Chapter V
Mr. Darcy’s departure from Rosings had been marked by a composure which, to any observer, might have appeared complete.
He had taken leave of his aunt with proper respect, excused his changing his mind with reasons sufficiently plausible, and arranged his journey with his usual attention to order.
Nothing in his manner betrayed agitation; nothing in his words hinted at disturbance.
He did not return immediately to Pemberley after leaving Kent.
Under ordinary circumstances, Pemberley was to him a place of refuge – of quiet order, of certainty, of self-command.
It was associated with every feeling of comfort and propriety; it was, in every sense, his home.
But now he could not bring himself to face it, not without her.
More than once – more often than he chose to acknowledge – he had pictured Elizabeth there. Moving through its rooms with ease; present in those private spaces which he had never before thought to share. The images had once presented themselves naturally. Now they returned only to wound.
The realisation that she would never be there – that she would not walk those paths, nor share that home, nor regard him with any feeling – was a thought he found himself unable to dwell upon without pain.
He was not proud of it, but he avoided Pemberley while the wound remained too fresh to bear calmly.
So, he delayed his return. Not openly, not with any admission of reluctance, but by degrees – by small postponements, by reasonable excuses, by engagements which, though real, might easily have been deferred.
He was not proud of the evasion; yet he persisted in it for the sake of even the slightest reprieve.
In London, business, real though not urgent, provided him with the appearance of necessity.
Letters were written, accounts reviewed, consultations held; he saw his solicitor, spoke with possible business partners, and involved himself in matters which might, at another time, have claimed only a portion of his attention.
Now they occupied him entirely. Or seemed to do so.
For though his days were thus engaged, his thoughts were not so easily commanded.
The refusal still possessed the power to wound him.
In his anger and disappointment, he endeavoured to persuade himself that the refusal was fortunate – that he had been preserved from an imprudent attachment.
If she did not appreciate what he offered her, it was best she refused him.
He had escaped the misery of attaching himself to a woman who could not esteem him.
In his worst moments, he persuaded himself that he had escaped connexions which, under calmer reflection, he had always considered imprudent. He almost convinced himself. Almost.
He reasoned thus repeatedly, sometimes with enough success to quiet his mind for an hour or two. But not entirely. For all his efforts to appear composed, there remained something which reason could not subdue.
He had loved her.
To discover those feelings unwelcome hurt him deeply.
The memory of Hunsford still retained the power to humble him unexpectedly, with far too much confidence in the success of his addresses, and when it… when he was found wanting, the shock had been severe. He wrote the letter while still under the force of it.
He told himself at times that the lesson had been necessary.
That he had been right, after all, in his long determination never to marry unless he could do so without surrendering his peace.
Affection, once admitted, had not elevated him as poets and foolish young men insisted it must; it had rendered him vulnerable.
He, who had governed his conduct with such care for so many years, had at last allowed himself to feel deeply – and those feelings had been rejected with a warmth that still had power to humble him in recollection.
There were moments when resentment returned strongly enough to aid his pride.
That Elizabeth Bennet, whose discernment he had admired above that of any other woman, should have credited Wickham’s falsehoods so entirely, wounded him almost as much as her refusal itself.
Was she, then, not so clear-sighted as he had believed?
Had her wit and liveliness concealed a judgement no sounder than anyone else’s?
Yet even as he thus attempted to defend himself against disappointment, he found the effort imperfect.
For he could not forget the openness of her indignation, nor persuade himself that it had arisen from vanity or malice alone.
And beneath every wounded reflection remained one hope, stubborn and difficult to extinguish: that she had read his letter with fairness; that she had believed at least part of what he wrote; that, if she could not esteem him, she might no longer despise him.
His mind was rarely quiet for long. Pride argued one way, affection another…
Part of him wished to condemn her for believing Wickham, yet he still found himself excusing even that injustice.
At one moment, he considered himself fortunate to have escaped an attachment so hopeless; at the next, he felt only the misery of having lost what he most desired.
He reproached himself for loving her – and loved her still.
Yet London, even with all its occupations, could not detain him indefinitely.
There were duties which required his presence at Pemberley.
The estate demanded attention; the harvest approached; arrangements that could not safely be entrusted to others must be made.
Georgiana, too, expected him, and though he wrote to her frequently, he was sensible that his absence had already been prolonged beyond what was reasonable.
One of her recent letters lay among his papers even now. She hoped business had not overtaxed him. She hoped he would soon return. And, with the affectionate frankness she seldom displayed except in writing, she confessed that Pemberley never felt entirely like home when he was absent.
He delayed, nevertheless.
Day after day, he found reasons to remain. Instructions might be sent; reports received; decisions postponed.
Until at last even he could no longer mistake the truth: it was not necessity that detained him in London. He did not know how to return to Pemberley without her.
He could not remain absent forever; the Bingleys looked forward to their summer visit. Heaven knew he was little fitted for society at present.
The Bingleys, who were then in town, had more than once proposed travelling north with him later in the summer, but Darcy declined every such arrangement with a steadiness which admitted no persuasion.
He could not have explained, even to himself, why the idea was so unwelcome.
Bingley’s society had always been easy for him. There were few men with whom he was more readily at peace. Yet now the thought of travelling in company – of enduring cheerful conversation, easy hopes, and careless good humour while his own mind remained in such disorder – became almost intolerable.
Nor could he bear, without self-reproach, the sight of his friend’s friendly face, which trusted him implicitly. He had done his friend the worst of favours, and he did not know what to do about it, if anything could still be done.
There had been a time when he considered that affection imprudent. Now he remembered, with increasing discomfort, the confidence with which he had once presumed to govern what was never his to decide.
So, he travelled alone.
The journey north, undertaken at a pace slower than was usual for him, afforded too much leisure for reflection.
There were long stretches of road during which he barely observed where he was, so entirely was his mind occupied by the recollection of Hunsford.
More than once, he became aware only after some delay that the horses had been changed or another posting-house left behind.
At one posting-house, the landlord attempted to engage in conversation regarding the condition of the roads ahead. Darcy answered once, then again, without having properly heard the question.
The man repeated himself with visible patience.
Darcy apologised and forced himself to attend. The exchange lasted scarcely a minute, yet he found himself remembering it afterwards with a degree of embarrassment. His thoughts had become so fixed upon one subject that ordinary civility itself required effort.
Her words returned to him continually.
Their bitterness wounded him deeply; yet it was their justice that returned to him most persistently.
He heard again her accusation of ungentlemanlike behaviour; heard the indignation with which she spoke of Bingley and Jane; heard, most painfully of all, her astonishment that he could have conducted himself as he had and yet expected gratitude in return.
At first, he had defended himself instinctively. He had acted, he believed, from concern for his friend. He had distrusted the warmth of Miss Bennet’s attachment, and he had wished to spare Bingley an imprudent connection.
But even while his pride argued thus, another part of his mind – quieter, steadier, and far less indulgent – had already begun to question him.
Why had he thought himself entitled to decide the matter at all?
Why had he trusted his own judgement so completely and dismissed the feelings of others with such certainty?
The more honestly he considered it, the less satisfaction he found in his former reasoning.
And there were other recollections still more difficult to defend.
He remembered occasions – countless occasions – on which he had withdrawn from society not from modesty, nor reserve, but from disdain.
He had persuaded himself that because he found much of fashionable company foolish, insincere, or tiresome, he was justified in making no effort toward civility beyond what strict propriety required.
Miss Elizabeth had seen through that justification at once.
He began, gradually and unwillingly, to perceive that in his determination not to resemble those shallow men who sought admiration through charm and fashionable manners, he had erred in the opposite direction.
He had despised affectation so completely that he had almost come to value incivility as honesty.
What he had long called discernment might, in many instances, have been little better than arrogance.
And his reserve – which he had always considered merely prudent – could not have appeared otherwise than contempt to those who did not know him better.
And what he had once excused in himself might often have appeared little better than disregard for the comfort of others.
The discovery humbled him more than he could easily bear, for he had always considered himself honourable.
Yet honour, he now understood, consisted not merely in acting correctly where duty was clear, but in conducting oneself with generosity, consideration, and humanity even in the lesser intercourse of daily life.
Elizabeth Bennet had judged him deficient in all three. The recollection was not one he could now dismiss as entirely unjust. By the time he approached Pemberley, his mind, though still unhappy, had settled into a resolution more serious than any he had previously formed.
He would not remain the man she had condemned.
Whether he should ever see her again or not – whether she thought better of him or continued to despise him – he could not wholly determine.
But he could at least govern himself better.
He could acknowledge his faults more readily in solitude than he suspected he should in company.
It was much easier to recognise faults than correct them.
If he had been proud, he would endeavour to become humbler. If he had been inattentive, he would become more considerate. And if he had once imagined civility beneath him, he would prove himself worthy of respect by learning at last to practise it sincerely.
If his reserve had given offence, he would endeavour to correct it.
If he had appeared careless of others, he would endeavour to become more deserving of their good opinion – not from vanity, nor from any restless desire to please, but because he had begun at last to understand that civility required more of a man than he had once believed.
And perhaps too – though he seldom allowed himself to dwell long upon the thought – because he could not entirely relinquish the hope that, should Elizabeth Bennet ever hear his name again, she might hear it less unfavourably than before.
It was with these thoughts still occupying him that he arrived at Pemberley.
His reception there was what it had always been.
Everything was in order; nothing had been neglected.
The house was prepared, the grounds attended, the servants respectful and attentive.
Nothing had changed, yet the place no longer appeared quite the same to him.
The place itself seemed altered – not so much in reality, but in association.
He saw it now with a different eye. Formerly, he had considered only its beauty, order, and consequence.
Now he found himself wondering how it appeared to others.
Whether its grandeur intimidated where it ought to have invited ease.
Whether Elizabeth herself, walking through its rooms, would see the same reserve and pride she had once reproached in him.
That indifference no longer satisfied him.
Before he had crossed fully into the house, another circumstance caught his attention. Mrs. Reynolds was conducting visitors through the principal rooms.
Darcy paused almost involuntarily.
Formerly, he might have withdrawn at once, leaving the party to finish their tour unobserved. Indeed, for many years, he had preferred precisely such an arrangement, finding the admiration of strangers awkward at best and tiresome at worst.
The custom itself was not new. Since succeeding to the estate, he had allowed access to the grounds, and occasionally to the house itself. Formerly, however, he had regarded such matters with indifference. The visitors came and went; their opinions neither sought nor considered.
Now, however, the impulse to retreat was checked almost as soon as it arose. Had he not resolved to alter what ought to be altered in himself? The visitors, after all, had done nothing to deserve neglect merely because they were unknown to him.
With that thought, simple though it was, he joined the small group.
And it was there, upon first addressing the couple, that he unknowingly came within a single unspoken name of Elizabeth Bennet.