Chapter Eight #4
Elizabeth snorted. “In truth, I do not. My father gave me a great fondness for the works of David Hume. I rather doubt that there is much truth to the claims of religion, though of course the actual atheists, who think that the whole world came to exist through some mysterious process that they cannot possibly explain are equally absurd. This whole world is a great clockwork mechanism, set in motion by a great creator, so that he might watch our great struggles. Like a boy might observe ants, for his own amusement. We can expect nothing good after death, nor anything bad. It is in this world that we must seek rightness, and justice.”
“That is a harsh view; what then is the purpose of moral behavior?”
“The purpose of moral behavior is so that we can respect ourselves and respect our own souls. The reason to do right is because it is right. Mr. Darcy, were you to know, beyond any doubt, that shooting Mr. Wickham did not imperil your immortal soul, would you cease to regret your actions?”
The gentleman was quiet for a long time.
“I do believe in the doctrines of the church.” He said at last, “It is through repentance and the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved, and that I can hope to be saved. I do repent my actions, and that fervently. My immortal soul is in no additional peril. Yet I still wish that I had not done it.”
In the following silence, Elizabeth began to think about returning to her room. She said, “The past is the past. You cannot make it so that a mistake never happened. You can only walk forward, with honor and consideration for those who you love from today. With attention to your future duties.”
“You can hardly have so much in your past to torment you as I do.”
Elizabeth laughed.
When she looked at Mr. Darcy in the candlelight again, she could see that he was smiling at her, in that dry way that she was coming to like very much.
“I apologize, Mrs. Wickham,” he said grandly.
“While I do claim for myself the title of being the one who has the most serious cause for reproach in his memories, I cannot deny you the solemn right to confess to serious errors of judgement.” The gentleman paused, tilted his head, and then he said in a low frown.
“It is strange that this consideration makes me think more fondly upon you.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“If only,” Darcy said suddenly, “if only there was some way to make recompense. Some way to find absolution.”
A voice spoke clear and loud in Elizabeth’s mind: Ask for a great sum of money.
She felt a visceral revulsion towards herself.
He would give it to her. He had that sort of guilt.
Even though he would know that giving her money could not fix anything—nothing could undo what he had done, she was sure that if she asked him for enough money to see George educated as a gentleman and set up in a career, and to give Emily a tolerable dowry, he would give it.
“Go endow a monastery. Or whatever it is that excessively wealthy gentlemen endow in these days. An orphanage? A grammar school?— do not ask me to give you absolution. I cannot, and you know I cannot.” Elizabeth found herself angry.
“You should have thought about that before you walked out to those dueling grounds.
Or you should have taken half an hour to think through your moral compunctions after you found that he'd hit, and only then offered the return shot.”
“That would not have been appropriate under the code duello.”
“I care nothing for that. Stop with this attitude towards yourself—do not ask me to agree with you upon it. Do you know what makes me unhappiest about this? It is that every time I let myself think about it, I know that despite all of my anxieties, that I have more hope for future happiness, and that I am in a better position in material terms as a widow than I was with a useless husband who had abandoned us. But I do not hate myself because my mind can produce that thought. It is a natural enough thing to think. Instead, I say to myself: ‘Heavens, Lizzy, that is the sort of cold mercenary thought that is worthy of your mother. It is beneath you. Go find something useful to do.’ And then I find something useful to do. Good night, Mr. Darcy. Good night.”
After this speech, Elizabeth stood dumbly and stared at him for a half a minute. Before moving, she asked, “Do you wish me to blow out the candle?”
“My mind is too full to try reading,” Darcy said, “and it would be better to let Colonel Fitzwilliam sleep.”
“Too late,” that gentleman murmured from the sofa. “Your spirited nighttime discussion woke me. To my surprise, I rather agree with Mrs. Wickham. And good night.”
“Good night,” Elizabeth replied.
Darcy added, “Good night, Mrs. Wickham.”
There was an odd tone to how he said her name that made something in Elizabeth squirm in a way that she remembered from when her affections for Wickham had been young and bright.
She immediately went upstairs.
Upon her opening the door George woke up, moaned, and begged for water.
Fortunately, Elizabeth both remembered that one of the new servants had placed a carafe of water, and several glasses on the table next to the bedside, and she even more fortunately managed to pour a cup for George in the half moonlight without spilling.
George of course spilled a little on himself, but that was to be anticipated.
She crawled back into bed. Emily woke, and she needed to be nursed back to sleep. But that was a quiet business.
Elizabeth’s mind was free to think.
She could not survive without help from any source. That she was not asking Mr. Darcy for any support proved that despite all her protests to herself, Elizabeth Wickham was a profoundly impractical person.
What could she do?
As a nurse for hire, Elizabeth could earn far more in a year than a governess could.
And while being in an almost pleasant situation within the families she was hired to serve.
The pleasantness of being a nurse came from how she would be clearly on the ‘servant’ side of that great boundary, rather than in the governess’s position of ‘too low for family, too high to be a servant’.
Of course, Elizabeth was eminently unsuited to be a governess.
Hiring out regularly would destroy what little pretense of gentility she still clung to.
Oh well.
She already had admitted to herself that she was a profoundly impractical person. But her impracticality did not require her to obsess over notions of maintaining consequence. The problem was that she needed a place for the children to stay when she hired out.
Dr. Thomas in London had once directly asked her if she could be available for more engagements, but at the time it was impossible.
But now that she admitted to herself that she needed to ask someone for help, the matter became easier.
Papa would be happy enough to have them.
Elizabeth did not fear that he would raise them any worse than she had been raised.
The extra food and clothes they would require would hardly be noticed as a charge on the substantial resources of Longbourn.
And then, with her children safe, she could hire out every time a suitable engagement was available.
Five or six pounds for a month was ordinary for those without a reputation, and she thought that within a few years she could build a sufficient reputation, and the associated skills, to get hired by actual lords and great aristocrats.
If she succeeded to that extent, she might even earn a hundred a year.
There would be no room or board that she must pay for, and she could live at Longbourn or with an unmarried friend—she was done with married friends—when she was not employed.
If she spent ten or even twenty a year on clothes, travel, and other such matters, she could put aside a respectable sum that would purchase George an apprenticeship as a surgeon or maybe put him to university.
That would only be paid for if her son proved to have the sort of application that his father utterly lacked.
In any case, George could have a life that was wholly respectable, and not much inferior in consequence to that of his paternal grandfather.
Though of course it would be far below the position of Elizabeth’s own father.
Beyond purchasing the apprenticeship and necessities for George, there would be something for Emily.
Not much, but at least five or six hundred by the time she was the age Elizabeth had been when she married.
Not precisely enough to live on, but enough to attract partners without grand ambitions and who were of respectable but modest means.
A great falling off in consequence, but Elizabeth’s chief goal was to not become a burden.
This scheme would ensure her children had the necessities of life, and a little more.
Castles in the sky.
The notion pleased Elizabeth the more she thought of it.
She missed her father.
And this way she would not be a burden upon his resources.
The notion that she would then be more in the nature of a servant than even a governess pleased her in an obscure way.
She had married where the support of a gentlewoman could not be had, and this was the consequence.
The necessity of long work pleased Elizabeth, at least when she imagined it.
She enjoyed work, she would be always busy doing something useful, and the profession she meant to choose would be beneficial to the world.
Of course, there might be a difficulty with Papa. He would not like it. Of course, he would not wish to have his daughter known to be essentially a servant. But perhaps…oh that would be solved somehow. She would not let him dictate additional difficulties in her quest to not burden him and his.
What made Elizabeth’s throat catch in grief was the thought that she would be barely present with her children.
Tears never help anyone.
It was a joke how many women hovered about their children, badgering them and bothering them.
She would be quite the opposite, the mother who never hovered or badgered.
She would, in fact, be like the loving father, who came in from his difficult duties amongst the great world, to hug and kiss, and be a solid rock upon whom they could depend, but who would not be there to kiss the little hurts, or to be always overcome with anxiety by every small illness.