Chapter 11 #4
Georgiana was silent for some time, her breath uneven. Darcy remained beside her, one hand upon her shoulder. Elizabeth could see, in the set of his jaw and the tension about his eyes, how much he experienced his own failures, his rage against Wickham, his helplessness before Georgiana’s distress.
At length Georgiana spoke. “It was like a battle, was it not?” she said in a low voice.
Elizabeth hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“In a battle, soldiers defend themselves when they are attacked. They do not wish to kill, but they will, to preserve their own lives and their country. No one calls them murderers for that.” Georgiana’s voice gained a little steadiness.
“Mr. Wickham attacked me. I defended myself. I did not mean to give him a mortal hurt, only to stop him, to escape. Is it not the same principle?”
“It is exactly the same principle,” Elizabeth said.
“Then I cannot—” Georgiana stopped, gathering herself. “I am sorry it has come to this. I am sorry he is dead. But I cannot repent that I saved myself. I will not repent it.”
Darcy’s hand held her shoulder. “Nor should you. Not ever.”
“I cannot alter what passed in that room,” Georgiana continued, her gaze turned inward.
“I cannot alter that he chose to attack, or that I chose to resist, or that he afterwards refused what might have saved him. All that is fixed. I can only choose how I am to bear the remembrance. I will try to bear it as what it is—an unhappy, but necessary, consequence of my wish to live.”
Elizabeth drew a long breath. “That is very wisely said.”
“It does not feel wise. It feels dreadful,” Georgiana answered. “But it is true, for all that.”
There was a short silence. Then Georgiana spoke again, in a quieter tone.
“Fitzwilliam, will you see that he is buried decently? Not thrown into a pauper’s pit. He does not deserve our consideration, I know, but—” She faltered. “Father cared for him once. For his sake, if not for Mr. Wickham’s own, I would have him laid in the ground with some respect.”
Darcy closed his eyes for a moment. “I will make the arrangements. He shall not be neglected.”
“Thank you.” Georgiana rose, a little unsteadily. “I think I should like to be alone for a while. To think—and to pray. May I?”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said.
When she had gone, Darcy remained where he was, looking at the chair she had left. The small fire crackled in the grate. A coal fell and sent up a brief shower of sparks.
Elizabeth crossed to the window, giving him the semblance of privacy whilst staying within reach. Beyond the glass, the winter garden lay pale and still.
“She bore it better than I had feared,” he said at last.
“She will have difficult hours still,” Elizabeth replied. “This is no light matter. But yes—she met the first shock with great firmness.”
“She asked me to see him buried properly,” he said slowly. “After every thing he did to her.”
“Because her heart is generous,” Elizabeth answered. “Far more generous than he ever deserved.”
She drew a breath and met his eyes. They were dark in the dim light, more open than she had ever seen them. “You did well to-day, Mr. Darcy. Georgiana needed the truth, however painful.”
“It was your advice that led me to give it.” He did not at once move away. The distance between them was less than the world might approve. “I should have managed very ill without you.”
“You do yourself an injustice. You are perfectly capable of managing things ill without my assistance.”
His eyes widened a little, then he laughed outright, surprised into it. The sound, warm and unguarded, seemed to Elizabeth almost as great a marvel as Georgiana’s composure. “That is hardly the reassurance I was hoping for.”
“Was it not? I thought you valued sincerity above every thing.”
“I do. Though I own, I had looked for sincerity seasoned with a little praise.”
“Then you have applied to entirely the wrong person. I am sadly deficient in the art of flattery.” Elizabeth tilted her head. “If you insist upon it, I might make some compliment on your punctuality. You are rarely late.”
“My punctuality,” he repeated.
“It is a virtue very much overlooked.”
“I shall prize the commendation,” he said. “I am not often so indulged.”
“As well you should. I am not prodigal of them.” She smiled. “Safe journey to London, Mr. Darcy. Pray be punctual in your return—Georgiana will need time to grow used to this.”
“Three days,” he said. “I will not be away longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“How exceedingly punctual of you.”
“You doubt my ability to keep my word?”
“Not at all. I have just bestowed my highest encomium. It would be ungracious to retract it.”
“Then I must endeavour to prove myself worthy of so rare a distinction.”
“I shall mark it in my journal. ‘Thursday: Mr. Darcy confirms his reputation for punctuality.’”
He bowed, the ghost of a smile still on his lips, his gaze lingering for a moment longer than civility demanded. “Until Thursday, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Until Thursday.”
Safety
That evening, as the light faded early and the snow about the house hardened into ridges of grey ice, a carriage drew up at the door.
It proved to be Mr. Bingley’s. He entered the parlour with cheerfulness, though there was an unwonted earnestness in his enquiries after the family, and after the state of the roads.
“I was quite uneasy, when I heard how icy and rutted the roads had become,” he said, taking the seat Mrs. Bennet pointed out near Jane.
“I could not be satisfied till I had seen that you were all safe at home. I own I should be very much distressed, if you were to attempt the road to Netherfield whilst it is in such a state.”
Mrs. Bennet exclaimed against such over-caution, but Mr. Bingley only laughed, and turned to Jane.
“You were much fatigued, last time you ventured out in such weather,” he said, more gently.
“I should blame myself for ever, if you were to be over-tired, or meet with any accident, on my account. Let me send my carriage for you, at least. You must not walk whilst the ice lies so treacherously.”
Jane coloured and assured him that he was too good.
Yet Elizabeth saw, in the softness of her sister’s smile, and the composure with which she heard herself thus particularly cared for, that this was no longer the fluttering attention of a doubtful admirer, but the steady solicitude of a man whose heart was already engaged.
Mr. Bingley’s visits had of late become more frequent rather than less.
His eyes sought Jane’s whenever he spoke, and Jane, though as mild and reserved as ever, had an air of quiet happiness which her sister could not mistake.
That night, when the house was quiet and the younger girls had gone up before them, Elizabeth found herself alone with Jane in their room. Jane sat a little while by the fire, unpinning her hair in silence, a look of thoughtful contentment on her face which Elizabeth had seldom seen there.
“At one time I was not sure how far I ought to depend upon Mr. Bingley’s regard,” Jane said at length, in answer to her own reflections. “He was so cheerful with everyone, that I could not tell how much was only his nature.”
Elizabeth turned towards her. “And now?”
“Now,” Jane replied, colouring a little, “I have seen enough to be easy. His attentions have been so steady since he came to Netherfield—so very kind, and always the same—that I should be ungrateful indeed if I doubted him any longer.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Then I may congratulate you on having understood him rightly from the first.”
“I think I understand him better now than I did at first,” Jane said gently. “But that is only because he has given me more opportunity. I was once afraid of mistaking him. I am not afraid now.”
Elizabeth said no more, but as she extinguished the candle and lay awake afterwards, she contrasted Jane’s quiet assurance with the uncertainty of her own mind, and wondering whether, in another case, it was not her own judgement that had been most at fault.
Repentance
Georgiana sat by the parlour fire with her hands clasped about a cooling cup of tea. The snow outside had melted into a dull, colourless wet, the day within felt as grey.
Mary and Elizabeth had been reading with her—Mary from a volume of sermons, Elizabeth from their well-thumbed translation of Marcus Aurelius—but the words now lay open and unattended on the table between them.
“At first I could only think—he is dead, and I have killed him,” Georgiana said at last, low. “It seemed so plain. Now that I have had time to consider, my thoughts are more confused than ever.”
Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Mary. “Tell us how they run,” she said. “Set them in order, and we will see if they are as plain as they feel.”
Georgiana drew a breath. “All my life I have been told that one must not return evil for evil. That we are to forgive our enemies. That vengeance belongs to God, not to us. Yet here I am, and a man is dead who would not be dead if I had not resisted him. I meant only to escape, but the effect has been… every thing.” She stared into the cup.
“If I had done nothing, he would be alive.”
“If you had done nothing, he would have had you entirely in his power. If you had done nothing, you would have been left without defence, at his mercy.”
Georgiana closed her eyes. “I know. I know it here.” She touched her temple. “But my heart does not yet understand.”
Mary straightened a little, as if recalling a page.
“There are passages which speak clearly to the spirit of such things,” she said.
She reached for her Bible. “Scripture condemns those who lie in wait to shed blood, who plan mischief in their hearts. It does not speak in the same terms of one who is driven to struggle for her own safety, and who afterwards is sorry for the necessity.”
Georgiana frowned slightly. “You mean… it is not all counted alike?”