Chapter Fifteen
The dinner was given by Lord and Lady Ashworth, an occasion of some consequence in the London calendar, and Darcy attended it with a purpose he had not carried into a social engagement in a very long while: not merely to be seen, as duty and consequence generally required, but to act, deliberately, upon a decision he had reached in the days since sending his letter to Elizabeth.
He had turned the matter over at length.
He could not name her as the lady in question without doing her precisely the injury he had spent weeks trying to prevent.
But he could, he had concluded, address the story itself, publicly, in his own voice, in a manner that robbed it of the worst distortions circulating beneath it, without ever once speaking the name that mattered most to protect.
The opportunity came over the second course, when Lady Ashworth, seated near enough to Darcy to make conversation across the table a matter of general interest rather than private exchange, remarked, with the particular delicacy of a hostess who believed herself broaching a subject gently, "I confess, Mr. Darcy, that London has been very curious these past weeks regarding a certain disappointment of yours in Kent.
I do not ask from idle curiosity alone, you understand, only that a friend of mine has heard so many conflicting accounts that she despairs of ever learning the truth of the matter. "
The table, Darcy was aware, had gone quiet enough to hear his answer, whatever it should be. He set down his glass with deliberate composure and met Lady Ashworth's gaze directly.
"I did propose marriage to a lady this spring, Lady Ashworth, and I was refused.
I will not name her, for she has done nothing to deserve the scrutiny this business has already cost her, and I will not compound that injury by inviting further speculation into her private affairs.
But I will say this plainly, since the matter has clearly become one of general interest whether I wish it or not: the fault in the affair was entirely my own.
I proposed in terms I have since come to regret, with an arrogance the lady was fully justified in refusing, and any account you have heard that paints her as scheming, or mercenary, or in any way the author of her own censure, is false, and I would consider it a personal kindness if such accounts were corrected wherever they are encountered. "
A murmur passed around the table, and Darcy saw, in the faces turned toward him, a range of reactions he had not entirely anticipated: some surprise, certainly, at so direct a confession from a man generally known for his reserve, but also, in several faces, something closer to respect, the particular regard society reserves for a man willing to take blame publicly rather than let it fall upon someone less able to bear it.
"That is very handsomely said, Mr. Darcy," Lady Ashworth said, after a moment, her tone considerably warmer than her opening question had carried. "I confess I had expected a rather different answer, given how such matters are generally managed."
"I have had occasion, of late, to reconsider a great many things I once managed poorly, Lady Ashworth. This seemed as good an occasion as any to begin managing them better."
The conversation moved on from there, as dinner conversations generally do, but Darcy was aware, through the remainder of the evening, of a subtle shift in the temperature of how he was regarded, whispers exchanged behind fans and over glasses that carried, he thought, less of the old speculation and rather more of a grudging admiration for a man who had chosen honesty over the comfortable protection of silence.
He did not know, walking home that night, whether his words would travel as effectively as Mrs. Fenwick's speculation had done, whether a single evening's honest confession could truly counter weeks of accumulated gossip.
But he had done what lay within his power, had spent his own consequence rather than Elizabeth's to correct, however imperfectly, the shape of a story that had never been his to tell alone, and found, in the doing of it, a satisfaction considerably more durable than the comfortable reserve he had abandoned to achieve it.