Chapter 8 #2
Had he decided that discretion was the better part of valour? Unlikely. George Wickham was an unprincipled coward, and it was more probable that he simply lacked the courage to face Darcy after all that had occurred last year.
On the one hand, it was a relief not to see the man he despised.
On the other hand, part of Darcy had wanted the chance to confront Wickham tonight and demand to know whether he was the source of these infernal rumours that were dogging him wherever he went.
He had paid off, or frightened off, George Wickham before. He could do it again…
“Yes, a reel! Come along, Denny, we must be at the head of the line.”
As the lively and well-refreshed young couple tumbled onto the dance floor, Darcy actually had to step aside to avoid being jostled.
When he raised his head again, that ridiculous churchman of his aunt’s was bowing and scraping towards him again from the other side of the dance floor, his toothy smile setting Darcy’s own teeth on edge.
An inherently private and introspective man of quiet tastes, balls were never Fitzwilliam Darcy’s natural environment, but tonight’s was particularly hard to endure.
The whole atmosphere deeply unsettled him to an extent he could not recall since his youth, and the clocks were ticking far too slowly.
He let himself fall back into the further row of watchers at the ballroom edge, but rather than finding that position more peaceful, he almost immediately heard his own name yet again. This time it was spoken drunkenly and crassly among a group of whom he did not believe he knew a single face.
“…but if the old man was not Darcy’s father, then who was? That is what I would like to know…”
Something in Darcy cracked as the pressures of the evening and the preceding weeks grew too much for him to bear.
Turning on the group, he glared at them with furious eyes.
Some of them recognised him, and one or two slipped away quietly.
The others, however, regarded him blankly, clearly not even knowing that he was the man whose name they were maligning so publicly.
“What did you say?” he demanded of the red-faced man in a blue jacket who had just spoken.
The man’s expression first grew confused, and then turned defiant with the belligerence of too much wine.
“What is it to you, sir?” he replied, puffing out his chest. “I was addressing my friends here.”
“I am Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, Master of Pemberley, and I demand that you repeat what you just said to my face!” Darcy thundered, drawing himself up to his full height.
At this, the man in the blue coat’s face turned from red to white, and he shrank back, obviously both intimidated and embarrassed. Neither could ameliorate such an insult. As he stuttered his apologies, Darcy did not give an inch nor soften his expression one whit.
As the man repeated his apology for the second time, Darcy realised that the music had stopped and the entire room, dancers and watchers alike, were now regarding this confrontation with horror or excitement.
He looked around for Bingley, who, as well as being the ball’s host, was genial and well-liked enough to smooth over such an upset.
Bingley, however, was nowhere to be seen, likely having escorted Miss Bennet to the refreshment room after their waltz.
Darcy’s eyes fell on Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, at first with relief, supposing they would come to his aid as hostesses and family friends.
To his astonishment, both women immediately looked away, avoiding Darcy’s eye.
They were abandoning him to this awkward and humiliating encounter, and his heart pounded at the unanticipated desertion.
If Darcy left the room now, it would look as though he had conceded some point to the gossips, even as though he admitted some truth to their baseless tale-telling.
But without assistance, he did not know how he could remain there either.
It was then that another figure nearby caught Darcy’s attention.
A woman of slightly below average height, with chestnut curls and lively features, was regarding him with intelligent sympathy and understanding.
It was Miss Elizabeth Bennet and, unlike Bingley’s sisters, she did not hesitate to look him in the eye.
Darcy seized on her fair-mindedness and civility like a drowning sailor spotting a spar in the open sea.
“Miss Elizabeth, would you do me the honour of this dance?” he asked, his social desperation covered well with formal politeness.
She accepted him with a nod, if not a smile, putting a hand on the arm he offered and walking with him onto the dance floor.
Elizabeth Bennet’s face was serious but calm, and neither of them glanced at the still-whispering onlookers on every side.
It was with great relief that Darcy heard the music begin again, and they fell into the ordained and practiced steps of the dance.
“Thank you, Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy told her. “I feared an uglier scene than the one you witnessed, and you were under no obligation to intercede. Most women here tonight would have refused this dance, I fear.”
He thought briefly of Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, both usually far too keen to take his hand for the dancing at these events.
With a pang of surprise and some foreboding, he felt the broader truth of what he had just said.
This was the first time since his callow youth that Darcy had felt so certain of general rejection.
“I like to dance, Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth Bennet assured him smoothly. “Nor do I like to follow the crowd when the crowd is wrong.”
His partner’s step was light and sprightly, and despite the present circumstances, Darcy found that dancing with her was no effort at all.
Their limbs moved easily in rhythm and harmony with the music and with one another.
How strange that this sensible, graceful and well-mannered young woman should be daughter to Mrs Bennet or sister to the two young hoydens so devoted to the militia…
“It is better to follow the dictates of one’s own conscience than those of the crowd,” Darcy commented, feeling that he ought to make some sort of conversation and building on her previous remark.
“It is indeed,” she agreed gravely. “As long as one’s conscience is well-developed and active, it is a far more reliable guide to behaviour and moral standards than the idle chatter of society.”
“Nor should we complain of life’s hardships if we are confident of having done the right thing,” Darcy added before they danced separately up the line. “Certainty of having followed one’s own principles is always a great comfort.”
“Some of life’s hardships may be the product of natural justice,” Elizabeth Bennet said to him pointedly as they came together again, her words sharp with some definite but unspecified meaning.
What was she thinking? Darcy could not begin to guess. Maybe he was wrong about her fair-mindedness, and she was judging him by the rumours around his birth, just like everyone else.
“Other hardships are inflicted needlessly by others with no thought for justice,” she continued, with a mildly disapproving tone. “My mind has been much occupied on this idea since I met an unfortunate young officer of your acquaintance, Mr Darcy.”
Darcy started, but then recovered himself in time to turn to the right and dance around the couple beside them.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet must be referring to that blackguard George Wickham, and he wondered what tale of woe Wickham had spun this time.
He knew all too well how convincing that practiced liar and deceiver could be.
“What you say may be true in some cases, Miss Elizabeth. I must urge you, however, to beware of judging anyone on the basis of incomplete knowledge,” he said tightly.
“Hardships that one person claims were needlessly inflicted by another might well have been brought deservedly upon themselves. Someone may argue their case in the court of natural justice, while actually seeking revenge for well-deserved punishment.”
“Why would someone seek to avenge themselves against you without cause, Mr Darcy?” the young woman asked, her gaze narrowing although she did not contradict anything he said outright.
It was a question that Darcy had been asking himself and could not yet answer.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s evident partiality to George Wickham also irritated him profoundly, both for the ill-light in which Wickham’s stories likely cast him, and out of unusual and unexpected concern for this young woman herself.
Her adult age, well-developed mind, and lack of fortune might minimise any physical danger at the rogue’s hands, but that did not mean her heart could not be broken.
“Do you believe what you have heard of me, Miss Elizabeth?” Darcy put to her bluntly as the music came to an end.
“I cannot make out your character at all, Mr Darcy,” she admitted, although still with a challenge in her eyes.
“No one’s true nature can be learned indirectly,” he warned as they bowed to one another at the dance’s conclusion. “Not even those who smile most easily and speak with greatest amiability.”
Beware George Wickham…
That was what Darcy really wanted to say, but could not.
“I wish you a pleasant evening, Miss Elizabeth,” he said instead.
“Thank you, Mr Darcy,” she nodded, with a hint of a thoughtful smile that gave him a strange sense of hope, although he could not say for what end or cause. “I shall bear in mind all that you have said, together with all that I have heard from others.”
As Elizabeth Bennet walked away towards the music room, Darcy watched her go with a strangely mingled sense of resentment and gratitude, bewilderment and exhilaration.