Chapter 15
HIS PURPOSES
Darcy, having grown anxiously impatient waiting for Elizabeth to meet him at the temple, decided to go to the parsonage. If he was lucky, he supposed he might meet her on the path. Either way, he would let nothing deter him from his purposes.
Today is the day I ask Elizabeth to accept my hand in marriage and, in so doing, make me the happiest man in all of England.
He could not deny that lingering reservations did not accompany him.
Her station in life was so decidedly beneath his own.
It does not matter. Elizabeth is one of the most intelligent women I know.
Wherever she goes, she will be respected and valued.
What does it matter that her family has no wealth and is in want of connections?
None of those things can mean anything to the future Mrs. Darcy.
When the servant showed him into the room, Elizabeth’s pale face and her rash manner startled Darcy.
“Mr. Darcy!” she exclaimed, clutching a letter and tucking it behind her back with one hand and wiping tears from her cheek with the other.
“My word, Miss Elizabeth! Pray what is the matter?”
Her knees trembling, Elizabeth attempted to put words to her emotions but she found herself helpless to utter a single word.
After taking a few calming breaths, she sat down.
Darcy chose a chair across from her and eased it closer to where she sat.
His eyes fell to the letter, which by now she held firmly in both hands.
His eyes then traced her face that, no doubt, evidenced the tracks of her tears.
He took out his crisp, white handkerchief and gently dabbed her cheek. “You have been crying, Miss Elizabeth. Has it anything to do with your letter? Has something happened to your family?”
Still shaking, she nodded. “I am afraid so. I have just received the most alarming news from my eldest sister, Jane.” Elizabeth burst into tears and could not utter another word for a moment or two.
Darcy, in wretched suspense, wanted only to take her in his arms and encourage her to give over all of her burdens to him. He could not.
Accepting his proffered handkerchief, Elizabeth commenced wiping away her newly shed tears.
At length, she began to speak once more.
“I have just had a letter from Jane with such dreadful news. Concealing it from anyone is impossible. My younger sister, Lydia, has left all her friends—she has eloped. She has thrown herself into the power of … of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. My sister has no money and no connections. She has nothing that can tempt him to marry her. I fear she is lost forever.”
Setting aside the bounds of decorum for that instant, he leaned closer and bestowed a soft kiss atop Elizabeth’s head.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I am grieved on your behalf. Grieved and shocked.” Then, taking up his former attitude, he asked, “Is the news your eldest sister conveyed absolutely certain?”
“Oh, yes! The two of them left Brighton together on Sunday night. Jane mentioned that Lydia wrote to my sister Kitty informing her of their plans to go to Gretna Green to be married. She and Mr. Wickham were traced almost to London, but not beyond. They are certainly not gone to Scotland.”
“And did your sister say what has been done to recover her?”
“My father traveled to London to aid my uncle Gardiner in the search for my sister. But I know very well that nothing can be done. How are they to be discovered if they do not wish to be found? If what I suspect is true—that they have not married—how is Wickham now to be worked on? What might possibly induce him to marry my sister now? I have not the smallest hope.”
Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. He knew Wickham too well to mount a sufficient argument against Elizabeth’s dire prognosis—to give her a measure of hope that would comfort her when some modicum of reassurance was what she needed most.
His ensuing silence was deafening. Elizabeth immediately felt the loss when he stood and commenced walking up and down the room in earnest meditation.
His contracted brow, his gloomy air, Elizabeth saw and instinctively understood what it all meant.
Such evidence of her family’s weakness and the assurance of imminent disgrace must certainly diminish his esteem for her.
The thought of what this revelation must mean to her cousin dawned on her and struck a chord of panic that spiraled throughout her body.
Mr. Collins would certainly want her away from his home immediately, before the shame of what her sister had done had tainted him and, more importantly, his noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Lady Catherine. How the proud woman would triumphantly laud the Bennet family’s frailties over Elizabeth. How she would chastise Elizabeth for not heeding all her admonishments about Mr. Wickham.
Mr. Darcy warned me as well. I refused to hear a false word spoken against Mr. Wickham, and now this is to be my reward. Betrayed by a man whom she long believed she could trust and likely pitied by a man whom, for the first time, she knew she could love.
Indeed, love, honor and respect when all such felicitous sentimentalities are now in vain.
By now, Elizabeth was lost to almost everything other than her silent lamentations and dire speculations on what life at Longbourn must certainly look like upon her return.
Undoubtedly her mother would be prostrate with grief over the misfortune that had befallen her youngest and by far her favorite daughter whom, no doubt, she lamented as being an innocent victim in the evil Wickham’s schemes when all Lydia meant to do was land herself a handsome husband in a red coat.
No doubt, her sister Jane and her sister Mary, who was next to Elizabeth in age, were doing all they could in seeing to their mother’s comfort.
Most likely, Kitty would either be wailing at the injustice that Lydia should be married before her or the fact that she had kept Lydia’s secret plans to herself for so long as she did.
Elizabeth, as much as she missed her eldest sister and longed for her comforting embrace, did not relish the idea of returning to such chaos.
Her companion’s soothing voice recalled Elizabeth to her present situation. “I would do anything to relieve you of your current distress. Anything in the world—you need only speak the words.”
“Sir, you are very kind, but in light of our circumstances I do not feel I have a right to prevail upon your generosity. What can my family’s dire predicament have to do with you?”
He took her hands in his. “Surely you know how important you are to me. There is nothing in the world that I would not do for you.”
“If you would like to help then I know what I would like you to do. Pray you will not view my request as impertinence. And if you will, I shall not be disappointed.”
“Anything, Miss Elizabeth. Ask me anything.”
“I do not wish to remain here in Hunsford a minute longer than is necessary. You know my cousin and your aunt too well not to know what will happen when the news of what my sister has done reaches them. You have offered me the use of your carriage before. I fear I need to avail myself of your offer now to bring me to my uncle’s home in Cheapside.
I need to be with my family. I want to do whatever I can to help during what I am certain will be trying times. ”
“Indeed. I shall accompany you to your uncle’s home myself. I will have my sister, Georgiana, join us.”
“No—that is to say that I could not ask you to take such a task upon yourself. I most certainly do not feel comfortable involving your sister. What would I say to her in explanation of my distress? What can she possibly know of such evils of the world?”
Darcy brought Elizabeth’s hand to his lips and brushed a reassuring kiss across her knuckles. “My sister is far wiser than you know. She will be a great comfort to you. You must trust me on this.”
Releasing her hands, Darcy traced his fingers along Elizabeth’s chin.
“Gather whatever you require for an imminent departure for London. I shall come back with my carriage post haste.” The look in his eyes spoke of his desire to do more than just trace his fingers along her face, rekindling in Elizabeth a small measure of hope.
Whether it was on her family’s behalf or her own, she did not know. Any hope was better than none at all.
She smiled at him, and with that Darcy stood and quit the room. Elizabeth went to the window and watched as he made his way along the walk leading to the gate. She knew him too well to suppose he would not soon return. He was too much of a gentleman not to do as he promised.
Lingering by the window, Elizabeth folded one arm over the other as she continued to watch Mr. Darcy walk away.
What might take place after he carried her to her uncle’s home in Cheapside was another matter in its entirety.
Would the occasion mark the end of whatever power she might have, at one time, held over him?
Returning to Rosings in haste to oversee whatever arrangements were necessary for a swift departure for London, the tumult of Darcy’s mind was terribly great, and, at times, he found himself voicing his dismay aloud.
“How could that scoundrel possibly have supposed he would carry out such a nefarious offense? Did he truly think the young girl was so unprotected? So friendless? Did he not consider that her father or uncles or even the colonel of his regiment would not step forward? The young girl was under the colonel’s protection for Heaven’s sake.
Could he expect to be noticed again by his fellow officers after such an affront?
What temptation could possibly have made such a risk worthwhile?
“That loathsome man has no money. Why on Earth would he steal away with that young woman? I know him well enough to know he will never marry a woman who does not have her own fortune. He cannot afford it. What claims does this young lady possess that would make him, for her sake, forego his every chance of marrying well?”
With only one possible basis for comparison with a young woman whom he had never met, Darcy’s thoughts turned to Elizabeth—her loveliness, her wit, and her charms. Is this young lady anything at all like her elder sister?
Is that why Wickham set his cap at her? Is this his way of striking out at Elizabeth?
Darcy wondered for a moment or two whether Wickham’s chief objective was to exact revenge against himself.
He persuaded himself that such could not possibly be the case.
Wickham could have no way of knowing that I am acquainted with the Bennets of Hertfordshire.
He could not possibly know that I was on the verge of proposing marriage to the second eldest Bennet daughter.
The particulars behind Wickham’s motives no longer matter, he reasoned. What is important now is that I do everything in my power to help bring about a better solution to this crisis than any of Elizabeth’s family have reason to hope for or expect.
Not only was it important to Elizabeth and her family, but it was essential for his own future felicity as well.