Chapter 30 Enlightenment #2
"She never had to," Richard explained. "You believed her without question. She saved the bribes for George. He was paid to keep you isolated and under observation."
"Why? How would that serve her?"
"I think she was afraid that if you had friends, you might turn out to be a rebellious nuisance like me," Richard laughed. "You know she had him doing his best to drive a wedge between the two of us as well?"
As Darcy was clearly searching and assessing his memories, Richard finished off the liquid in his glass, which he then placed on the table next to the lamp. He waited quietly.
Darcy sighed. "We frequently disagreed on three things – Aunt Catherine, the Bennets and George Wickham.
Eventually, we avoided those three topics as much as we could.
I remember George insinuating that you were trying to make a fool of me or assert your control as the elder of us.
It did not matter to you what you said or what was the truth, you just wanted to be the officer in charge of us all.
I knew that was not right, though. Yes, you liked to be in charge, but you also believed what you told me. "
He fell silent, looking into his own nearly empty glass. Richard waited. Darcy looked up again.
"You always told me to look more deeply and to question what I saw. You always said there was more to the story, but you never explained what that was."
"You did not want to hear it," Richard said.
"Eventually I realized you had to come around to it on your own.
I could not ram the information down your throat like loading a cannon.
You had to be the one to ask the questions and you had to be ready to hear the answers.
Are you ready now?" Again, Richard looked at his cousin searchingly. A short silence stretched between them.
"I think I am," Darcy said. "I have made something of a fool of myself, and it made me wonder how much more of a fool I have been."
"I do not think you have ever been a fool," Richard assured him. "Misguided, stubborn and occasionally dead wrong, but not a fool."
"Thank you," Darcy replied in a tone dripping with sarcasm.
"I mean it, Will. You did not have all the information you needed to counter the lies you were told as an impressionable boy, and no matter how I prompted you to look deeper, that is not entirely in your nature.
I have sometimes wondered what would have happened if Father and I had said something to Uncle George sooner or let him know how much influence Aunt Catherine had gained over you.
Perhaps hearing it from your father could have changed things then.
As it is, we must simply deal with the situation now.
How do you feel you made a fool of yourself? "
Darcy shifted in his seat and looked away. His voice was almost inaudible as he said, "Hmm, well, that has something to do with why I am in London right now, attending events of the Season even though I once swore I would not do so willingly."
Richard took a guess. "You have fallen in love," he said with amusement.
"I wish it were that simple," Darcy replied, still not meeting his cousin's eyes. "I keep losing her."
Richard burst out in surprised laughter. "Losing her?" he asked. "How is that possible?"
With a heavy sigh, Darcy sat back in his seat and finally looked up again.
"You are going to think I have gone a little crazy.
I know Bingley does, although he tries to be helpful.
" Darcy sighed again. "I think I need your help.
I have tried to figure this out on my own and I am not getting anywhere I want to be. "
"Tell me," Richard said, sobering again. "I will help if I can."
Darcy explained how he had seen the woman of his dreams in Hatchard's and spotted her again on the way to Pemberley. He told of attending the assembly at Lambton in hopes of meeting her.
"You went to an assembly? On your own? This must be serious," Richard said. "Was she there?'
"She was," Darcy confirmed. "Yes, she was there. There were others we know there as well, and I think that is part of the problem. At least, your father suggested it might be, but it took me a while to accept he might be right."
"What do you mean?"
"The Bennets were there. The older two daughters, at any rate.
Aunt Catherine had called me to Rosings Park shortly before I left town, partly to insist I marry Anne and partly to warn me that Jane and Elizabeth Bennet would be visiting Derbyshire in search of a wealthy husband and I should stay well away from them.
She had plenty of other things to say about them and I am afraid I believed her at face value when I should have questioned deeper. "
"What did you do?" Richard asked seriously.
"You remember Walter Tavistock?" Darcy asked. Richard nodded. "Well, Tavistock was at the assembly, and I was glad to see a familiar face, so I chatted with him for a while. We spotted Sir Barnaby Linton across the room and Tavistock identified the woman with him as Miss Jane Bennet."
"You spouted off Aunt Catherine's ill-formed opinions, I suppose?" Richard asked.
Darcy nodded, looking rather embarrassed about it. "Tavistock paid me little mind," he explained. "In fact, he went off to talk to Sir Barnaby and the Bennet sisters. I expect they had a good laugh over my foolishness."
"That depends on what exactly you said," Richard grumbled.
"Yes, well, anyway, I eventually found Miss Rose," he nodded when Richard raised an eyebrow in question, "and I gained an introduction. We danced and talked. She was marvelous - intelligent, witty, well-read and perfectly lovely."
Richard chuckled at the look on his cousin's face. "Mooncalf," he teased. "What happened?"
"She disappeared."
"Wait, what? You were dancing and poof! She was gone?"