Chapter Thirty-One
Netherfield
Darcy
The news of Wickham’s arrest for fraud delighted Darcy more than he expected it to.
Colonel Forster’s note arrived that morning with the particulars.
Wickham had apparently been attempting to keep out of sight since encountering Darcy in Meryton, though the trouble which finally caught him had begun long before his arrival in Hertfordshire.
Some months earlier, he had defrauded a moneylender in London under a false name, and the man’s inquiries had at last traced him to the militia.
Forster, already suspicious after Darcy’s warning, had needed little encouragement to investigate further, and Wickham had been taken into custody with sufficient evidence against him to make his immediate return to respectable society unlikely.
Darcy could find very little charity in himself upon the subject.
For once, George Wickham had contrived his own ruin without requiring a Darcy to rescue him from it, pay his debts, or quietly remove the consequences of his conduct.
There was a certain justice in that which Darcy thought he might be forgiven for enjoying.
Beyond that unpleasant connexion, almost everything in his life appeared determined to please him.
Georgiana’s latest letter had been cheerful, full of Mrs. Annesley, music and ordinary plans for the approaching winter, while nearly two weeks of courting Elizabeth had produced a happiness Darcy had not thought himself capable of experiencing with such constancy.
He had seen her every day, and somehow each visit only made him more impatient for the next.
Only the matter of the letters remained to disturb that happiness.
There was Willowbrook too, and the uncomfortable fact that Darcy had known Elizabeth Bennet through words intended for Julia long before Elizabeth had known anything of him.
He rubbed his weary eyes as he sat in his bedchamber thinking over it all, conscious that he had delayed the confession long enough.
Tomorrow evening he would see Elizabeth at the ball Bingley was giving at Netherfield.
It would provide another opportunity, though Darcy doubted a crowded house was the best place for such a conversation.
He would have to contrive some privacy, but somehow he would tell her.
He could not continue courting Elizabeth while withholding the very thing upon which so much of their earliest intimacy had been built.
What she would think of him afterwards was another matter entirely.
Darcy had never intended the deception to continue this long.
At first, concealing the letters had seemed the only means by which he might remain near Elizabeth without explaining an acquaintance he had no proper right to possess.
Every day since had made the truth more difficult to tell, until the very happiness he had gained from knowing her had become the greatest argument for silence.
That could not continue. He needed to tell her how the letters had reached him, why he had read them, why he had come to Hertfordshire, and why he had allowed her to believe their meeting had been entirely accidental.
He had not quite formed the thought into a resolution when the morning post arrived.
Darcy was downstairs when a servant announced that two letters had come for him, and at his direction they were taken to his room and placed upon his desk.
When he went upstairs some minutes later, he found one bearing Richard’s hand and the other, as so many had before it, addressed to Julia Harding in writing Darcy no longer needed to examine twice to recognise.
His attention went immediately to Elizabeth’s.
Richard had been making enquiries in London for several weeks and his previous letters had contained little beyond promising leads which eventually led nowhere.
Elizabeth’s letters, however, had become something Darcy looked forward to with an eagerness he had long ceased attempting to deny, and after only a moment he broke the seal.
Dearest Julia,
I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin, though I suspect you would advise me to begin with whichever part I am most determined to avoid admitting.
Mr. Collins remains amongst us, though his ambitions have altered considerably since his arrival.
He proposed to Mary and was refused, to Mama’s horror and Papa’s considerable amusement.
He has since discovered that Charlotte Lucas possesses a most admirable patience for sermons, Lady Catherine and the dimensions of Hunsford parsonage, and I begin to suspect he may shortly transfer his hopes in that direction.
I hope Charlotte rejects his proposal, though I suspect our friend’s fear of being left upon the shelf may persuade her to accept him. In all, I wish to see my friend happy, but I hope she does not sacrifice that happiness merely to conform to society’s expectations.
Now, having put that out of the way, I must tell you the most interesting news.
Mr. Darcy is courting me.
I realise you cannot possibly be surprised, considering how often I wrote of him before I was willing to admit that I had any particular reason for doing so.
He asked whether I would allow him to pay his addresses to me, and after taking enough time to preserve at least the appearance of good sense, I accepted.
He has been at Longbourn nearly every day since.
There is something else which will perhaps sound very strange when you finally read this. Mr. Darcy is trying to find you.
I told him something of your disappearance and how long I have gone without an answer, and without my asking him, he enlisted the assistance of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Apparently the colonel possesses connexions which may accomplish more than my poor collection of unanswered letters.
I hardly know what to make of a gentleman who hears that something troubles me and immediately determines it ought to be remedied. I thanked him, of course, though I do not think I told him how very much the kindness affected me.
I wish you were here, Julia. I wish you were here to see Mr. Darcy. He is everything I had always hoped for, and I am not ashamed to say that I love him.
I think perhaps I have for longer than I understood. These last days have only made it impossible to call the feeling anything else. Today we spoke of marriage, and I found I could imagine spending years with him far too easily for my own peace.
So there it is. I love Fitzwilliam Darcy, which I am sure would amuse you excessively after everything I once wrote about how peculiar I found him and how we have both argued that a man for me would be a long time in coming. Well, he is here.
And now I have written all of that when I began this letter intending only to tell you that, for the first time in months, I have some real hope of finding you.
Mr. Darcy tells me his cousin has already discovered something which may prove useful, though he would not say more until there was something certain to tell.
I am trying very hard not to build too much hope upon so little, and failing rather miserably.
Perhaps, wherever you are, we are nearer to finding you than I know.
I hope so. I hope the next time I write I shall know where to send the letter properly, or better still, that there will be no need to write at all because you will be sitting across from me and complaining that I have told you everything badly.
There is so much I wish to tell you that cannot be put properly upon paper. I want you to meet Mr. Darcy. I want to hear what has happened to you these many months, and I want very much to know that you are safe.
Until then, I shall continue to hope that somehow these letters find their way back to you.
Your affectionate friend,
Elizabeth.
Darcy remained seated with the letter in his hands, caught between the happiness of her confession and the knowledge that she had never intended him to read it.
Elizabeth had chosen to tell Julia that she loved him.
Darcy had taken that confidence for himself, as he had taken so many others before it, and the affection expressed throughout the letter made the manner of obtaining it more difficult to excuse rather than less.
His gaze eventually moved to Richard’s letter.
Perhaps his cousin had found something this time. Elizabeth’s words had made him particularly impatient for any intelligence he might give her, and Darcy opened it at once.
Darcy,
I have found the Hardings.
Forgive the abrupt beginning, but I thought you would prefer the news without ceremony.
They are in London, though their circumstances are not what either of us expected.
Harding was at Willowbrook when his sister-by-law brought Julia to him, and when he saw the condition she arrived in, he determined she required better care than the country could offer.
By an unfortunate coincidence, the lease upon Willowbrook was due to be renewed at nearly the same time, and he was left to choose between securing it for another period and spending the money upon his daughter's care. As a father, he chose the latter.
Miss Harding survived the fever, but the illness appears to have left a strange injury behind it.
Her recollection of the months preceding her illness is greatly impaired.
She remembers her father and much of her earlier life, but whole portions of the year preceding her illness are either confused or absent altogether.