Chapter 14
Amazed at having been rebuffed, Darcy walked the grounds of Rosings Park for several hours after his interview with Elizabeth Bennet, reliving every astounding and wounding second of that conversation.
He had gone to Hunsford Parsonage in full expectation of returning to Rosings an engaged man.
Finding that Mr and Mrs Collins were out on his arrival had seemed a propitious omen for his suit.
…the personal deficiencies you have demonstrated in every moment of our acquaintance are so grave that I feel no need to burden you with imagined faults…
Now, he was only glad that he had given no hint of his purpose to Charles Bingley and need not explain his agitated mood or dejection.
How could he have so misjudged his chances?
Elizabeth Bennet had been abundantly clear in her refusal of his hand, and the strength of her feelings could not be doubted.
Your deeply insulting and ungentlemanly arrogance, your contempt for my family and friends, and your lack of compassion for the needs of others condemn you…
Darcy recalled again his last sight of her in the parlour at Hunsford, her eyes flashing their hazel fire and her cheeks pink with fury as she informed him of every reason why she could never have accepted his hand.
Whether through unattainability or the animation of passion, Elizabeth Bennet had appeared even more beautiful this morning than the night they danced together at the Netherfield Park ball.
There is no possible way in which you could have made your proposal that would have induced me to accept it…
Forcing back his painful and undeniable attraction to the young woman who had refused him, Darcy deliberately increased his pace. As brisk exercise burned away some of his initial affront, he began uncomfortably to sense, if not yet fully accept, the justice of certain criticisms.
While Darcy might scorn dissimulation and pretence, he could have been more sensitive in speaking of the Bennet family and their position, for example. It might also have been more prudent and respectful to refrain from mentioning his present lack of nuptial options.
Nor could Darcy’s responsibility for Bingley’s continued presence in London be ignored, although he had been too tied up in his own affairs to fully grasp the impact on his friend.
According to Elizabeth Bennet, the feelings of both Bingley and her sister were far stronger than Darcy had considered.
The injustice of other accusations stung, however, especially as regarded George Wickham.
Like the rest of the world, Elizabeth Bennet still laboured under the delusion of Wickham’s lies and slander.
While Darcy felt no responsibility to correct the world at large, and had never cared overly much for public opinion until his birth and blood were questioned, he found he did care what Elizabeth Bennet thought of him.
“Darcy? Is that you?” called out Lady Catherine querulously from a nearby sitting room as he entered Rosings Park and hurried up the grand staircase from the hallway. “Come in here. I want you to talk to Anne of Pemberley.”
“I have business to attend to,” he called back tersely and ignored his aunt’s further calls, as well as the enquiring face of Charles Bingley, who had come to the door of the sitting room to see what Darcy was about.
In his own chambers, Darcy discarded his jacket and put out pen and ink.
While he must accept Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s rejection, and any criticisms of his character that were fairly based or open to interpretation, he could not bear the thought that she should despise him also for crimes of which he was not guilty.
Even though she had refused him, Darcy wished still for her understanding.
He must therefore open up to her private affairs, of which only his sister, his closest cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and the villains of the piece themselves were aware.
Even Charles Bingley did not know the full story of Darcy’s irreparable rupture with George Wickham.
This would not be an easy letter to write, and yet it must be written honestly and plainly. Locking the door against interruption, Darcy sat down at the desk and took up the pen.
∞∞∞
At last, after the greatest thought and effort of a long hour, and ignoring the luncheon gong, Darcy signed his name to his letter and laid down the pen before re-reading it from the first sentence to the last.
Have no fear, Madam, that this letter contains any renewal of the addresses you refused with such force and feeling this morning. It does not…
No, it contained a full account of George Wickham’s dissipated life and spendthrift ways, as well as Darcy’s good reasons for despising and distancing himself from Wickham despite the obligations their shared upbringing might otherwise have entailed.
I lay before you the whole of Mr Wickham’s connection with my family, his father having been my own father’s steward and stalwart friend of many years…
… Following old Mr Wickham’s early death, my father supported George Wickham at school, and then at Cambridge. He was intended to study for the church, an opportunity he squandered as carelessly as the ￡3000 later gifted from my father’s estate in lieu of the living my father had intended for him…
…After this, I severed all connection and communication with George Wickham and heard nothing more from him until last summer, at Ramsgate…
Harder to set down even than these earlier tales, the letter set out in hard, factual terms the vicious and dishonourable attempt by Wickham to seduce fifteen-year-old Georgiana Darcy into an elopement last summer.
Only Darcy’s unannounced arrival in Ramsgate had prevented the illicit flight to Gretna Green and a precipitate marriage that would have destroyed all of Georgiana’s future prospects.
Mr Wickham’s main object was doubtless Georgiana’s dowry of thirty thousand pounds, although the associated injury to me would likely have added to the savour of his revenge…
It was an additional pain for Darcy on top of today’s rejection, to recall those dark days in Ramsgate and his confrontations with both Wickham and Mrs Younge, the treacherous governess who had colluded in Wickham’s nefarious plans.
Mrs Younge had been summarily dismissed on the spot, without references.
Detaching Wickham had been accomplished with equal ease by showing him the legal documents that maintained Georgiana’s dowry in trust, and beyond the reach of any grasping husband.
His poor sister had wept at this demonstration of Wickham’s ill-faith and the illusory nature of his supposed love.
Feeling almost as much exertion from setting down these memories as when he first returned from his walk, Darcy wiped his brow and then sealed the letter, knowing that he must now deliver it, ideally directly into Elizabeth Bennet’s hands.
If she was to detest him, let it be solely for his own sake and not on account of that creature, George Wickham.
∞∞∞
Mercifully, Elizabeth Bennet proved easy to find, having taken a familiar walk in the park between Rosings and Hunsford.
“I pray you will do me the honour of reading this letter,” he managed to say with a bow, turning and walking away towards Rosings before he could see her reaction.
There. It was done, and all his hopes around Elizabeth Bennet must be at an end. He could hope for no more than he had requested in the reading of his letter. Walking back up the path to Rosings, his shoulders felt a little lighter, although his outlook appeared as hopeless as ever.
“Darcy, is something wrong?” asked Charles Bingley, meeting him in the hallway with an expression of concern. “You missed luncheon. Have you had any more news from London?”
“No,” Darcy told his friend. “Moreton sends me extracts from the scandal sheets, but Deringham assures me that action is pointless or impossible. I consider that I’ve had no real news since Christmas, despite their letters.”
At Bingley’s suggestion, they walked together to the library and took up newspapers, although neither of them seemed very minded to read. Still, Darcy was only too glad to be distracted from the aftermath of his disastrous proposal and Elizabeth Bennet’s sharp reproofs to him.
“Perhaps you should go back to Netherfield, Bingley,” Darcy proposed, Elizabeth Bennet’s words on this subject still very fresh in his mind.
“You have been with me in London long enough, and I have made no progress in tracking the source of the attacks against me. There is no need to halt your own life on my account.”
“You did suspect George Wickham,” Bingley pointed out, ignoring Darcy’s suggestion. “As you told Moreton and Deringham months ago, he would have had easy access to your father’s correspondence for many years.”
“Wickham was the only person I could think of who might regard me as an enemy and could easily have stolen some letters. However, Moreton’s people made enquiries and reported that he has been constantly with his regiment for some months and has had no correspondence with London.
He could have some local confederate acting for him in Hertfordshire, of course, but it all seems out of character. ”
“You told me in the strongest terms that Wickham was a blackguard and never to be trusted. I take your word for that, although I do not know all that has passed between you. Do you now rule him out entirely?”
Darcy shook his head slowly.
“Not entirely, no. Wickham is still as unscrupulous a rascal as ever lived, but the nature of this campaign against me restrains me from firmly laying it somehow at his door, however much I might like to. There is no clear gain for him in blackening my name. George Wickham has never exerted himself unless easy money was in prospect.”
“Revenge is not enough? You have said that his dislike for you is as great as yours for him.”