Chapter 2 #2
At once Elizabeth understood it, and coals of fire could not have made her feel her guilt more. “For me?” she exclaimed. “You wanted to marry me, and therefore embarked upon this scheme to…to…compensate for making such a poor choice of bride?”
“I do not think my choice of bride was poor,” he said, staring down at his broken leg. “Only that she lacked in fortune. Marriage is not a business transaction, or at least I did not wish for mine to be.”
Her respirations grew rapid and shallow. It was a shocking picture, Mr Darcy rushing headlong into some bit of foolishness…on her account. It was truly the actions of a man in love. A man in love with her.
The words nearly burst from her amid a gasp of distress. “This is all my fault!”
“Your fault? No.” He shook his head. “I made a bad investment.”
“You do not understand.” She stood and began to walk towards him; then turned and walked back, wringing her hands. “I…I did something very bad and now I fear…I fear I might have…might have placed a curse upon you.”
His countenance revealed that whatever he had suspected she might say was not that.
“Placed a curse upon me?” He laughed. “While I cannot deny that I feel as if a curse is upon me, I must remind you we live in an enlightened age. Sometimes bad things happen, and it is nothing to do with fate, or the gods, or curses.”
“Yes, I might have scoffed at it as pure nonsense as well, but pray, listen to me,” she said.
She walked quickly towards him and gingerly perched on the sofa beside him.
“Last Friday, after you gave me your letter, I walked in the park. I read your letter as I walked, so in truth, I am not entirely certain where I was when I came upon a particular phrase that you used in reference to Jane. You said that you acquainted your friend with the certain evils of his choice.”
Mr Darcy nodded. “Yes, because I thought her indifferent to him.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Yes, well, I read it to understand that you thought Jane herself was a certain evil, and it quite enraged me. I thought, how on earth you could imagine a lady so kind and good as Jane to be a certain evil?—”
“I did not. I assure you I did not, and in fact, I have written to Bingley?—”
“I know you did,” she said. “And…and I thank you with all my heart. He made haste to Gracechurch Street, and her last letter sounded happier than I have heard her since…well, since the night she met him, in fact.”
“I am glad,” he said very earnestly. “I do not doubt that he will make a short business of proposing. Perhaps they are, even now, engaged.”
The coals of fire are being heaped upon me, more and more, hotter and hotter.
“Thank you,” she said. “And would that I had been as kind to you. Alas, such was my anger that when I came upon a well I…I tossed your letter into it and said, ‘may certain evils be brought down on your head, Mr Darcy!’ A lady was nearby, an oddly dressed woman, who scolded me for doing so. She said something about the lady not wanting things in her well. I thought she meant your aunt.”
He did not seem concerned by that. “Did you read it through?” he asked. “For if I recall, I believe I wrote about?—”
“No,” she said. “No, I am sorry I did not. But sir, me reading to the end is not the problem here! For the lady, she began acting strangely, swaying and keening and murmuring things. I think…I think she might have performed some sort of ritual that I initiated with my temper, and now it is all coming true!”
He struggled a little, wincing as he attempted to turn himself toward her. She angled herself to look more directly at him to compensate.
“There is no such thing as witches or witchcraft or spells,” he said gently. “And I know you know that.”
“I do, only…only it is very odd, do you not think, that everything has happened on Friday morning? Your leg, your sister falling ill, your investment failing…”
“The perverseness of mischance,” he said. “It is certainly nothing you did or the mysterious lady by the well. Indeed, the only thing I wish you would not have done is fail to read to the end of the letter, for it did contain things I wish you knew.”
She nodded, “I confess I had no idea what you spoke of when you referenced that which I should mention to my father.”
He nodded. “Allow me to tell you now.”
The narrative he wove was nothing she ever would have expected. “Mr Wickham is a…a liar! To say the least!” she exclaimed once he finished recounting not only the events of his past with the blackguard but, worst of all, at Ramsgate. “I-I hardly know what say.”
“It was a torment,” he said. “My dear sister was cast into a dispiritedness from which there seemed no escape. I had no idea how to help her, save to do as she asked and leave her when she asked me to. Evidently, I…hover.”
He gave a deprecatory chuckle, and she replied with a faint smile of her own. “Is that when you came into Hertfordshire?”
“It is. And brought my ill humour along with me.” Another smile, this one not quite reaching his eyes.
“To pretend to good humour under such circumstances would be impossible.”
He sighed. “Alas, I have just realised I am the Wickham in your sister’s story,” he said. “For it was I who engineered her heartbreak.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You are a far cry from such a man as Mr Wickham! Mr Wickham may have all the appearance of goodness but…”
But you have the truth of it. She very nearly said it aloud. Very weakly, she said instead, “But that is all it is, appearance.”
“I hope I did not presume too much,” he said. “But I wrote to your father about this matter. I would not have him think it safe to allow Wickham at Longbourn, or to permit your sisters to be unsupervised around him.”
“Thank you,” she said, but the words were insufficient. Her sisters were largely unsupervised, and nothing more than lack of fortune protected them from such men as George Wickham.
She looked at Mr Darcy, really looked at him, seeing for once the real goodness of him, the fact that his handsome face could only be made more handsome by the strength of character it revealed, and the understanding that his tall, straight posture was directly relative to the uprightness of his being.
Her heart quickened as she beheld him, and she thought, what rich irony it should be that after I refuse a man, and curse him, and ruin his life… then I fall in love with him!
Wholly disconcerted by her thoughts, she was quick to rise. “I believe I must retire,” she said. “Shall I summon your man?”
He nodded, and she bid him good night.