Chapter 13
March was a rather tentative month that year in Hertfordshire.
The first retreat of winter and approach of spring did not arrive all at once, nor with any great declaration of itself, but rather in small alterations that might easily be overlooked by anyone not inclined to watch closely.
Though still cool, the air had lost something of its severity; the ground no longer resisted the foot with quite the same stubborn firmness; and even the hedgerows, which had for so long appeared stripped and bare, showed the faintest touches of green.
Elizabeth had not set out that morning with any particular intention beyond walking, yet she had continued farther than she had meant to go, following the familiar line of the lane until the house was no longer in view and the quiet of the open fields had fully taken hold.
It was a habit she had long possessed, to think best when in motion, and of late, there had been more than enough to occupy her thoughts.
She did not dwell on any one subject so much as move between several, none of them entirely resolved.
In all that had passed since Christmas, there was a gradual rearranging of her understanding, which she could neither hasten nor entirely avoid.
Some conclusions had been reached with clarity; others seemed to resist it.
She had grown accustomed to the feeling of being in the midst of that process, though she could not say she found it wholly comfortable.
Though knowing it was quite impossible, she wished that Mr Darcy could have responded to her letter.
Of course he could not, for all the same reasons she had couched her desperate plea for help in obscure phrases and a signature that anyone would take as being her father’s.
An unmarried woman could not write to a man of no relation to her, nor he to her.
In breaking that rule, Elizabeth was committing a solecism considerably more serious than any of Lydia’s pranks.
In any lesser cause, she would not have considered it.
What had Mr Darcy thought of her? Had she lost his respect by acting with such daring?
The thought was strangely painful. Elizabeth told herself fiercely that there was no reason it should be so.
She had no cause to wish for his good opinion, nor to mourn the loss of his approval.
She ought to hope that he would help, out of a wish to see justice if nothing else, and view Mr Darcy with perfect indifference in all other respects.
She could not pretend that she did.
Elizabeth had yet another cause for abstraction.
Not long after Charlotte left for Kent, she had sent a letter.
With one startling exception, Charlotte expressed herself as Elizabeth might have guessed in every respect.
She professed herself happy and satisfied, with her home more comfortable than she had imagined, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh yet more generously patronising.
It would all have been entirely unsurprising, except for Charlotte’s earnest wish that Elizabeth should come to visit her in the spring.
Charlotte had said something of the kind before leaving for her new home, but Elizabeth had not considered that she might have really meant it.
Though their long friendship easily justified the visit, Elizabeth’s relations with her cousin did not.
Elizabeth could not consider the concept of a stay of some weeks with Mr Collins with anything like pleased anticipation.
Yet equally, she could not like the idea of refusing so earnest an invitation from Charlotte.
At last, she had decided on friendship and accepted the invitation.
Now there remained only to think of her eagerness to see Charlotte again, her curiosity as to how happy she would profess herself, and whether either of these interests could possibly outweigh the nuisance of spending long days under the same roof as Mr Collins.
For some minutes, the question so occupied her that Elizabeth hardly saw the countryside passing by.
It was therefore with some surprise that she became aware of someone approaching her at a pace so unlike the ordinary movements of the neighbourhood that she stopped almost before she had recognised who it must be.
Mary Bennet was not a person who hurried. Yet Mary was now almost running towards her.
“Lizzy!” she called, for once too much excited to think of Fordyce’s dictates that a young woman ought not to raise her voice. “You must come back directly.”
Elizabeth turned fully toward her, her attention at once engaged by the urgency of her manner. “What is it? Has something happened?”
Mary came up to her with an expression that combined breathlessness with considerable satisfaction. She paused only long enough to recover herself sufficiently to speak with composure. “There is news,” she said. “Very particular news, and it is already everywhere.”
“Well? Tell me!” Elizabeth demanded impatiently.
Mary drew herself up slightly, as if determined to present the matter with proper seriousness but too much excited to keep calm. “Mr Wickham is in disgrace,” Mary pronounced with a flourish.
Elizabeth gasped in astonishment and relief. It was a moment before she could speak. “In what way?”
Mary’s tone lowered, though there was no one near enough to overhear them.
“He has been placed on punishment duty. It is said that he will not be granted any leave for some time. A messenger came from London and spoke directly with Colonel Forster. There has been an inquiry. Everything has come out.”
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. The account was clear enough, yet she found herself unwilling to accept it at once, not from doubt, but from the weight of what it implied. “Everything?” she repeated.
“So it seems,” Mary said. “His debts, at least, are no longer a matter of conjecture. Several tradesmen have spoken, and there appears to have been no attempt to deny it. As for the rest…” She hesitated slightly.
“Well. There is enough said to make his conduct generally understood, even where it is not fully described.”
Elizabeth drew a slow breath.
It had been done, then, not by rumour, nor by the uncertain accumulation of private suspicion, but by something far more decisive. Authority had intervened. The matter had been examined, and the result was not to be mistaken.
“And this is certain?” she asked.
Mary inclined her head. “From everything I have heard, I believe it is. Kitty and Lydia heard it first, of course, but Mrs Hill has already had confirmation from more than one quarter. Everyone appears to agree.”
Elizabeth turned slightly, as if to resume walking, though her thoughts were not yet ready to move on so easily.
For too long she had known, had been as certain as she could be without absolute proof, that Wickham’s conduct must not be allowed to pass unnoticed forever.
Yet certainty of that kind had not been enough.
It had produced vigilance, uneasiness, and resolution, but no effect.
To see the matter now carried beyond private conviction into public consequence was something very different.
Mary had been watching her closely. With a mixture of curiosity and eagerness, she said, “Lizzy, did you do this?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I cannot take the credit. I brought this about only in the sense that I asked for help.”
“I think you ought to have some credit,” Mary insisted. “You were the first to insist that something ought to be done. You saw the danger more clearly than any of us. And if it was another who brought justice to Mr Wickham, it seems that they would not have done it without you.”
Elizabeth stopped short at that. “I suppose you are right,” she said at last. “Very well, Mary. If you insist, I shall take a little — a very little — of the credit. But then you and Jane must take some, too.”
Mary smiled at that. “Thank you, Lizzy.” They began to walk again, this time together and at a more moderate pace.
“I cannot help thinking,” Mary continued after a moment, “that this is precisely what Mr Greene meant. He warned me that to repeat what cannot be properly proved is of no use, however strongly one may believe it to be true. But this, this is something entirely different. There has been an examination. There has been judgement. It is not gossip, but justice.”
Elizabeth glanced at her. “You remember his advice very exactly.”
Mary coloured a little, but said stoutly, “It seemed well worth remembering.”
“I have no doubt of it.”
Mary did not answer, but there was a quiet satisfaction in her expression that left Elizabeth pleased for what she imagined of her sister’s future happiness.
For her own part, Elizabeth’s thoughts had already moved beyond the immediate fact of Wickham’s disgrace to consider what must have brought it about.
There could be little doubt on that point.
No one in Meryton possessed both the knowledge and the authority required to produce such a result.
The intervention must have come from elsewhere, and from someone who had both reason and power to act.
She could not mistake whose hand had moved in it.
Mr Darcy had done all this because his sense of honour required it, but also because she had asked it of him.
He had taken her into his confidence because he could not bear to see her put in danger, and when Elizabeth had asked him to extend his protection beyond herself, he had done so.
She did not delude herself that it could have been without cost.
Elizabeth found her heard beating faster. He had done this for her, at least in part. It meant something, but she could not begin to say what.