19. A Difficult Truth #2
“I had expected denial,” Wickham said. “Anger perhaps. Some excuse. But he felt no remorse. None. He said I had traded on other men’s names often enough and ought not resent the lesson.”
“He sounds a contemptible man.”
“He was.” Wickham gave a short breath, nearly a laugh but without amusement.
“He was also correct enough to cut me. Not in his conduct. There is no defending that. But in the charge. I had done the same to Darcy, in my way. And to my godfather. Mr. Darcy’s father was good to me all my life.
More than good. He believed me capable of becoming a gentleman in character, not just in manners.
I took his kindness and made it easy for his son to despise me. ”
Elizabeth said nothing.
What could one say to that?
Wickham continued, a little hoarsely, “I do not pretend one resolution makes a man new. It does not. A fellow may resolve by candlelight and fail before breakfast. But I had grown tired of despising myself. I thought perhaps the law, with its tedious books and strict hours and little regard for charm, might do me good.”
Despite the gravity of the conversation, Elizabeth smiled faintly. “Has it?”
“Cruelly.”
“That is promising.”
“It is humbling, at least. Mr. Philips has been kinder than I deserve and less indulgent than I might have hoped. A useful combination.”
“You understand, then,” Elizabeth said, “the pain of betrayal.”
His gaze met hers.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps that is why Mr. Darcy feels as he does.”
“I have never denied him that right.” Wickham’s reply came at once. “If Darcy despises the young man I was, I can hardly claim the young man did not earn it. I resent being condemned for offenses I have not committed.”
“Ramsgate.”
He nodded. “Ramsgate.”
“You cannot understand why he believes you were there.”
“No. Nor why he will not permit me to prove otherwise. I have given him names, places, dates. He rejects them before they are spoken. That is unlike the fair friend I once knew.”
“Fair?”
“Oh, yes.” Wickham gave her a wry look. “Do not let his severity deceive you. Darcy was always proud, always too certain, and sometimes intolerably exacting. But he was fair. If a master accused a boy unjustly, Darcy would speak. If debts were to be paid, he paid his own first. If he gave his word, one might build upon it. That is why this puzzles me. Anger I understand. Distrust too. But refusing proof?”
Elizabeth’s loyalty to Darcy rose defensively, only to collide with every reasonable word Wickham had spoken.
She knew more than Wickham did.
She knew of Georgiana’s summer. She knew Darcy believed his sister had been nearly ruined. A single sentence might explain everything.
Miss Darcy thought it was you.
No.
Elizabeth pressed her lips together.
That secret was not hers. Darcy had trusted her with it, however reluctantly; she would not betray him now merely because Wickham’s confusion moved her.
Still, silence had begun to feel like complicity.
Mr. Wickham watched her too closely. “You know something.”
“I know that Mr. Darcy is in pain.”
“I do not doubt it.”
“And that he believes himself justified.”
“I do not doubt that either.”
The generosity of the answer made the matter worse.
Lydia’s footsteps sounded in the hall, then retreated again as she called to Kitty about missing thread.
Elizabeth seized the brief delay. “I will speak to him.”
Wickham’s brows rose. “To Darcy?”
“Yes.”
“I would not have you quarrel with him on my account.”
“I do not require assistance to quarrel with Mr. Darcy. I have shown aptitude from the beginning.”
That surprised a laugh from him.
Elizabeth allowed herself a little smile before growing serious again. “He must speak with you. Civilly. If there is proof, he ought to hear it. If there is accusation, you ought to know its shape.”
“I would be grateful.”
“I cannot promise he will agree.”
“No. I know Darcy well enough to expect refusal first and reason later.”
“He would object to that description.”
“Then perhaps do not quote me.”
Lydia returned with a sampler in one hand and a tangled skein of green thread in the other. “Kitty has hidden it.”
“I have not!” Kitty cried.
“You did. Or Mary did, by accident, while moralizing near the basket.”
Mary looked up. “I do not moralize near baskets.”
“You moralize everywhere.”
Mr. Wickham rose to examine the sampler with proper solemnity, and Elizabeth resumed her work.
The room recovered its ordinary sounds: Lydia’s laughter, Kitty’s protests, Mary’s offended dignity, Wickham’s amused praise offered with restraint.
Elizabeth threaded her needle and failed twice before succeeding.
Mr. Wickham’s account had not absolved him of the past. It had, however, done something nearly as dangerous.
It had made him understandable.
And if Darcy would not consent to see him as a man capable of change, then Elizabeth feared the question before them was no longer just Mr. Wickham’s character.
It was Mr. Darcy’s too.
By the time Mr. Wickham took his leave, the mist had lifted enough to reveal the lane in pale sunlight.
Lydia watched him from the window, not with the wild exuberance Elizabeth had once associated with her youngest sister’s attachments, but with an expression far more troubling because it contained patience.
“He will do it,” Lydia said.
Elizabeth came to stand beside her. “Make a name for himself?”
“Yes.” Lydia’s hand rested on the sill. “And then everyone who whispered will be ashamed.”
“Some people are very slow to shame.”
“Then I shall remind them.”
“That may not assist his reputation.”
“It would assist my temper.”
Elizabeth nearly laughed. “A worthy cause, no doubt.”
Lydia moved from the window, her face still bright from feeling and indignation. “You believe him more now, do you not?”
“I believe he spoke honestly.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Elizabeth admitted. “It is not.”
Lydia studied her a moment, then said with sudden frankness, “Mr. Darcy will not like it.”
“No.”
“Will you tell him?”
“I must.”
“He will be cross.”
“Very likely.”
“And proud.”
“Certainly.”
“And handsome while angry, which is very inconvenient.”
“Lydia!”
“What? He is. It makes disagreeing with him difficult, I should think.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together and failed to suppress all amusement. “It does not make it as difficult as it ought.”
Lydia’s answering smile faded. “Do not let him make you unhappy, Lizzy.”
The simple warning startled Elizabeth. “I might say the same to you.”
“You may, but Mr. Wickham does not make me unhappy. Other people do.”
“That distinction will not always protect you.”
“I know.” Lydia picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “But he makes me wish to be better, and I think that must count for something.”
“It counts for a great deal.”
Lydia nodded, satisfied for the moment, and went in search of Kitty before Mrs. Bennet could discover she had abandoned the mending.
Elizabeth remained at the window.
The lane lay empty now.
She thought of Darcy, his proud reserve, his wounded feelings, the way his hand had held hers in the garden when he told her they were officially courting. She thought of Wickham, not smiling, not charming, but confessing himself ashamed of the man he had been.
A question of character ought to have been easier than this.
She had always believed observation would lead her to truth if she looked closely enough. People betrayed themselves in small ways. Vanity, kindness, selfishness, sincerity; all surfaced eventually in speech, gesture, temper, and conduct toward those who had nothing to offer.
But what if a man changed?
What if the evidence of the present contradicted the record of the past?
And what if love, instead of sharpening judgment, made every conclusion more difficult?
Elizabeth moved away and took up her bonnet.
She would speak to Mr. Darcy.
Not in anger if she could help it.
Not in accusation, though the temptation remained.
She would ask. She would insist. She would make him listen if persuasion could do it, and if persuasion could not, she would discover how far his regard for her would bend before pride made it rigid.
The prospect did not comfort her.
Still, she went.