Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Darcy paled before her eyes. He was near enough for her to watch his pupils dilate, and she could see he breathed faster.
At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said quietly, “You have much to resent. My conduct toward you excites my own anxiety—it has for some time—and I know it requires solicitous explanation.”
“Yes, it does!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I know why you did not tell me before Georgiana died, but why not after?” Her voice rose; she could not be calm and cool.
“Why not after we had a sincere friendship? You let me believe that you were living on a small legacy, that you were a steward to a wealthy landowner. You are the estate owner!” Darcy flinched.
“Did you think I could not be a suitable wife to a man of your wealth and rank?”
“Good God! No!” He shifted his feet, looking tense. “I am not the sort of man to value mistaken pride, or foolish arrogance, over the woman I—I never thought you are not good enough to be mistress of my home.”
“You just hoped I would die before I learnt that you earn a few thousand a year rather than a few hundred!”
“Never!” Darcy looked positively horror-struck, and she supposed that was unfair of her to say, but she was too wounded to care for his feelings now.
“You told me to ask you no questions—and now I understand why—but I am going to ask you one: Why did you never tell me that you are a wealthy, well-connected gentleman with an estate in Derbyshire?” She leant back in her seat, clutched her hands together in her lap, and stared at him to await his answer.
“It was ill-judged not to tell you sooner. I cannot honestly say that I ought to have told you when we agreed to marry, but once I . . . once we . . .” He resumed pacing. “I am exceedingly sorry.”
“I can see that, Mr Darcy, but I did not demand an apology. I asked for an explanation.”
He ran his hands over his face. “Even before you knew me well, you said that I was a good man because of the way I cared for Georgiana. You can scarcely comprehend what that meant to me. I hated myself for what I thought about her unborn child, and yet you saw some good in me. You admired me not for my wealth, or my noble connexions, or my property, but for my own sake.”
This was true, but his reasoning was incomprehensible to her. “You could not have thought I would like you less for possessing those things.”
Darcy sighed and gave her a beseeching look.
“Women have pursued me for those reasons since I reached my majority. Some men in my situation would expect it, and readily accept it. Those same men might even enjoy it. However, for years, I have been sick of officious attention, of blind deference, and of all the arts that ladies condescend to employ for captivation.”
“That only explains why you would admire a woman who is unlike them, not why you would keep the truth from me.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I delighted in talking with a woman who would argue with me about poetry and prose rather than suffering the attentions of a woman who complimented the beauties of my house because she wanted to be its mistress. I was made happy by listening to you play because you found pleasure in the music, not because you wanted to impress me with your accomplishments.” He shook his head and gave a sad laugh.
“You never even asked me for pin money.”
“You would never have told me? Even if we never went to your home, you would not have told me the truth? We would have gone to the Lakes, waiting for me to die, and—”
“At first, I thought it did not matter because you are fatally ill and there was no practical reason to tell you.” Darcy lowered his head, shifting his shoulders forward.
“I felt more ashamed as every day passed, but I was afraid you could be so angry to learn what I had kept from you that . . . that you would die hating me.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “And how angry do you think I am now to learn the truth not from you but from my aunt? I can comprehend how the lie was necessary in the beginning, that it was an established habit from when you first came to Meryton, but you should have told me after Georgiana died.”
Darcy covered his face with his hands again and sighed.
“I think that I let the deception continue because I had been only feeling anger and guilt and shame for so long that at first I could not think of your feelings as I ought to have done. But ever since I knew that I—” Darcy broke off and fixed her with a poignant stare.
“My silence was all due to my own fears. It was never an imputation against you or your merits. I have felt such pangs of conscience—you deserve better—and I had resolved to tell you all before we went to the Lakes, even if you did hate me for keeping silent.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and clasped her hands tightly.
She could never hate Darcy, but he still said nothing about what manner of life he wanted with her now that she would not die.
She could pardon his silence—she was not resentful or petty—but how much could that matter if they were not to live together?
When she opened her eyes, Darcy was looking at her with a woeful countenance, but seemed unable to speak. “You are fortunate that I am rational enough to consider your feelings and forgive you. Tell me, what is the name of your home? My aunt wrote of it, but I have forgotten.”
He smiled softly and a light sparked briefly in his eyes. “Pemberley.”
“And what is your income? A few thousand a year?”
“I have no power of breaking the force of the shock of the news if you are expecting me to say two thousand.” He blew out a breath. “I have riches enough, with only common management, to make the longest life comfortable.”
“You have been evasive enough, also.”
Darcy’s cheeks pinked. “Ten thousand a year without debt or drawback.”
Elizabeth’s stomach clenched. She had married a man worth ten thousand pounds a year, and she had offered him fifty pounds to marry her for a few months.
That was what Georgiana meant when she said he had ten thousand pounds.
He had a fine house, ten thousand a year, noble connexions, and had married a woman without family, connexions, or fortune under the assumption that she was fatally ill. She felt a little light-headed.
The silence between them grew unpleasant, but she did not know what to say. What shall I do with my life now, married to a man of consequence who does not love me? It was all the more painful because he was never truly hers to lose.
As she sat with her fingers tightly laced in her lap, her back straight, her lips pressed into a hard line, she saw Darcy watching her. He took a few steps closer. “This condition where your anxieties and fears make your heart ill . . . will it kill you?”
“Likely not, if I am removed from the sources of my agitation, such as Jane’s mother-in-law who thought me useless since I did not marry at sixteen, my mother and Lydia’s inappropriate behaviour, and, far worse, Mary’s cruelty.
As the impoverished relation, I went where I was directed and did as I was told in order to have a home.
My hopelessness and the misery of living amongst people who oppressed me and ill-treated me brought on my pain. ”
Darcy looked wretched. “But even after you made your home here with us, you suffered.”
He thought she would be miserable here as she had been with her family and therefore still die. “I have had paroxysms since then—”
“Yes, at the ball after you danced and—”
“At the ball after Mary and Mr Collins humiliated me!” Darcy still looked incredulous.
“And after Georgiana’s funeral when they showed you no compassion.
I think I would have suffered another heart paroxysm when you and I dined at Longbourn had I not known that I need not remain there.
Their behaviour is often outside the bounds of propriety.
They resent me and do not understand my character.
They were such a tax on my spirits that they made me ill. ”
A look of pure shock crossed Darcy’s face, and then he swore softly. “Your paroxysms began after your father died when your home moved amongst relations who begrudged you, and because you had little hope for a happier life?”
“Yes.” What was distracting him so much that a normally clever man struggled to understand this point?
“Presuming you are not forced into a situation where you are troubled by deep melancholy or kept in anxiety”—his voice was low and quiet, and he spoke slowly—“and are happy with your situation . . . you are expected to live?”
Elizabeth threw up her hands. “Mr Jones said in that case the episodes will stop.” Did he so dislike the thought of having her as his wife indefinitely that he could not accept that she was not fatally ill? “Yes, I am going to live, and now what shall we do?”
After this utterance, he was pale and silent for a long while. “How do you mean?”
“My heart is well.” She spoke slowly, as though he were simple.
Darcy took quick steps toward her. “Yes, your heart will be well. But mine is breaking. For weeks, I have known that however long we had together, I would always love you.”
She could scarcely draw breath, let alone speak. Darcy fixed his eyes on her and said, “And now, when I could have my dearest wishes realised, I am too late. My lies of omission have cost me my future happiness.”
He spoke with a sinking voice and a heavy sigh, and Elizabeth tried to comprehend the exact truth of the whole of what he said. “I . . . I thought you were disappointed that I am not fatally ill,” she managed to say.
“Disappointed! That you are going to live?” Darcy knelt in front of her and clasped her hands.
“I went to town to change my will and settle money on you in the event of my death, even if you outlived me but a few weeks, and whilst I was there, I sought a physician who specialises in the heart who might give us—give you more time.”