Chapter Twenty
Elizabeth first learned of Darcy's withdrawal not from any direct communication, for there was none to receive, but from the particular silence that followed a week in which she had, without quite admitting it to herself, expected to hear from him.
He had promised to address the matter of Wickham's threat.
He had written to her twice in the space of a fortnight before, letters of genuine feeling that had done more to settle her own uncertain heart than she had yet found the words to tell him.
And then, following the difficult afternoon at Mrs. Fenwick's, nothing.
She told herself, for the first several days, that circumstances had simply grown busy, that whatever measures he had undertaken against Wickham required his full attention, that a man managing a delicate and dangerous business had little leisure for correspondence, however much she found herself, against her own better judgment, hoping for it regardless.
It was Colonel Fitzwilliam who finally supplied the truth, arriving at Gracechurch Street on an errand of his own devising, an ostensible courtesy call that Elizabeth understood, within moments of his arrival, to carry rather more purpose than the pleasantries of his opening conversation suggested.
"Miss Bennet, I hope you will forgive the presumption of this visit, but I find myself concerned, and I did not know how else to address the concern than by coming to you directly."
"You are always welcome, Colonel, whatever purpose brings you. But I confess your expression troubles me rather more than your words presently explain."
Fitzwilliam was quiet a moment, choosing his words, she could see, with evident care.
"My cousin has grown strange these past several days, Miss Bennet.
Withdrawn, in a manner I have not seen since before this whole business began.
I have asked him directly what troubles him, and he will say only that circumstances have grown complicated, offering nothing further by way of explanation, which is, I confess, entirely unlike him where matters of genuine importance are concerned.
I wondered whether you might know something of the cause, for I have exhausted my own understanding of it, and I find myself unwilling to watch him retreat into old habits of reserve without at least attempting to learn what has occasioned the retreat. "
Elizabeth felt something cold settle in her chest, a dread she recognized, even before she had fully articulated its cause to herself, as considerably worse than any difficulty the scandal had yet produced.
"I do not understand," she said, slowly.
"We parted, at our last meeting, on terms I believed to be genuinely warm.
He wrote to me shortly after, in terms warmer still.
I have heard nothing from him since the afternoon at Mrs. Fenwick's, and I confess I had begun to fear some difficulty with Mr. Wickham's business had occupied him entirely, rather than any change in his own feelings. "
"Mrs. Fenwick's." Fitzwilliam's expression sharpened, something working itself into place behind his eyes.
"Miss Bennet, was there some occurrence at that gathering I ought to know of?
Darcy's change of manner dates, as near as I can trace it, to shortly after that particular evening, though he has said nothing to me directly connecting the two. "
Elizabeth told him, then, of Mrs. Fenwick's careful trap, of the accusation regarding Darcy's letter being paraded for her own advantage, of her own defense of his character that had, however unintentionally, all but confirmed the very connection she had spent weeks protecting.
Fitzwilliam listened with a growing and unmistakable comprehension, and when she had finished, his expression carried a mixture of relief and fresh alarm that told her, before he had said a single word, that some further piece of the puzzle had just settled into place for him.
"Caroline Bingley," he said, quietly. "She dined with Darcy the same week, Miss Bennet, and I would wager a considerable sum that she carried him some distorted version of the very defense you have just described to me, twisted, knowing her particular talents, into an account that made your generous words sound like calculated self-interest rather than the honest defense they plainly were. "
Elizabeth felt the full weight of it settle over her with a slow, sickening clarity. "He believes I have used his letter, and his confidence, to raise my own consequence."
"I fear he does, or fears it strongly enough to have retreated from the whole business rather than risk confirming it.
He has never been a man who asks the difficult question directly when a comfortable silence offers itself instead, whatever growth he has managed these past weeks in every other particular.
" Fitzwilliam's voice carried a frustration Elizabeth suspected was directed as much at his cousin as at the situation itself.
"I am sorry, Miss Bennet, to bring you news that plainly distresses you.
I had hoped, coming here, to learn something that might help me understand him better, and I confess I had not expected to learn, instead, that his own family's carelessness bears so direct a hand in the present difficulty. "
Elizabeth sat a long while after Fitzwilliam had taken his leave, the whole weight of the past weeks settling over her with a heaviness she had not permitted herself to feel even at the difficulty's earlier, more public trials.
She had defended him honestly, at real cost to her own remaining privacy and to whatever fragile goodwill she had preserved with Lady Catherine's faction, and he had answered that defense, without so much as asking her directly whether the account he had received bore any resemblance to the truth, with a silence that felt, in this moment, considerably colder than anything Hunsford itself had produced.
She thought of his letter, of the words he had written her not a fortnight past, of a regard that had only deepened rather than diminished through every difficulty of these past weeks, and found herself wondering, with a bitterness she had not expected to feel again where he was concerned, whether that regard had been, after all, as fragile and easily overturned as the pride she had once believed defined the whole of his character.