Chapter XXIV
Darcy led Elizabeth into the garden. It was quiet, save for the distant sounds of the city beyond the walls.
At last, Darcy looked at the woman next to him and said, “I owe you an explanation.”
Elizabeth’s heart immediately began to beat faster as she looked at him.
“Your letter.”
A faint colour rose in her cheeks.
“I read it only last evening.”
She gasped.
“The packet had been forwarded from Pemberley. Correspondence from Derbyshire usually arrives once a week, and I confess I neglected the bundle for several days. Most such packets contain estate reports, tenants’ concerns, accounts, and similar matters.
During the last week, my attention was occupied elsewhere. ”
There was enough dry humour in the remark to make her smile despite herself.
“After our conversation at Gracechurch Street, I returned home and found a letter from Longbourn amongst the others.” He paused. “I was astonished.”
Elizabeth looked away. “I had already convinced myself that you had read it and regretted receiving it.”
“No.”
The answer came with such force that she looked back at him immediately.
“No,” he repeated more quietly. “Regret was not amongst my feelings.”
A strange silence followed.
“I am glad you found my letter to your father.”
The remark surprised her. “Glad?”
“Had you not found it, I should never have known… your sentiments.” His eyes held hers. “That would have been a considerable loss.”
Elizabeth lowered her gaze. The warmth rising in her cheeks was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Darcy hesitated. Then, with the air of a man stepping onto uncertain ground, he continued. “There is something else I ought to tell you.”
She waited.
“Had your sister not disappeared, and had your visit to Pemberley occurred as I hoped it might…” He stopped and gave a short laugh at himself. “I find I am not saying this very well.”
“Neither am I hearing it very calmly.” The admission escaped before she could stop it.
His expression softened. “If matters had proceeded normally, I should have waited until my guests departed. Then I should have travelled to Longbourn.”
Elizabeth’s breath caught. The implication was unmistakable.
Darcy continued. “I have wondered repeatedly whether I would have been favourably received.”
Elizabeth swallowed. The memory of Lambton rose vividly before her. His kindness. His attentions. The hopes she had scarcely admitted even to herself.
“Yes.” The word was little more than a whisper. Then she found her voice. “Yes, Mr. Darcy. You would have been.”
He looked away briefly. The relief upon his face was so genuine that it touched her unexpectedly. “But Lydia did disappear,” Elizabeth said softly. “And now everything is different.”
Darcy’s gaze returned to her. “Is it?”
She almost laughed. “Mr. Darcy, my family has become a public spectacle.”
“Temporary scandals are often forgotten.”
“Not in Hertfordshire.” The answer came at once.
She began walking again, and he fell into step beside her.
“You do not understand Meryton. Everybody knows. The neighbours know. The shopkeepers know. The servants know. Every morning call, every assembly, every dinner invitation…” She shook her head. “People will be kind. Some of them genuinely so. But they will never forget.”
There was no bitterness in her voice – only certainty. “Jane will suffer for it. Kitty certainly will. Even Mary, who has never done anything improper in her life, will suffer for it.”
She smiled sadly. “And Lydia...” The sentence remained unfinished.
It did not escape Darcy that she did not mention herself.
After a moment, she added, “I do not think we shall ever have a clean slate there again.”
Darcy said nothing. But the words settled somewhere in his mind and remained there.
They walked a little farther.
At length, Elizabeth sighed. “When I first entered the morning room, I scarcely recognised her.”
Darcy looked at her.
“She has changed.”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth glanced back towards the conservatory windows, where the others were faintly visible through the glass. “She is trying so hard to be brave.”
Neither spoke as they turned around in the small space.
“I do not think I understood it fully until I saw her.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Lydia was never thoughtful. Never cautious. She rushed headlong into everything. But she was always happy.” The last word seemed to pain her. “Now…”
Darcy said nothing.
“I warned my father. I urged him not to let her go to Brighton. I can just imagine her, totally separated from her sisters, her parents… no good counsel… He did not listen to me.”
Darcy seemed as if wanting to say something but then thought better of it.
Elizabeth did not notice; she added, “She apologised to me.”
His eyes widened slightly.
Elizabeth laughed softly. “I never thought I should live to see the day.” The amusement faded almost at once. “That is what makes me angry.”
She stopped walking.
“My family was good to him. I was good to him…” She stomped her foot. “This makes me so-so angry… not merely that he deceived her, not merely that he abandoned her.” Her voice hardened. “He has taken something from her.”
Darcy’s hand curled. He followed her gaze towards the conservatory. He tried to comfort her. “Perhaps it will return.”
“Perhaps.” But she did not sound convinced.
“The extraordinary thing is that now everyone claims they always knew Mr. Wickham’s character.”
Darcy glanced at her.
She laughed without humour. “It is true. Since his disappearance, I have heard the most astonishing stories. Merchants who trusted him with credit now declare they never believed a word he said. Tradesmen suddenly remember unpaid accounts. People who praised him now speak as though they detected his villainy from the first moment.”
“That is generally how society operates.”
“I know.” She kicked lightly at a pebble. “It does not make it less irritating.” Then her expression darkened. “I almost wish I had been born a man.”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “That is a dangerous statement.”
“I mean it.” She turned towards him. “Mr. Wickham deserves consequences. Not merely for Lydia. For all of it.”
The force of her feeling surprised even herself. “He leaves ruin behind him and simply moves on. Another town. Another creditor. Another foolish girl.”
She shook her head. “Previously, at least there was the money incentive, which one can comprehend, not that it is much better, but with Lydia? She has no money, and he must have known that. We are not a rich family.” She looked up at the sky.
“He still did it. He ruined a girl, abandoned a girl because the opportunity presented itself, for his own amusement.”
Darcy listened.
“And he did not care what would happen to the rest of us. He did not just ruin one person, but a whole family. He had no right!” Her hands tightened. “If I possessed the authority, I should ensure he never recovered from it.”
Darcy regarded her quietly. “And how would you accomplish that, Miss Bennet?”
She thought for a moment. “At present? Very badly.”
The answer startled a laugh from him.
“But I should certainly try.”
For the first time that morning, they found themselves smiling at one another without reserve.
Then, Elizabeth sobered. She looked him in the eye and said, “I want him punished. I want him to regret ever setting foot in Hertfordshire. I want you to find him and punish him.”
Darcy regarded her steadily. “I intend to find him.”
Nothing more. Yet something in the quiet certainty of the words was more reassuring than any promise could have been.
For a few moments, they continued walking in silence.
Elizabeth found her anger gradually subsiding. It had not vanished entirely – she suspected it would not do so for a very long time – but speaking of it aloud had eased something within her.
Then, another thought returned to her. “Lydia refuses to tell me how you found her.”
Darcy’s expression changed immediately.
Elizabeth noticed it at once. “So there is a story.”
“There is.”
“And she is under strict instructions not to repeat it.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Very strict.”
“Which naturally makes me wish to know it all the more.”
“I suspected it might.”
Elizabeth folded her arms. “Mr. Darcy, I hope you do not imagine that mysterious silences discourage curiosity.”
“No. I have known you too long for that.” The answer escaped him before he could reconsider it.
They battled with their eyes.
Elizabeth looked away first. “You have not known me very long.”
“It feels longer.”
The quiet admission hung between them.
To Darcy’s relief, Elizabeth returned to her original subject.
“Then why the secrecy?”
He hesitated.
“Because the circumstances are unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate for Lydia?”
“For Lydia certainly.”
“And for you?”
A shadow crossed his face. “Yes.”
That answer only increased her curiosity.
Elizabeth stopped walking and turned to face him. “Mr. Darcy, I assure you that after everything which has happened, you may safely tell me.”
He laughed softly. “I am not entirely persuaded of that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I should very much prefer that you continue to think well of me now that I have achieved that.”
The remark caught her completely by surprise. She stared at him.
Darcy immediately appeared to regret having said it. A faint colour rose in his cheeks. “That was perhaps poorly expressed.”
“No,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I think it was expressed very well.”
Neither moved.
Then Darcy looked away and gathered his thoughts. “I can tell you this much. I found your sister entirely by chance.”
Elizabeth frowned. “That seems extraordinary in a city the size of London.”
“It was.”
“You recognised her?”
“Not at first.”
“And she recognised you?”
A curious expression crossed Darcy’s face. “Yes.”
Elizabeth blinked.
“I believe her first reaction was disbelief.”
That sounded remarkably familiar. Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled. “I begin to sympathise with her.”
Darcy inclined his head.
They resumed walking.
For a few moments, he appeared to be considering how much he ought to say. He sighed. “The difficulty, Miss Bennet, is that if the full story became generally known, it would create questions that serve no useful purpose.”
“What sort of questions?”
“The sort society enjoys most.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened.
He continued more quietly. “Your sister was frightened, alone, and in circumstances which no gentleman would wish discussed. If I tell you more, I do so only because I trust your discretion.”
That sobered her at once. “You have it.”
Darcy nodded. “I found her in a house where she ought never to have been.”
The answer was so carefully phrased that it took Elizabeth some time to understand what he meant. “Gracious.” Then, suddenly, she looked down. “And you?”
He looked away. The silence lasted just long enough.
“Oh.”
A faint colour appeared in his cheeks. “Oh, indeed.”
For perhaps the first time in her life, Elizabeth Bennet found herself at a loss for words. She had not expected embarrassment to be amongst the emotions she would experience that morning.
Darcy, meanwhile, appeared to find the gravel path suddenly fascinating.
“I assure you,” he said at last, “my evening did not proceed in the manner I had anticipated. My cousin, the Colonel, persuaded… Well, there it is. Nevertheless, I was there.”
The dry remark rescued them both.
Elizabeth laughed.
To her surprise, Darcy did as well.
“Then it was chance?”
“Entirely.”
“And when you recognised Lydia?”
His expression immediately grew serious. “Nothing else mattered.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Elizabeth felt her smile fade. She believed him – not because he wished her to believe him, but because it was true.
“He was already gone?” she asked quietly.
Darcy nodded.
“Yes.”
The single word carried enough meaning.
“He left her without money.” Darcy’s jaw tightened. “The people there made it plain that they expected her to find some means of paying what she owed.”
Elizabeth stopped herself from reacting violently.
“Good God!”
They walked on in silence.
Elizabeth found that she hated Wickham more with every new detail she learnt.
Not merely because of what he had done, but because of what he had failed to do. Even the smallest degree of honour would have prevented it. Instead, he had simply left.
Glancing at the house, she said, “What must she have endured!”
“I do not know if you were told…”
“Yes?”
“Miss Lydia has shown unexpected forbearance. She is not compromised… in the physical sense. In a place like that, it was a miracle.” Darcy wiped his forehead.
“I-I did ask her this morning. Did you know she made Wickham sleep on the settee? She would not have it any other way.” She smiled bravely. But then added. “Not that it makes any difference in the eyes of the world.”
“No, unfortunately, it does not. But even more, you understand why this must not be discussed. I did not even want you to know.”
“Thank you for telling me, though. I know it must have cost you.”
“I suspect secrecy becomes difficult when you are involved.”
Elizabeth raised her eyebrow. “A dangerous admission, that.”
“I am still not afraid of you.”
Elizabeth had to smile at that.
She looked around, taking in the not-so-small garden. She looked back towards the conservatory windows. Through the glass, she could just make out Lydia and Georgiana seated together. Lydia was laughing at something. The sound was faint, but unmistakable.
A few weeks ago, Elizabeth would have given almost anything merely to hear that laugh again.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Darcy glanced at her. “For finding her?”
“For everything.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he shook his head.
Elizabeth frowned. “What do you mean?”
His gaze rested briefly upon the conservatory. “I found her by chance. The rest…” He hesitated. “The rest was simply what any decent man ought to have done.”
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment.
It seemed Mr. Darcy possessed the rarest of qualities: he never appeared to notice the goodness of his own actions.