CHAPTER 8 #3
“Well?” Mr. Darcy asked. His patience, though habitually governed, had never been of the easy sort, and whose restraint had become more difficult with every silent moment, “I think your caution has now either justified itself, or condemned us both; for if this proves innocent, we shall stand convicted of a very shabby curiosity.”
Mr. Bennet allowed himself the faintest inclination of the head, as though acknowledging the justice of the observation without being in the least inclined to repent of it.
“I should say, rather, that it has spared us the inconvenience of remaining comfortably deceived, which is a luxury often enjoyed at the expense of later embarrassment. Your Mr. Wickham, I think, receives correspondence not ordinarily addressed to a clergyman newly grateful for patronage, nor to a man whose first concern is the care of souls.”
Darcy’s face hardened almost imperceptibly, for there are moments when certainty wounds more deeply than suspicion, and this was one of them.
“A broker, sir?” he asked, though the answer was already half admitted by the expression before him.
“A stock broker,” Mr. Bennet specified, laying the letter upon the escritoire between them with deliberate exactness.
“And one who appears to possess that most dangerous of financial virtues—the firm conviction that money belonging to other people is already, by moral anticipation, his own property. It is a confidence often admired in the City, though less agreeable when introduced into private families.”
He pushed the paper slightly forward, not theatrically, but with the quiet authority of a man who preferred evidence to opinion.
“You had better read it for yourself, sir, for I would rather you were offended by the original than by any summary of mine, however faithful.”
Mr. Darcy took it at once.
The hand was indeed sharp and hurried, yet practiced, and the tone of the letter possessed that disagreeable mixture of civility and presumption which belongs to men accustomed to speaking of large sums that are not always their own, but who nevertheless speak of them with the intimacy of long possession.
Sir,
I rely upon your assurance that the necessary portion may be secured within the fortnight, as our gentleman will not remain indefinitely disposed toward an arrangement so advantageous if the delay becomes excessive.
One tenth of Miss de Bourgh’s expected fortune, properly placed, will suffice to establish the first investment, and from thence the remainder may be managed with greater ease and less observation.
The securities discussed in town remain favourable, but ready capital must precede discretion.
Delay is itself expensive. If Lady Catherine’s confidence is as complete as you described, and Miss de Bourgh’s future settlement likely to remain under proper guidance, I see little cause for apprehension, provided all is conducted before competing interests interfere.
I remain, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Arsene Smith
Darcy read it once without movement, and then again more slowly, as though repetition might somehow alter the plainness of its meaning; but each line only fixed the truth more firmly, until what had been suspicion ceased to be conjecture and became instead something far less manageable—proof.
When at last he laid the letter down, the restraint of his countenance was more alarming than anger would have been, for anger passes quickly, while cold certainty settles itself with purpose.
“Wickham is a scoundrel. He calculates already upon Anne’s dowry,” Darcy said with rising indignation, his voice low and perfectly controlled, though the very care of that control betrayed its cost. “He does not hope for it, nor speculate upon the possibility of it, but proceeds as though her fortune were merely delayed in reaching his hands, and as though the question were not whether he shall possess it, but only how soon.”
“And not hers only,” Mr. Bennet replied, taking up the thread with the calm of a man who preferred clear facts to outraged sensibility.
“Observe the phrase regarding Lady Catherine’s confidence.
He is not speaking of courtship, but of access, of management.
Money first, authority after. It is, I confess, a very sober species of interference, and one less improved by poetry than by account books. ”
Darcy turned away for a moment and rested one hand upon the mantel, not because he sought support, but because stillness was preferable to the danger of speaking too quickly, for indignation, once given words too soon, often spends itself before it has been properly understood.
“I recommended him, although he had done few to deserve it,” Mr. Darcy said at last, after a pause in which the admission seemed wrested rather than offered.
“I placed him without my knowledge and intentions within these walls. I gave my aunt the very means by which he now presumes to scheme against her peace, and perhaps against Anne herself. If there is guilt in his success, I cannot wholly separate myself from the first step that made it possible.”
Mr. Bennet, who was not generally inclined toward consolation where truth was more useful, nevertheless answered with a seriousness less common in him, because the occasion deserved better than irony alone.
“You opened the door, perhaps; but he entered by his own intention, and there is a distinction worth preserving unless you mean to claim responsibility for every rogue who has ever profited by being well spoken of. A gentleman may recommend a man; he does not thereby undertake to answer for every corruption that recommendation later discovers.”
A faint smile, brief and entirely without amusement, touched Darcy’s expression before disappearing again.
“I should prefer fewer opportunities for learning so philosophical a distinction.”
“That,” Mr. Bennet admitted with dry exactness, “is the privilege of hindsight, and like most privileges, it arrives chiefly when it can no longer be of practical use, except to improve one’s humility.”
The older gentleman took up the letter again and tapped it lightly against his fingers, for the immediate question was no longer whether Wickham was dangerous, but how danger might best be prevented without first being denied.
“The important matter,” Mr. Bennet continued, “is not that we know him false—for I suspect you settled that question in your own mind long before this paper confirmed it—but that we now possess something Lady Catherine cannot dismiss as jealousy, prejudice, or wounded pride. Character may be argued against; impressions may be explained away; but arithmetic is a less sentimental witness, and even the proudest woman must, at last, submit to arithmetic.”
Mr. Darcy looked again at the letter, and though his anger had not diminished, it had already assumed a more useful shape.
“No,” he said quietly, after sufficient thought to master impulse, “not immediately. My aunt will defend him first, because to condemn him is to admit she has been deceived, and that is a humiliation my aunt does not bear with patience. She would sooner suspect the honesty of every servant in Kent than confess she has misplaced her confidence in a man she chose to favour.”
Mr. Bennet inclined his head slightly, as one who found the judgement neither surprising nor unreasonable.
“Then we must allow her the dignity of discovering caution before her ladyship is compelled to acknowledge error. Good. We say nothing yet, sir. You should observe who moves, who speaks, and who grows uneasy under the mere suggestion of delay. A man who expects money soon seldom bears postponement with Christian resignation.”
Darcy’s gaze lifted, and in it there was now not merely resentment, but resolution; for once the injury had been clearly named, action became easier than reflection.
“Then delay,” he said, with a calmness more decisive than anger could have been. “Delay every expectation, every arrangement, every convenience upon which he supposes himself secure, and let us see which patience fails first—his, or my aunt’s.”
Mr. Bennet folded the letter once more with exactness and gave it to Mr. Darcy.
“I think this letter should remain in your possession.
Mr. Darcy, since is obvious it never been delivered.
I would have wanted to offer my support in exposing such a terrible villainy, alas our presence here is very close to its end.
“Thank you for your advice and support, Mr. Bennet.”
“With pleasure, sir,” the older gentleman replied.
“For though I have never greatly admired intrigue as a principle of life, I confess I dislike being robbed by anticipation even less, and if Mr. Wickham proposes to conduct his fortunes by arithmetic, I see no reason why he should object to finding that others have also learned to count.”
***
The parlour, relieved for a little while from the oppressive vigilance of Mrs. Younge, seemed to breathe more freely in her absence, and Miss de Bourgh, seated near the long window where the late morning light fell softly across her work-table, possessed, in that quieter interval, an ease of manner which Elizabeth had not before been permitted to observe.
There was still delicacy in her appearance, and that habitual reserve which years of management had made almost inseparable from her person, yet beneath it lived something steadier than mere submission—a mind accustomed to silence, but by no means resigned to insignificance.
Elizabeth, who had never been inclined to mistake stillness for weakness, took her place beside Anne de Bourgh with that natural gentleness which invited confidence without appearing to seek it, while Mrs. Bennet, had she been present, would certainly have considered such tranquillity a most unfortunate waste of opportunity.