Chapter Sixteen #3
“Oh, I’ll not deny that I had some anger towards you, but less, much less, than was aimed towards myself. I had trusted too much in your good sense. It was a lesson that I have not yet forgotten. But talk to me, Lizzy, tell me what has happened. Why do you mean to marry this gentleman?”
“It isn’t—well it is not chiefly…George likes him. He wants him to be his papa.”
“Did he attach George in hopes of influencing you?” Papa asked.
Elizabeth laughed, “I think the true case is much more likely to be the opposite. That George arranges everything to his liking, with his native charm.” Then Elizabeth added bitterly, “Much like his father.”
“Begin the story there. I had not known that Mr. Wickham had abandoned you, though I had determined, despite your pretenses, that there clearly was an absence of money. In fact a few weeks ago I sent a letter to your last address to ask about your situation and offer some help, and receiving the reply that you were not in London at all rather concerned me.”
“You had? But Papa, how could you have offered us money? You know that Mr. Wickham would have simply spent—or perhaps you do not. But I would rather have tossed a hundred-pound note in a bonfire than have given it to him.”
Papa laughed. “I hope you shall credit me with more sense than that. Offers to pay school fees directly, and to purchase books—to rent a small house for you and pay wages to the servants. I would never directly give him a penny. Not until after he grew a legal practice that earned more than Longbourn—that is to say, not unless he had no need for any money. But I wish to hear the tale of how you became so bitterly disappointed with your husband. And how he managed to get shot by Mr. Darcy. There was a rumor, though I rather discounted it until I received your letter, about him attempting to enter a bigamous marriage.”
“That part was true. I never thought so ill of him as he deserved. He became even worse in the two years after we parted. Poor, poor Georgiana.”
“Miss Darcy?”
“She is the sweetest girl in the world. And she is delightful with the children. They both love her above anything. And she is half a year younger than I was. How dare he—and he was no longer a youth who barely touched one-and-twenty. To do such a thing to an innocent girl.”
“Is it,” Papa asked cautiously, “true, the story about…ah, I apologize, if it is true, it must be a painful thing for you to think about.”
“That Mr. Darcy found them in bed together, engaged in the conjugal act. That my husband was making the beast with two backs with a girl of fifteen who he meant to defraud of her fortune by entering a marriage that could have no validity? That we still do not know if this had any consequences beyond ruining her and her reputation? That it is starting to become likely that he got her with child?—yes. That all is true. Damn him. I begin to wish I spat on him before they buried him.”
“You still might spit on the gravestone,” Papa offered gravely. “I shall accompany you, if you desire.”
Elizabeth laughed in sudden startlement.
Papa smiled at her again.
“I so, so wish that I had not hurt you in such a way,” Elizabeth said.
“I only wish that you came to me for help. Two years! How have you lived for all this time?”
“What I wrote in my letter. This and that. We sold everything but a single dress for visits, though much of that money went to his debts—I sought to pay off the tradesmen, though of course none of his friends. But some was left. I had many friends who I imposed upon, and I found bits of work.”
“And you never thought to ask me for help—to even tell me that your husband had abandoned you, and that you were living wholly without support?”
“I know that you would have liked to be told that you were right,” Elizabeth growled back.
“Ah,” Papa murmured.
They reached the promenade and then worked their way down the stairs out onto the sand.
Their shoes sank in, and the two of them separated a bit as it was easier to walk along that way.
Shells, driftwood, flotsam, and a stinking dead fish.
If Elizabeth dug her shoe deep into the sand, crabs surfaced and scurried away to bury themselves again in the sand.
After a while Papa said, “That was unkind of you. To let your pride make you cast off your father in such a way.”
Elizabeth’s face crumpled. She started to sob again. “Forgive me, forgive me. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I thought about it. I even tried. But not until he was dead. No, not even then. It was only when Darcy helped to do so that I was able to write.”
“There is a good reason that the Holy Book included ‘pride’ amongst its deadly sins.” Papa embraced her again. “There, there. Sweet child, you know that I love you. I have missed you.”
“I couldn’t. I know I should have. For your sake, for George and Emily. But I couldn’t.”
“Do not worry about it. Do not.”
“It is difficult. It is so difficult. I know it should not be. I hardly know—you told me. You did. And then…”
Papa laughed. “Even when I told you that I would help, I had said that it would be when you were ready to admit you were wrong. It seems that such a day would never come. You are too much my daughter, and I am too much your father.”
Elizabeth wetly laughed with Papa. She took his arm again. They sat next to each other by the cliffside.
It was the very same place that she had been sitting when George and Georgiana found her, while she contemplated whether to accept Mr. Darcy’s offer.
The surf whooshed in and out.
It was hypnotic to listen to it, and to watch the waves gathering and coming in, and then flowing back out.
“The sea is a pleasant thing,” Papa said after a while. “I should travel more.”
“You?” Elizabeth asked with a laugh. “I shall believe that when it has come to pass.”
“It may yet,” Papa replied stretching his legs out. “But tell me more. How did you find yourself engaged to Mr. Darcy?”
“Oh, that was simple enough. I told him about my plans to become a nurse, and he instantly asked—you are not the only gentleman who cares for me who was horrified by the notion—after thinking about it for two hours and listening to both George and Miss Darcy begging me to say yes, I did so.”
“That answers the question which I asked, but it provides me with additional ones.”
Elizabeth smiled at Papa.
“I see. A point which you were not unaware of when you offered that ‘simple’ answer.”
“It in fact began, for me in any case, when I received a letter from a friend who had been in Ramsgate saying that she was sure she had seen Mr. Wickham entering this house several times. I—well, I had difficulties with the husband of a friend who I was staying with, and I needed to remove myself to a boarding house immediately. I did not expect Wickham to give me anything. Not at all, really. But I still packed all of us into the stagecoach and came.”
“Likely you hoped to scream at him,” Papa said. He stared at the surf.
“Likely enough,” Elizabeth agreed.
Neither of them said anything as several waves came and crashed against the sand.
“In any case,” Elizabeth continued, “when I arrived at the house, and pushed my way in, I found Mr. Darcy nearly bare chested, with blood showing through bandages that had been wrapped too tight. He informed me that my husband was dead in a duel, and I surmised that his wound came in the same duel…and then, well I needed to do something to distract myself.”
“And you had experience changing bandages?” Papa said. “My dear child.”
“That is the essence of the matter…he has a great deal of guilt. He grew up with Wickham. His father was Wickham’s godfather, and…he says that he sees it as his duty, but I think he wishes to marry me in part to find absolution. Not that he can find it in such a thing.”
“No, he certainly cannot. Which raises the clear question: Why?”
“Why do I intend to marry him?”
“No, why did he convince you to write a letter to me?”
“Oh, that. He saw I was upset—he asked me about it. And he sat next to me while I wrote the letter. I could not have done so otherwise. And when we’d agreed to marry, he insisted that you be informed.”
“I see,” Papa said slowly. “And the only reason he wishes to marry you is out a sense of duty. That is what he says?”
“Why else would a gentleman in his position ever marry a woman in mine?” Elizabeth replied.
“Why else indeed?”
“Yes, a man could be driven by passion. I do not trust passion. I do not trust it at all. I have not only my own example in mind when I say that. Perhaps my memory deceives me, but I think you rather regret your marriage as well—that was the tone of much of what you said to me. Amongst the acquaintances we had in London, I saw the unhappiness that a marriage driven by fleeting passion can bring. I would never marry a man who swore up and down that he was in love with me. Not again.”
Papa’s face was solemn. But…
Elizabeth thought he was struggling to control a smile.
“I am serious. This was why I hesitated when he asked to marry me,” Elizabeth added.
“I did not plan to ever marry again, because I know that I cannot trust myself in such a matter. This, however, is a matter driven by serious and sober reflection, where I soberly judged the character and situation of Mr. Darcy to see if I might trust in him.”
“Ah. A sober judgement of his character and situation. And that is the whole of your motivation?”