Chapter XII
The journey back to Longbourn was one of misery, only just relieved by exhaustion.
Initially, there was enough activity to prevent Elizabeth from thinking steadily.
The haste of departure, the perpetual changing of horses, her aunt’s anxious attempts at consolation, her uncle’s continual calculations regarding distance and time – all imposed a kind of restless occupation upon the mind.
But as the miles lengthened behind them and no new intelligence arrived, thought returned with redoubled force.
And every thought ended in the same place.
Lydia.
Elizabeth could not comprehend that the catastrophe was real. Lydia’s faults had always appeared too ridiculous to be dangerous. Folly, vanity, imprudence, thoughtlessness – these had been expected from her almost daily. Yet there remained a vast difference between foolish flirtation and ruin.
Elizabeth had never truly believed Lydia capable of understanding ruin well enough even to approach it knowingly.
Now she understood, too late, that ignorance itself may become one of the greatest dangers.
Mrs. Gardiner, seeing her niece’s agitation increase rather than lessen during the journey, at last said gently, “You must not accuse yourself so severely, Lizzy. No one could have anticipated such an event.”
Elizabeth turned towards her almost with pain.
“But I could have done something.”
“What?”
“I knew him.” The words escaped her with bitterness.
She remembered Jane’s reluctance to condemn him even then.
How readily her sister had hoped that Mr. Wickham had changed and wanted to do better.
Elizabeth had not truly shared those hopes.
Yet she had been grateful for them. Her sister’s advice made silence easier.
Now they were paying for this generosity.
Her aunt watched her closely. “You knew Mr. Wickham’s character was not what it ought to be?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Gardiner’s expression altered.
Elizabeth hesitated.
She could not expose Georgiana Darcy’s history – not even now. That secret was not hers to reveal.
“I learnt enough,” she said at last, “to understand that he was unprincipled, selfish, and wholly undeserving of trust. Had I spoken openly when first I knew it, my father would never have allowed Lydia to remain so much in his company… No, I cannot now feel certain even of that.”
Mr. Gardiner frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, your father enjoys his peace too much to have resisted, I am afraid. But why did you remain silent?”
She pretended interest in the letter.
Because the knowledge came from Darcy. Because she had been ashamed of how unjustly she herself had once defended Wickham. Because even after receiving Darcy’s letter, she had still shrunken from exposing publicly a man whom she had once praised.
“I believed,” she answered quietly, “that exposing him would involve others in unhappiness who had done nothing to deserve it. To be honest, a possible disaster never even occurred to me. I thought, if anything, Mr. Wickham would hope to court someone with money – as he did in Meryton.” Her expression changed. “What does he want with my sister?”
The explanation, though incomplete, satisfied them sufficiently to prevent further enquiry.
Yet Elizabeth derived no comfort from their silence.
For the more she reflected, the more intolerable her own negligence appeared. She had seen Lydia’s recklessness. She had known Wickham’s want of principle. And still she had allowed herself to hope that vanity and flirtation might end harmlessly merely because she wished it so.
How often had she laughed at Lydia’s absurdity when she ought to have feared it?
How often had she condemned her mother’s indulgence without exerting herself seriously to oppose it?
And now the consequence had fallen upon them all.
By the time they reached Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet’s distress had risen almost to hysteria.
She received them in her room amidst smelling salts, scattered handkerchiefs, and continual lamentation.
“Oh! Mr. Bennet will be murdered in London! Lydia will certainly be abandoned! We shall all be turned out of the house! Nobody will marry the other girls! Oh! Why did Colonel Forster ever take her to Brighton?”
The incoherence of the complaints might once have provoked Elizabeth’s impatience into amusement.
Now they only exhausted her.
Jane, pale with anxiety yet still striving to preserve calm for everyone else, embraced Elizabeth. “Oh, Lizzy, thank Heaven you are come.”
Elizabeth held her tightly. “Any news?”
Jane shook her head. “None. Not the slightest trace.”
Colonel Forster had made enquiries everywhere possible. Mr. Gardiner intended to proceed to London with haste to aid his brother-in-law. Wickham’s debts were discovered to be considerable. Several tradesmen in Meryton already spoke openly of him with disdain because of the debt he had left behind.
The prospect darkened hourly.
Soon, Elizabeth learnt another misery.
The news had begun spreading through Meryton.
At the beginning, only uncertain rumours circulated, but Mrs. Bennet, incapable of restraint even in calamity, spoke so continually and so loudly of Lydia’s disappearance that concealment soon became impossible.
Within days, the consequences became insufferably visible.
Calls ceased.
Neighbours who had formerly visited almost daily now found reasons to remain away. Acquaintances greeted the Bennet sisters with constrained civility or hurried reserve. Even those who pitied them appeared anxious not to be too closely connected with disgrace.
Kitty wept frequently from mingled shame and mortification.
Mary delivered solemn reflections upon female impropriety with an earnestness which rendered them almost unbearable.
Mrs. Bennet alternated between hysterical grief and feverish hopes that Wickham would yet marry Lydia honourably.
And Mr. Bennet…
Elizabeth’s disappointment in her father grew more and more painful each day.
Initially, she had looked towards his journey to London with desperate expectation. Surely, he, at least, would act decisively now. Surely the danger would awaken him at last from that habitual indifference which had governed so much of Lydia’s upbringing.
But even before his return, she began gradually understanding the truth. He searched because duty required it. Not because hope animated him.
Letters from Mr. Gardiner revealed far more exertion than any undertaken by her father himself. Mr. Bennet wrote briefly, impatiently, almost hopelessly from the beginning.
And when at last he returned to Longbourn without success, after a mere ten days, the full bitterness of Elizabeth’s disappointment could no longer be resisted.
He was tired. Tired of London, tired of enquiries, tired of humiliation.
He spoke of Wickham with contempt, Lydia with anger, and the whole business as though it were some exhausting absurdity inflicted upon him by fate rather than the consequence of years of negligence.
“I have learnt my lesson at last,” he said once with bitter irony. “No officer is ever again to enter this house except by my express permission, and whichever of you girls mentions Brighton shall be confined upstairs for a fortnight.”
Jane looked distressed.
Elizabeth was obliged to bite her tongue with considerable force.
Once, such irony from her father might still have provoked reluctant amusement even amidst distress; now she could hear in it only the bitter consequence of years spent laughing where he ought to have governed.
Several replies rose to her lips – replies far less dutiful than any daughter ought to utter – but she suppressed them all, knowing that reproach, however deserved, could no longer undo the ruin already wrought.
Nonetheless, for the first time in her life, she felt something dangerously near resentment towards her father.
He had laughed where he ought to have governed. Now they all suffered for it.
Meanwhile, Wickham’s true situation became increasingly dreadful.
Debts everywhere. No intention of marriage. Companions equally disreputable. Lydia carried off not from passion perhaps, but from vanity, recklessness, and selfish amusement. And no word from her either.
Elizabeth sometimes found herself unable to endure the house for long together. The atmosphere of Longbourn – once merely foolish and noisy – now seemed charged with shame.
At times, the future appeared entirely hopeless.
Who would connect themselves with such a family now?
Jane, though still lovely and gentle as ever, must surely suffer from the disgrace. Kitty and Mary would likewise bear its consequences. And Elizabeth herself…
She barely allowed herself to think of marriage any longer.
Instead, another idea gradually began presenting itself more frequently to her imagination.
A governess.
The prospect possessed little attraction; yet there appeared something almost relieving in the thought of removal. Somewhere distant. Somewhere unconnected with Meryton, gossip, humiliation, and disappointment.
She imagined herself living quietly among strangers, useful perhaps, unnoticed certainly.
The vision was melancholy. Yet not entirely unwelcome.
A burst of laughter carried across the lane. Elizabeth looked up.
Two village children had escaped some maternal supervision and were racing one another through the grass with all the importance of persons engaged upon a matter of great consequence.
For a moment, she watched them. Then she resumed her walk. The picture lingered unexpectedly in her mind.
A quiet home. A husband. Children. Affections freely given and received.
Such prospects had once appeared so ordinary that she had scarcely thought of them. Now they seemed suddenly distant.
And amidst all these reflections, one thought returned continually with peculiar pain.
Mr. Darcy.
She attempted resisting the recollection altogether. But resistance proved useless. Everything connected with Derbyshire now seemed haunted by what might have been.
Repeatedly, she remembered his altered manner at Lambton. His attentiveness. His humility. The restrained warmth with which he had looked at her when all reserve between them had begun, at last, to soften.
And then she remembered the note left at the inn.
The disappointment he must have felt – and the conclusions he must now inevitably draw.
Her aunt’s note had necessarily concealed the truth, and Elizabeth could not help fearing that Mr. Darcy might attribute their sudden departure to herself.
She was surprised by how deeply the thought pained her.
There were moments – desperate moments – when she wished passionately that she had accepted the impulse to seek his assistance. No one knew Wickham better. No one possessed greater means of discovering him.
Had she spoken then, perhaps…
But pride had silenced her.
And now it was too late. Far too late. For what must Mr. Darcy think now?
He had once warned her against Wickham and been rejected for it. He had once offered her his affection despite every inferiority of connection and been refused with indignation.
She remembered standing before him at Hunsford, every accusation ready upon her tongue.
She had believed herself perfectly justified.
Now she could scarcely endure recalling the certainty with which she had spoken.
Her youngest sister had since eloped publicly with that very man. Elizabeth could not bear the humiliation of imagining his knowledge of it. Worse still was the fear that pity might now wholly replace whatever feeling he had once retained for her.
And sometimes, in her most miserable moments, she found herself thinking – not without bitterness – that had she trusted Darcy sooner, had she judged him fairly when first she ought to have done so, everything might now have been different.
But such reflections brought no remedy.
Only regret.