Some Particular Evil

Chapter 43

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

“ E lizabeth,” Darcy said with some ceremony as they rounded the corner into Mayfair, “I learnt something about myself in Kent.”

“Yes?” Elizabeth prodded when he became reticent.

“I shall never be like my father,” he began. “When I thought you were in danger, I knew I would not hesitate to kill my own cousin if I had to—if it meant protecting you.”

This thought stunned Elizabeth, terrified her, and comforted her all at once. To think he would have done something so extreme, so contrary to his nature, to ensure her safety—her heart broke at the regret he would have felt over such a course, warranted or not. But it also swelled that she could mean so much to him.

“Would your father not have done the same for someone he loved?”

“I do not know. I blamed him for so long for not riding out after my mother, as if he could somehow find her and bring her home. I thought it was his natural inclination towards peace that stopped him; that he did not desire the confrontation that might have ensued.”

“You feel his pacifism was so entrenched?”

“I shall give you an example. He had a pair of duelling pistols, the finest weapons money could buy. They had a gleaming silver barrel and stocks made of iridescent mother-of-pearl inlaid with onyx. Works of art, really. He bought them as a young man, for it was fashionable then to call gentlemen out when one’s honour was in question. These were made by Manton himself—perfectly balanced with a hair trigger. As soon as he got home with them, however, he immediately disabled the firing mechanism on them so that he would never be in a situation where he might take a man’s life.”

“But what if his opponent chose a different set? Was that not the custom—to have two sets of firearms from which to choose?”

“That is just it. He made it known among his friends that these were the truest, fastest, most sure-fire pistols in London. Any man would be a fool not to choose these particular weapons, a fact he made sure to spread far and wide.”

“So that, if he were ever in such a confrontation, neither man would be wounded.”

“Exactly,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I do not have such honour, I am afraid.”

“You were ready to safeguard the ones under your care from a threat beyond anything your father could even have imagined! Had your father known that his wife was in danger, he would have done that and more. He would not have hesitated to protect his love, even if it meant choosing her life over that of his own niece, I am sure of it.”

She watched as he hung his head, his eyes closed, as if he were trying to believe her. He took a resolute breath and looked up to meet her eye. He gazed at her for several breaths, gave her half a smile, then continued speaking.

“I have realised something else, as well. If my mother did not abandon me, then I have been labouring under a misconception my entire life. If the person who claimed to love me most in the world could so coldly forsake me, then how could I rely upon anyone? In fact, outside of Fitzwilliam and my father, I do not believe I have ever truly trusted anyone. Until now,” he concluded with tenderness.

Her heart ached at the pain in his confession. “Then I am doubly honoured by your faith in me,” she said, reaching out her hand to hold his.

He smiled weakly before confessing, “I had no doubts about your cleverness or your veracity, but it is not natural for me to trust any woman.”

“You must have given me some credit if you offered for me.”

“I do not believe I allowed myself to think of the future at all that night. I simply loved you too much to regard it,” he told her, staring at their clasped hands as if unable to meet her gaze.

She gave a small squeeze and bent her head to catch his eye.

“And now?” Elizabeth hoped she knew the answer.

“And now,” he said, smiling at her once again, “I see us growing old together, and it does not seem like an unattainable dream.” He brought her hand to his lips and kept it there, as if drinking in the reality of her presence, of her affection, of her faithfulness.

She thought she might melt. “It is no dream, you darling man. I shall never leave your side. In fact, I already dread parting from you to join Jane in Gracechurch Street this evening, but I suppose that cannot be helped.”

He smiled mistily at her promise, clearly in agreement with the sentiment.

Elizabeth thought about his confession as she watched him. “What a lonely existence for a young man, to believe everyone around you is not only capable of betraying you, but certain to do so. I imagine you have not had many intimate friends.”

“You are right,” he responded, setting their hands back on the squabs between them. “Wickham is a prime example. I should have been a better friend to him.”

Elizabeth’s astonishment was profound. He must have sensed it, for he went on to inform her of the current state of their connexion in detail.

Darcy and George Wickham had made amends? Wickham was not the scoundrel he had been believed to be? He never had any designs on Miss Darcy? He was now a welcome guest in Darcy’s home?

How was this possible?

Darcy explained how the feeling of abandonment he had experienced at his mother’s disappearance had moulded in him a heart of stone, not willing to be touched. He had refused to allow anyone to get too close to him.

When Wickham had begun behaving badly, it only reinforced his belief that no one was true and honourable. But, he had said, Wickham had not done anything so very awful, really. Darcy admitted he should have been more understanding, should have looked past the surface to what George Wickham was dealing with inside, should have given him the benefit of the doubt rather than pass harsh judgments upon his old friend.

Is this the Fitzwilliam Darcy I knew in Hertfordshire? She was sure she did not recognise him!

“I cast him off instead of offering him the consolation of friendship. I should have been a brother to him in his time of need, and instead I lectured him and rejected him and made it clear that he meant no more to me than any other son of a servant. To my shame, I equated his bad behaviour with his low birth. I was in the wrong, not he.”

To hear the great Fitzwilliam Darcy speaking of himself in this humble manner was a wonder enough, but to hear him absolving George Wickham of his sins against him, and doing so so freely, was almost too much for Elizabeth to comprehend. One could have bowled her over with a feather, such was her astonishment at this turn of events.

“You are a better person than I, Fitzwilliam. After having been used by him as a pawn in his scheme for revenge, I am afraid I cannot acquit him so easily.”

“I wish you would try. It was through my mistaken pride, my unreasonable inability to trust that he and I ended up so at odds.”

“I am proud of you,” Elizabeth said at length. “For one whose first inclination is to suspect and mistrust, it must have taken much for you to break down those barriers. Though I may not be eager to forgive Mr Wickham’s sins against me, I believe life is better when we meet others with a predisposition to think the best of them.”

Darcy gave her a quick smile, but this disappeared directly, replaced with a flash of pain in his countenance. After a moment, he said, “Unfortunately, Wickham is not the one who most deserves your censure at this moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wrote to Bingley a couple of days ago and asked him to visit Georgiana, to report to me of her welfare,” he began.

Elizabeth waited.

“He went straight away, apparently eager to meet her again. When he wrote me back, he informed me that he had…” Darcy hesitated, “formed a new attachment…to a Miss Haversham.”

Elizabeth’s countenance fell along with her shoulders. She could hardly believe it—Mr Bingley, who had seemed so devoted to her sister Jane only a few short months before, was now ensconced in a relationship with another. Capricious, inconstant man!

She looked up at Darcy, whose brow showed sincere worry, but no outrage or shock.

“You do not seem surprised by this,” she said in what she hoped were calm tones, though the heat in her cheeks must have given away her agitation.

“I must admit I am not. Bingley has ever been a flighty lover. That is one reason I encouraged him to leave Hertfordshire. I knew that if his feelings for your sister were sincere, nothing could keep him away; it is only half a day’s drive after all. And, if your sister’s heart was inclined towards my friend, she would only be hurt by his caprice, should he lose interest as he always has.”

“You know him so well, do you? Would not six more months of association with Jane have been enough for her to secure his affections? Is he so inconstant?” Elizabeth knew Darcy did not speak untruths, but she wondered if his natural tendency towards scepticism had coloured his decision in this matter.

“You heard him yourself, speaking of how, as soon as he gets an idea in his head, he is off in five minutes to follow it. He was not exaggerating. I have seen it in life as well as in romance with Bingley.”

She remembered the conversation, for it had been one of the fieriest sparring sessions she had engaged in with Mr Darcy. He had accused Mr Bingley of being so easily persuaded that he would stay or leave any place at the merest inducement. She had thought Mr Bingley to be overstating his own fickleness. Evidently, he had not.

A thought occurred to her, and she wrinkled her brow. “You, who struggle to trust everyone, why do you keep such a friend?”

“I believe I thought I could help him in this as in so many other things. He had needed so much guidance and protection in university; I took him under my wing, and I suppose he just sort of stayed there. I have never questioned his loyalty to me, but in his infatuations, I have never trusted him.”

Elizabeth chewed on this thought for several minutes as she stared at the wavy glass of the carriage window. Her family had believed Mr Bingley’s suit to be sincere, yet his heart was so easily led astray. She ached for her sister, but would it not ache even more had Jane promised herself to him only to have him decide he preferred someone else before the wedding? Or worse, after the wedding?

“Perhaps,” she concluded sadly, “some people do not deserve our trust after all.”