Chapter XIV
Several days later, after her argument with Jane, finding herself increasingly unable to endure either her mother’s lamentations downstairs or Kitty’s restless weeping upstairs, Elizabeth escaped for a short interval into her father’s library.
The room stood empty.
At any former period, the sight would almost certainly have comforted her.
The library had long been associated in her mind with ease, intelligence, and that quiet sort of companionship she had once believed herself always to share with her father.
Here she had laughed with him, argued with him, sought refuge beside him from the follies of the rest of the household.
Now even the room itself seemed altered.
Dust lay neglected upon several shelves. Newspapers and opened letters remained scattered untidily across the writing table. One candle had burned entirely down into hardened wax beside a pile of accounts apparently abandoned halfway through examination.
The disorder struck her sorely.
Her father, who had always retreated into indolence with an air of amused superiority, now appeared merely weary.
Elizabeth moved slowly towards the shelves, searching almost mechanically among familiar volumes. She did not quite know what she sought. Distraction perhaps. Silence. Some temporary relief from thoughts which never wholly left her now.
She selected a book almost at random and turned towards the old armchair near the window.
As she sat down, the edge of her skirt caught the corner of the writing table.
Several loose papers slid at once onto the floor.
“Oh!”
She bent to gather them before they scattered further beneath the desk.
Most proved insignificant: old memoranda, half-opened accounts, notes in her father’s careless hand. But one sheet, already unfolded, arrested her attention almost instantly.
The direction.
Pemberley.
She stopped short.
Before she had fully realised what she was doing, her eyes had already fallen upon the signature.
Fitzwilliam Darcy.
For one suspended instant, everything around her seemed to recede into stillness.
Then, with trembling hands, she began to read.
The letter was grave, restrained, entirely proper.
Darcy wrote with respectful concern regarding the Gardiners’ sudden departure from Lambton and the distress in which Miss Bennet had appeared.
Though he regretted intruding where perhaps he possessed little claim to do so, he could not remain easy without offering whatever assistance might lie in his power should the family require it.
He acknowledged his limited acquaintance with Mr. Bennet himself yet hoped he might be permitted to address him openly in consequence of the acquaintance formed with Miss Elizabeth Bennet during the spring at Rosings and renewed in Derbyshire.
There was no presumption in the letter.
No wounded pride. No reproach.
Only concern. Only kindness.
Elizabeth stared at the final lines without seeing them clearly.
He had written.
He had reached out despite everything. For several moments, she could hardly breathe steadily. Then another thought struck her.
The letter lay here. Opened. Did her father reply? He never mentioned it. Elizabeth feared the truth.
Unanswered.
The neglect of it wounded her almost as much as the contents had moved her.
Elizabeth rose at once.
At that very moment, the library door opened, and Mr. Bennet entered. He paused upon seeing her.
“Well, Lizzy. You appear to have discovered my neglected papers.”
Elizabeth turned towards him slowly, Darcy’s letter still trembling in her hand.
“You received this?”
Mr. Bennet glanced in the direction carelessly enough. “Ah. Yes. Mr. Darcy wrote some time ago.”
“Some time ago?” she repeated faintly.
“I believe I read it some time after I returned from London.”
Elizabeth stared at him in disbelief.
“That-that was a month ago.”
“So it is.”
“And… did you answer him?”
Mr. Bennet removed his spectacles with visible weariness. “My dear, I did not know what answer could reasonably be made. The business was already miserable enough without inviting half Derbyshire into it besides.”
Strained for weeks almost beyond endurance, her effort at composure broke at last.
“Half Derbyshire?” she repeated. “This was not idle curiosity!”
“No,” said he quietly. “Mr. Darcy behaved very properly.”
“Then why did you not answer?”
Mr. Bennet looked at her with faint surprise, as though the violence of her agitation genuinely puzzled him.
“What purpose would it have served?”
Elizabeth could not believe what she heard.
“What purpose?” she cried. “Good God, sir, he offered assistance!”
“And what assistance could he possibly provide?”
“He knows Wickham better than anyone… he would not have remained indifferent.”
“You think me indifferent?”
“Your daughter is out there. I doubt she is married. She could be alone, and you sit here…”
Mr. Bennet regarded her for a moment without speaking. Then he gave a tired shrug. “By that time, your uncle had already undertaken the search.”
Elizabeth stepped nearer.
“But Mr. Gardiner had neither Darcy’s fortune, nor his connections, nor his influence.”
“Perhaps.”
The calmness of the response rendered it almost unbearable.
Elizabeth’s colour rose violently. “You did not even thank him.”
Mr. Bennet’s expression altered slightly now. “My dear Lizzy, you appear remarkably interested in Mr. Darcy’s correspondence.”
The observation, under ordinary circumstances, might once have silenced her. Now it only wounded her further.
“Yes,” she answered with sudden firmness. “Because he behaved with more concern for this family than we had any right to expect.”
Mr. Bennet looked at her more attentively.
Elizabeth’s effort at calmness, already weakened by weeks of misery, deserted her entirely.
“I warned you,” she said, her voice trembling despite every effort at steadiness. “I warned you before Lydia went to Brighton. I told you her behaviour would end badly. I told you she was too young, too foolish, too uncontrolled.”
Mr. Bennet’s face hardened faintly. “Yes. You did.”
“But you laughed at me.”
The words fell into the room with painful force.
For once, Mr. Bennet made no attempt at irony.
Elizabeth continued before she could stop herself.
“You laughed at everything. At Lydia’s silliness. At my mother’s indulgence. At Kitty’s foolishness. At all of us.” Her breath shook now openly. “And now-now everyone suffers for it.”
A long silence followed.
Mr. Bennet turned away first. “You speak very harshly, Lizzy.”
Elizabeth pressed one trembling hand against the desk. Once, she would have repented such severity. Now misery and disappointment had worn her patience almost beyond its former gentleness.
“Do I speak falsely?”
He did not answer.
The silence itself became answer enough.
For one moment, Elizabeth almost relented. The sight of her father – older, unexpectedly wearier, diminished by failure and humiliation – awakened tenderly the affection which even now she could not entirely extinguish.
But then her eyes fell again upon Darcy’s letter.
Unanswered. Forgotten among scattered papers.
For a moment, she could not speak.
“He wrote to help us,” she said more quietly now. “And you left the letter lying here as though it signified nothing.”
Mr. Bennet looked towards the paper at last.
“You think highly of him.”
Elizabeth looked away. Too much lay concealed within that simple observation.
“I think,” she answered after a pause, “that he acted honourably.” The simplicity of the word concealed far more feeling than Elizabeth herself yet fully understood.
Mr. Bennet said nothing further.
Nor did Elizabeth trust herself to remain longer.
She folded the letter carefully, her fingers lingering for one brief moment upon Darcy’s signature.
Then, instead of returning it to the desk, she held it firmly in her hand.
Mr. Bennet noticed at once. “Lizzy?”
Elizabeth lifted her eyes to him then, and there was in her expression a steadiness very unlike her usual playful warmth.
“You neglected it, sir,” she said quietly. “I shall not.”
Before he could answer, she turned and walked from the room carrying the letter with her.
And only once the door had closed behind her did she permit herself to weep.
***
That evening, Elizabeth did not appear downstairs.
Mrs. Bennet, too overwhelmed by her own nerves and complaints to insist upon her attendance with any real energy, merely lamented loudly that nobody considered a mother’s sufferings properly; Kitty cried because Jane cried; and Mary, after attempting two solemn observations upon female imprudence which nobody listened to, retired into offended silence.
Only Jane came quietly to Elizabeth’s room.
She found her still dressed, seated beside the darkened window with Darcy’s letter lying unfolded upon her lap.
Jane paused at once.
“Lizzy… you have not been crying?”
Elizabeth attempted composure. She just shook her head.
Jane approached gently and sat beside her.
For some moments, neither spoke.
The house itself seemed exhausted by misery. Even below stairs, the usual noises had diminished unusually early; doors closed softly, voices remained subdued, and the oppressive stillness settling over Longbourn appeared less like peace than defeat.
“You ought to try to sleep.”
Elizabeth gave a faint, weary laugh.
Jane reached for her hand. “Lizzy… you must not blame yourself so entirely.”
Elizabeth turned away. “How can I not? I knew him. I knew what Wickham was, and yet I said almost nothing. I thought only of avoiding unpleasantness and preserving secrets which ought never to have been preserved.”
“You could not have foreseen this.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, “but Mr. Darcy did.”
Jane looked at her with slight surprise.
Elizabeth pressed one hand against her eyes briefly.
“He warned me. Not directly perhaps, but enough. And I…” She broke off with visible effort. “I treated him abominably.”
Jane said nothing, though her expression softened with increasing concern.
Elizabeth rose abruptly.
“You should go downstairs, Jane. Mama will want you.”
Jane lingered. “Will you not come later?”
“No. I cannot bear company tonight.”
After another affectionate attempt to persuade her unsuccessfully, Jane at last kissed her cheek and left her alone.
For some time afterwards, Elizabeth remained exactly where she was.
The candle burned lower. Shadows deepened gradually through the room until only the faint gold around her writing table remained illuminated.
Exhaustion, then, overcame agitation sufficiently that she undressed almost mechanically and lay down.
Sleep came eventually, though neither peacefully nor deeply.
When she woke again, the room was entirely dark.
For several confused moments, she did not know what had disturbed her.
Then memory returned all at once.
Lydia. Wickham. Darcy’s letter. Her father. The unanswered offer of help lying forgotten amongst old papers.
Elizabeth closed her eyes again, but rest would not return.
The house around her remained silent. Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck two.
She turned restlessly upon the pillow.
Her thoughts returned to Darcy.
Not merely to his kindness, though that alone affected her enough, but to the letter itself – the openness of it, the delicacy, the concern expressed without presumption.
He had written, knowing perfectly well how awkward such interference might appear.
He had disregarded propriety already for her sake once before at Hunsford, when he placed his own character in her hands through that extraordinary letter.
And now he had done so again.
Elizabeth sat upright.
A strange resolve, half-formed yet irresistible, had begun gradually to take shape within her mind.
Why should she remain silent?
He already knew something was wrong. He had reached out first. And if he thought ill of her family now, silence could not preserve them from it.
Her heart began beating terribly fast.
Before she could lose courage, she rose quietly, wrapped a shawl about her shoulders, and moved towards the writing table.
She simply sat there for several minutes, staring at the blank sheet before her.
Then at last she dipped the pen. The words came slowly. Never before had she felt so uncertain of every word, and yet so unwilling to remain silent.
She hardly knew how to address him now. Every form appeared either too distant or too familiar.
“My dear Mr. Darcy…”
Elizabeth stopped, colour rising violently even though no eye but her own could see the page.
“No,” she whispered aloud.
The sheet was pushed aside hastily. Another followed. This time, she wrote more carefully.
Mr. Darcy,
I do not know whether I ought to write…
Again, she paused. But she did not tear the page. That alone, she thought, was already remarkable.
The candle flickered beside her while, little by little, hesitation yielded to feeling.