Chapter Twenty #3
"No," Elizabeth said firmly. "A promise extracted through pressure is not freely given."
"Then constancy is only virtuous when the original commitment was made freely and wisely."
"And if a person chooses a different course despite disapproval and uncertainty, might that choice require courage?"
"It might."
"Then changing one's course may sometimes be the wiser and more honourable choice."
"It may," Elizabeth conceded. "But that does not prove constancy is not generally a virtue."
"No," he said. "Only that it is not always one."
The gentlemen broke into applause. Lady Frances shook her head with reluctant admiration, while Harriet groaned aloud.
Elizabeth folded her arms. "You trapped me."
Mr Pritchard raised his hand. "Time."
Lady Hortensia rose with the assistance of her cane. "One final statement each. You may tell us why your opponent has failed, but do try not to enjoy it excessively."
Elizabeth turned to the company. "Mr Darcy has proved that constancy may be misapplied, but exceptions do not destroy a virtue.
Honesty does not cease to be admirable because silence is occasionally kinder, nor courage because retreat may sometimes be wise.
Constancy is what allows affection, trust and duty to survive difficulty.
Without it, we may all become perfectly reasonable and entirely undependable. "
The ladies applauded warmly.
Darcy waited until they had finished. "Miss Elizabeth has offered a most persuasive defence of constancy when it is wisely placed.
Unfortunately, the proposition asks whether it is always a virtue.
During my questions she admitted that a person may remain constant to error, fear or an expectation which ought never to have governed him.
She has defended constancy beautifully, but she has also proved my argument. "
Lady Hortensia conferred briefly with Mr Pritchard while the room filled with argument. Harriet maintained that Elizabeth had made the finer speech. Sir Geoffrey insisted that her concession must decide the contest, while the Blackwoods began bickering amongst themselves.
Lady Hortensia struck her cane against the floor. "Miss Elizabeth offered the more affecting defence. However, Mr Darcy identified the weakness in the proposition and persuaded his opponent to concede it. The final two points of today's contest therefore go to the gentlemen."
The gentlemen broke into loud applause as Mr Pritchard opened the ledger and entered the result.
"Having also secured the three points awarded for the riddles," he announced, "the gentlemen have claimed all five points available today. At the close of the fourth day, the score stands: Gentlemen, thirteen. Ladies, ten."
Harriet gave a groan of despair, while the Blackwood brothers rose as one and turned towards Darcy with expressions which immediately caused him to step down from his platform and raise a warning hand.
As the room broke into conversation, Elizabeth joined the ladies and accepted Harriet's indignant assurances that she had been robbed.
Lady Frances was more measured, conceding that Mr Darcy had argued with irritating precision, while Clara maintained that Elizabeth had made the finer speech even if the wording of the proposition had made victory almost impossible.
Elizabeth half listened to the conversation around her.
Her attention had already returned to Darcy.
He stood with Colonel Fitzwilliam near the front of the room, smiling at something his cousin had said, but his gaze found hers almost at once.
There was warmth in it still, the same warmth with which he had kissed her hand before the debate and helped her onto the platform.
Nothing in his manner suggested retreat.
Yet he had argued against constancy with such calm conviction.
He had spoken of the wisdom of reconsidering a chosen course, of the courage required to disappoint others and of the necessity of abandoning a decision once reason showed it to be mistaken.
Until that moment, Elizabeth had thought only of the pleasure between them and the growing certainty that Darcy's feelings were no passing amusement.
Now, for the first time, another possibility presented itself.
What if affection had carried him farther than judgement approved?
What if, once the excitement of Chaffley Hall had passed and reason reasserted itself, he decided that he could not in good conscience attach himself to a woman of her family, fortune and consequence?
He had spoken often enough of obligations and expectations.
Perhaps he had lately allowed himself to forget them.
Elizabeth dismissed the thought almost as soon as it formed. It had been a debate, and Darcy had been required to defend the position assigned to him. To search his argument for private meaning would be foolish.
Even so, when he smiled at her across the room, the answering warmth in her chest was accompanied by the first faint stir of unease.