Chapter 6
Elizabeth
Mr. Darcy's letter sat on my table for nearly an hour before I found the courage to break the seal.
I had expected a proud defense, some impeccable demonstration designed to prove that my reproaches arose from an intelligence inferior to his own. Instead, I found a precise account of the facts, devoid of ornament, and this restraint made each revelation harder to dismiss.
Wickham had not been deprived of an inheritance on a whim.
Mr. Darcy's father had intended a church living for him and had provided him a generous education.
Wickham had refused that path, received a sum in compensation, squandered the money, then demanded more.
This alone would have been enough to overturn part of my judgment.
What followed chilled me.
Georgiana Darcy was only fifteen when Wickham persuaded her to elope with him. His aim was neither love nor even revenge alone, but the young girl's thirty thousand pounds. Mr. Darcy had arrived before the scheme could be carried out.
I let the letter fall onto my lap.
I had listened to Wickham because he was charming.
I had believed him because his story confirmed the opinion I had already formed of Darcy.
I had mistaken my discernment for a guarantee against error and my taste for wit for proof of intelligence.
My pride had merely assumed a more seductive form than his.
I resumed reading.
As for Jane and Bingley, Mr. Darcy did not seek to absolve himself.
He explained that he had truly believed my sister indifferent.
He acknowledged that he had been influenced by my mother's conduct, by Lydia's and Kitty's, and by my father's imprudence.
Above all, he admitted having concealed from Bingley that Jane was in London.
“I believed that the certainty of my own judgment justified a deception I would condemn in any other man. You were right to remind me that the intention to protect a friend grants no authority over his choices.”
I reread this sentence.
He promised to speak to Bingley upon his return to London. He asked for neither forgiveness nor a favorable response. The last page contained only a few lines.
“I do not know what difficulty threatens your family. I only beg you to believe that my assistance, if it can be of use, will never depend upon your consent to marry me. Refuse me freely. I would rather suffer from your decision than owe your presence to fear.”
I pressed the letter against my chest and closed my eyes.
He had made my freedom more terrible than my sacrifice.
As long as I believed I must marry him, I could attribute my choice to necessity. I could see myself as a courageous daughter who accepted a man she did not love to save her mother and sisters. There was a convenient nobility in that image. Mr. Darcy had just destroyed it.
He would not force me. He would help the Bennets even if I left him.
All that remained, then, was to decide what I thought of him.
Charlotte entered shortly before dinner. She found me sitting on the edge of the bed, the letter open beside me.
“Mr. Darcy will not be coming,” she said. “A servant from Rosings brought his apologies.”
“Our engagement may be broken.”
She closed the door gently.
“Perhaps?”
“I learned that he came between Jane and Mr. Bingley. I told him I wished to end our engagement.”
Charlotte sat beside me.
“And what did he reply?”
“That he was giving me back my freedom.”
“That does not sound like a definite break.”
I handed her the letter. She read in silence. Her expression changed when she reached the passage about Georgiana, then softened at the final lines.
“He loves you,” she said.
“I know.”
“That is not nothing.”
“It is not everything.”
“No. But you would not have accepted him yesterday if you thought him incapable of making you happy.”
I stood.
“I accepted him because my father owes five thousand pounds.”
Charlotte remained silent.
I told her what Jane had told me. As I spoke, the shame that had kept me from confiding turned to relief. Charlotte did not judge me. She waited until I had finished.
“So you intended to marry a man you did not love to secure the Bennets' future.”
“Don't say it so reasonably. I'm having enough trouble living with my own behavior as it is.”
“I don't condemn it. You made in one evening the calculation many women make over an entire season. The difference is you were tactless enough to tell your suitor you didn't love him.”
I looked at her.
“You think this is funny?”
“A little. Especially since he loves you enough to hear a promise in the simple fact that you didn't despise him.”
I sank back into the chair.
“Perhaps I did despise him.”
“Yesterday?”
“I thought I did.”
“And today?”
I gazed at the letter.
“Today, I don't know anymore.”
Charlotte folded her hands in her lap.
“Then don't decide tonight.”
“I told him I wanted to break it off.”
“In the shock of a revelation about Jane. You have every right to confirm your decision after you've had time to think.”
“It would be cruel to let him hope.”
“Crueler than marrying him out of necessity?”
I had no answer.
After dinner, I composed a note.
Sir,
I have read your letter. I thank you for confiding such painful facts with such frankness. My opinion of Mr. Wickham was founded as much on my vanity as on his charm, and I deeply regret having spoken of him with such unjust certainty.
I cannot, however, forget Jane. You have promised to repair what can be repaired, and I believe you.
I am not ready to confirm the end of our engagement. Nor am I ready to continue it as if nothing had happened. Grant me until I return to Longbourn. I will speak to my father and then give you an answer free of necessity, if such freedom is truly left to me.
Elizabeth Bennet
I hesitated before signing. I was no longer his fiancée, perhaps, but neither had I become again the young woman who found amusement in his reserve. Something had changed between us. We had wounded each other deeply enough that the other's opinion now mattered.
The next morning, his reply arrived.
I grant you all the time you request. I will claim no promise from you. I will be in London in three days to speak to Bingley, then will travel to Hertfordshire when your father permits.
F. Darcy
A second sheet accompanied the note. It was addressed to my father and sealed separately.
I did not open it.
For the first time since Jane's letter, I breathed without feeling the future closing in around me.
The freedom Mr. Darcy had returned to me was not light. It weighed almost as much as an obligation.
But it was mine.