Chapter XIII
One evening, after Mrs. Bennet had at last exhausted herself into uneasy silence, and Mary had retired with a volume of improving sermons which she appeared to think peculiarly suited to family disgrace, Elizabeth found Jane alone in the little sitting-room.
A single candle burned between them. The curtains had not yet been drawn entirely, and through the dimness beyond the window, the last melancholy light of evening still lingered faintly upon the fields.
Jane looked up as Elizabeth entered. “You ought to rest, Lizzy. You have hardly sat down all day.”
Elizabeth shook her head and moved towards the window instead. “I could not bear my room yet.”
Jane watched her anxiously. “You are exhausting yourself.”
Elizabeth gave a faint, humourless smile. “I think exhaustion would be preferable to thinking.”
For a few moments, neither spoke.
Then Jane said softly, “I cannot help still hoping that something may yet be better than we fear.”
Elizabeth turned sharply. “Better?”
Jane clasped her hands together tightly. “Colonel Forster may still be mistaken. Wickham may intend marriage after all. Why else take Lydia?”
Elizabeth stared at her almost in disbelief. “Jane.”
“I know appearances are dreadful – I know they are – but Lydia is very young, and Wickham may have acted rashly rather than wickedly.”
Elizabeth’s restraint, strained almost beyond endurance for days, gave way at last. “How can you still say such things?”
Jane started.
Elizabeth immediately regretted the sharpness of her tone yet could not wholly restrain herself now.
“How can you continue inventing excuses for people who deserve none? Wickham has deceived everyone who trusted him. He has debts everywhere, no principle, no honour – and Lydia has gone with him without marriage, without protection, without thought for anyone but herself. What possible interpretation remains to soften?”
Jane’s eyes filled instantly with tears. “I do not wish to excuse him… Only… only until we know everything with certainty…”
“With certainty?” repeated Elizabeth. “Must we truly wait until our disgrace is complete before admitting what is obvious already?”
Jane looked wounded now, though she still struggled for calm. “You are unjust to me, Lizzy.”
“Yes,” cried Elizabeth, pacing across the room, “perhaps I am unjust! But I am weary of hearing wickedness treated as mere thoughtlessness because it is painful to condemn it.”
Jane rose too then, distressed both for herself and for her sister. “I know it is dreadful.”
“No, Jane. You do not know it.”
The words escaped before Elizabeth could soften them.
Jane stood perfectly still.
Elizabeth pressed one trembling hand against her forehead.
“You still speak as though this misery concerns Lydia alone. It does not. It concerns all of us. Every hope we ever had.”
Jane’s face paled. “Lizzy…”
“No gentleman will willingly connect himself now with this family. No respectable person will forget what has happened. Lydia has not ruined only herself – she has ruined us all.”
Jane’s tears fell silently now.
“I cannot believe,” she whispered, “that everyone will judge so harshly.”
Elizabeth gave a short, pained laugh utterly unlike her usual manner. “Then I envy your confidence more than I can say.”
The severity of the speech shocked even herself after it was uttered. Jane turned away slightly, struggling to master her emotion.
For one terrible moment, Elizabeth saw not merely her sister’s sorrow, but the deeper wound beneath it.
Mr. Bingley.
Jane, who had already once lost happiness quietly and without complaint, still could not persuade herself entirely to relinquish hope in human goodness even now.
And Elizabeth, in her misery, had wounded her for it.
The anger went out of her. “Oh, Jane…”
She crossed the room quickly.
“I do not mean… Forgive me. I am miserable and unjust and tired beyond bearing.”
Jane shook her head faintly. “No. You only speak more plainly than I can.”
Elizabeth took her sister’s hand. “I cannot endure seeing you still attempt to think well of everything when nothing deserves it.”
Jane’s lips trembled slightly. “Perhaps I must try because if I cease believing people may still be better than they appear, I do not know what would remain.”
The gentleness of the words pierced Elizabeth far more painfully than reproach could have done.
Elizabeth sank slowly into the chair beside her.
For some moments, neither spoke again.
At last, Jane said gently, “You think very ill of the future now.”
Elizabeth looked down. “Yes.”
“And of yourself, too.”
That struck too close to the truth for denial.
Jane hesitated before continuing.
“This will alter many things. I know it must. But I cannot believe it destroys everything forever.”
Elizabeth looked away at once because she had once begun – only begun – to hope precisely that.
Darcy’s face rose before her with painful vividness: his altered expression, his humility, his attentiveness at Lambton, the warmth in his eyes when he spoke to her at parting.
I am glad that we met today.
She closed her eyes briefly.
Jane observed her silently. Then, very gently, “You are thinking of someone.”
Elizabeth started at once. “No.”
But the denial came too quickly.
Jane did not press her further.
And Elizabeth, abruptly unable to bear either confession or concealment, turned away towards the darkened window where nothing could now be seen beyond their own faint reflection in the glass.
Jane watched her quietly, but with a tenderness which seemed to ask for no explanation.
***
The days following Darcy’s letter to Longbourn passed with a slowness which no occupation entirely succeeded in relieving.
At the outset, he expected an answer almost immediately.
Not because he imagined himself entitled to one, but because the circumstances themselves appeared too urgent to admit delay. If assistance were required, surely Mr. Bennet would respond without unnecessary formality.
Thus, Darcy found himself listening involuntarily whenever letters arrived from the post as soon as it was plausible for one from Longbourn.
By the se’nnight, expectation had begun gradually to give way to uncertainty.
By the fortnight, uncertainty had become something far more difficult to master.
No answer came.
Outwardly, his conduct altered little. The habits of self-command long established in him did not easily abandon their place.
He continued attending to his guests with proper civility; he dined with them, accompanied them in rides through the park, listened with patience to Miss Bingley’s observations, and even exerted himself occasionally in conversation when Georgiana’s comfort seemed to require it.
Yet the effort grew more and more exhausting daily.
Every morning, upon entering the breakfast room, his eyes moved towards the letters placed beside his plate.
And every morning, disappointment returned.
He did attempt to reason with himself calmly.
The letter might have miscarried. Mr. Bennet, amidst distress and confusion, might simply have overlooked it.
The family’s situation might be too painful to discuss with comparative strangers.
Or perhaps – and here his thoughts always became less steady – Elizabeth herself had opposed any reply.
That possibility recurred to him with increasing frequency.
She might consider his interference unwelcome. She might resent his presumption in writing at all.
Or worse still, she might now wish entirely to forget every renewed intimacy which had arisen between them in Derbyshire.
He recalled again, with painful exactness, the openness which had existed between them during those few hours at Lambton. At times, he felt persuaded he had not imagined the alteration in her manner. At others, memory itself seemed merely another form of vanity.
Perhaps he had once more mistaken civility for encouragement. Even considering such a possibility was enough to unsettle him.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere at Pemberley became increasingly oppressive to him.
Miss Bingley, though careful never again to speak openly with disrespect of the Bennets in his presence, possessed too much curiosity not to speculate continually upon the mystery of their sudden departure.
Darcy perceived easily enough that she suspected disgrace of some kind; and though Bingley himself remained more sincerely anxious than inquisitive, even his concern became painful to witness.
For Bingley still spoke of Jane Bennet sometimes. Not frequently. Not directly. But enough.
Enough that Darcy, hearing the unchanged warmth in his friend’s voice, became ever more conscious of the injury he himself had once assisted in inflicting.
But another reflection now accompanied the recollection with increasing persistence.
Had Bingley’s attachment been equal to his own?
Darcy could not entirely persuade himself that it had.
For if a man truly loved – deeply, decidedly, beyond vanity or convenience – could he so easily have surrendered the object of his affection merely upon another man’s judgement? Or because his sisters did not approve?
Bingley had withdrawn without resistance, without demanding explanation, almost without complaint. More troubling still, he had left Hertfordshire without offering Miss Bennet any proper farewell after attentions which all the neighbourhood had observed.
Every time Bingley spoke of Hertfordshire and the pleasure he had found there, Darcy experienced a fleeting impulse to tell him plainly what he had never before said.
That if his attachment truly remained unchanged, he ought never to have surrendered it so easily.
The impulse was neither reasonable nor entirely just.
Yet it returned often.