinessof mind he no longer commanded.
He would read the same paragraph twice and find that its meaning did not remain with him. He would begin a letter and discover he had no recollection of what he intended to say. Even when he succeeded in finishing what lay before him, there was no satisfaction in it. He set one thing aside only to take up another with the same inability to care.
Darcy House had once offered him peace and solace. Now it offered him none. He could not remain long in any one room. He moved from the library to the drawing room, from the drawing room to his study, from his study to the breakfast parlour, pausing only where some immediate matter required his presence. The order of the place, once so agreeable, now served only to make the disorder he carried inside him more clear.
Inevitably, his thoughts returned to Elizabeth. He did not accuse her. He could not. Whatever else might be uncertain, his opinion of her character had not been so lightly formed as to be overthrown by one unexplained event. He knew her too well to suppose her capable of artifice or calculation. Darcy could accuse her only of weakness. He must have been mistaken in his estimation of her strength. Lady Catherine must have worked on her. The explanation felt wrong, but not as wrong as suspecting her of design.
Yet did he know her at all? Perhaps she hadnever truly loved him. The thought wounded him as soon as it arose, for it implied what he most wished not to believe. He had thought himself understood. He had allowed himself to believe that what had passed between them at Hunsford had amounted to something neither could mistake. He had believed her manner altered toward him, and her confidence in him real.
Darcy knew he loved her. He had believed that he was loved in return.
Now he was forced to consider that his own wishes might have given too much consequence to every look, every conversation, every mark of distinction which her natural openness and generosity might equally have given to any other less interested than himself.
