Chapter 11 #5
“There is a difference made for necessity,” Mary said.
“For the difference between protecting oneself from wickedness and seeking revenge. You did not set out to punish Mr. Wickham. You sought only to escape him, when there was no leisure to weigh every circumstance. That is not the same as deliberate harm.”
“And St Paul,” she added, turning a little further on, “bids us expressly not to avenge ourselves, but to leave place to wrath, ‘for it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.’ You did not take vengeance into your own hands, Georgiana. You did what was needful to escape, and left the rest—to Providence, and to Mr. Wickham’s own choices. ”
Georgiana’s gaze had turned to the fire. “I did not think of any of those things,” she said. “I only thought—I will not let him.”
“That is precisely the point,” Elizabeth said. “You did not choose in cool blood. You acted in extremity, when to hesitate would have been to surrender yourself entirely to his will.”
She picked up the little volume of Meditations that lay on the table and turned to a page they had read together.
“Listen to what Marcus Aurelius says here. ‘Remember that what befalls you comes from without. It is not in your power to prevent its happening. But it is in your power to behave justly and wisely in what you do in answer to it.’” She looked up.
“You could not have prevented Mr. Wickham’s taking you into that room, nor his design.
What was in your power was your own action.
You chose to resist. That choice was right. ”
“St Paul also warns us not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good,” Mary said, with feeling. “Your refusing to submit was, in its way, a good thing. It stood against his wickedness and prevented greater sin.”
Georgiana gave a small, unhappy laugh. “It does not feel like any kind of good.”
“No,” Elizabeth agreed. “It feels dreadful. Marcus would say that we must learn to distinguish between what belongs to us and what does not. There is what you did—your intention, your choice to defend yourself. That is yours. There is what followed later—his refusing the surgeon, his pride, the infection. Those things are his. If you try to claim his part as your own, you will be miserable for the rest of your life.”
“That is very hard,” Georgiana said, after a while. “To separate it all so nicely, when in my mind it is only one great horror.”
“It will not always feel so,” Mary said, in a softer tone than Elizabeth had often heard from her.
“There are sins for which scripture commands repentance. There are other things which are only sufferings and trials—crosses we are called to bear, not wrongs to lament as our own fault. If you must repent, repent of trusting too much in appearances, perhaps, of not telling your brother sooner of your uneasiness. But do not repent of struggling to preserve yourself from wickedness. There is no commandment against that.”
“And even where there is fault,” Elizabeth added, “we are not meant to spend our whole lives in self-reproach. You have suffered once in the event itself. You are not obliged to suffer it over and over in imagination. Marcus says somewhere that we should not add a second burden to the first by resenting what cannot now be altered.”
Georgiana looked from one to the other. “Do you both truly think,” she said at last, “that I may live in peace with this? That God will not count me a murderer?”
Mary’s eyes gentled. “God judges the heart,” she said.
“He knows well that your heart was in fear not in anger. Those who lie in wait to shed blood, scripture denounces. It does not censure the one who is forced to strike to save her own life. You acted from necessity, not malice. I know you regret the result.”
“And as for the philosophers,” Elizabeth said, closing the book, “they would tell you that no one can take away from you what is best in you, unless you give it up. Wickham did not take your courage, nor your desire to do right. You used both against him. You may grieve for what has happened without suffering your spirits to be wholly governed by it.”
Georgiana’s eyes filled again, but her voice was steadier. “I wish there had been some other way,” she said. “I wish he had chosen to repent, to submit to the surgeon, to live better.”
“So do we all,” Elizabeth said. “But those wishes belong to his story, not yours.”
Georgiana sat still. At length she said, “Then I will try to distinguish between them. I will try to be sorry for his death without repenting that I am still alive.”
Mary gave a small, decisive nod. “That is all anyone could require.”
“And any philosopher would approve,” Elizabeth added, with a faint smile.
Georgiana looked from Mary’s open Bible to the little volume beneath Elizabeth’s hand.
“It is curious,” she said slowly, “how differently your minds set about the same question, and how often you and Fitzwilliam come to the same end by different roads. He brings every thing to rule and duty. You bring it to principle and reason, yet you both arrive at what is right.”
Elizabeth started with surprise. “I had not thought Mr. Darcy and I so much alike.”
“I see it every day,” Georgiana answered, with a faint smile. “You both will have a matter examined on all sides before you are at peace with it.”
Georgiana drew a long breath, as though some small weight had shifted. “Will you read a little more to me? Not now about war and emperors,” she said, glancing at the Meditations, “but something quiet. A psalm, perhaps.”
Mary reached for the Bible again. “Very well. There is one that says, ‘I laid me down and slept, I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.’ That seems apt.”
Gratitude
Mr. Darcy had not long been at his writing table that morning when a modest knock at the door of the small parlour where he wrote his letters announced the Netherfield steward.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Blake, bowing, “but there is a matter on the estate which, in the absence of Sir Beverley, I hardly like to settle without first laying it before you.”
Darcy set aside his pen. “Pray be seated, Mr. Blake. What has occurred?”
“The storm on Tuesday night did more mischief than we at first supposed,” the steward replied.
“One of the cottages on the lower lane – Samuel’s, sir – has taken the rain through the roof.
I had hoped it might be made good with a little patching, but the thatch is rotten in more places than one, and the west wall shows a crack that will not bear neglect.
If we do not act quickly, the damage will spread, and the family will scarce be able to keep dry. ”
Darcy’s brow contracted. “Has Sir Beverley been apprised?”
“I have writ to his man of business in town,” said Blake, “but you are sensible, sir, that anything sent after Sir Beverley to the West Indies may be months in reaching him, and as long in bringing back an answer. In ordinary times, I should order the work at once and trust to our having acted for the best. But with the estate only let, and yourself but lately come in, I own I am uncertain how far the charge of such repairs may properly fall upon a tenant.”
Darcy considered. The picture of a leaking roof and a shivering family rose too distinctly before him to admit of much hesitation.
“If the cottage is suffered to decay,” he said, “it will be worse for owner, tenant, and cottager alike. Have the thatch made sound, and the wall secured without delay. Whatever portion of the expense Sir Beverley cannot, in strictness, be called upon to bear, I will discharge whilst I am here.”
Blake’s countenance expressed both relief and respect.
“You are very good, sir. I was persuaded you would think as much, yet I did not like to proceed without your leave. There is only one other point. The Samuels have taken it into their heads that, as you are but a stranger and may be gone after Christmas, nothing will really be done. They are an honest family, but they have been disappointed before. If you would be so obliging as to look at the place yourself, it would go far towards satisfying them.”
“I shall go as soon as may be,” said Darcy. “You may tell them so. And if there is any person whose presence would convince them that I do not mean to trifle with their comfort, you have only to name them.”
Blake hesitated. “They have lived under Longbourn, sir, these twenty years. Miss Elizabeth is well known to them, and much regarded. If she were to walk with you, they would doubt nothing that was promised in her hearing.”
“Very well,” he said. “I am already engaged to call on Longbourn. I will ask Miss Elizabeth, when our walk is over, whether she will accompany me to Samuel’s cottage. You shall have word of the day and hour.”
With another bow and an expression of sincere gratitude, Mr. Blake withdrew, and Darcy, though he returned to his letter, found his thoughts running rather upon the proposed walk than upon the business before him.
The drawing room at Longbourn was unusually full.
Chairs had been drawn nearer the fire, a workbasket stood open on the little table by the window, and the remains of the morning’s letters lay scattered on the pianoforte.
Mr. Darcy had taken a place a little apart, near the hearth, with Georgiana beside him and Elizabeth opposite.
Kitty and Lydia bent over a game of spillikins at the centre table.
Mrs. Bennet hovered near the window in a flutter of expectation, certain that some one must call if she only watched often enough.