CHAPTER EIGHT #3
Elizabeth lowered the pages.
The grove blurred.
She saw Wickham at Aunt Phillips's table, leaning close as he offered suffering calibrated to invite sympathy.
She heard his artful reluctance. She remembered Mary's discomfort and her father's caution.
Elizabeth had not accepted the tale wholly, but she had enjoyed its agreement with her dislike of Darcy.
Skepticism had become another ornament of prejudice: she asked clever questions, then retained the answer that pleased her.
Georgiana, shy and tender, had nearly been carried into scandal at fifteen.
Lydia was fifteen.
The thought made Elizabeth cold.
Darcy ended without apology for loving her, only for the manner in which love had been offered.
You accused me of presenting judgment dressed as love. I cannot deny the charge. You owe me no answer. I shall leave Rosings tomorrow and will not intrude upon you again.
Elizabeth folded the letter with unsteady hands.
"Till this moment," she whispered, "I never knew myself."
Darcy had been arrogant. She had been prejudiced. Neither truth excused the other.
She remained in the grove until the bells at Rosings marked noon.
Charlotte found her returning by the lane.
"You have been gone three hours."
Elizabeth handed her the outer page, then drew it back. Georgiana's secret was not hers to share.
"Mr Darcy explained. About Jane and Bingley. About Wickham. He was truthful."
"Does truth alter your answer?"
Elizabeth thought of the proposal's condescension, then of the letter's humility.
"Not the answer I gave last night. It alters the man to whom I gave it."
Charlotte took her arm. "That may be harder."
"It is."
At breakfast the next morning, Lady Catherine announced Darcy's departure with offense.
"He has business at Pemberley which apparently cannot wait. Fitzwilliam remains. Darcy has been restless since arriving. I told him London society unsettles men who ought to remain upon their estates."
Elizabeth kept her eyes upon her plate.
Darcy did not call at the parsonage again.
Colonel Fitzwilliam came to say farewell on his behalf and his own. He spoke generally until Charlotte left them near the garden door.
"He is ashamed," the colonel said.
"He has cause."
"Yes."
Elizabeth appreciated that he did not defend his cousin into innocence.
"He gave me the whole history of Wickham."
"Then he trusts you as he trusts few people."
"Trust offered after insult is a complicated gift."
"Most valuable things arrive poorly wrapped in our family."
She smiled faintly.
The colonel's expression softened. "I do not ask you to reconsider. But I have known Darcy since childhood. He rarely changes quickly. When he does, it is because something reached the foundation."
"Change must be lived, not announced."
"Agreed."
He bowed and left.
Sir Thomas's final report on Wickham arrived two days later.
The evidence confirmed debts in Cambridge and London, forged signatures on two drafts, attempted demands upon Darcy, and a pattern of courting women with accessible money.
Colonel Forster had been warned discreetly.
Wickham would remain under observation until stronger proof permitted action.
Sir Thomas added a private note to Elizabeth.
You were right to question both men and wrong only where feeling supplied the verdict before facts arrived.
This is a common human error and therefore no less dangerous.
Mr Darcy's evidence is sound. His judgment of Wickham was correct.
Whether his judgment of everything else deserves your trust is a question only time and conduct may answer.
Elizabeth pressed the note between the pages of Darcy's letter.
When she returned to Netherfield in May, the estate was brilliant with hawthorn.
Jane's wedding plans filled the house. Bingley came daily and had learned to ask Jane's opinion before altering even the breakfast menu at Longbourn, a reform so enthusiastic that Jane finally told him she did not require consultation over eggs.
Mary missed Georgiana. Kitty and Lydia begged for news of officers. Lady Bennet complained that Charlotte's wedding had been too quiet and therefore Jane's must compensate.
Life had continued while Elizabeth's understanding changed.
One evening she entered her father's library and placed the investigation report before him.
"You knew about Georgiana?"
Sir Thomas looked up sharply. "Darcy told you."
"Yes."
"Colonel Fitzwilliam disclosed it to me under confidence."
"I will keep it."
"I know."
She walked to the window. "I accused him of secrecy as though I were entitled to every truth. He was protecting her."
"He might protect without contempt."
"That is what he wrote."
Sir Thomas leaned back. "Then he is capable of learning."
"Is that enough?"
"Enough for what?"
Elizabeth looked out over Netherfield's lawns. "I do not know."
Her father did not force her to name it.
That summer, when the Gardiners proposed a tour of Derbyshire, Elizabeth accepted before fear could teach prudence the wrong lesson.