AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Instead,” he continued, pen back on the paper, “I ask only for the opportunity of addressing the offences you accused me of, to provide clarity to my motives and my actions.”
Would Elliot realise why Darcy had acted as he did with regards to Charles and Jack? Darcy did not know but it was important to him that he explain himself as to him his motivations were quite clear and correct, and he could not fathom that Elliot understood differently.
“The first mentioned was that of Charles and your brother,” he continued. “I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your brother to any other man or woman in the county, and I saw no issue with that at first given Jack seemed amiable and proper.”
And insipid…Darcy did not write that of course, but it was a word that came to mind when considering the eldest Bennet. He had none of Elliot’s fire!
“When I realised that there was a general expectation of their marriage,” Darcy continued. “I started to follow them intently. Charles has been in love many times before but has never considered making an offer. When it seemed that might be the direction in which their relationship might go, I wanted to be certain that they were a good, equal match.”
Darcy couldn’t help but recall Caroline Bingley’s words. Charles would want a partner who was the match of him, pretty faces and pretty manners would bore him in no time at all.
“From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively,” he wrote. “And I could then perceive that his partiality for Mr. Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your brother I also watched. His look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from this scrutiny that though Mr. Bennet received Bingley’s attentions with pleasure, he did not invite them by any participation of sentiment.”
Was it possible now that Darcy was wrong? Had he misread the situation? If so then he had made a grave error in judgement. Such an error would not be a comfortable one to admit but admit it Darcy did.
“If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in error,” he continued. “Your superior knowledge of your brother must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on him, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your brother’s countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable his temper, his heart was not likely to be easily touched.”
He read those words back, fearing that they didn’t make as much sense as they should. What was he trying to say…he dipped his pen in ink and continued.
“My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged,” he wrote. “And it would be cowardly of me not to mention it and so mention it I must, and that is the total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by your mother, by your three younger brothers, and occasionally even by your father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you, and I of course exclude yourself and your older brother from this censure.”
And yet, Darcy was perfectly willing to accept such unhappy relations for himself. What would have been his response had Charles attempted to remove him from Elliot when on the verge of making an offer? He would have refused, of course, and that again suggested to him that he was correct in his actions!
There was nothing that could have been said or done that would have stopped him from declaring his feeling for Elliot, from making him such a respectable offer, and this was because he knew Elliot to be his fated mate. If Charles really believe that of Jack, then surely, he too would have ignored Darcy’s urgings and followed his instincts!
“I discussed my concerns with Charles,” he continued. “And I will say with honesty that I also spoke of Jack’s indifference and indeed it was that which swayed Bingley. Prior to our discussion he had believed Jack to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard.”
But then…Bingley had great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on Darcy’s judgement than his own. Was it possible Darcy could have convinced him regardless of whether Jack was his fated mate?
“On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer,” he finished. “If I have wounded your brother’s feelings, it was unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.”
Darcy put down his pen and walked over to the window. During daylight hours it had a spectacular view of the park, and he fancied Lady Catherine had assigned him this room because she knew that he enjoyed such a view, but suspected it was more likely that she simply wanted to impress. She could not help it. Such was her rank. It was odd now that Darcy though on it, how often the alphas tried to impress those ranked below them, while the rest simply lived their lives. Who had the better deal in the end?
He made his way back over to his desk and picked the pen back up. Now for the second. “With respect to that other, more weighty accusation of having injured Mr. Wickham,” he began. “I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant but of the truth of what I shall relate. Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my mother to be of service to him. My mother was not only fond of Wickham’s society, whose manner was always engaging, she had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it.”
Darcy scowled as he recalled just how highly his mama had thought of Mr. Wickham, and how deeply disappointed she would have been had she been alive when they discovered otherwise.
“My excellent mother died about five years ago, and her attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady that in her will she particularly recommended it to me to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allow, and if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds.”
Had Darcy agreed with the provision? At that point he was not sure. He had spent the most time around Wickham, had seen him in unguarded moments, and over the years had begun to see through the false face that he presented to others. Their friendship had suffered as a result, but Darcy would always have respected his mama’s wishes to the last.
“Following my mother’s death, Wickham decided not to take orders,” Darcy continued. “He requested instead the living in a form of payment. He had a notion of studying law, and the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished than believed him to be sincere, but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman. The business was therefore soon settled. He resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved.”
Darcy saw no reason to add that by then their friendship was almost over. Darcy had seen too much of Wickham’s true character to continue to invite him to Pemberley or admit his society in town. But on the next points he felt it important that Elliot fully understand the nature of Wickham.
“In town I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation,” he wrote. “For about three years I heard little of him but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreat given what we had previously agreed.”
And in truth, Darcy did not want Wickham as his clergyman, caring for the spiritual wellbeing of the inhabitants of Pemberley. The very idea was preposterous!
“I did not see him again until last summer,” Darcy continued. “And I share information with you now that must be held in the utmost secrecy, which I do not doubt you will ensure. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother’s nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school and an establishment formed for her in London, and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it to Ramsgate. Who should turn up there also but Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design, for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived. With her aid he recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate, omega heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted.”
Darcy took a deep breath, the remembrance of that evening angering him all over again. To think his sister could have been deceived thus! That he had very almost failed her himself!
“Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure,” he continued. “But I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham’s chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds, but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed.”
Would Elliot believe what Darcy had told him here? He thought so. Elliot had shown himself to be strong and principled and full of propriety.
“This, sir, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together,” Darcy concluded. “And I hope that it, if not changes your view for me, then at least provides you with some explanation for my actions. Had I known these would cause you pain?—”
